Free The Black Mask by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

being certain the box was empty. “My, my, such an extensive collection. Whatever shall we do with so much? I know ...” He pointed a commanding finger toward the fireplace.
    “No. You don’t understand. You have no idea how much I’ve paid ... listen, there’s plenty for us both. We’ll be partners,” Beringer said, sweating. ‘You can’t expect to go on robbing forever. You’ll end on the gallows. Be sensible. You can’t ask me to burn my life’s work.”
    “You’ll make me weep in a minute.”
    “Look. Look at this.” The fat man scooped up a box and flipped open the latch. A brilliant cascade of rainbows seemed to float in the air. “They give me their jewels when they have no money. Look. A fortune. Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires. All yours, if you go away and leave me in peace.”
    These papers must be burnt.”
    “No, I beg of you.”
    “Yes. Come now. You need the exercise. I fear you lead an unhealthy life.” The comment was punctuated with a wave of the pistol.
    Trip after weary trip, in fear of his life, the blackmailer carried all his hard-won spoils to the inferno. He cowered back from the intense heat as indiscretions, infatuations, and immoralities burned. Paper, blackened to floating ash, flew up the chimney.
    While Beringer labored, the Black Mask stirred the rubbish with his booted foot, kicking aside the assorted jewel boxes that lay, like fat oysters pregnant with pearls, among the papers. “How do your victims explain the loss of so many pretties to their fathers and husbands?”
    “I don’t know,” Beringer snapped, his face dirty and sweating. “I don’t concern myself with their problems.”
    A certain crest caught the quick-moving eyes behind the mask. Quickly, he scooped up the case. Flipping it open, he saw the miniature of a sweet-faced girl, hardly sixteen, with round eyes and a soft mouth, done in ivory with diamonds around the frame. “Bella Fortescue.”
    “It’s not my fault the silly wench drowned herself,” Beringer said sulkily. “I told her no one would find out if she kept her gob shut. S’not as if she were pregnant. I told her no one would know she wasn’t a virgin if she didn’t tell ’em.”
    “But she was in love with William Perry and couldn’t face him.”
    “Silly wench. She could have got her hands on the Perry fortune. Enough for all of us in those pockets. But: she had to go drown herself in the Serpentine. Fat lot of good that money does me in the grave.”
    ‘You are unspeakably vile, sir.” It was so much his own thought that for an instant, Niles thought he’d spoken aloud. Then he saw the duchess in the doorway. He scowled. He had been embarrassed almost beyond bearing when he’d returned in his persona of the Black Mask to confront Beringer, having confirmed as Sir Niles that Beringer was indeed the blackmailer who, rumor whispered, had long preyed upon society. For some reason, probably his own sense of the romantic, he’d expected Beringer’s next “client” to be some young woman in trouble. But to come back and find a woman, well known not only to the world but to his own family, had been almost enough to make him save Beringer’s exposure for another evening.
    She entered with the same confident bearing she’d shown earlier. “Good evening, Black Mask. I’ve heard of you.”
    He bowed, afraid his voice would give him away.
    Looking toward the fireplace, she sniffed. “A grand auto-da-fe of the evidence, I see. No matter. Perhaps it’s just as well.”
    “Your own are burnt as well,” Niles said hoarsely.
    “Excellent. If you hadn’t, I should have had to.”
    “Is that why you came back?”
    “No. Magistrate Howe is rousing his minions and has promised to meet me here.”
    “He won’t find anything,” Beringer exulted. “That one is too clever for his own good. There’s no more evidence.”
    “I believe my unsupported word should be enough. If I, with my name, stand in the dock and proclaim that you