The Illusion of Murder (45 page)

“What’s going on?”

“
Murder,
there’s been a murder!”

She screams. I stare at her dumbfounded.

She screams again.

Compartment doors start opening, heads poke out.

I feel like screaming myself so I take a deep breath and let out a wail of pure frustration.

66

I am back in the hands of the coppers and the other vigilantes. Under ordinary circumstances I would welcome the professional attention being given the matter, but since I’m being treated as a suspicious person, if not an actual suspect, by the high-handed flatfoots, I find no fault on my part in challenging their conclusions or their authority.

Shocked, sick at seeing a man dead that I knew and rather liked, a companion on a long trip who had shown me courtesies, I permit myself to be ushered to the common area in Frederick’s car. I don’t know what to think. I’m out of answers, at the moment. I’m even out of questions. Everything is too unreal for it to really sink in. For a moment after I opened that door my first thought was that the death was staged, a joke by Von Reich, but that thought was erased by the funeral pallor of his skin.

Half the train awoke from the hysterical cries of
“Murder!”
that resounded down the aisles. Order was finally restored, people assured of their safety, and the vigilance committee met to receive the “official” pronouncement from the coppers who were examining Von Reich’s body—which is now wrapped in blankets and being transferred to the baggage car by the two coppers.

Frederick is with me, as is Lord Warton, looking the worse for wear and carefully not looking in my direction.

No one is happy I found the body. No one considers me completely innocent. They look at me as if I was caught rustling their cattle and will soon be kicking at the end of a rope.

Frederick reads my mind and rubs his forehead as if it will remove a headache.

“I find you completely amazing. A friend of mine in the raj is quite taken by the belief in India that our lives are predestined, that the paths we take are determined at birth by our fate, our karma. Nellie, I have to wonder what it is about your karma that draws murder to you like bees to honey.”

The two coppers return, saving me from trying to justify my existence.

They give a nod to Frederick and a glance at Warton, who appears to have slipped into a drunken slumber. His lordship’s chin has dropped down to his chest with a dribble of saliva threatening to drop off at any moment.

“Suicide,” the redheaded copper announces.

“Nonsense.” That retort comes from me, of course.

The copper sucks in a sharp breath through bared teeth and Frederick throws his hands in the air. “Why does that proclamation not surprise me? Officer, let’s hear the facts of your thorough investigation before Miss Bly entertains us with her guesswork.”

My temper spikes but I clamp my mouth shut.

“It’s laid out quite neatly, sir, the pieces falling together to form the answer to a puzzle. There are no powder burns on his head; however, the burns are on the small pillow provided for seat comfort. He used it to muffle the shot.”

“Why would he use a pillow to muffle a shot?” I ask.

The copper chews on it for a moment before deciding to answer me, using a tone he probably reserves for children—and women. “Obviously one muffles a shot so it can’t be heard.”

“It doesn’t make sense that someone on the run from the police, and so panicked and depressed that they are driven to take their own life, would bother muffling a shot.”

“Crazy people don’t have to make sense,” the copper replies, miffed.

“Well, I spent weeks travelling on the same ships with Von Reich. Being crazy was not one of his faults.”

“I warned everyone about her.” Lord Warton has come to life.

His drunken, slurred statement, made without opening his eyes, grabs the attention of all of us for a moment, but he quickly falls back into his slumber.

The redheaded copper gives me a stern look that I’m sure has frightened a confession out of more than one criminal.

“This is a police matter and I would inform you in no uncertain terms that you will find yourself in serious trouble if you interfere in an official investigation. Do we understand each other …
madam
?”

“As I have pointed out, you have no
official
authority in this country. And if you interfere with my
official
investigation as a journalist, I shall have the sheriff of the next town take you into custody. Do you understand me …
sir
?”

His mouth flaps open in an attempt to deliver a reply but the words don’t come. He looks to Frederick for help.

“Nellie, please, the officer is just trying to help out in a delicate situation. Let him finish his report. Officer?”

The copper clears his throat. “Yes, sir. The most important and telling piece of evidence is the weapon used by the deceased. It is a Rhine brand single shot derringer. And on the bottom of the butt,” the officer gives me a look of triumph, “appears a plate bearing the name ‘Von Reich’.”

The other chimes in. “Naturally we considered the matter of motive. The deceased was on the run from the law, facing financial ruin and spending the rest of his life in a prison cell. Motivation for suicide, if I ever heard it.”

Frederick nods. “Quite so; good work, officers. Isn’t that so, your lordship?”

Lord Warton snaps awake with a sputter and looks about him as if he’s unaware of his whereabouts.

The redheaded officer gives the peer a frown and says to Frederick, “We’ll be moving on.” He nods in the direction of the
Amelia
. “Have to make a full report of the matter.”

I wait until they have stepped by me before I direct a comment to Frederick, who has started up from his seat. “There is that unanswered question…”

He flops back down on his seat and looks to the two officers who have paused in the corridor. Poor devils—they would very much like to ignore me but don’t dare, out of fear that a mere woman will show them up.

“All right, Nellie.” Frederick sighs. “We’re all tired, as I’m sure you are. Please, do tell us what you’re referring to.”

That’s it.
I get up and head for my compartment.

“Nellie!”
Frederick yells. “You’ll not be able to sleep unless you get it off your chest.”

