A Broken Vessel (26 page)

“I often change colour around you,” he said lightly.

“Be serious for a moment.” She stopped walking, and faced him earnestly. “Is there anything you ought to tell me? Please don’t be afraid I might be angry or distressed. I’m not so easily shocked as you might think. I can understand more than perhaps you realize—forgive more, if need be.”

“I don’t have anything to tell you, Ada.”

“I trust you, you know. I
must
trust you, or be utterly wretched. When I was little, and you taught me to ride, I knew nothing bad could happen to me, because you would never let me ride a horse I couldn’t manage, or do anything dangerous. I had the most perfect confidence in you. Can I have that confidence now? This is the only time I shall ever ask you, and if you say yes, I’ll believe in you whatever happens.”

He looked at her for a long time, his eyes unreadable. At last he said steadily, “You can trust me, Ada.”

She drew a long breath. Her Rubicon was crossed. She prayed he was true and upright, but if he was not, there was nothing she could do. For good or ill, her heart and honour were in his hands.

Sally was furious. Mr. Fiske had finally been to the refuge, and she had known nothing about it. He had come on Saturday afternoon, to replenish the medicine supply and look in on an inmate who had catarrh. Sally heard about his visit that evening, when Florrie mentioned it at supper. Florrie said it was good to see him on his pins again, though he still looked a bit queer about the gills.

This would not do at all, Sally told herself. Of course she was glad to know that Harcourt had not dispensed with Fiske’s services, for all his apparent effort to keep Fiske’s name out of the inquest. But Fiske could come to the refuge a dozen times in a week, without her ever catching a glimpse of him. How could she possibly speak to him alone?

There was only one thing to do, but she cringed at the prospect. All Sunday, she tried to think of another way, but it was no use. Late Sunday afternoon, when chapel was over, she sneaked into the matrons’ closet with a small flask she had stolen from the kitchen. She filled it from the bottle labelled “IPECACUANHA” and took it to bed with her that night.

In the small hours, Red Jane, Spots, and Nancy were awakened by a loud groan. They found Sally doubled up and groping for a basin. Nancy fetched her one, and Sally coughed up her supper—and most of her inner works, or so it seemed to her. She lay back, pale and panting, her brow beaded with sweat. Nancy ran to tell Peg, who rang a bell to summon the matron.

Miss Nettleton was on duty that night. She rushed to the inmates’ house, her nightcap askew, and her hair in yellow curlpapers. She fluttered around Sally, wringing her hands, while Peg straightened her bedclothes and mixed her a soothing posset. Sally lay back weakly, making brave speeches, and begging Miss Nettleton not to be too distressed if she should die. Miss Nettleton gave a little shriek, and sent for the apothecary.

By the time Fiske arrived, it was day, and Peg had herded the other inmates off to morning prayers and breakfast. Sally was left alone. She felt much better, but she kept to her bed, ready to assume a death-like pose if anyone should look in. At last she heard a man’s boots on the stairs. She lay back, trying to look languid and pathetic, and hoping he would not find the empty flask under her mattress.

A middle-aged man came in, carrying a leather bag. He stopped on the threshold and gasped out, “You!”

Sally sat bolt upright. Then she sank back on her elbow, marvelling. “Hullo, Bristles!” she said softly. “I might’ve knowed it’d be you.”

CHAPTER
19

“
W
hat are you doing here?” Fiske stammered. “What do you want?”

“I come to see if you wants your letter back.”

“What?”

“Your letter! The one I pinched.”

He looked utterly blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bender! I done you over while we was snugging—pinched your wipe and the letter with it.”

“I know you stole my handkerchief. I missed it later. But you didn’t steal anything else from me.”

“Come on now, Bristles.” She grinned, sweetly reasonable. “I knows it was your letter. It was wrote by that gal Mary before she hopped the twig right here in this refuge. You was the ’pothecary as looked after her. You and her was thick-and-thin pals. She give you the letter, and I pinched it from you, and that’s how and about it.”

“I tell you, you didn’t steal any letter from me. I don’t know why you think you did. I didn’t have a letter from Mary or anyone else when I—when we met—that night.”

He was lying. Of course he was. He must be. If he were not the man she stole the letter from, then her picking him up in the Haymarket that night—Mrs. Fiske’s husband, Mary’s friend, the medical adviser to the refuge!—would be too outrageous a coincidence to be believed. Granted, he sounded sincere; his astonishment seemed absolutely real. But he must be stringing her on. Perhaps she could catch him out. One thing was certain: she must not tell him about those other two men. That would give him a chance to wash his hands of the letter, saying it must have come from one of them.

She looked him up and down. The effects of his illness were marked and poignant. He had lost so much weight that his clothes looked baggy. Even his skin seemed too large for him, and hung in pouches. His face was chalk-white, his eyes hollow. The stubble on his chin and cheeks looked grotesque, like hair sprouting on a skull.

“I heard you was took ill,” she said. “You still ain’t plump currant, by the look of you.”

“I’m well enough. What about you? I thought you were ill. Miss Nettleton sent for me to see you.”

“Oh, that ain’t nothing. Miss Nettleton don’t know it, but I took ipecac last night a-purpose, so you’d have to come and physic me. That’s how bad I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

“’Coz I’ve got some things to ask you. ’Course, I didn’t know then that you was you—I mean, that Mr. Fiske was Bristles. But I knew Mary cottoned to you particular, and it was you as first examined her body after she popped off. So I thought you’d know more nor anybody about why she come to the refuge, and how she died.”

