Page 41 of Olive Becket Plays the Rake (The Seattle Suffrage Society)

“What in God’s name is this?”

Leland Wingate’s polished veneer was long gone.

He slapped the morning edition of the Post down on his desk, the headline Emil and Olive had crafted staring up in bold type: Seattle’s Finest? Or Just Another Club of Men Who Prey on Innocent Women?

Emil had anticipated irritation, perhaps even a theatrical burst of temper.

After all, the headline had been crafted to sting.

What he hadn’t quite expected was the overwrought tirade now spilling forth.

He watched as Wingate stormed about his expansive office, puffed up with outrage and spewing vitriol about suffragists, women in general, and most of all, Emil himself.

“How stupid could you be, letting the suffragists catch on to you?” he sputtered, a fleck of spittle landing on the cuff of his immaculate sleeve.

“Do you grasp what even a whisper of scandal means for a man of my standing? One false impression, and every respectable board in this city slams its doors. My good name could be undone in a single afternoon!”

Emil itched to point out the man’s hypocrisy. But wasn’t that typical of men with too much power? They had so little regard for anyone’s reputation but their own.

Wingate struck his cane against the floor.

“You were supposed to be discreet. Invisible. And instead, you hand them a headline that paints anyone connected to that damn composer as a laughingstock. Or worse, a villain! If my fiancée connects me to this drivel—heaven help me—she’ll imagine I’ve been dabbling in sordid affairs.

And she is already prone to dramatics. Flighty, emotional, impossible to reason with.

If she wavers again, I’ll—” He stopped short, breathing heavily.

“Suffice it to say, I cannot endure another postponement.”

Emil kept his face carefully neutral, though his fists ached to clench. What man spoke of his intended as if he despised everything about her? “Good thing she believes you to be an avid supporter.”

Wingate dabbed at his sweat-shined brow with a handkerchief, jaw grinding as he fought for composure. “Yes. Well. Best to be cautious. No more chasing the composer. Let someone else deal with her.”

Emil inclined his head. Inside, though, pride welled up. Olive had managed the situation on her own terms and forced Wingate to back away. Whatever schemes he might have abandoned no longer mattered. She was safe because she had made it so. And that, more than anything, filled Emil with admiration.

“Understood.”

Wingate rounded the desk and sat down heavily. “Now. What do you have on Gunn?”

Emil withdrew a folder with his findings. He’d rehearsed this moment a dozen ways. Now that Olive’s safety was ensured, he would admit his failure, quietly bow out of the partnership, and part in a way that left both men’s reputations intact.

“He’s a cautious businessman. He doesn’t leave dirt lying around. But I’ve mapped out his strategy, which is worth something.”

“I already know his strategy,” Wingate said impatiently. “I want scandal. I want weakness. I want something to end him.”

“So you can buy him out?”

“So I could bury him.”

Emil set the folder on the desk with a thud. “Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything.”

“Then make something up.”

Emil stilled. “Say again?”

“If you can’t find something,” Wingate said slowly, as if he were speaking to a halfwit, “then make something up. I want the man thrown in jail by the end of the week.”

The polite scaffolding he’d built for the conversation crumbled. He had come willing to be dismissed, to take the loss of a partnership with dignity. He had not come to do a man’s dirty work. The time to indulge Wingate’s antics was over.

“Absolutely not. I won’t do that.”

“I hired you, so you will. Gunn and that Japanese partner of his are a threat that must be put down. All these newcomers are. Changing our customs. Buying land, building neighborhoods, attracting more of their kind. If we don’t hold the line, this city will become unrecognizable.”

Ah. The truth was finally spilling out.

“Newcomers? Or immigrants?”

Wingate eyed him warily. “Newcomers.”

“Immigrants—sorry, newcomers—like my family? We own a business in Ballard.”

“Your father’s status doesn’t matter. You were born here—”

“No, I wasn’t.”

Wingate’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “That so?”

“Ellis Island, 1883.”

“That can’t be. I... I assumed—”

“That I was safe? That I passed well enough for you to forget your prejudices?”

Wingate’s jaw clenched. “You’re twisting my words.”

“No. I’m laying them bare.”

A tense silence filled the room. Wingate’s stare was cold and calculating again, the rage now masked beneath strategy. Emil stared him down, refusing to budge.

