Hansome stood up and began pacing, bringing the discussion to an abrupt halt.
"What the devil’s the matter with you?" Phillips demanded.
"Aren’t we going to talk about the murder?" the lawyer asked, his pink tongue darting out to wet his upper lip. "I mean, it’s the elephant in the room, if you ask me."
Melvin blinked in surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Schuller!" Hansome ejaculated. "Are you so dense that you don’t realize what danger we’re all in? That girl was cut to pieces and all of our names are associated with her! I heard from a source at the police department that Assistance Unlimited is working on the case, too!"
"I barely knew the girl," Melvin said, shrugging his shoulders. "I don’t fear an inquiry and neither should any of you. None of you killed her, did you?"
"Of course not," Hansome muttered, though he cast a wary glance around the room. "But this could still derail our plans… the scandal!"
"There won’t be any scandal," Groseclose said reassuringly. "Didn’t you notice that I made sure none of our names ended up in the paper today? I have enough favors owed to me by the other publishers in this town to make sure we’re not linked in any rival accounts, either."
"Word will still get around," Hansome protested.
Melvin loudly exhaled. "I don’t see what all the fuss is about. So what if we all knew her? And so what if there are questions to be asked? The law will prove us innocent, mark my words."
Smithson cleared his throat and all eyes fell upon him. The handsome secretary rarely said anything during these meetings, preferring to share his views with his employer in private. "Miss Schuller was an attractive young woman but she was rather promiscuous. The rumors about that are already circulating, I believe. I think it goes without saying that several of the men in this room may have had… delicate relations… with her?" The silence that fell was answer enough — only Melvin seemed shocked by the suggestion and he was obviously about to say so when Smithson continued. "I think that Mr. Melvin is correct in saying that none of you have anything to fear. But just in case, perhaps Mr. Groseclose could have one of his journalists look into her background. Throw a bit of doubt upon her character, as it were."
Groseclose looked uncomfortable. "She wasn’t a bad person. Not at all. I’d hate to make it appear that she was."
"It was just a suggestion. I think that if people assumed that she was a bit of a tart, then they’d be less likely to focus their attentions on all of you."
"Could be just the opposite," Phillips muttered. "A pretty young girl, illicit sex, and a grisly murder… no, the more details they get, the more the people will chatter away. But I’m not worried about the police or the press — I have an alibi for the night she was murdered."
Smithson looked around the room. "Who here doesn’t have an alibi, if I might ask?"
Groseclose lit a cigar. "Of course, I saw all of you at the party earlier in the evening. After that, I retired to my bed. My butler brought me some warm milk at half past midnight."
"So it would have been possible for you to have left and done the deed," Smithson pointed out.
Groseclose looked offended at the suggestion but said nothing. He’d already heard that same accusation from the Korean who worked for Assistance Unlimited. The young immigrant had pushed Groseclose hard on the matter, but the newspaperman didn’t plan to share that with anyone in this room. They were business partners but certainly not friends.
Hansome licked his lip again, a nervous habit that left his mouth perpetually chapped. "I don’t have one. I went to a movie and then to a bar for a drink. I didn’t return home until very late. I’m not sure I could find any of the men who might have seen me."
Smithson tried not to smile. Hansome’s homosexuality was a poorly kept secret amongst the group. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to call upon any of his male companions to verify his story. Plus, given the fact that Schuller apparently wasn’t sexually assaulted might make Hansome all the more suspect if his secret came to light. Some would say that he would have struck at Schuller out of some deep-seated resentment of women.
"I think it’s all a lot of poppycock," Melvin said. "We’re all good men. To think that any one of us could ever assault a woman… it’s preposterous!"
Phillips nodded in agreement. "To get us back on track here… Are you in for more money or not, Melvin? This new project could become the centerpiece for the revitalization effort and make us all very rich men in the process." Phillips chuckled. "Or, in Melvin’s case, richer."
Melvin smiled in reply. "I am very excited about this, gentlemen. Very excited, indeed."
Night fell quickly in Sovereign City and the few residents who might be called innocents hurried for the relative safety of their homes, leaving the streets to those with darker intent.
A moving patch of darkness passed along the sidewalk beneath the glare of a street lamp. The long streak of darkness ended in a perfect silhouette. The man who cast this shadow was tall and well-built with an olive-complexion and wavy dark hair. He wore a long overcoat, a suit and tie but it was the adornment on his face that set him apart from every other man in the city: he wore a tiny domino-style mask over his eyes and on the bridge of his nose rested a tiny beak-like protrusion. This was The Peregrine, a being whom the underworld had come to greatly fear in recent years. Having left bullet-ridden bodies in his wake throughout the Northeast, The Peregrine was like a one-man police force, bringing the guilty to their final judgment, even when the Law could not touch them.
Just up ahead lay the private residence of Merle Hansome. It was a modest home, but it was light-years beyond the residences that were being torn down to make way for Melvin’s new high-rises. The Peregrine calmly approached the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the property and expertly scaled the barrier, dropping easily down to the grass on the other side. He approached the front door and lightly tried the knob. It was locked, which drove him around back. The rear entrance opened easily and The Peregrine felt a small smile form on his lips. Even in a roach’s den like Sovereign, there were men who felt themselves safe and sound in their own home. It was all like a fallacy, of course, but it made The Peregrine’s job that much easier.
Very few people in the world knew that Max Davies led a double life and even fewer still understood why he did it. An armchair psychiatrist would have zeroed in on the events that occurred when Max was eight years old and while those would have helped filled in the gaps, they would not have told the entire tale. Max’s father, Warren Davies, had run a newspaper campaign against mobsters who threatened to take over the city. When he refused to knuckle under the pressure they were putting on him, Warren found himself the target of a hired assassin. He was gunned down in front of his son and Max had the memory of his father’s final bloodstained memories imprinted into his memory.
But it was what happened later that truly set Max Davies down the path of vigilantism. A series of painful visions began to plague him, ones of crimes yet to be committed. He discovered that if he took steps to prevent them or to bring their perpetrators to justice, the painful visions would recede. Compelled by the knowledge that he would continue to suffer unless he found a way to help others, Max embarked on a years-long trek around the globe in his teens. He learned every form of martial arts known to man, studied philosophy in the Mountains of Tibet, and mastered most known sciences. On the day he first created the identity of The Peregrine, Max Davies felt a sense of liberation take hold. It was as if he were a bird taking flight for the first time.