Chapter 11: Hester's Confession

Lucian came with me to Chestnut Street because he had nowhere else to go.

Hester was waiting in the parlor with every lamp lit.

On the low table in front of her lay a flat leather case I had never seen.

She looked at Lucian, and her jaw tightened, and she looked at me.

"He stays," I said.

"As you like." She laid her hand on the case. "Sit down, both of you. I will say this once."

We sat.

"Your father was thirty-four years old and the cleverest man I ever raised," she said.

"He was also a gambler."

"He lost, and lost, and he took from the firm to cover it."

"Eleven point four million dollars."

My hands were cold.

"Leopold found out in the spring."

"He did not call the police."

"He came to this house and sat where Lucian is sitting now."

"He said he would give me a choice."

"What choice?"

"A trial, in which your father went to prison and the Orme name died with him."

"You would have grown up as the thief's daughter."

"Or a signature, and silence, and money."

"You signed."

"I signed." Her voice was steady.

"Forty million dollars."

"I took it and I bought Bulfinch stock with it, quietly, for twenty years."

"Every share in the Beacon Trust was purchased with Leopold's guilt."

"Why?"

"Because I needed to hurt him." The cane shook against the carpet. "I needed to hurt somebody, Delphine. My son was dead."

The room spun.

"He didn't slip," I said.

"No."

"Did Leopold push him?"

"I do not know." She looked at me with her whole face naked for the first time in my life.

"Leopold came to the funeral."

"He took me aside in the hall and told me what he had said to my son on that roof."

"What did he say?"

"That Anselm had been caught, and a man in his position had two choices." She closed her eyes.

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