Garden of Lies(24)
She picked up the package. The contents felt light and flexible. Papers, she concluded, or a notebook.
She carried the package into her study, set it on her desk and turned up a lamp. Taking a pair of shears out of a drawer she cut the string that bound the parcel and slowly peeled away the brown paper.
She fully expected that whatever she found inside would come as a shock but a strange stoicism gripped her when she saw the little magazine. It was a penny dreadful. The black-and-white illustration on the cover featured a woman in a suggestively draped nightgown, her hair down around her shoulders. She was sitting in a tumbled bed, clutching the sheets to her bosom. The artist had made certain that a great deal of bare leg was visible.
The woman in the illustration was not alone in the bedroom. There was a man with her. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie and the collar of his shirt undone. His formal evening coat was draped over the back of a boudoir chair.
The woman and the man gazed in stunned shock at the bedroom door, where a well-dressed, obviously scandalized lady stood in the opening. She had a gun in one gloved hand.
The title of the small magazine proclaimed the contents:
THE PICTON DIVORCE CASE
An Accurate Record of the Testimony of Mrs. Euphemia Grant and Others. Adultery! Scandal! Attempted Murder!
Ursula opened the magazine with shaking fingers. A handwritten note slipped out and fluttered to the top of the desk.
You have been discovered. Silence may be purchased.
Await instructions.
Ursula sank slowly down onto the chair. She had always feared that the day would come when someone would uncover her true identity. She had known that if that happened her newly invented life would fall apart and she would once again confront disaster. She had put aside a fair amount of money to prepare for such an eventuality. She’d had some notion of purchasing a ticket to Australia or America to start over yet again, if necessary.
But as she read the note a second time, it was anger, not fear, that stormed through her. She had made plans to leave the country if her past was exposed. But she had not anticipated the possibility that someone would attempt to blackmail her.
She needed a new plan.
TWELVE
That’s an amazing machine,” Griffith said.
The expression on his face was one of intense fascination, perhaps even awe. Slater understood the reaction. He was impressed, himself. Although he had seen typewriters—in recent years they had begun to appear in offices around the world—he had never come across one as advanced in design as the machine Matty Bingham was demonstrating.
“It’s my latest model,” Harold Fenton said. He beamed with pride. “It has a great many new and improved features. But it requires an operator of Miss Bingham’s exceptional talents in order to obtain the best results.”
“She’s certainly very skillful,” Griffith said. He gazed at Matty’s flying fingers, clearly entranced. “It’s like watching a lady play the piano.”
Matty appeared to be unaware of his interest. She maintained her professional air but her cheeks were flushed a deep pink. Griffith was right, Slater thought. Matty’s fingers moved on the keys for all the world as though she were playing a musical instrument. Her hands were elegant and graceful.
Slater took out his pocket watch to check the time. He and Griffith had arrived at the offices of the Kern Secretarial Agency a short while ago and found only Matty Bingham and Fenton.
Fenton was a little gnome of a man. Judging by his rumpled, ink-and-oil-stained coat he had come straight from his workshop. He was going bald. What scraggly gray hair he had left had not been touched by a barber in a very long time. Behind the lenses of his spectacles, his gray eyes glittered with passion for his creation.
“Mrs. Kern and I have established a professional association,” Fenton said. “I advertise that my typewriters are tested here at the Kern agency. That information attracts the very best class of buyer, you see, because of the reputation of Mrs. Kern’s business. My goal is to put a Fenton Modern in every office in the country.”
He whipped out a card. Slater took it and glanced at the wording.
FENTON MODERN TYPEWRITING MACHINES.
Tested by the expert typists at the Kern Secretarial Agency.
Matty stopped typing and smiled. “Every time Mr. Fenton makes an improvement in his machines, he brings one around for us to test.” She patted the new Fenton Modern on her desk in an affectionate manner. “This is the finest one yet, Mr. Fenton. I do believe you have outdone yourself. None of the keys or type bars jammed. I did not have to slow down or pause at any point.”
Griffith leaned over Matty’s shoulder to get a closer look at the keyboard. His brows scrunched together. “Why are the keys arranged in such an odd fashion? Q, W, E, R, T, Y come first. Shouldn’t it be A, B, C, D, E?”
Fenton snorted. “Sadly, after the success of the Remington typewriting machines, everyone has grown accustomed to this keyboard design. Damned shame but that’s what you get when a manufacturer of firearms turns its attention to other products.”
Slater looked at him. “A trigger?”
“No, mass production.” Fenton looked deeply pained. “So many Remingtons out there now with the QWERTY keyboard that it’s become the standard, as far as the public is concerned. I’ve given up trying to persuade people to change over to another arrangement of the keys. None of my competitors have been successful with new designs, either. But that’s not to say that there isn’t room for improvement in the machines.”