The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(85)

“Case?” George Marsh said reluctantly.

“Exactly. Who is always on a case? An investigator. Who is someone who is never really there? The guest who isn’t a guest? The police officer, there to protect, never part of the crime. You were the person standing on that vanishing stair. Dottie told me. She told me in her own words. You see, when the students first arrived, I did some recordings of them talking about their experiences at the school. I was thinking of putting together a little reel to show before films. Dottie said something very amusing. She said she had been frightened to come to the woods because she was from the city. Imagine that! For Dottie, the city was the safe space, and nature was wild and frightening. But her uncle the police officer told her not to worry. He said there was an ‘attic man’ at the school. I had no idea what she was talking about, so she explained that thieves are often called second-story men, and that the police were attic men, who were on the floor above—they’d jump down and catch the second-story men. Her uncle knew who you were—George Marsh, the famous cop who saved Albert Ellingham. And so did Dottie.”

Another boat came by at a distance, heading in for the night. Albert Ellingham raised his hand in greeting as if nothing was wrong.

“I don’t know it all,” Albert Ellingham said as he waved. “That’s why we’re here. I’m going to tell you what I’ve worked out and then you’ll fill in the rest. I know that on the afternoon of the kidnapping you were in Burlington. You were seen at the post office, at the police station—you were all over Burlington when Iris took the car out. So you probably were not involved in the physical act of kidnapping, though I could be wrong. You must have come up to the house in the late afternoon. I imagine the fog helped—not a lot of cars out, hard to see. There were no unusual tire patterns, so I suspect you parked where you always park. You didn’t play around with anything silly, like wearing shoes that were too large and trying to leave fake prints. If any traces of you were around—well, so what? You were at my house all the time. You are the person who is always and never there. You went into the tunnel. You went up into the dome, and there you were, face-to-face with one of the brightest girls in New York City. You had some kind of weapon, I’m sure, but she had something greater. She had her book. She looked at you and she recognized the attic man. Maybe she knew her time was limited. She wasn’t going to let you get away with it. Like the dying person in A Study in Scarlet, she left a message—a message for me. This is where I need you to take over, George. Explain it to me.”

“There is nothing to explain,” George Marsh said.

“Then we have nothing to talk about, and if we have nothing to talk about, then I suppose I’ll . . .”

He reached for the rope, and George Marsh leaned forward, his hand outstretched.

“That can’t be real,” George said. “The bomb.”

“Oh, it’s real. As is my promise to set it off if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

“Why would you . . .”

“Because I have nothing left,” Albert Ellingham said quietly. “The only thing I need is the answer. I know you have it. If you do not give it to me, then I will end us both. Think very carefully about what you will do next, George. Realize I did not get where I am in life by making idle threats.”

Quiet can be deafening. The lapping of the water, the sound of a bird in the distance. Every flutter and every ripple boomed. George Marsh remained where he was, half-lurching forward, sweat appearing on his forehead. He licked his lips and blinked several times. Then the air seemed to go out of him and he slowly fell back against his seat.

“That’s right,” Albert said, his voice gentle. “You see now. Set it down, George. Talk. Talk and feel the relief. Go ahead, son. We have all the time in the world.”

It was the softness of tone that made George Marsh’s eyes go red.

“It was never supposed to happen the way it did,” he finally said. “That’s what you need to understand. There was never supposed to be any violence. Never. It just went wrong.”

“Why did you do it, George?”

George Marsh knotted his hands together.

“When I started running with you and your friends . . . I got in a little over my head. I played some cards. I’m good at cards. I was winning. And then, one day, I wound up in the hole for about twenty grand with some guys in New York, real heavies. They knew I was connected with you, so they let me keep betting. I thought I was going to win. . . .”

“Money?” Albert Ellingham said. “George, if you needed money, why didn’t you come to me?”

“To pay gambling debts?” George Marsh said.

“If you needed help, I would have helped you.”

“And then never worked with me again,” George Marsh said. “I needed to get myself out of this jam and never get back into it.”

“And so you took my wife and child?” Albert Ellingham’s voice was rising a bit. He cleared his throat and composed himself. “Go on,” he said.

“One day,” George Marsh said, his head down, “I saw one of the kids from the school out reading one of those crime-story magazines. I asked her about it, and she said she was reading one about a kidnapping. She wanted to know if I had ever worked on one. I said I had. She asked me if there were notes, trails of clues. The more she asked me, the more I realized that the kidnappings I had seen were simple. You take someone, you get paid, and you give them right back. As long as no one sees your face, the matter is largely settled. Then I thought about the money in the safe in your office. It all came to me. I’d ask for that money. Honestly, I thought Iris would . . .”