“She died of an overdose of laudanum,” said Fiske in a low voice. “There’s no question about that.”

“But how’d she get it? You give it to her?”

“No! Of course not! Why—what makes you think I did?”

“Stands to reason, don’t it? You must have laudanum in your shop.”

“Well, yes.”

“So maybe Mary said as how she was tired of life, and wanted to morris off, and you was sorry for her and helped her.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, maybe she just needed the laudanum to help her sleep, and you give it to her on the sly, and she used it to make away with herself. That wouldn’t be no fault of yours.”

“I didn’t give it to her. I don’t know how she got it. Why do you care? Why have you come here? What do you want?”

“I’ve got an idea you ain’t happy to see me, Bristles. And I thought you fancied me, last time we met.”

A spot of scarlet kindled in his pale cheeks. “I don’t say I didn’t. But why are you here now? I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“And it ain’t just convenient, me turning up like this.” She nodded, grinning. “Here’s how it was: I read that letter I pinched from
somebody
, and I got curious. I wanted to know who wrote it. I come here and found out it was Mary, but she’d dropped off the perch the night before. So, seeing as how I was a poor stray lamb in need of reformation, I stopped here meself, to find out who she was, and who might’ve croaked her.”

“Croaked—does that mean
killed
?”

“Right as a trivet.”

“What—what makes you say—it—it was murder?”

“I ain’t saying it is, and I ain’t saying it ain’t. That’s what I wants to find out.”

“But why? Are you working for the Bow Street Runners, or one of the Public Offices?”

“’Course not! I wouldn’t give a beak the time of day, nor a constable neither!”

“Then you’re doing all this on your own?”

She would have to tread carefully here. She did not want Fiske warned of the other efforts being made to investigate Mary’s death. She certainly was not going to reveal who her confederates were. But if she said she was the only one who knew about Mary’s letter, she was inviting someone to do her a mischief, in order to scotch her enquiries.

She compromised. “I didn’t tell nobody what I was about. But I give the letter to a pal for safe-keeping, and he knows where I am.”

“This letter,” he said slowly, “what did it say?”

“It was wrote to somebody in Mary’s family. She said she was sorry for some’ut she done wrong, and asked to be took back. Said she was shut up in this ken, and folks was spying on her, but she had somebody she thought she could trust to post the letter for her.”

“Have—have you ever considered showing the letter to someone? I don’t know—a magistrate. You say you don’t want anything to do with the law, but still—” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

“The law ain’t nothing to me. ’Cept there might be a reward if I was to find out who croaked her, and I wouldn’t mind that, not one bit!”

“Oh, dear,” Fiske walked up and down, wringing his hands.

“What’s to pay, Bristles? You’re all of a tremble.”

“You shouldn’t be here. This—this is a terrible mistake—”

“Why?” she asked quickly.

“Just believe me, trust me, please, and don’t ask questions. You must go away—now, quickly, before you leave anybody wondering what’s happened to
you
!”

“You know some’ut!”

“I don’t. I only know I couldn’t protect Mary, and I can’t protect you. That’s why you have to go. It’s too late for her, but you still have a chance. Oh, let me save you! Go, before it’s too late!”

She was a little moved. “I can look after meself, Bristles. You don’t have to worrit about me. I’d like to know what you’re in such a pucker about, though. What do you know about Mary?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Now, that’s as lame as St. Giles, Cripplegate. You wants to know what I think? I think it was you Mary trusted with her letter. She give it to you and asked you to post it, but I lifted it off you, so you couldn’t. And then she took a blinder, and you blamed yourself, thinking as how you let her down.”

“You didn’t steal that letter from me. I didn’t have it, I swear to you.”

She was baffled. She
knew
he must be lying, yet she
felt
he was telling the truth. “But Mary cottoned to you—that much is true, ain’t it?”

“I think she did like me a little, yes,” he said sadly.

“And you liked her?”

“Yes.”

“So I’ll bet me head to a turnip she told you things she didn’t tell no one else. Like who she was, maybe, and why she come to the refuge.”

“No, she didn’t tell me that.”

“Bender!”

“It’s true.”

“Ain’t you ashamed to tell such a reg’lar clanker?”

“I can’t make you believe me.” He sat down wearily on the bed next to hers, beads of sweat breaking out on his white face.

She was sorry for him, but she could not let him off. Because she was sure he was lying now. He might not be the one she stole the letter from—though no other theory made sense—but he clearly knew more about Mary than he was telling. “Come on now, Bristles. If you was to tell me what you knows, maybe we could smoke out what happened to Mary. If she was croaked, you wants to nail whoever done it, don’cha?”

“I don’t want to be involved.”

“Oh, show some pluck! We could work it together, you and me. Your missis wouldn’t have to know nothing about it, if that’s what you was thinking.”

“Oh, good Lord! You—you won’t say anything to her about any of this, will you?”

“That depends. You going to help me, or not?”

“I can’t!” he said piteously. “I don’t know anything—or— or, if I do—I can’t tell you. You must just do your worst.”

“Ain’t you the provokingest cove as ever was! I don’t want to hurt you, or blow the coals ’twixt you and your missis. All I want is to find out what you knows, and I can’t come round you nohow.” She decided to try another tack. “You know, I seen Caleb.”