Pentecost Alley (23 page)

Charlotte put down her sewing and stared at Emily with gravity and growing suspicion.

“I assume from your manner that you already have a plan as to how we shall do this, when the police have failed to?” she said guardedly.

Emily swallowed, then took a deep breath and plunged in.

“Yes I have, actually. He does not really remember where he was, but his sister, Tallulah, was at a party, and she saw him there.”

“Oh yes?” Charlotte said skeptically. “And why has she not told the police this?”

“Because nobody would believe her.”

“Except you, of course.” Charlotte picked up her sewing again. The matter was not of sufficient sense to keep her from it.

Emily snatched it away.

“Listen to me! This really matters!” she said urgently. “If Finlay was seen at this party, in Chelsea, then he could not have been in Whitechapel murdering a prostitute. And if we can prove it, we will not only save Finlay
from disaster, we will save Thomas from having to arrest the son of one of London’s wealthiest men!”

Charlotte retrieved the sewing and put it away tidily.

“So what are you suggesting? Why can … Tallulah? … Tallulah … not find some of the other people who were at this party and have them swear that Finlay was there? What does she need you for? Or me?”

“Because she has already denied being at the party,” Emily said exasperatedly. “Please pay attention! She was only there for a few minutes, perhaps half an hour at the most, and she does not remember who else was there either.”

“It seems altogether an extremely forgettable party,” Charlotte said with a wry expression too close to laughter for Emily’s temper. “Do you really believe all this, Emily? It’s ridiculous. She doesn’t remember anyone there except him, and he not only doesn’t remember anyone at all, even his own sister, he doesn’t even remember being there himself!”

“They were taking opium,” Emily said furiously. “The place was a … a shambles. When Tallulah saw what it was like she left. She didn’t remember the other people because she didn’t know them. Finlay didn’t remember because he was out of his senses.”

“That last part I can believe,” Charlotte conceded dryly. “But even if it is all true, what could we do?”

“Go back to the house where the party was and see if it really happened and if it was as she said,” Emily replied, although as she heard herself, it sounded increasingly foolish. “Well … we could at least see if there had been a party that night and if anyone remembered seeing either Tallulah or Finlay. It would prove something.”

“I suppose we might find someone….” Charlotte said dubiously. “But why doesn’t Tallulah go herself? Presumably at least she knows these people? We don’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do we?”

“No! No, of course not!” Emily denied it hastily. “But
that is precisely why we would be better. We are important witnesses.”

“Where is it?”

“Beaufort Street, in Chelsea. You’d better change into something a little more formal, as if you were going to a party.”

“Since everyone seems oblivious of their surroundings, it hardly seems worth it,” Charlotte answered. But she did rise to her feet and go towards the door. “I’ll be down in a few minutes. I hope you know what you are doing.”

Emily did not answer.

Half an hour later they were in the carriage, turning from the river into Beaufort Street.

“What number?” Charlotte asked.

“About here,” Emily replied.

“What do you mean ‘about here’?” Charlotte said. “What number is it?”

“I’m not sure. Tallulah didn’t know.”

“You mean she didn’t remember, I suppose,” Charlotte said sarcastically. “If Thomas arrests anyone in that family they can plead insanity and get away with it. Come to that, so could we.”

“We are not doing anything to get arrested for,” Emily retorted sharply.

Charlotte did not reply.

Emily called out for the driver to stop and, with a challenging look at Charlotte, she alighted, rearranged her skirts, and walked across the pavement towards the front of a house where three other carriages appeared to be waiting. By the time she reached the door, Charlotte had caught up with her.

“What are you going to say?” Charlotte demanded. “You can’t just ask if they had an orgy here last Friday and do they know who was here!”

“Of course not!” Emily whispered. “I’ll say I forgot something … a glove.”

“Doesn’t sound to me like an affair where they wore gloves.”

“Well, I’d hardly go home without my shoes!”

“If you could go home without your memory or your wits, why not the odd shoe?” Charlotte said waspishly.

Emily was prevented from replying by the door’s opening and a footman’s staring down at her. He was in full livery, and stood a full head above her.

