A Broken Vessel (28 page)

As usual, Kestrel changed the subject before MacGregor could probe any further. “So I’ve reached rather an impasse
in investigating Avondale. I kept watch outside his house the evening after I spoke with him, hoping Miss MacGowan would come back, but the only result was that I was stared at suspiciously by watchmen, spattered with mud by every kind of vehicle imaginable, and subjected to interesting and indecent proposals by what Dipper calls public ledgers.”

“Public ledgers?”

“I suppose because any man may make an entry.”

“You and Dipper should both be ashamed of yourselves.”

“I’ll see that he gets your message. At all events, since then I’ve paid an enterprising link-boy to watch the house at night, and follow Miss MacGowan if she appears. She hasn’t as yet. In the meantime, I summoned all my fortitude and called on Lady Gayheart. After dutifully admiring her eyes, her gown, and her abominable dog, I turned the subject to Scotland. She told me her brother John is there shooting, and Charles used to go as well, but a few years ago he conceived a fierce aversion toward the place. Which is interesting, since he told me he’d only met Rosemary and Megan this past July. Then I probed for any scandals she knew about Avondale and women, but she couldn’t tell me anything to the purpose.”

“What about this young woman he’s engaged to? Do you think she knows anything?”

“No. I think he was in earnest when he said he wanted to keep her in the dark. That’s just as well, since I haven’t the remotest idea how I would go about questioning her. I did have one further thought: I wonder if Avondale is being blackmailed. That would explain where his money’s been going, and why he’s in such haste to raise more.”

“Who do you suppose might be blackmailing him? Not Megan—if she had some way of harming him, wouldn’t she use it to make him tell her where Rosemary is?”

“Not necessarily. She may be afraid he would do Rosemary a mischief if she moved against him. On the other hand, if he had that kind of power over Megan, he wouldn’t need to pay her off, so you’re right, the idea of her as the blackmailer won’t wash.”

“The blackmailer could be Rosemary.”

Julian nodded. “Or someone who knows what’s become of Rosemary. Never mind—that’s enough of the Honourable Charles. Let’s turn to the dishonourable Mr. Rawdon.”

He recounted how Dipper had tracked down Rawdon, and what he had learned about him from Annie Price. “I’d give a monkey to know what business Smith and Company is in—if it has any business at all. With luck, I won’t have long to wait. Dipper has an assignation with Miss Price tonight to have a look around Rawdon’s office. I should have liked to go with them, but I don’t want to disturb Dipper’s rapport with her—which must be considerable, to judge by the fact that I can’t get a straightforward answer out of him about what she’s like. And when Dipper won’t talk about a woman, it means only one thing—my valet, that most artless and angelic of rakes, has found another victim.”

“Hmph. I’d as lief not hear about those sorts of goings-on.”

“I’ll spare you a catalogue of his conquests—we should be here all night. I do think it’s rather hard, seeing that I’m the master and he’s the servant, that I should have to play Leporello to his Don Giovanni. At all events, Dipper is meeting Miss Price at midnight tonight. This morning he contrived to brush past her father at the George just before his coach departed, and relieved him of his keys. So he and Miss Price shouldn’t have any difficulty getting into Rawdon’s office.”

“Well, I can’t approve his methods, though I know his heart’s in the right place.”

“He’s doing evil in the cause of good, which is one of life’s most exquisite pleasures. One has all the enjoyment of getting up to mischief, and none of the guilt.”

“You’re very clever tonight—all wit and glibness and drawing-room drawl. What’s wrong?”

Julian’s guard went up—then just as suddenly came down. “I’m worried about Sally. She’s been in the refuge more than a week, God knows when she means to come out, and the more I learn about Avondale and Rawdon, the more uneasy I am on her
account.” He added, “You needn’t give me that knowing look. Of course my feelings are personal. I thought that was obvious by now.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed. I’m baffled. I don’t understand what I see in her. She has none of the traits I admire in women. She’s little and brown and has a nose like a pug’s, and her voice is like rusty nails scraping on slate. She can barely read, knows no world outside London, thinks Mozart is something you buy at a pastry-cook’s. And yet—” He shook his head.

“I’m beginning to think I was wrong about her. I thought she’d make trouble for you, but, the fact is, she’s been a good influence. You were too smooth. She’s roughening your edges a bit.”

“She’s rubbing them raw.”

“That won’t do you any harm.”

“I admire your philosophical detachment. It must be wonderfully comforting to your patients.”

MacGregor laughed. “All right, I’ll have done. Anything else you’ve found out about this man Rawdon? Where does he live?”

“In Shoreditch. Dipper followed him home from his office on Friday afternoon.”

“He lives in Shoreditch and has his office in Southwark?”

“Interesting, isn’t it? He obviously prefers to keep his home a discreet distance from his place of work. He moved into the Shoreditch house about six months ago—Dipper found out from talking to servants and tradespeople in the neighbourhood. He bought the house outright, which means he must have had a fair amount of ready money. It’s a very respectable neighbourhood, and the house is a good one, though not over-large. The woman who comes in to clean for him says he has quite a set-out inside—good furniture, fine plate, expensive knick-knacks. He lives quite alone, not even a servant, and never entertains. He’s not married, has no children—no family anyone’s ever seen. No one knows how he gets his living. It’s suspected he’s in some
lucrative but unpopular line of work—a money-lender, perhaps, or an informer to the excise.”

“What does Mr. Digby say about all this?”

