A Spy in the House (9 page)

George rubbed his face. “The poets are right: it’s a disease. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t work. . . . She’s all I can think about.”

“You ate a big dinner last night.”

“That was different.”

“Because it was roast chicken?” James tried not to laugh. “Come on, George. There are dozens of girls who’d marry you. Why Miss Thorold?”

George glared at him. “That question shows how tragically little you know about love.”

“I’m rather relieved, if this is the other choice.” James indicated the blotter. “You’ll be writing poetry next.” George flushed from his hairline to his collar, and James began to laugh again. “No! Really? Oh dear.”

“Are you quite finished mocking me?”

“Never, old chap. But let’s talk about this new railway in Calcutta.”

“What about it?” George sounded miffed.

“What do you mean, ‘what about it’? You’re going to be building it in a couple of months’ time! In fact, it’s just what you need. It’s been too long since you’ve taken the lead role on a job, and it’ll take your mind off Little Miss Whosit.” James was genuinely enthusiastic. “In a fortnight’s time you’ll be on a boat, bound for the beautiful, spice-laden East, and all thoughts of Miss What’s-her-name will have vanished from your thick skull.”

George sat up straight. “Two weeks?”

“Well, you’ll want to —”

“But that’s plenty of time!” His eyes brightened and he smiled at James for the first time. “I can easily manage it in a fortnight!”

“Of course you can,” said James, relieved. This was more like the old George.

George looked him straight in the eye. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

He sprang over the desk and shook James’s hand enthusiastically. “Thank you! Your confidence means a great deal to me. I know you’re not terribly interested in the matter yourself, and for a while you were downright dismissive of the whole thing, but it’s smashing to know that my baby brother supports me —”

Not interested? Downright dismissive? Of the India job?
James suddenly had the uncomfortable sensation that they were talking at cross-purposes. “Er — my confidence in what respect, George?”

“Why, for my marrying Miss Thorold and taking her to India with me!”

Oh, no. Oh, no. “
That’s
what you meant?”

But George had stopped listening. “She’s a healthy girl, not like her mother. The climate will pose no threat to her. And the romance of India — the beauty of it, as you said — will help me to win her!”

James sighed inwardly. Worse and worse. He’d been quietly opposed to the Thorold connection from the start, having heard some unsavory rumors concerning Thorold’s business. However, he’d also been confident of ferreting out the truth before George got as far as a proposal — hence that search of Thorold’s study. But a whirlwind courtship was a different matter. Even if Angelica seemed lukewarm, her parents were enthusiastic. They could force her to accept George’s offer. James had very little time in which to act. And so far — thanks to Miss Quinn — he’d learned nothing.

“Here, before you go, tell me what you think of this!” George scrabbled about in a desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of lavender notepaper decorated with flowers.

James took the page and scanned it. “Would you like my honest opinion?”

George’s face dimmed. “That bad, eh? It’s bloody hard work rhyming the name Angelica, you know.”

James took pity on him. “I’ll write you a better poem.”
But poem or no poem,
he added mentally,
you’re not marrying into a family of crooks.

Tuesday, 11 May

“Hoy!”

James didn’t react to the first bellow. Adams, the foreman, tended to be excitable.

“M’sr Eas’n!”

That, however, he couldn’t really ignore. James mopped his forehead and the back of his neck and turned reluctantly to investigate the most recent catastrophe that had befallen the building site. This job — the construction of a new tunnel beneath the Thames — had been a headache from the day they’d begun. It should already have been completed. Now the blinding stench of the river threatened to prolong it even more, as many of his best workers were fearful of catching disease from the evil smell. James wasn’t convinced that the stink itself made one ill, but he’d still sent the workers home yesterday because they were retching too violently to work safely. If this weather continued, they’d have to work by night. It was either that or postpone the project until the autumn.

“I dream of the day,” said James as he located the senior foreman, “that you address me as something other than ‘Hoy.’”

Adams grinned and shoved his cap back on his head. “I b’lieve I called you ‘oi’ the other day, sir.”

“And what is this?” He motioned to the scrawny little boy Adams held by the throat, muddy boots dangling in midair.

