Chapter Twenty-Seven

We reached the rendezvous point just as Aristide was approaching from the opposite direction. He had clearly come in a slightly circuitous route to escape detection.

"Alas, I was, perhaps, too good an actor," he said as he reached us. "I got myself ejected from the nightclub within twenty minutes."

I was not at all surprised.

"Were you successful?" he asked.

The major gave him a nod.

Aristide smiled. "Bon. Then let us get out of this wretched cold."

The major led the way toward the street where Jakub was waiting for us, and Aristide fell into step behind me.

"The safe must have been a challenge," he said in a low voice. "It looks as though you've been pulling your hair in frustration."

I didn't answer. The laughing note in his voice made it perfectly clear he knew what had happened.

My own head was still in a whirl from it. Had Ramsey and I really been locked in a passionate embrace only moments ago? It seemed almost like some sort of dream.

We got in the car and drove back toward the major's house. I tried not to sit too close to him, but it felt as though I was drawn closer with each corner we turned until I was nearly leaning against his side, the warm length of his thigh pressed against mine. He made no move to shift away.

Constance was still at the office when we arrived and helped divest us of our outerwear. Aristide, of course, flirted shamelessly with her, but she wasn't entirely annoyed by it.

"We have had a great success tonight, Constance. Kiss me in celebration, will you?"

"I will not, Monsieur Dupéré. Major Ramsey, Captain Blandings and a… companion are here to see you."

I glanced over at the major, wondering if he had been expecting Archie this evening. I assumed his companion was Anna Gillard, as I knew Ramsey had told Archie to make contact with her. I hoped he would let me in on the conversation.

"Thank you, Miss Brown." Ramsey turned toward the former front parlor that now served as a little waiting room, and I followed, Aristide trailing behind.

Archie Blandings rose to his feet from where he had been sitting on a chair. There was a young woman on the yellow sofa. She, too, rose when we entered.

"Good evening," Major Ramsey said to her. "I assume you're Anna Gillard?"

She nodded.

"My office doesn't have a good deal of comfortable seating," he said. "Let's sit here, shall we?"

He motioned for them to resume their seats, and he indicated a seat on a sofa facing them for me. Then he sat beside me, not too close. But close enough.

I tried not to think too much about it and looked across at Anna Gillard, the woman we had assumed had been murdered at the Valencia.

She was young and pretty, and she looked terrified. No doubt, after all she had endured in fleeing her country, being questioned by another man in uniform—no matter which insignia it held—was disconcerting.

She had thick dark hair and liquid dark eyes that glistened as she looked first at Ramsey and then at me and then back to him. She was thin, her body giving evidence of the hardships she had endured over the past months, but there was a set to her chin that told me she was beaten down but not defeated.

"Can I get you some tea?" Ramsey asked. I knew he would be impatient to get down to business, so I thought it kind of him to offer.

"Miss Brown has been so kind as to go and prepare some for us, I believe," Archie Blandings said.

"Then let us tie up loose ends while we wait, shall we?" he said, in a more pleasant tone than I was accustomed to him using. "I know it's late. It won't take long. I just have a few questions for you."

She nodded. "Yes, of course."

I was, to some degree, uncertain why he still wished to speak to her. After all, we had the map. And, no doubt, there would be repercussions for Lazaro for having taken possession of it. But I also knew Ramsey was not one to leave a stone unturned. He no doubt wanted the full story.

"Captain Blandings has explained to you that someone was killed in the hotel room you vacated?" he asked.

She nodded, her eyes glistening. "He told me as much. I was so sorry to hear it. I knew the people who were after me were dangerous, but I did not think they would do such a horrible thing…"

"You knew you were being pursued?"

"Yes. I was told by… an acquaintance that I was to deliver an important package. I knew very little about what it was, but I was warned it could be dangerous."

"Let us start from the beginning. You are originally from Belgium?"

"Yes. I fled in June, and, after much hardship, I reached Lisbon."

"Did you bring any luggage with you?" he asked. "Trunks, suitcases, things of that nature?"

She shook her head. "I left my home with just a small pack. I had to balance any objects I wanted to keep against the importance of food for the journey." I noticed as she spoke that she played with the gold necklace around her neck, a medallion of some sort on a long chain. I supposed it was one of the few things that she had been able to carry with her from her homeland.

"The food was gone long before I reached Lisbon. As for the objects, there is nothing that would be of much value to anyone but me."

"What is on the necklace you're wearing?" Major Ramsey asked. The question had come out of the blue, but it was asked in such a conversational way that it seemed almost natural. It always surprised me, the ease with which he could converse with people, because—until tonight, at least—he was always so very formal with me.

He was not an easy man, but he could occasionally be an understanding one.

"It was a gift from my husband," she said. "It has the dates of our meeting and our marriage on it."

I felt a pang of sadness. Would she be reunited with her husband someday? I hoped desperately that she would, but there was no guarantee that any of us would be reunited with the ones we loved.

Then I frowned, something nagging at me.

Beside me, Major Ramsey continued with his questions. "So what happened when you got to London?"

