“I awakened,” he said, “in a first-class cabin on the high seas. The old man was tough as nails. But kind to me. Anything I wanted was mine for the asking. The food on that ship was like what I had heard people say that Diamond Jim Brady ate. Beefsteaks, oysters, roast ducks, wine from crystal glasses. I felt like I had arrived in Heaven. Of course, I wondered what did he want back for all that? But all he ever asked was that I go to school and learn to be a gentleman. He sent me to public school in England, and the finest universities in Germany.”

“Why didn’t Mr. Riker leave you in the gutter with Billy Collins?”

“You’ve spoken with Billy? Of course. How is he?”

“Still in the gutter. Why didn’t Riker leave you there?”

“He was grieving for his son who had died of influenza. He wanted another.”

“And you were available.”

“I was garbage. I could barely read. But he saw something in me no one else could see.”

“And you repaid him by becoming a murderer and a spy.”

“I repaid him,” Riker said, his shoulders squared, his head held high.

“You’re proud of being a murderer and a spy?” Isaac Bell asked scornfully.

“You’re a privileged child, Isaac Bell. There are things you can never know. I repaid him. I say it with pride.”

“I say with equal pride that I arrest you for murder, Brian O’Shay.”

Katherine Dee darted through the curtain that screened the back room, slid her arm around Marion’s throat, and pressed her thumb to Marion’s eye.

Chapter 50

50

BRIAN TAUGHT ME THIS TRICK FOR MY TWELFTH BIRTHDAY. He even gave me my own gouge. It’s made of pure gold, see?” The sharpened metal fit her thumb like a claw.

“Stay perfectly still,” Bell told Marion. “Do not struggle. Mr. O’Shay has the upper hand.”

“Obey your fiancé,” said Katherine Dee.

Eyes O’Shay said, “To answer your question, Bell, one of the ways I repaid the old man’s kindness was by rescuing Katherine as he had rescued me. Katherine is educated, accomplished, and free. No one can hurt her.”

“Educated, accomplished, free, and lethal,” said Bell.

With her other hand Katherine drew a pistol.

“Another birthday present?”

“Give Brian his sword, Mr. Bell, before your fiancée is blinded and I shoot you.”

Bell flicked the sword haft at O’Shay. As he expected, the spy was too sharp to fall for that trick. O’Shay caught it coolly without his eyes leaving Bell’s. But when he started to sheathe it, he glanced down to make sure the tip went into the sheath instead of piercing his hand. Bell was waiting for that split second of distraction. He kicked with lightning speed.