A Spy in the House (25 page)

“You needn’t apologize for crying. Suppose you tell me what you’ve been doing?”

Mary told her story with logic and economy, excluding nothing — except, of course, her private conversation with Mr. Chen. While she was tempted to tell Anne about her father, it was all too new. Too raw. And some part of her wondered whether it was even safe. . . . Unconsciously, she touched the jade pendant, which lay concealed beneath her dress.

Would Anne and Felicity despise her if they knew the truth? Would they be like so many other Englishwomen and men, priding themselves on being fair and modern but secretly fearing and loathing her? She’d heard the full range of epithets in her childhood. Although the hate words were ugly, the problem was larger than that: it was that she couldn’t bear to hear them from her benefactors.

Yet even while common sense told her that Anne and Felicity would never insult her with those names, she continued to shy away from the truth. If she did tell them — even if they didn’t abhor her — she would cease to be simply Mary Quinn. She would always be the half-caste, the Chinawoman, the different one. Neither fish nor flesh nor fowl, as the proverb had it, but she would become a thing. She would belong nowhere and be like no one.

When Mary finished her tale, Anne was silent. Mary tried not to fidget. Whatever criticisms Anne made, she would accept. She would demonstrate that she was capable of learning from her errors.

Anne’s quiet voice cut through her thoughts. “Why did you come here today?”

She wasn’t prepared for that question. Floundering for a moment, she pulled herself together. “I need your advice.”

“What on?”

There was no short or pleasant answer possible. “I don’t know what to do next. I haven’t overheard any discussion of the shipment from India. I have made a series of errors, some of them very grave. I have been reckless. I have broken my word.” Here, she halted.

“All that is true. You also overstepped the bounds of your assignment. The primary agent was most displeased with your attempts to search the warehouses. By breaking in and nearly being caught, you made her task much more difficult than it need have been.”

Mary’s face burned. She hadn’t even considered that possibility.

There was another pause before Anne’s cool voice reached her ears. “Do you wish to be relieved of your responsibilities?”

Mary flushed scarlet. “That is the most sensible course of action,” she said slowly.

“But?”

“I’ve given you no reason to believe in my abilities,” she said shakily. “I’ve been headstrong and arrogant and a danger to my colleagues. I’ve made the worst start possible. . . .”

“But?” Anne sounded genuinely curious.

“But I should like to continue with this assignment.” She drew a long breath and met Anne’s gaze with an imploring look. “I need to justify the faith you’ve had in me for all these years.”

Anne’s fine brows drew together in a slight frown. “You mustn’t do this for me or for the Agency, Mary.”

She shook her head vehemently. “It’s more than that, Miss Treleaven. I want to do my job. I want to meet my responsibilities. I want to see this task through to its logical conclusion. I want a chance to put things right.”

Anne’s expression was neutral. Mary held her breath. The small, squat clock on the desk rang the hour, followed by twelve silvery chimes. She would have to leave shortly in order to catch an omnibus back to Chelsea.

Anne, too, glanced at the clock. “You may continue with the assignment, Mary.” She cut off Mary’s thanks with a swift gesture. “Now. It seems to me there are four main threads in your narrative; I shall address them in order of importance.

“The transcribed documents you mentioned may be useful, but we have other resources. If only Michael and Angelica Gray know their location, they are unlikely to be lost, and Scotland Yard can compel Gray to turn them over if need be. If you haven’t located other documents at this point, you likely won’t.” Anne fixed her with a stern look.

Mary nodded. Her cheeks and ears were scarlet.

“As for Mrs. Thorold’s activities, you should remain alert for irregularities. I will arrange to have her placed under surveillance, but keep track of her movements today. Concerning James Easton: will you have further contact with him?”

When Mary tried to speak, only air came out. Eventually, she croaked, “No.” At Anne’s raised eyebrows, she managed some further explanation. “His brother was courting Angelica. Now that she’s married, they are out of the picture.”

