Reckless? asked the cautious voice that kept him free.
Aren’t detective posters warning prostitutes about you?
Not in St. Louis. A most satisfactory boom back in Cincinnati probably made detectives think twice about posters. Besides, the socialite who had aroused his interest was no girl of the streets but a country-club lady of the suburbs.
I’m not reckless.
Still, unplanned murders, like rich food and strong drink, were luxuries best indulged in measured doses. Impulse doubled the odds of capture. But tonight felt like one of those nights when the excitement was worth taking chances, a night to “test his mettle” on a woman of higher rank.
Undisciplined?
What are you doing?
Petite and blond. A wealthy young lady. Good taste said let her go. Caution said let her go. Wisdom said let her go. But she had run and been hiding and now he found her again, his Emily. He hungered for the moment he saw the shock in her eyes.
James Dashwood watched an alley off Market Street that led to the Grand Opera House’s stage door. This late in the evening, he hoped to ambush Henry Young if he left to sleep on the Jekyll & Hyde train after the final curtain. Suddenly he got a surprise.
The scraggly-haired writer, the lunatic Cox, whom Dashwood had last seen in Boston shouting, “I wrote that!” wandered up Market and stopped at the mouth of the alley. There, he lurked as if building courage to charge the stage door.
Dashwood walked up to him. “Hello again, Mr. Cox. What brings you to St. Louis?”
The writer straightened up to his full height. Many inches taller than Dashwood, he stared down at the young detective with smouldering eyes. “Hello again? What do you mean ‘again’? Do I know you?”
“We met in Boston.”
Rick Cox shook his head emphatically.
Dashwood said, “At a rehearsal for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Were you one of the ushers who threw me out of the theater?”
“No. But I did see it happen. What brings you to St. Louis? Last I heard, you were locked up in Columbus.”
“I got out.”
“Out the front door or over the wall?” Dashwood’s mild joke had the effect he desired. A small smile softened the writer’s angry face.
“Front door.”
“When was that?”
“Few weeks ago.”
Back to five suspects, thought Dashwood. He had to keep him talking. “How’d you manage that? They just let you go?”
“They couldn’t keep me when I stopped paying.”
“Paying? Paying for what?”
“It’s a private asylum. Barrett & Buchanan paid for the first week. I paid an extra couple of days myself. I reckoned I needed more time to calm down.”
“Where’d you get the money?”
“Royalties. Barrett & Buchanan pay me a percentage—a small percentage, a pittance—so I don’t sue ’em for stealing my story.”
“Which one stole your story? Barrett? Or Buchanan?”
“Both.”