“This here lad —”

“Is strangling. Set him down.”

Adams dropped the boy abruptly but kept a firm grip on his shoulder. “He’s trespassing. He won’t go away! I turned the little bugger out not ten minutes ago, and now it’s back. Shall I chuck it in the river, sir?”

The boy drew breath to defend himself and immediately launched into a coughing fit that doubled him over. When he straightened, eyes watering, he turned to James. “Message for Mr. Easton, sir.”

“That’s what he keeps saying, but he won’t give anyone the message! Says he has to speak with you, personal.” Adams sounded irritated.

James sighed. “Go on, then.”

The boy had regained some of his breath. “It’s about —” he hesitated and looked at Adams suspiciously — “about that job in
Chelsea,
sir.”

There was no job in Chelsea. James narrowed his eyes. “Chelsea.”

“The
house,
sir.”

Oh, good God. This was what came of hiring off-duty coppers to watch the Thorold house: they farmed the work out to little boys for a pittance of the fee he’d paid them to do the job properly. He should have known.

“Oh — that job.” James nodded to Adams and beckoned the boy to follow him. As they strolled round the perimeter of the site, he looked sharply at the lad. “How old are you?”

“Ten, sir.”

Old enough to be working, then. “How did you find me?”

“Didn’t think I would, sir. Inspector Furley said something about a tunnel under the river, but he’s dead drunk, and I thought he was talking rubbish again,” the lad said, rubbing his nose energetically. “I wouldn’t have come to you direct, but it’s a matter of urgency. I take full responsibility, sir.”

Despite his irritation with Furley, James was tickled by the boy’s manner. “Well, then — give me your news.”

The boy’s narrative was clear and swift. The young lady he was assigned to watch had left the house at half past nine and taken a hackney cab to the customs house, where she sat watching its doors. After a quarter of an hour, Mr. Thorold emerged and melted away into the crowds. Instead of following him, however, she dismissed the cab and entered the building.

James frowned. “How did you follow her?”

“On the back of her cab, sir.”

A grubby boy hitching a ride on the back of a cab — it was a common sight. “Good. What time was this?”

“Quarter of an hour ago, sir, p’raps a touch more. I watched the door for a few minutes, but she didn’t come out. Since it’s so close by, and p’raps a longish visit, since she paid off the driver, I thought you’d like to know.”

James blinked in surprise. “Good thinking, er . . .”

“Quigley, sir. Alfred Quigley.”

“Right. A sound morning’s work.” James tossed the boy a crown and turned on his heel. Then he paused and looked back at the boy. “Er — Quigley.”

“Sir?”

“I won’t be able to observe the lady all day. Follow me, and continue to watch her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And from now on, you report directly to me.”

The boy’s eyes widened slightly. “What about Inspector Furley, sir?”

“I’ll sort things with him. From now on, you’re on my team.”

James’s timing — or rather, Alfred Quigley’s timing — was excellent: his hackney cab drew up outside the gates of the customs house just in time to see a familiar figure emerge from the heavy double-fronted doors. She was heavily veiled and dressed even more plainly than usual, but he recognized her by the brisk certainty of her movements. With a light step, she let herself out through the gate and hailed a passing cab.

Feeling rather foolish, James muttered to his driver, “Follow that cab.”

The cabman guffawed. “I’ve heard that one before, guv.”

The roads were choked with people, animals, and rubbish of every sort, and it took a full quarter of an hour just to reach the end of the street. But the driver followed her through the chaos and finally over the Thames at London Bridge into Southwark.

The cabs drew up near the West India Dock, and James watched her emerge, glance around, then step down to complete her journey on foot. He watched from the privacy of his vehicle for a minute or two as her progress was slowed by her obvious desire to keep her skirts out of the muck. She kept them raised as high as decency permitted, to the tops of her narrow buttoned boots. Although it was midday, a moderate layer of fog blanketed the streets. As she disappeared into its depths, James calmly paid his driver, tilted the brim of his hat low over the eyes, and stepped down. There was no need to rush; he knew precisely where she was going.

