The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (4 page)

"A great ugly thing like that? Don't you think I'd have noticed?"

I went over the evening's events in my mind. First Lazarus, then the bear, and then that woman, so out of place and yet attaching herself to me with such purpose.

"Blast and buggery!" I cried.

She hadn't been after my custom at all--nor my silver flask or money.

The doxy-that-wasn't had been after the statue all along. And I'd fallen for the oldest pickpocket's trick in the world!

A good, long soak in our mahogany-encased tub would have gone far toward soothing my injured dignity had I not been terrified of what Goddard would say. Not only was the porcelain dog no longer where he thought it was, but there was no way of knowing where it had gone. Putting aside the embarrassing fact it had been lifted off me by a girl--and who the devil knew what she wanted with it--Goddard was in shit's creek to his neck, and having lost the abominable thing, I was in it to my eyeballs.

And there was Goddard's sworn enemy St. Andrews, here in our very home. From what Goddard had said in the past, St. Andrews would have happily pushed him under a carriage. The feeling was mutual. So what was he doing in Goddard's study? And why did Goddard want to conceal this fact from me?

Apart from their mutual antipathy, the only thing Goddard and St. Andrews had in common was their preference for their own sex. Labouchere's law had made it possible to jail either one of them on just a rumor of indecent behavior. St. Andrews was so obvious it was only a matter of time before some enterprising blackmailer tried his hand. But Goddard was pathologically careful. I could count the number of people who knew about us on one hand--and they were all well bought.

Who would go after them both? Together? And why?

A timid knock on the bathroom door brought me back to tepid water with sodden eucalyptus leaves floating on the top, cooling embers in the fireplace, and the magazine of dreadful stories which Eileen, our girl-of-all-work, had left the night before for my enjoyment. I'd set the latter aside in favor of my melancholic ruminations, and it now hung limply over the side of the tub, one corner dragging the surface of the water.

"Mr. Ira, sir?" called this same Eileen from the hallway. "I've brought your water."

The water heater in the corner of Goddard's bathroom was no smaller than any other in London. Considering the novelty of indoor plumbing, I should have been grateful for even its miserly capacity. But when one has spent his childhood washing knees to chin in a copper basin behind twenty-seven other workhouse urchins, somehow filling the tub just once never seems quite adequate.

"Mr. Ira?"

I glanced guiltily toward the door, behind which I could hear her struggling with the hot water-filled jug. The sound of Collins running my bath had no doubt awakened her and she'd sprung out of her narrow bed to get the vat on the stove. But I didn't want more hot water. The eucalyptus had irritated the skin between my legs mightily.

And Goddard was still entertaining his nemesis. I just wanted to go to bed.

"Thank you," I called. "Just leave it outside the door."

"Yes, sir," she said with relief. Eileen was sixteen and devout. No doubt she'd have put out her own eyes before accidentally catching a glimpse of a man in his natural state.

I waited until I heard her scurrying down the stairs, and hauled myself out of the deep tub. My head was still a bit spinny from the opium, and I'd pulled something during the struggle with Lazarus. By God, I was going to feel it all in the morning. I gingerly touched my abdomen, where the doctor's elbow had done its worst.
Do no harm
, indeed! Sighing, I dripped across the dragon-patterned rug to the chair by the fireplace, helping myself to a warm towel. After applying a second towel to my sopping curls, I wrapped myself in the green silk pajamas Collins had hung above the chair. I found my slippers and clacked off to bed.

Goddard's bed was just a bit too small for two. It felt enormous, cold, and empty without him in it. I slipped between the silk sheets and let my bones settle into the gentle depressions that had gradually appeared on my side of the mattress over the past two years. Outside, the street was silent. If I focused, I could hear the voices of Goddard and his guest downstairs but couldn't make out their words. If St. Andrews still thought we were behind the letters, he'd have stormed out by now and returned with as much of Scotland Yard as his family's money could purchase. Yet both men's tones sounded civil. No doubt Goddard had told him the matter was resolved and the dog in our possession.

Fuck me.

Stress and exertion eventually took their toll and I fell into a black, dreamless sleep.

I was awakened some time later by furtive tugs at the covers as Goddard attempted to crawl into bed without waking me. He had opened the curtains and the window. The glare from the street lamps below cast our room in an orange haze.

"Is he gone?" I asked.

"Who?"

"St. Andrews."

I propped myself up onto an elbow, rubbing my eyes. Goddard slid beneath the covers, punching his pillow into submission, and rolled onto one side to face me.

"I ran into his little friend Lazarus at the dollyshop," I continued. "He said they're getting the lavender letters, too."

"Indeed," he said.

He was forty-two to my twenty-five, but the soft light smoothed the lines around his eyes, giving his face a porcelain vulnerability that made him seem much younger.

"Why? Who's doing this? What does he want?"

Goddard drew a long breath.

"Do you trust me, Ira?"

"Of course," I said. "I--"

"Then don't ask these questions, I beg you." He let out a long breath and began amusing himself with my curls. "Besides," he said, "none of it matters now that you have the dog."

"Um."

The gloom seemed to close around us. I hadn't thought it possible this could be even more difficult than I'd imagined. My imagination was second to none when it came to predicting the worst.

"You did find it," Goddard said.

"Yes, I...found it."

"And you brought it back?"

I sucked in my breath. He sat up.

"Ira, where in God's name is the dog?"

His voice rose in a way that would have sent his stoutest thug diving under the sofa. My gut clenched, but I held my ground. Goddard shouted occasionally, but had never laid a hand on me.

Yet.

