“He would have sent a message to one of his servants. He has his own carriage and his own residence. Why did you send for his parents?”
Muireall laid down her pencil and looked up at Elspeth. “I wanted to look them in the eye. I wanted to see who they are. I like to know who my enemies are.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Elspeth said.
“You were chased down an alley by two men intent on harming you, maybe killing or kidnapping you. I am not being ridiculous.”
“It had nothing to do with Mr. Pendergast. He helped us get home and helped get James out of that warehouse.”
“You are certain it had nothing to do with him, Elspeth? Are you willing to put your sisters’ or brothers’ lives in danger? Are you that certain?”
“Of course not! I would never do anything to put our family in danger. I am just trying to understand you,” she said and slumped down into the chair in the small office they were in. She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, listening to the sounds coming from the street through the open window behind her.
She had a sudden and unpleasant vision of she and Muireall sitting in the same chairs, having the same arguments, when they were twenty years older, when they were thirty or even forty years older. Was her life meant to be exactly as it was at this moment? Neither the leader like Muireall, nor the beautiful and personable young woman that Kirsty was. They would all pass her by in some way, and she would be left to can vegetables, be browbeaten by an older sibling, and care for all the future nieces and nephews that James, Kirsty, and even Payden would eventually produce.
“There are reasons we must be careful, Elspeth,” Muireall whispered.
Elspeth looked up at her sister and noticed, not for the first time, that Muireall looked unhappy and worried. That her face was drawn and fine wrinkles marred her eyes.
“Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you, Muireall,” she said. “You carry all the burdens and don’t share much with Aunt any longer. You’re alone so much—even when we are here surrounding you, you’re alone.”
Elspeth stared at the painting hanging on the wall across from where she sat. It was a landscape she recognized from her childhood, although it could have been anywhere in Scotland. Bleak and green and rocky and manicured and everything opposite of each other. It made her think of her parents and her home there, and the blowing wind and the bleating sheep and how lucky Mr. Pendergast was to have both parents still with him.
“We have money, Lizzie,” Muireall said barely above a whisper.
She turned her head. “I know we are not poor. I just wonder how.”
“We have money,” her sister repeated.
“But the canning business just started a few years ago. How did we buy this house? How have we paid Mrs. McClintok all these years?”
“We came here with money, Lizzie. Sewn into my clothes and into Aunt’s and James’s, as well as a small trunk of it. And money in an account at a bank. Father gave me the papers to access it before he died.”
“We are wealthy?”
“We have invested carefully over the years and have not been spendthrifts. The monies have doubled and more.”
Elspeth sat quietly and digested that information. She looked at her sister. “But you have gone to great pains to make sure that no one knows that we are wealthy, even as far as to keep it from your siblings. Does James know?”
“Not entirely.”
“There is a reason, though, that you have kept it a secret.”
Muireall picked up her pencil and looked down at her papers. “Please check on Payden. He’s not been keeping up with his studies as of late.”
At least one of her questions had been answered, even though that knowledge created several more. But she was not going to plague Muireall. She must have some faith that her sister was doing the right thing for all of them, and she doubted Muireall would say more anyway. Maybe at some time in the future, but not today.
Alexander was in the file room with Kleinfeld, digging through crates, looking for a file on a long-ago fired employee of Schmitt’s. The man’s widow wanted her husband’s pension money, even though that employee had been let go for theft. Extortion was typical in politics, Alexander had come to understand. Normally, he would have given the woman some cash or a gold piece and sent her on her way, but this woman claimed to have papers signed by Schmitt that stated her deceased husband or his heirs would be entitled to one thousand dollars. A fortune to a low-level employee at the Gas Trust. Alexander wanted to see what paperwork, if any, had been kept by Schmitt.
He was kneeling on the floor beside the wall between the room he was in and Schmitt’s office, shuffling through papers wrapped in string, when he heard Schmitt’s voice and the sound of a door closing through the vent where the warm air from the boiler in the basement heated the building in the winter. He could not hear every word, but he leaned closer when he heard Elspeth’s name. He could not tell who Schmitt was talking to or what they were saying. He thought the person must have been standing near the door of Schmitt’s office. Alexander imagined Schmitt was pouring himself a whiskey at the hutch beside the heating vent and knew he was right when he heard the faint clink of glassware.
“Not their name?” Schmitt said as Alexander bent closer. “. . . changed at Ellis?”
“Twenty thousand dollars, if it’s that important to you,” Schmitt said.
A loud thump shook the wall beside him.
“What was that?” Kleinfeld asked.
Alexander put his finger to his mouth for quiet. He leaned close to the vent, heard another bang, and then Schmitt moaned and cursed and another voice spoke. The man must have been standing near the wall that separated them as Alexander could hear nearly every word.
“You’re a very small piece of this operation, Schmitt. Very small and not particularly useful. The men who want this information are dangerous. Do you understand? You’re in no position to ask for anything. Get the name, Schmitt.”
Not much later, Schmitt bellowed Alexander’s name. “Get in here,” he shouted.
Alexander straightened his clothes and swiped off the dust from the file room. “What can I do for you, Mr. Schmitt?” he said after entering the office and scanning the room. He saw a glass on its side, its contents spilled on the hutch, and Schmitt looking grim and gray faced.
“I need the woman’s name before they came here, Pendergast,” he said. “The Thompson woman. Who were they in Scotland?”
Alexander shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“You need to find out.”
“I told you I’m not going to do any of this unless I know what is going on.”
Schmitt stood, unsteady on his feet, and leaned forward on his desk. “I said I need to know about this Thompson girl and her family, and I need to know it now.”
Alexander stared at him until Schmitt looked away.
“We don’t have a choice, Pendergast. We don’t have a choice.”
Alexander did not know how he was going to protect Elspeth and her loved ones, but he would. And he didn’t know how he would keep his job if the threat to Schmitt had been real. What was to keep these men, whoever they were, away from his own family? How would he keep them all safe? Whatever the answer, he needed time to think and plan.