Hi Folks! Well Eliza and William come closer to being Mr. and Mrs. with this chapter as it ties up the Patrick's poisoning and W & E looking forward to the future. I hope you are enjoying this because again I have gone a lot longer than I intended. Stay tuned though for a beautiful wedding and a hot honeymoon on the voyage to America. Thank you! Love Carebearmaxi
Funny Meeting You Here
Book 2/Chapter 22
"When I got the message from Detective Phelps, I didn't think I would find you in the infirmary, Algernon," William said as he sat down next to the man who lie in the bed sweating and wavering in and out of consciousness.
"I just wanted to confess that I was in on the poisonings. We had to let Nash go because of his reputation. He got the poison by accident, so that's why he got turned out without a word."
Eliza, who sat next to William mentally gave herself an "I knew it".
"What happened Mr. Connolly?" Eliza asked. "Were you involved with Mrs. Werth?"
"Yes, but she was involved with another prisoner whom I didn't know, until last night when I ingested the same poison that's been distributed."
William sat there and eyed his colleague and thought how indicative for this man to have involved himself in a case where the people he was supposed to care for had gotten hurt. Granted some of the men were not worth the worry as they were criminals until their deaths but others, like Patrick, who, yes, a murderer but not a bad person in the end was an innocent victim by proximity.
Algernon began to cough very loudly and loosely. The prison doctor had entered and told them that it was time for them to leave as his patient needed rest.
"Why is he not at his home? He's not a prisoner. We've determined he was poisoned, and the doctor confirmed it," Eliza asked.
"He's a suspect in the crime, so law dictates he must stay here." William answered as they left the prison.
"I didn't know that" Eliza said quietly. "Well, you have a witness as to how Patrick was poisoned and his cell mate, so is that not enough evidence to arrest Mrs. Catherine Bulloch Werth?"
"Yes, I will take care of that," William stated as he trudged on swiftly.
Eliza had to take two steps to keep pace with him. "William!"
She had stopped him and put her hand on his arm to turn him around.
"Why are you walking so fast? I can barely keep up with you."
William looked into the sky. He sighed noisily and then looked at Eliza's upset countenance. He turned to face her and rubbed his thumb over her cheek.
"I apologize. I am just so glad that his case is ending, so that I can throw off all the horribleness of Scotland Yard."
"So, we can really plan our wedding then?"
William smiled and said, "Yes. Finally."
He bent and kissed her soundly in the middle of the gray day standing in front of the penitentiary.
At the trial of Catherine Bulloch Werth, it was revealed that she had poisoned over thirty-five prisoners over a 10-year period. The accomplice in the poisonings changed from time to time depending upon with whom Catherine had arranged the arms shipments. If these accomplices got caught and sent to prison they were soon mysteriously dead.
As for Algernon Connolly, he wound up a prisoner in his own penitentiary for being the willing ignorant participant and allowing these atrocities to continue. Catherine Werth was also guilty by association for all the smuggling of firearms to gangs in the United States. She carried bounties on her head in America because of other charges there as well.
Catherine Bulloch Werth was soon sentenced to death by hanging for killing her husband and being the guilty director of the thirty-five deaths and two assaults. One assault on Patrick Nash and the other on Algernon Connolly.
"Eliza, what are you doing at Scotland Yard today?" William asked on the day of Catherine Werth's execution.
"I'm accompanying you to the hanging, William." Eliza answered with a quizzical look on her face more or less asking 'what do you think I am doing here?'
"Eliza, please don't take this in any other matter than intended, but I don't want you to come with me. I have to be there, but you certainly do not have to. I would rather spare you the gory details of a hanging. Especially the hanging of a woman."
William had taken a perch on the edge of his desk. He was dressed in his coat and hat ready to walk out the door when Eliza breezed into his office. She was lovely as always. She was dressed in her red suit and hat with the round brim trimmed with a large pheasant feather tucked in the band. Her beautiful face was wreathed in smiles when she looked at him. He loved her so very much and wanted nothing to dim the light on that shiny countenance even if it were to be temporary.
She walked toward William and placed her hands on his thigh. She leaned in a little bit and said, "William, I know all the objections why you don't wish me to attend but, I assure you, I can maintain an objective viewpoint."
William took her hands and held them in his. He lifted them to his mouth and kissed them.