I watched, heart pounding, as he forced himself to inhale deeply and count. He exhaled with excruciating deliberation. He looked down at me with nothing more than simple expectation.

"It's no longer in my possession," I admitted.

"That much is clear, but--"

"I'll get it back, I swear. I just need a few hours' sleep."

And for the sickly sweet smell of the lotus to clear out of my nostrils.

"Hmm," he said doubtfully. Then his gaze fell to my midsection. He teased open the front edges of my pajamas to reveal a large bruise blooming beneath my sternum. "What the devil is that?"

"Sodding Lazarus." I pulled my pajama top closed. "He's quite good with his fists, you know."

"So Lazarus took the dog from you."

He sounded relieved.

"Not exactly," I said.

"Then who did?"

It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble, had I told him everything at that point. I could still see the woman in my mind's eye--her coarse, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes. I could hear her too-perfect Cockney, feel her strong, mannish hands rifling through my pockets. If she was staying in Whitechapel, Goddard's men could have had her on our doorstep by luncheon.

But the shame of my failure would have killed me. Goddard had given me so much--a home, an education, companionship, and material generosity that knew no limits. And in return, he'd asked one simple errand. Even if we did both somehow escape prison now, I'd never be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to complete it.

Moreover, the woman had nicked the statue off me as easily as if I'd been some Piccadilly fop with no more street sense than an infant. She could not be allowed to get away with it.

I could make this right. By God, I would.

"It's a long story, but I'll get it back by day's end," I swore again.

"All right, all right. Rest now. You've had quite a night."

He patted his thigh, and I gratefully laid my head down upon it. Now that his anger had run its course, he was thinking. He hummed softly as he teased the tangles from my hair, pausing to run his manicured fingernails over my cheek now and then. His skin smelled of bergamot, jasmine, and musk. If I weren't so knackered, it would have made me harder than the Rock of Gibraltar.

"It's almost dawn," he finally said. "A few hours won't make a difference, and you're useless without your beauty rest." A smile crept into his voice. "But you must find it, Ira. Our blackmailer mustn't get his hands on it. And that goes double for that prick, St. Andrews."

"Why?" I asked.

I tried to sit up, but he gently held my head against his thigh. The rhythmmic stroking began again, and he said, "The mistakes of youth, dear boy. That's all I can tell you right now. Please trust me."

His hands wandered down, over my shoulder, over my chest, drawing back the edges of the silk pajama top. Gently, his fingers began investigating my bruise. He pulled back quickly when I gasped.

"I don't like this," he said. "I'll summon my physician in the morning."

"'S just a bruise," I said sleepily.

"No arguments. Will you have a drop of laudanum for the pain?"

"I think I've had enough already," I mumbled.

I'd have refused even if I hadn't choked down my weight in
pulvis opii
that evening. Laudanum was safe enough, but I'd seen enough of the damage opium could do during my Whitechapel years. I wanted nothing to do with it in any form.

What the devil would have inspired someone to pack those statues with opium powder, anyway, I wondered. The obvious reason would be to smuggle it somewhere. But why--when even a child could walk into a chemist's shop and purchase the stuff in any of a hundred different forms?

"Cain," I said. "Who does that storeroom belong to?"

"The owner of the pawn shop, I'd imagine," he said.

"And the statues?"

"Why?"

"Because some of them were filled with opium powder."

For several moments, he was absolutely silent. "That is curious," he eventually said.

His tone gave nothing away, except for the fact he'd nothing more to say to me on the matter. There was a bit of jostling as he arranged our pillows between his back and the iron headboard. He turned the bedside lamp on very low, and I heard him shake out the pages of his trusty
Literary Quarterly
.

As I drifted off in the warmth of his lap, my thoughts turned to the Chinese woman who had accosted me in Miller's Court. The Chinese dealt in opium, as did Goddard. Could the blackmailer be one of his rivals? Goddard guarded his personal life so meticulously I couldn't imagine it. And what had he said about "mistakes of youth"?

I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear away the fog of fatigue and lotus. Goddard stroked my hair.

"Whatever you're thinking will keep until morning," he said. "Sleep now."

Morning arrived all too soon. From Goddard's expression, I could tell that he was thinking the same thing. The Duke of Dorset Street typically greeted daybreak with more enthusiasm than a crime lord reasonably should. In the gray light streaming through our bedroom window, I could see the wee hours had treated Goddard even more miserably than they had treated me. His face was pale and his dressing gown hung heavily from his compact, muscular frame. He was clutching the curtain so tightly that even from across the room I could see that his knuckles had gone white. This quiet vigilance was as close to panic as the Duke of Dorset Street ever got.

It didn't suit him in the least.

Outside the sanctuary of our chamber, the manservant's footsteps creaked up the stairs, stopping outside our door.

"Coffee, Collins," Goddard called through the door. "And summon my physician as soon as is decent."

"Yes, sir."

Down on York Street, the day's first carriage rattled by. Goddard pulled back from the window as if the carriage were a police wagon coming to take him away for the crime of lying with a willing man in the privacy of his own chamber. I wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him that it would all work out in the end--even if I couldn't see how it would.

"So Lazarus doesn't have the dog," he said once the carriage had passed.

"No," I replied.

"Bloody hell."

Goddard let the curtain drop with a worrisome resignation, considering he believed every man to be the captain of his own fate. He turned from the window. His gaze wandered from the bed where I was sitting to the spindly bedside table to the wardrobe on the opposite wall. As far as furniture went, Goddard favored clean lines and unvarnished wood, with a few discreet Oriental flourishes. He had commissioned all of his furniture to reflect these tastes, giving the house an elegant, masculine feel I adored.