“You’re done in Seattle,” Wingate said finally. “You’ll never work for anyone respectable again. Not the department, not the papers. Certainly not the men with real money.”

Emil rose to his feet. “Men like you?”

“Yes. The ones building this city. Truly building it, not tearing it apart.”

Emil wondered how much of Seattle Wingate really thought he owned. How much of it he believed owed him loyalty simply for being here first. The city was changing faster than men like Wingate could stomach. Brick by brick, vote by vote, hand by immigrant hand. And Emil knew exactly where he stood.

He turned and walked away.

The wind outside was sharp with salt and soot. He walked several blocks without direction, just to burn off the fury boiling beneath his collar. He’d seen enough of the old world to know it needed replacing. Let Wingate choke on his plans.

The future belonged to those willing to build it.

Later that day, Emil squinted at the address he’d scrawled on a scrap of paper, then doubtfully up at the residence in Queen Anne Hill.

The mansion was a three-story, gabled monstrosity painted mustard yellow and steel grey.

The curtains were drawn, the interior unlit.

The front yard—a generous term, in this case—had been torn out, replaced by a cold expanse of gravel.

The only hint someone lived within was the steady puff of smoke rising from the dual chimneys, and even it seemed to twist and writhe into a message in the sky: enter ye, at your own peril.

“This should be interesting.”

Emil tucked the paper into his pocket and crunched his way to the front door.

He raised his hand, then paused. The doorknocker was the head of Medusa, her snake hair grasped by two fists.

Her presence likely chased away many who dared call upon the beast within.

He let the knocker fall with a heavy thud.

No one came to the door. Another attempt with the same result.

He was on the verge of giving up when the door was thrown open.

“What the hell are you wanting?”

The words, snarled in a Scottish brogue, raised Emil’s brows.

He raked his gaze over the man—no servant, this one—taking in his shorter, but tightly coiled stature, the unkempt suit and overgrown beard.

A scowl that could inspire poems, if one dared to risk their own death.

There was only one such man Emil knew of that fit the description.

“Mr. Gunn, I’m Emil—”

“Anderson. Aye, I know who you are. It’s the only reason I opened the door in the first place.”

Emil risked a glance into the darkened corridor. “Figured a man as rich as you would have a butler to open it for him.”

“Butlers are for men who desire company.”

Point taken. “Then I’ll get right to it. I have information you may find valuable.”

Gunn scratched at his neck and shrugged. “If it’s valuable, then I already know.”

Emil had to admire his nonchalance. Men like Gunn didn’t rise to power by being unprepared.

By allowing anyone to sneak up from behind.

No doubt he’d had a dossier as thick as the Bible prepared on Emil the moment he was seen at the docks.

Hell, Gunn might even know more about his tastes than he did himself.

What he’d do to get his hands on that dossier.

It was a temptation few detectives could refuse, learning what clues had been compiled under his own name.

“Then you know I’ve been working for Leland Wingate.”

“Aye.” Gunn continued to scratch, though a smirk appeared momentarily through the thick beard. “I kent him a whiles. There’s nothing the man does that escapes me. You arenae the first he’s sent after me, and you willnae be the last.”

Emil got the sense he was seconds away from having the door slammed in his face. He had to intrigue Gunn, and fast. He’d hoped to ease into it, but seemed he’d overestimated Gunn’s need for niceties.

“He ordered me to fabricate evidence against you,” he said bluntly. “Enough to have you arrested by next week.”

The scratching stopped. The eyes narrowed. “That wee bastard has grown a new set of balls, I see.”

His gaze drifted to the yard, and Emil forced himself to stand still while the Scotsman chewed over his words. He would remain nonchalant. In control. Because that’s the type of man Gunn hired to work for him, not one who was overeager or needy.

“This mean you’re a turncoat?”

Emil met the cold brown eyes without flinching. “It does.”

“Then I suppose you’d better come in.”

Gunn pivoted without another word, merely left the door open and walked into the house. Emil hurried in behind him, shutting the door with a grim smile. Leave it to Gunn to welcome a turncoat. He followed him across the ill-lit, frigid entryway to what was most likely meant to be the parlor.

The grand room was unfurnished but for two rickety wooden chairs and a scarred, circular table in the middle of the room.

