The Vanishing Thief by Kate Parker

and her daughter-in-law didn’t care.
    â€œAfter you check on those young ladies for Sir Broderick, Emma and I would be glad of your help.”
    Sir Broderick said, “If there’s nothing else, we can call it a night. Georgia, I’d like you to wait a moment, please.”
    Oh, great. What had I done? Or not done? Emma nodded to me and walked downstairs talking to Frances. I pulled up a chair across from Sir Broderick, letting his body block the worst of the heat from the fire. Sweat still rose on my scalp and under my corset.
    â€œGeorgia, I need to tell you something. From that time.”
    I knew what time he meant. Both of our lives had been irretrievably altered.
    â€œDo you remember Denis Lupton?”
    â€œI remember he had a bookshop on Piccadilly. He was murdered not long after my parents—” I gulped down a sob. Those days had been too much with me lately.
    â€œHis killer was never caught,” Sir Broderick said.
    â€œI remember every bookseller in London was terrified for weeks afterward. In the end, life returned to normal.”
    â€œYour father had a message from Lupton a few days before he was taken prisoner. About a Gutenberg Bible.”
    I grabbed the arms of the chair I sat in to prevent me from leaping up. “What did Lupton want? What did my father answer? And why have you waited until now to tell me?”
    â€œI don’t know what the message said, but your father was frightened. He told me he sent a message back to Lupton saying no. Your father wanted nothing to do with whatever Lupton proposed.”
    He’d ignored the question I most wanted answered. “Why have you waited until now to tell me this?”
    â€œBecause if I had told you before, you’d have gone off chasing the wind in hopes of finding the murderer. Now you’re doing it anyway, so you might as well know what little I learned.”
    I settled back in my chair, ready to hear the rest. “You’re certain this concerned a copy of the Gutenberg Bible?”
    â€œYes. I do know that much. Later, I learned Lupton’s shop was ransacked when he was killed. A tall, well-built man in a top hat was seen strolling away just before the body was found, but he wasn’t carrying anything. Could the murderer be your abductor? I don’t know.”
    â€œHad you considered talking to Lupton about the Bible?”
    â€œWhen you came running in here that day, I decided to question your father and Lupton as soon as we freed your parents. Instead, I found myself in agony with mangled legs. I was bedridden for months. Everyone who came to see me hovered, waiting for me to die.” He smiled. “Except you, Georgia. Your determination to right wrongs, and forcing me to help you, saved my life and gave me a purpose for living.”
    I couldn’t bear to have him thank me. I’d failed him as badly as I had my parents. “When did you find out the details about Lupton’s murder?”
    He brushed my words away with one hand. “No, Georgia, I need to say this. You saved my life twice, once at the house where your parents perished, and once when you came to me to help you prove you didn’t kill Lord Westover.”
    â€œScotland Yard should have searched harder for his murderer.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my tone. I’d been eighteen, newly orphaned, and frightened of the police detective who’d questioned me.
    â€œIf they had, I never would have met Adam Fogarty and Lady Westover and we never would have formed the Archivist Society.”
    I had to smile at the recollection. “I nagged you night and day, brought you every scrap of information I learned, until you finally gave up. You brought Lady Westover, police sergeant Fogarty, and me together in this room. That was the day you began to build the Archivist Society. Now,” I said, giving him an obviously false stern look, “when did you learn the details of