Just round the corner, the warehouses of the merchant trading company Thorold & Company occupied half an acre of reclaimed marshland on the south bank of the Thames. The red brick buildings were squat and square, with tall, narrow windows. They were likely only a couple of decades old but were already clad in a thick layer of dark grime.

Keeping back a bit, James leaned against a streetlamp — burning in a futile attempt to light the fog — and watched her pace slow even more as she neared the main entrance to the warehouses. She kept her veil down, but her head was turned toward the buildings.

What the devil was she after?

The area was busy enough — the movements and cries of errand boys, vagrants, a match girl, dock laborers, sailors ashore, men in tweed suits, and the odd early prostitute made it easy for him to watch her — but it was hardly a place for a lady. Especially one without a servant hovering two steps behind. Even with her veil lowered, she was attracting looks and the occasional remark. If she came to a halt, she would be harassed. James might be forced to go to her rescue. He wondered whether he would oblige.

Immediately after their encounter in Thorold’s study, he’d begun inquiries about her. Although he was new to this cloak and dagger business, he did have some contacts. All he’d learned was that she had previously been a junior teacher in a girl’s school, and before that, a student there. The school apparently took a lot of charity girls, and she seemed to have been one of them. At least he had not been able to discover family members or someone who’d paid her fees. The trail ended there. Miss Quinn had no friends outside the school, no one she visited regularly, and no other connections.

If anything, those few details were more perplexing than ever. Last night, he’d stayed up late, unable to sleep, staring at the meager details of her life: Mary Quinn, schoolteacher and paid companion. Date of birth: unknown. Birthplace: unknown. Parentage: unknown. Childhood: unknown. It was preposterous. According to his source, more information ought to be available, even concerning orphans raised by the parish. Either the girl was a spectacularly neglected orphan or she was living under a false name. Neither possibility made much sense.

James studied her as she inspected the warehouses. Her prim garments and graceful movements didn’t suggest criminality or guilt. Yes, he knew that appearances were sometimes deceiving and that the mildest features could mask cruelty or vice. But he found it difficult to believe that she was an ordinary thief or an aspiring blackmailer — or Thorold’s mistress. Lying awake in bed last night, he’d considered one preposterous scenario after another: she was Thorold’s illegitimate child, searching for evidence of the inheritance Thorold had stolen from her, or an innocent girl forced (by whom? Gray?) into searching the office or . . .

Mary crossed the street and continued to walk slowly near the Thorold compound. She seemed to be examining the high iron fence, topped with spikes, which ran round the perimeter of the property. Her innocence was looking more improbable by the minute. James knew that his own actions were suspicious, of course. But his motives were straightforward enough.

He knew full well what he ought to do: forget about her, except when her actions affected his own quest. He knew, equally well, what he ought
not
do: he ought not waste his time — and lose sleep — wondering about her motives. He ought not worry about the dangers to which she might expose herself. He ought not waste time bandying words with her when he called on Angelica. And he most certainly ought
not
admire the slim elegance of her figure just a hundred yards ahead of him.

Certainly not the last.

And speaking of wasting time . . . he consulted his pocket watch. He’d now seen what Mary was up to, if not why, and he had to meet with a client in half an hour. James inclined his head slightly and stopped at a quiet street corner.

Mary drifted slowly from view.

“Sir?” Alfred Quigley popped up.

“Report to me this evening at my office. I shall be there until eight o’clock.” He murmured the address.

Quigley nodded once and skipped off, immediately losing himself in the throng.

At seven o’clock the same evening, James was the last man at work at his offices in Great George Street. He generally was, although this evening he was distracted and unproductive. He had just resolved for the ninth time to stop thinking about Mary Quinn when a light scratching at the door made his head snap up. “Enter.”

Alfred Quigley slid noiselessly into the room. “Evening, Mr. Easton.”

“Well, Quigley?”

The lad’s report was straightforward enough. Miss Quinn spent another ten minutes casing the warehouse grounds, then took an omnibus back toward town. She stopped on the way in Clerkenwell and purchased a number of items, including several yards of strong rope and some boys’ clothing, paying cash for these items. Alighting again in Bond Street, she bought some ribbons and silk thread, which were charged to the Thorolds’ account. The rest of her day was spent indoors.