The paneled walls, covered in a film of dust and a smattering of cobwebs, looked like they hadn’t been touched since the house was built.

Emil quickly schooled his expression. This had to be a test; another way for Gunn to eject his few visitors as soon as possible.

Gunn sank into one chair as if there was nothing strange about it, crossed one ankle over his other knee, and checked his pocket watch. “You’ve got five minutes.”

Emil didn’t even pause to remove his hat. He recounted everything that had occurred with Wingate over the last month and a half. How he’d been hired to look into him, and how, despite his efforts to find anything suspicious, he hadn’t been able to.

“Maybe you’re no as good a detective as you think,” Gunn suggested.

“Or maybe you’re not as villainous as you want others to think,” Emil shot back before he could stop himself. He immediately grimaced. “Apologies, that was uncalled for.”

Gunn barked out a laugh. “Believe you me, I am every bit as villainous as people think. But not, perhaps, as corrupt.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A great deal, I’m afraid.” Gunn shifted, his foot hitting the ground with a thud. “You’ve two minutes.”

Emil plunged onward, summarizing Wingate’s rage and how he hadn’t been willing to accept defeat. How he’d demanded Emil frame Gunn, or that he’d make sure he never worked in Seattle again.

“I said no, of course. I was offended he would even ask. I’m a straightforward man, Mr. Gunn, and I’m good at my job. There’s already plenty of evil to root out in this world. No reason to go inventing more.”

“On that we can agree.” Gunn steepled his fingers and examined him. “Despite your intrusion into my private business, you’ve impressed me.”

Emil drew a breath. It was time to risk it all. “Enough to return the favor?”

“Ah, the crux of the matter. What are you thinking?”

“I took a risk turning Wingate down. His censure could very well be enough to sink my fledgling business. But if I were to work for you—on a single case, or on a short-term basis—it could be enough to dismiss any of Wingate’s rumors as par for the course in a business rivalry.

And—” he continued blithely, as if what he wasn’t about to say couldn’t ruin everything— “You make it known I helped you buy out his shipyard. Anyone worth their salt will read between the lines and call Wingate for what he is: a sore loser. And I just might get another job or two out of it.”

“But you didnae help me.”

“Not then. But I am now.”

“Hmm. Look at you playing fast and loose with the truth.”

“Only enough to ensure we both get what we want, and no one else gets hurt.”

“And what if I’m wanting you to conduct underhanded business dealings, as you so generously call them?”

“I’d say no. But I don’t think you will,” he continued bluntly.

“I think there’s a reason you’re buying up land from men who haven’t done much for Seattle except hold back progress and horde its wealth.

I think you have schemes up your sleeves, ones that could help more people than you’re willing to admit.

And that’s the kind of change I can get behind. ”

Gunn leaned back in his seat with a huff. “Dammit, Anderson. I didnae want to like you.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“Aye, we do. Turns out one of my men has to return to England next month. You can fill in for him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gunn. I won’t let you down.”

“Good.” He shoved to his feet. “Your time’s up.”

Emil stood, grinning, and followed Gunn to the front door. He held out his hand, which Gunn eyed a moment before shaking it with a grip that was far too tight. Donning his hat, he stepped onto the front porch.

“The blonde girl,” Gunn said suddenly. “The suffragist.”

Emil turned, his hand tightening at his side. “What about her?”

Gunn’s brows rose, as if he found Emil’s reaction amusing. “That was her letter in the Post today. You think it’ll do the trick?”

Emil didn’t even ask how he knew it was Olive’s. “It better.”

Gunn nodded once. “I’ll put out the word.”

“Thank you,” he replied, not quite able to hide his surprise.

“Can’t abide a woman in danger,” he replied with a shrug. But there was a thread of something in his voice that betrayed his nonchalance—anger? Bitterness? He didn’t have time to study it before Gunn shut the door in his face.

Emil blew out a breath. “Well, that’s that.”

He strode toward the Queen Anne streetcar, whistling a jaunty tune. He’d done it. Everything was going perfectly. He couldn’t wait to tell his father. Couldn’t wait to begin the new job. And most of all, he couldn’t wait to tell Olive.

Everything was finally going his way. He would make sure it stayed that way, starting with treating Olive to the best outing of her life.