Julian smiled. “He says so far this investigation seems like a great harvest of a little corn. And he’s quite right—we’ve been rushing about collecting all manner of information, but we don’t know that any of it will be any use.”

“Well, I’m sorry to be going home just when you’re in the thick of this business. I’d like to have seen how it all came out. But I’ve neglected my patients long enough, and Dr. Greeley can get along without me now—though, between you and me, he’ll have to give up his practice before long. He’s too old and frail to keep it up any longer. I said I’d look out for some young fellow to take it over.”

Julian cocked an eyebrow at him. “You wouldn’t consider taking it over yourself?”

“What?”

“Dr. Greeley couldn’t find a better replacement than you, or one he’d trust more.”

“You mean, live here—in London? This filthy, foul-smelling, soot-ridden, rabbit-warren of a place? No, thank you! Why, I’d breathe cleaner air in a peat-bog, and meet with better manners on a convict ship!”

“It’s true you’ve done nothing but complain since you got here. I’ve never seen you enjoy yourself so much.”

MacGregor glared at him. “You’ve had some crack-brained notions, but this one beats them all to sticks. Why, I’m likely to retire myself in ten years! Well, fifteen—though if my health holds up—oh, dash it, the point is, I’m not going to uproot myself from my home at my time of life!”

“I understand how you feel. But I can’t help wondering if living in Alderton, for you, means living in the past: keeping alive the memory of the wife and son you lost years ago, giving the same sorts of treatments and performing the same operations year in and year out. There’s nothing wrong with that, if it’s what you want. I just thought you might like to have an adventure, start a new life, while you’re young and strong enough to relish it.”

“Adventure! That’s easy enough to say when you’re five-and-twenty.”

“I do realize I’m being thoroughly selfish. I should like it above all things if you’d stay.”

“Bosh! I know how it would be. Half the year you’d be off hunting and shooting, or sailing round Venice in gondolas, and during the season you’d spend all your time gadding in clubs and ballrooms. I wouldn’t see you above once in a twelvemonth.”

“You really ought to stay and wean me away from this life of dissipation. But, seriously, if you lived in London, of course we should see each other. Most of my friends here are trifling fellows, and all but interchangeable. You must know I’d trade a hundred of them for one of you.”

“Hmph—well—I’ll think it over. That is to say, I won’t dismiss the idea out of hand. That’s the most I can promise.”

“That’s the most I can ask.”

They walked out into the hallway. Julian put on his top-hat and his long black evening cloak lined with sky-blue silk. “Goodbye, my dear fellow. Convey my compliments to the Fontclairs—though that seems less than tactful under the circumstances. I daresay I shall always be associated in their minds with violent death. Oh, and please give my warmest regards to Miss Craddock. And if Hugh’s not being properly attentive, be sure to give her my message when he’s by.”

“No fear of Hugh’s neglecting the girl. I haven’t seen one of those two without the other since they got engaged.”

“One more thing.” Julian took out a brown-paper parcel from a pocket of his cloak. “This is for Miss Philippa. It’s Marco Polo’s
Travels
, with illustrations. I thought she might like it, seeing that she’s a fledgling historian.”

“She’ll devour it whole.”

“You don’t think her family will mind my sending her a present?”

“If I know Pippa, she won’t let anything stand in the way of her getting her hands on a new book. But, you know, you’re too
skittish about the Fontclairs. You don’t need to tiptoe round them like this. They think very highly of you.”

Julian smiled wryly. “The hanged man’s family may have great respect for the judge. But somehow I don’t think they like him over much.”

As Julian let himself in at the street door of his house, he remembered just in time that Mrs. Mabbitt had succumbed to one of her whitewashing fits. At least twice a year, she had the front hall and stairway repainted, at imminent hazard to anyone going up or down the narrow stairs. He drew his cloak around him as he ascended, like a bat folding its wings. Whitewash was one thing Dipper had never had any success getting out of his clothes.

He was surprised to hear Dipper moving about in the parlour as he entered his flat. Surely he ought to have left by now for his rendezvous with Annie Price. The sounds ceased abruptly; then there were light footsteps running toward the parlour door, and it flew open.

“Sally!” He caught her in his arms. “Sally, by all that’s marvellous!”

She laughed up at him, glowing with pleasure. “I’d’ve stayed away longer, if I knowed how much you’d miss me!”

“Where did you spring from? How long have you been back?”

“I come tonight, while you was out. Dip had to go and nose around Blinkers’s office, so I said I’d stay here and look after you proper while he was gone. I’ve got your dressing-gown laid out neat as ninepence, just like I was your slavey.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I’ve been known to find my own dressing-gown, and in extreme cases, even to put it on.”

“You’re in a fair pucker now, ain’t you?” she chuckled. “You’re afeard I’ll start making up to you, now Dip’s gone, and most likely won’t be back till morning. But I ain’t going to do that no more.” She drew away from him primly, smoothing out her dress. “You
was right: that’s no go, and least said, soonest mended. I just wants to talk to you, friendly-like. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

She bustled around him, taking his hat, cloak, and gloves. He went into his bedroom to put on his dressing-gown. She followed, and held out her hands to help him off with his coat.

His brows went up. “Were you planning to undress me?”

“Why not? Dip does.”

“Dipper is my manservant, which is to say, he’s both a servant and a man. You fall rather short in both categories.”

“I seen a few coves peel before, you know. I won’t faint dead away at the sight of your braces.” She added mischievously, “Want me to close me eyes?”