"Eliza, please?" William asked again. He could see that steely look appear in her eyes.
"I need to get more experience if I am ever going to be your equal in our business."
"You know what I mean my love. It's a horrible thing to watch. It always unnerves me. Have you ever seen a public hanging before?"
"Yes, I did. Once I was a young girl. My father had bid me to stay in the carriage and not to follow him. He, like you, had to attend as it was part of his job. I deceived the cab driver and slipped out the door and wound my way toward Papa. I arrived right after they took the floor out from under the gibbet. It did catch me unaware, but I looked at it objectively like a science experiment and found that the horror…had no hold…on me," Eliza said as she began to break down.
William drew her to himself and held her.
"I need to go William. I have to toughen up," Eliza insisted as he held her.
"Toughen up? You are one of the most stubborn and tough women I know although you are most lovely. But why? You don't need to see it. You helped solve the crime and find the criminal. You're not responsible for carrying out the punishment."
He held her for just a few minutes more and then he had an idea. He did not care if anyone censured him for it. He would be gone in a matter of weeks and then Scotland Yard could go hang.
"Would you be all right with you if you stand by my side?"
Eliza drew back and asked, "Why? Are you afraid I may faint.?"
William snorted, "No, Eliza, I might. You are much tougher than I am in many ways."
He smiled and Eliza responded with a little smile of her own.
"I love you, William. "You are not only a wonderful lover, and fiancée, but you have always been a good friend to me"
In the end when the platform was pulled out from under Mrs. Werth, her death took only a matter of seconds so tight was the noose. She did not ask for absolution but went defiantly into the afterworld.
William turned to look at Eliza. He knew she had probably seen a hanging before but watching someone's life be taken from them no matter the circumstances was always hard. She stood stoic, but at the last moment before the criminal was hanging lifeless from the gibbet, she had reached for his hand. William had taken it gladly and squeezed it to acknowledge and understand that they should be grateful they were together and alive.
Walking back toward William's office, Eliza parted from him and said she had to meet someone at her office.
"Can I come with you?" William called to her before she had hurried too far.
"Why? You don't trust me already?" she teased calling back to him with a smile.
Eliza saw William's hurt look. She was beginning to realize that sometimes he just wanted to be with her. As she found the more she recognized how deeply in love she was with him the more she wanted to be with him. So, she changed her attitude.
"I'm sorry. I know that's not why you asked," she apologized walking back to him a few short paces.
"No, I just don't want to let you out of my sight right now."
"Of course, you can come with me. I'm meeting Patrick."
"May I ask why?"
"I am gifting him my office for when we travel to America to live, He had to sell his old offices to find a new place to live."
"Are you sure you want to do that, Eliza? You finally have your name above the door."
"We'll talk about that later."
William shrugged. He felt a little hurt.
"Promise, Eliza?"
"Of course, William. We will talk about our wedding and our move and all types of things," Eliza chattered excitedly. She smiled as she reached up to kiss him.
William could not help but smile as she kissed him.
"Come along, William," Eliza coaxed taking his arm.
"No. It's fine. I have to pay attention to some of the other cases lying on my desk. I will see you later then."
William smiled again as they kissed. Eliza smiled as well knowing that, finally, they would discuss their wedding and their future. Tomorrow, they will finally get their license so they could be married April 24th.
Patrick and Eliza sat in her office and drank tea.
"I must thank you, Eliza, for your service and your kindness at letting me stay at your home. Ivy was wonderful to me the whole time I was ill."
"Ivy is a wonderful person. I'm going to miss her when William and I move to America. I'm hoping that someday she and Mr. Potts will marry and then maybe they will come visit us."
"I never asked but how long ago did you lose your mother?"
Eliza swallowed her tea and placed her cup and saucer on her desk and sighed. "Too many years to remember. I was a young child. Ivy was my mother's best friend, so she had volunteered to be my nanny and housekeeper after she died."
"She's been like a mother to you, hasn't she?"
"Yes. Many times, I've acted like a very ungrateful daughter."
"She's very happy you and Inspector Wellington will be married," Patrick mentioned. "She never stopped talking about you and your plans the whole time I was ill."
"I'm sure she thought you weren't listening," Eliza said laughing.
Patrick rose.
"Do you have to leave?"
"Yes, I have an appointment with a banker to see if he will invest in me so I can get back on my feet."