He is right, of course, but I would like to make them sweat a little, so I pause at the compartment door before I turn and give them a wan smile.

“What about Mr. Lazarus?”

“Lazarus?” Frederick asks.

“This investigation is not over with until the matter of Mr. Lazarus has been resolved.”

“Why should we care about this Lazarus person?” the mouthy redheaded copper demands.

“Well, I would be curious as to the man’s whereabouts since Von Reich was found dead in his compartment. If you are actually right about Von Reich being a mad bomber, and if he knew Mr. Lazarus well enough to kill himself in his compartment, well … I guess I would be wondering about whether this invisible man makes bombs, too.”

Passing halfway into my compartment, I toss another volley over my shoulder. “Kind of strange, don’t you think?… No one has ever seen the man. I think I’d ask that Aussie sharpshooter’s assistant, Cenza, why she made excuses for him.”

“She left the train,” Lord Warton says. “I saw her get off at the last stop.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Well, there it is. You spent so much time harassing me that all the bad people were able to duck for cover. Good luck finding a man no one has ever seen after you let the only witness escape.”

As soon as I close the door behind me, I lean back against it. My heart is ricocheting in my chest, my mouth is dry, my stomach feels ready to erupt volcanically. Despite my attempt at a firm tone, I am shaking. However, I’m glad I threw that last punch.

The devil oils my tongue and makes me do these things, but it feels good, at least for the moment.

67

Lazarus rose from the dead.
That’s what it says in the Bible, if my memory of a Sunday school lesson remains true.

That thought about the name wraps around me like the arms of an octopus as I lie awake and listen to the rumble of the train wheels in the early morning. I can’t shake it. Lazarus rising from the dead is connected back to something Von Reich had said on the dock at Colombo when the Aussie sharpshooter had shouted to someone as if he recognized the person.

Von Reich also said someone else was a better shot than the Aussie, and something about an identity crisis and rising from the dead.

Another thought with the grip of octopus tentacles grips me. If no one saw Lazarus besides Cenza, a doubtful source, was he ever actually in the compartment?

I try to move on but my thoughts are fuzzy. Being in a room that is small and confining doesn’t help, and I make another try at getting Sarah to work with me.

A knock on her door reveals that she has not returned from her previous engagement. Sliding it open to see if she has simply slept through the knock—my excuse for being nosy—I find her personal effects have been removed. The Divine Sarah has either moved into the baggage compartment to sleep in her coffin, or she is ensconced in her lover’s bed. I’d guess the latter.

Knowing that she is enjoying the tender caresses of forbidden love while I wrestle with the world’s problems doesn’t endear her to me at this moment.

The parlor area at the head of the car is empty and I go there to pace. Most of the passengers on the train had boarded after attending a wedding and got off at the last stop, leaving me as the only occupant now that Sarah has taken up residence in more luxurious quarters.

George comes behind me carrying a long, narrow box. He gives me a smile as I eye the odd-shaped package.

“Golf clubs for that British lord. I stored them for his porter because there was no room in his car. I can’t imagine why he’d want them while still on the train.”

“Maybe he plans to hit balls down the aisle.”

George finds the idea amusing and is still chuckling as he goes through the connecting doors to the next car.

I also find myself wondering at the odd request. Unless Lord Warton has had a miracle cure, he will be fortunate to get out of bed today, much less play golf aboard a train.

I kneel on the bench seat and lean my arms on the bottom of the windowsill and stare out, miserable. I hate it when I can’t shake off one of those unsettled feelings I have when things just aren’t right and there’s no easy solution to putting them back on track.

The train is travelling through hilly terrain, going up grades, and snaking around turns that permit good views of the other cars on inside bends, giving me the opportunity to shamelessly stare at the
Amelia
, hoping to get a look at the “personage” with her. Like all passenger cars, the Westcot’s Pullman has large windows, but my car is too closely attached for me to get a good broadside look when the opportunity arises. Cars farther up the train would have a clearer view.

What I do get is a glimpse of the storage locker beneath the train car and that gets my thoughts churning.

So busy defending myself as a woman, a reporter, and a human being to the vigilantes, I have not shared a thought with them about the storage locker and have not given enough reflection on it myself. Now a worrisome matter about it tugs at me:
It became useless as a hiding place for a bomb when the key was taken by Mr. Cleveland.

The full impact of that thought blows the top off my mind. Resisting the impulse to run and tell Frederick, I keep my feet firmly planted because my thinking isn’t completely organized.

While the blood was still wet in the Port Said marketplace, the conspirators had to know that Mr. Cleveland had passed on the key and the name of what it fit, and pretty much could guess I had been the recipient. He died in my arms and I made no secret in the marketplace that he spoke the name to me. Not long afterward, Frederick knew I had the key and told Lord Warton, who would have passed it on to Von Reich and Lord knows who else.

When that happened, the plot to place a bomb in
Amelia
’s storage locker became unusable not because they couldn’t get another key, but because it was obvious that the locker would be carefully watched. But the storage locker could serve another purpose for the plot: a red herring to direct the authorities’ attention elsewhere while the killing is carried out another way.

The thwarted attempt to place the bomb in the
Amelia
was at best inane—walking up to the train car with bomb in hand, knowing that the authorities had been forewarned and knowing that two armed guards were standing by, was hardly a workable scheme. Managing to leave behind a hat conveniently allowed the perpetrator to be identified.