“Good afternoon.” Emily smiled dazzlingly at him, swallowed convulsively, and began. “I was at a party last Friday evening, and I believe I may have left behind me, er … my …”

The footman’s stare would have frozen milk.

“I believe that would have been at number sixteen, madam. This is number six.” And without waiting for any further remark he stepped back and closed the door, leaving Emily on the step.

“I gather sixteen has something of a reputation,” Charlotte said with a reluctant smile.

Emily said nothing. The color was burning her face in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

“Well, come on.” Charlotte touched her arm. “Having come this far, we might as well finish it.”

Emily would dearly liked to have gone back to the carriage and never returned to Beaufort Street in her life. The look on the footman’s face would haunt her dreams.

“Come on,” Charlotte said urgently. There might even have been laughter in her voice.

Reluctantly Emily obeyed, and they made their way up the street towards number sixteen. This time it was Charlotte who rang the bell.

The door was opened by a young man with an open-necked shirt, possibly silk, and dark hair which flopped over his brow.

“Hello?” he said with a charming smile. “Ought I to know you? Forgive my absentmindedness, but there are occasions when my mind is absolutely absent. Off on travels to another world where the most fantastic things
happen.” He regarded her with candid, friendly interest, waiting for her reply as if his explanation had been utterly reasonable.

“Not very well,” she said, sketching the truth. “But I think I may have left my glove here last Friday. Silly place to wear gloves, I know, but I told my father I was going to the opera, so I had to dress as if I were. I came with Tallulah FitzJames,” she added, as though it were an afterthought.

He looked completely blank. “Do I know her too?”

“Slender, dark,” Emily chipped in. “Very elegant and rather a beauty. She has a … well, a long nose, and very fine eyes.”

“Sounds interesting,” he said approvingly.

“I’m sure you know her brother Finlay,” Charlotte said, making a last attempt.

“Oh! Fin … yes, I know him,” he agreed. “Do you want to come in and look for your glove?”

They accepted and followed him into a wide hallway, and then through a series of rooms all decorated in exotic styles, some strongly Chinese, some Turkish or mock Egyptian. They pretended to look for the glove, and at the same time asked the young man more about Finlay FitzJames, but beyond establishing that he had been there several times, they learned nothing else. The young man had no idea whether the Friday of the murder in Whitechapel was one of those occasions or not.

They thanked him and left, without a glove.

“Well, it could be,” Emily said as soon as they were on the pavement. “It was certainly the sort of party she described, that much at least is true.”

“You believe her, don’t you?” Charlotte said seriously.

“Yes, I do. I really want to help. I know what it feels like to be suspected of something you didn’t do … something you could be hanged for.”

“I know,” Charlotte said quickly, taking her arm. “But you really didn’t do it.”

“I don’t think he did either,” Emily replied. “I’m going to do everything I can to help!”

The following morning Emily wrote a hasty note to Tallulah outlining what she further planned and asking if Tallulah would come with her. If so, would she send a reply with the messenger who delivered the letter.

An hour later a note was returned in Tallulah’s scrawling hand saying that most certainly she could come. She would meet Emily at seven o’clock at St. Mary’s Church, Whitechapel, and from there they could follow their campaign. As requested, she would be dressed very plainly indeed, in order to be inconspicuous, taken by a casual observer to be a maid on her day off, perhaps visiting her family.

Emily was nervous sitting in the hansom clipping smartly eastward from her own highly fashionable street with its elegant windows overlooking wide, clean pavements, private carriages with liveried coachmen and footmen, its front doors and side entrances for servants and tradesmen. The surroundings changed as she came through the City itself. There were more business premises and shops. The traffic became heavier. There was far more noise. The hansom had to stop frequently where the roads were congested.

Gradually she moved beyond the banks and trading centers and under the great shadow of St. Paul’s, closer to the river. It was a balmy summer evening. There would be pleasure boats out, perhaps music, but she could not hear it above the clatter of hooves and wheels.