"You were able to get your detective's license back? I thought William told me it was indefinitely suspended," Eliza responded rising herself.
"That's the second appointment. A lawyer for whom I'm hoping the banker will loan me enough funds to pay for the lawyer's services."
"I'm so sorry, Patrick."
"Well, don't let me detain you. I, thank you, for your office from which I hope to re establish some part of my reputation which will enable me to repay you."
Eliza just smiled back at Patrick.
"Before you say anything, I will not forget your wedding April 24th. It's about six weeks away then?"
Eliza nodded.
"Good Luck Patrick."
"Go néiri leat, Eliza," Patrick stated wishing Eliza Good Luck in Gaelic as the Irish man Patrick was or had been.
After the door closed behind Patrick, Eliza played with her engagement ring and thought about William and their wedding, which was not really that far away, and all that had still to be done although she suspected Ivy had already done much of it.
They still had not picked out wedding bands or William mentioned who he had named as his best man or who she wanted as her maid-of-honor. If Hattie had not moved to Poland with Mrs. Parker (praise God), then Eliza would have asked her to be her witness. Eliza dreaded that she may have to ask Arabella to be matron of honor.
Arabella had been very nice in providing cooking and entertaining lessons, so when Eliza was mistress of her own house, she would not make a fool of herself. William had said that his American housekeeper was looking forward to helping her also as William had mentioned to his housekeeper that Eliza was no ordinary wife.
"Oh!" Eliza sighed and crossing her arms on her desk placed her head on them and subsequently fell asleep dreaming an odd combination of good and bad events in her life.
She awoke with a start some hours later to someone knocking on her office door.
"Eliza! Are you there?"
"William! Yes, just a second," Eliza called back. She hurriedly rose and patted her hair and dress and then went to open the door of her office.
"Eliza, do you know what time it is?"
"No. I must have fallen asleep after Patrick left. It's dark!"
"Yes, it is!" William exclaimed as he pushed passed Eliza and into her office. He looked around and noticed that the room was dark, and the fire had burned out making the room cold as a tomb in the March evening air.
"The fire has gone out," Eliza said echoing William's silent thoughts as she came back into the room. William turned and Eliza went directly into his arms. She reached up and William bent down, and they kissed sweetly and deeply.
"I was worried. I went back to your house and Ivy said you had not come home. She suspected you had taken another case. She said if you did it meant you had cold feet about getting married."
William smiled and tucked Eliza's head under his chin.
"No. I simply fell asleep. Since we mentioned we were marrying publicly, the demand for me as a private detective has dwindled to no demand at all."
Eliza held William close. The beating of his heart had become a balm to her. Hearing his deep voice vibrate in his chest when he talked was soothing. The sound of his voice was wonderful to her and something she did not know she missed until she could no longer hear it. She had missed him so badly when he was across the sea. She never wanted them to be that far separated ever again.
William stepped back and took a perch on her desk. He held Eliza's hands as he watched he watched her animated face.
"So, what did you want to discuss regarding your office?"
Eliza bit her lip and said, "You did mention that I finally have my own name on the sign, so I thought we could ship it with us to America and have it altered to add your name if the new position with the NYPD does not come to fruition."
William chuckled a bit.
"Glad to think my new position as Chief Detective is doomed."
"Not at all, William, but you made a good point. That's my name and it was my business. I plan to have my own business in America as well."
"Then we shall ship it along with us. Who knows? Maybe we will wind up working together professionally without conflict."
"Would you like that?" Eliza asked curiously.
"Mmmm? The choice to work with an intelligent skilled female detective who happens to be my wife or work on my own?"
When William did not answer immediately, Eliza noticed the return of the twinkle in his eye which had been absent lately with all the chaos at Scotland Yard since his return.
William laughed his loud boisterous laugh and said, "Yes, my love, it's always an adventure when we work together. Who wouldn't want that?"
Eliza smiled and then she turned in his arms as she pulled him toward the window. They stood there together, Eliza in front with her arms over William's as he stood at the window. William with his arms completely surrounding Eliza and holding her close to the front of his body and his chin almost on her shoulder. Looking up, they saw the evening star just rising in the sky. Eliza leaned back into William's arms encouraging an even tighter embrace surrounding her as he laid his chin on the top of her head and together they both silently wished for a good life together as they embarked on their marriage.