Anne began to ask a question, then appeared to change her mind. Instead, she said carefully, “Your loyalty to the Agency comes first in this case. Remember that, should you see him again.”

Mary nodded, feeling oddly uncomfortable. Was that all Anne intended to say on the matter? She considered framing a question . . . but what?

“Finally, the question of Cassandra Day: You aren’t responsible there, Mary. She is free to decline our assistance.”

“But I don’t understand what terrified her so. She trusted me, to a certain extent, until I mentioned going to school.”

Anne sighed. “Some girls simply hate the notion. They dislike what they perceive as imprisonment.”

“Life as a kitchen maid is preferable?” Mary couldn’t keep the frustration from her voice.

“She clearly believes so.” Anne paused, then leaned forward once again. “We must return to the Thorold case. Our agent completed her investigation last night and retrieved the relevant papers from the warehouses. The shipment is due to be unloaded tomorrow. We are now waiting for Scotland Yard to confirm that they will move then in order to secure the physical evidence.”

“I’m to keep an eye on the rest of the household until then?”

“Yes. The secret marriage is likely to be revealed in the confusion surrounding the arrests. You’ll be able to leave your post quite naturally.”

Mary nodded and rose. “Miss Treleaven . . .”

Anne shook her head. “No thanks and no apologies.”

Mary ransacked her brain for something appropriate that was neither thanks nor apology. “Will you wish me luck for my last day?” There was a slight quaver in her voice.

A rare smile softened Anne’s lips. “If you keep your head, you shan’t need it.”

James’s plans for a leisurely Sunday afternoon were a loss from the start. He’d put in a long Saturday night at the office, catching up on work that he’d neglected in favor of tearing about London with that woman. He really ought to have known better: any person encountered skulking in a wardrobe was going to be trouble. That went double — no, treble — for any tomboy who claimed to be a lady but whose behavior proclaimed otherwise at every moment. The damned minx was a practiced manipulator. He and George were fortunate to be free of the Thorolds and their dependents. Not that George would agree.

Then, just as James managed to distract himself with a book, the housekeeper brought him a note from Alfred Quigley. It wasn’t the lad’s fault: he had no idea the “case” had collapsed. But it was another unpleasant reminder of how much time and energy he’d wasted over the past fortnight. James crumpled the note into his pocket and began brooding about Quigley instead.

He ought to find something else for the lad to do. A bright child like that was wasted on simple errands. Yet at his age, it was the only sort of paid work he was likely to find, and he had to support his widowed mother. Could Easton Engineering engage the lad as a sort of apprentice assistant? Or perhaps find him a place in a decent school. . . . He’d need more schooling if he was to exploit his talents properly. Either way, the lad was a new responsibility James would have to sort out, thanks to the damned Thorolds.

Such an internal monologue was far from relaxing, and it was with almost a sense of relief that he heard the library door open. “What is it, Mrs. Lemmon?”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Easton. There is a policeman asking to speak with you or Mr. George.”

“Did he say what he wants?”

“He wouldn’t explain himself to me, sir. He only declared it to be urgent.”

On a Sunday, as well. “Very well.” James stood. “Where have you put him?”

Constable Thomas Huggins was trailing an idle finger over the carved frame of a painting in the breakfast room. Young, with anxious, wide-set eyes, he whirled about guiltily at James’s entrance. “Mr. Easton?”

“Yes.” James sat down and invited the man to do the same.

“Very sorry to disturb you of a Sunday, sir.” Huggins remained standing, hat awkwardly in hand. “Some rather unpleasant news, I’m afraid.”

“Concerning me?”

“It appears that way, sir.”

James merely waited, stone-faced.

“There’s been a body discovered on one of your building sites, sir.”

A body. James experienced a sudden certainty. He could see the slight, crumpled figure, its edges defined by a narrow crinoline, a mass of dark hair. “How? Where?” His voice sounded harsh, overloud.