Soon she was on the Whitechapel Road. It was narrower, grayer, the buildings high and small-windowed, the footpaths sometimes mere ledges where people scurried by, heads down, with no time to stroll or chatter. The traffic was different also. Now there were carts and drays, wagons, even a herd of pigs blocking the road and making everyone stop for several minutes. The smell of manure was sharp in the air.

She alighted at St. Mary’s Church and paid the cabby quickly, before she lost heart and changed her mind. What if she couldn’t find a hansom back again? What if she had to walk? How far would it be? Would people take her for a street woman? She had heard that perfectly respectable women had been arrested by the police for being alone in the wrong places … even in the West End, never mind here. What would Jack think? He would never forgive her. And who would blame him? Would he understand that she had come to try to help clear the name of a man who faced ruin for a crime he did not commit? Charlotte would have done the same. Not that that was any mitigation.

Where on earth was Tallulah? What if she did not come?

Emily would have to go home again. It was still broad daylight. In fact, it was sunny and quite warm. She did not need to hug her shawl around her as if it were midwinter.

“Are you lorst, luv?”

She spun around. There was a short man with an ugly, friendly face staring at her. His cap was on crookedly and he had gaps in his teeth. There was a smear of dirt across his broad nose.

“No … thank you.” She gulped, then forced herself to smile back. “I’m looking for someone, but she doesn’t seem to be here yet. This is Saint Mary’s Church, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Yer ain’t lookin’ fer Mr. Jones, are yer? The Rev’rent? ’Cos ’e’s up Coke Street wi’ Maisie Wallace. She lorst ’er little girl yest’dy. Scarlet fever. She’s taken it ’ard, an’ ’e gorn up there ter sit wiv’ ’er.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said quickly, her own fears vanishing. She thought of Evie at home asleep in her clean, quiet nursery in the afternoon sun, with someone to watch over her all the time, and Edward, his fair head bent over his books as he had been when she left. “I’m very sorry.”

“Bless yer, luv, it ’appens. ’Appens every day ter some poor soul.”

“I suppose so. That doesn’t stop it being like the end of the world when it happens to you.”

“Course it don’t. Yer sure yer all right, now? You in’t from ’round ’ere, are yer?” His eyes narrowed with concern. Suddenly she realized what he might imagine—an elopement, or far worse, a respectable woman fallen on desperate times and taking to the streets as an attempt to meet impossible debts … or worst of all, perhaps, seeking an illegal abortion. She forced herself to smile cheerfully and frankly at him, meeting his worried eyes.

“Yes, I am all right,” she said firmly. “But if she doesn’t come, perhaps you can tell me where I could get a hansom to take me home again? I have the fare,” she added hastily.

“Right ’ere’s as good as any place,” he answered. “Or yer could try Commercial Road. That way!” He pointed, stretching out his arm. “Well, if yer all right then, I’ll get ’ome ter me tea. Gor’ bless yer.”

“And bless you too,” she said with warmth. She watched him walk off and turn down an alley to the left, and wondered what he did and what family he was going back to.

She was still facing the way he had gone when a hansom stopped a dozen yards away and Tallulah scrambled out, paid, and came hurrying towards her. She looked untidy, very different in a navy stuff dress with no frills, and a gray shawl.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” she said breathlessly. “I had to tell so many lies to get away without Papa thinking there was anything odd. Sometimes I get so tired of being told what to do. And now Mama has agreed I really must accept the next remotely reasonable offer of marriage if there’s a title, whether there’s money or not. Papa is going to insist.” Almost unconsciously she glanced at the church, then back at Emily again, her eyes dark with
foreboding. “Of course there won’t be one, if Finlay’s charged. Do you really think we can do anything?”

“Of course we can,” Emily said boldly, taking her arm. “And I do believe you about seeing him at the party.”

Tallulah looked at her curiously.

“What I mean is,” Emily said quickly, “I am not merely accepting your word, which is pleasant but of no use. I went there yesterday evening and met a young man. He had no idea who was there on that occasion, but he does know Finlay.”

“How does that help?” Tallulah asked, standing in the middle of the footpath, her face creased with anxiety.

“Well, it doesn’t prove he was there, but it shows he could have been, and that you at least know the place. And presumably you could prove that you were not where you told your father you were … if you had to?”