"I stopped at the Valencia. I intended to stay there until I could hand off the map, but I noticed people following me when I would go out for meals. It made me worried, and so I snuck out the back entrance one day. I left the map at the agreed-upon place, and I have been hiding ever since."

"Why did you leave the hotel with all your things still there?" Ramsey asked.

"It seemed safer that way. If people assumed that I had disappeared without notice, they might stop looking for me."

There was a certain sort of logic to it. Add to that the body we had found in her bed, and it had been rather an effective method of throwing us off her trail. It seemed to have worked for the German agents who were pursuing her, as well. She was still alive, after all.

"And since then you have been in Aylesbury?"

She nodded. "I have been unsure where to go."

And then I realized suddenly what was nagging at me. When we had gone to see Germaine Arnaud, she had told us the woman touching her necklace had referred to a sister, not a husband.

Why the change in story? Had Germaine Arnaud been mistaken?

"We spoke to someone else who mentioned you and your sister wore matching necklaces," I said.

There was a long moment of silence, and I sensed a shift in the room. Something in Ramsey's posture, something in the change in Anna Gillard's face, told me we were at a moment of crisis.

And then, to my horror, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a gun.

Being raised among criminals, I had never had a fear of weapons—though I certainly regarded them with a healthy respect. But the sight of the gun, after what had happened in Sunderland, made my blood run cold.

"You are very smart, mademoiselle, but perhaps not smart enough. I heard this one here," she said, jerking her head in Aristide's direction, "mention that you had been successful. I assume you have found the map you are searching for. I will take it, if you please."

I looked over at Ramsey, but he wasn't looking at me. His gaze was trained on Anna Gillard. I imagined he regarded facing down a weapon with even more distaste than I did. After all, he'd been shot four times only recently.

But, aside from a slight tensing of his bearing, which I understood to be a focusing of readiness, there was no change in him.

"You never had the map," he said.

She shook her head. "I was sent from Lisbon to try to retrieve it. I thought, perhaps, it was in the possession of the Frenchwoman, and so I engaged her in conversation on the flight. I tried to make her sympathize with me, hoping she would confide in me if she had a secret, but she is not a woman with sympathy in her."

She wasn't exactly wrong about Germaine Arnaud, but I didn't think there was much sympathy in this woman either.

"What about the dead woman in your hotel room?" I asked.

"I had just received a message that Lazaro was likely in possession of the map. I was burning the message when she walked into the room. It occurred to me that a body being mistaken for mine would buy me more time in case I was followed." She shrugged. "And so I killed her. Then I hid until I could contact my compatriots."

I felt a chill at her casual words.

"Your compatriots," Major Ramsey said. "That is the group of thieves, I assume?"

"Yes. We were sent separately with the same aim: retrieve the map. They had their methods, and I had mine. We see which has been successful."

Not successful yet, I thought. Though my vision may have blurred for just a moment at the sight of the weapon, I had gathered my wits about me. There were four of us in this room to just one of her.

The weapon counted for a lot, for though I knew Ramsey was wearing a gun, he would not have time to remove it before she could shoot him.

It was then that Constance came into the room bearing a tea tray.

"I think I've got everything," she said, looking down at the tray, oblivious to the little scene playing out. "I've brought some biscuits, too. I know it's late, but I thought you might enjoy a snack."

She moved into the room and toward the table that sat before Anna Gillard. Constance was normally so very attuned to what was going on around her that I couldn't believe she had failed to notice the gun in the woman's hand.

And then I realized she hadn't.

She reached the table and, instead of setting the tray on it, dumped the entire contents on Anna Gillard, who screamed and dropped the gun as the water scalded her.

It would be a long night of questioning for Anna Gillard.

The instant the tea had hit her, she shrieked, and then Archie Blandings, who had moved like a flash, was on her. Aristide had not been far behind.

I saw only part of the action, as Ramsey had moved on the sofa to push me behind him.

She had been handcuffed and led to the cozy little interrogation room down the hall.

Constance was briskly cleaning up the mess on the carpet as Ramsey walked me out to the front porch.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I knew from passing a mirror on my way out the door that I was still white as a ghost. "That was rather frightening…" I admitted. "After what happened to you in Sunderland. I didn't know what to do."

"You don't always have to know what to do, Electra," he said. "That's why we have a team."

I turned my face to him. It was dark, but his eyes were clear and silvery as he looked down at me.

"We make a good team, I think." His voice, low and warm, sent a little shiver through me.

"Yes," I said softly. "A very good team."

"I may be tied up with this all day tomorrow," he said. "But I'll ring you soon. We should talk."

I nodded, feeling a little surge of excitement rather than dread at the words. There was a feeling that things had shifted between us. Our kisses in the garden weren't going to be able to be swept under the rug.

"Oh," I said, before I turned to go. "Take this."

I removed the diamond bracelet Noelle had loaned me from my wrist and pressed it into his hand. He looked down at it.

"Give it to Noelle."

He nodded and dropped it into his pocket.

"I should give you her coat, too."

He shook his head. "She'll manage without it. It'll keep you warm on the way home."

And then he gently clasped the fur lapels and tugged me closer, lowering his mouth to kiss me again.

The memory of that kiss did a lot more than the mink to keep me warm on my ride home.