Constable Huggins wiped his forehead. “Hard by the river, sir.”

James was very glad he was seated. After a moment, he asked, “How can I help you?”

Huggins nodded, on firm ground once more. “Looks like an accident, sir. He must have lost his footing and tumbled into a pit, but we —”

Through his fog of nausea, James grasped the essential word. “
He?
It was a man?”

Huggins nodded. “Building sites are so tempting to beggars and mudlarks, you know. . . . They think it’s all treasure trove.”

Not a woman, then. Not — He drew a long breath.

“And so I’ve been sent to ask if you would come to the scene.”

“Of course.” James rose. “I doubt that I’ll be able to identify the body, though, Constable. A vagrant, did you say?” Now that the first shock was past, he was annoyed at having jumped to conclusions. If Mary were to turn up dead, it certainly wouldn’t be on one of his sites. He would banish her from his thoughts, beginning now.

“Yes, sir. It’s hardly a nice subject for a Sunday, but a body’s a body, even if he looks to be a ruffian. Probably mucking about with the machinery and all.”

They took the waiting hansom down to the site of the future railway tunnel. It was a relatively unsmelly afternoon, for which James was grateful. The men could work efficiently tomorrow if this cool weather held.

Descending from the cab, he noted a small cluster of people. The site was guarded by a harassed-looking policeman who introduced himself as Sergeant Davis. The others were scavengers, mudlarks, and rag-and-bone men eager to strip the corpse.

James glimpsed a small heap at the far end of the tunnel mouth. “Any idea how the man got down there?”

“Fell, I s’pose.”

James looked at the police sergeant sharply, but he wasn’t being sarcastic. “Have you even sent for a surgeon?”

Sergeant Davis looked sullen. “What for? Christ himself couldn’t raise this one.”

A snigger rose from the audience.

“Get them away from here,” growled James. He stripped off his jacket and scrambled into the pit. It led down from the entrance of the tunnel, and he almost slipped, skidding down crablike on his hands and feet. At the bottom, he stood and walked squelchily across its base. The dank river smell was heavier here, almost like a fluid trickling into his lungs.

The corpse’s feet were small and — oddly, for a beggar — wearing shoes. Its face was pushed down into the mud, the arms sprawled carelessly. James’s step quickened as he neared the body, and he turned it over roughly. It was short and slight, not a full-grown man at all. A boy, then. Why did that make it so much worse?

He scrabbled at the muddy throat, irrationally searching for a pulse point, but almost immediately realized it was futile. The flesh was cool. James squatted beside the body. A glance at the tunnel mouth showed him Huggins and Davis trying to contain the crowd. Neither seemed very authoritative.

With his handkerchief, James began to wipe mud from the features. It was unlikely the child would ever be identified, but he had to try. His stomach pitched slightly as he uncovered a few freckles. The glassy eyes seemed to focus on a point just behind his head. The eyelashes were caked in mud.

His handkerchief was soon sodden but it was enough. James’s lips tightened as he looked down at the boy before him. The face was contorted and mud-smeared, the lips blue. But it was unmistakably he.

Neither a mudlark nor a beggar.

Not just any child.

Alfred Quigley.

His gut churned suddenly, and he turned aside just in time, vomiting his Sunday luncheon into the mud. The retching didn’t stop when his stomach was empty; violent convulsions shook his frame. He wasn’t sure how much time passed before Constable Huggins touched his shoulder, embarrassment dyeing his freckled face scarlet.

“I’m sorry, sir. If I’d known it would bother you so . . .”

James took the handkerchief Huggins offered. Tears mingled with sweat on his face. Now that the roar in his ears was fading, he could hear the audience jeering — from a safe distance, of course. “Thank you,” he said when he could speak.

Huggins blushed and looked away. “Take your time, sir.”

James straightened. “I can identify the boy. He worked for me.” Huggins’s mouth opened in a small circle, and James hurried on. “You think it was an accident?”