A Wicked Conceit by Anna Huber (best young adult book series txt) 📗

“Sergeant Maclean is here to see you.”

Gage looked up at me for the first time since he’d entered the room, and I realized he was seeking permission from me. I nodded, feeling a pulse of curiosity. Normally Maclean preferred to meet in neutral territory at his sister-in-law’s shop. What had brought him to Albyn Place?

“Send him in,” he told our butler.

In short order, Maclean stood before us, seeming to inhabit half the space in our cozy morning room. His jaw sported a new bruise in an alarming constellation of colors.

“Good heavens, Sergeant,” I gasped. “What happened to you?”

His gaze cut to Gage. “That’s why I’m here.”

That didn’t sound good. “Oh?”

“Aye.”

“Well, then you’d better have a seat,” I told him. “Or else you’ll give me a crick in my neck from having to look up at you. Have you broken your fast?”

He eyed Gage’s sausages hungrily as he sat in the chair indicated, but then declined. “Havena actually fasted. Havena been to bed either.”

“There’s been a development,” Gage surmised.

“I would say that much is obvious,” I couldn’t halt myself from retorting, earning me a brief narrowing of eyes from my husband.

Maclean glanced back and forth between us, his brow furrowing slightly. “Aye. We surprised some members o’ McQueen’s gang tryin’ to rob another warehouse. Managed to nab a few o’ ’em, too.”

“Looks like one of them nabbed you as well,” I replied, nodding at his jaw.

He scratched at the dark stubble sprouting around it. “Aye, got in a lucky right hook. But ’twas the only jab he landed.”

“Then do you suspect that McQueen’s men are behind the other crimes imitating the scenes in The King of Grassmarket?” Gage asked.

“They’re no’ talkin’. But aye, I’d wager so. Looks like Kincaid is innocent o’ at least that.” He didn’t appear happy about this fact.

“Do you think they murdered Rookwood as well?”

“Nay. Most o’ McQueen’s men would swipe the shirt off their ain dead granda, but they’re no’ murderers. Least o’ all calculatin’ ones.”

I wasn’t as confident of that as he seemed to be. After all, McQueen had managed to run an illegal whisky distillery out of the vaults for some time before being caught. Surely there must be someone within his gang capable of carrying out such a crime. Perhaps even McQueen himself.

Maclean sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you the one who helped Heron move Rookwood’s things oot o’ his offices?”

“Before the scavengers broke in and picked it clean?” Gage replied defiantly. “I am.”

“Ye were s’posed to steer clear, and keep clear o’ Kincaid. But I heard he paid ye a visit the day before last.” His stern gaze swung from my husband to me.

“Do you honestly think I would allow Bonnie Brock Kincaid to step foot in this house?” I retorted, wondering where Maclean had gotten his information.

Gage arched his eyebrows at this bit of linguistic wrangling, but when Maclean’s glare returned to him, he did not point out the misleading nature of my statement. “Kincaid knows full well what I would do to him if he dared to enter my house uninvited,” he replied, sawing off a bite of sausage with his knife almost in illustration.

Maclean chose not to question this, though I could tell from his expression he was far from convinced.

Lest he change his mind, I put to him the question I’d wished to ask him. “Where was the wound located on Rookwood’s head?”

“On the top, slightly to the left.”

“Then he was seated upright when he was struck?”

He had answered the first question seemingly without thinking, but my second query did not pass by unnoticed. I waited patiently as he pursed his lips in aggravation and then relented.

“Aye.”

“So he was awake and aware someone was in the room with him. And he trusted that person enough to allow him to stand behind him.”

“No’ if the killer snuck in through the window,” he countered.

Gage and I both turned exasperated looks on him.

“I know very well that you are a superb policeman. So I know you tested the window and realize the impossibility of that,” Gage challenged. “It squeals like a stuck pig.”

“Aye. But that doesna discount the possibility he was ambushed by more ’an one person.”

“All climbing through the window? Or did this duo or trio of killers waltz through the door without anyone on North Bridge Street noticing?”

“Aye. No one notices Kincaid and his men doin’ anythin’,” he replied in a scathing tone.

I frowned at Maclean, for he was being stubborn. I understood his anger at Kincaid for continuing to escape justice, and his frustration that he held such sway over the people of Edinburgh, but arresting him for a crime he hadn’t committed was not the way to go. Especially when he would never be convicted on what little proof they did have.

The fact of the matter was that Rookwood would never have allowed Bonnie Brock or any of his men to stand behind him, not after the threats Brock had made. And he certainly wouldn’t have sat complacently while they picked up the ormolu clock from his mantel. The location of Rookwood’s wound was confirmation for me that not only had the murder scene in his office been staged, but he had been killed by someone he knew and trusted.

Maclean appeared ready to continue arguing this point when there was another rap on the door.

“This just arrived for Sergeant Maclean,” Jeffers informed us, stepping forward to hold out the silver salver on which rested a missive.

Maclean picked it up with equanimity, though I doubted he was often confronted with so pretentious a presentation. He unfolded it, reading quickly before rising abruptly to his feet. “My apologies. Somethin’ urgent has come up.”

“Come now, you’re not going to leave us without telling us what it is,” Gage protested.

Maclean appeared as if he wanted to do precisely that, but then he relented. “Lord Kirkcowan was attacked. He was found unconscious in his home.”