The Mermaid in the Basement (20 page)

“So you really didn’t find out anything new, Matthew?”

Grant had given Superintendent Winters his report. It had been brief, for he really had no new information.

“No murder weapon?”Winters asked.

“Not likely to find that, sir.” Grant paused, then said rather awkwardly, “I’ve had difficulty with this investigation.”

“What difficulty?”Winters asked quickly. “It seems like an open and shut case to me.”

“Oh yes, as far as the evidence against young Newton is concerned, but talking to the family and the servants, I formed an idea of the suspect. He has a hot temper, but he doesn’t come across, in my mind, as a murderer. The last person I talked to was Miss Aldora Newton. She’s the youngest daughter. Very fragile young woman. She was crying when I found her.”

Winters stared at the younger man. “You’re not getting soft, are you, Matthew?”

Grant laughed shortly. “I trust not. I can’t afford to be soft.”

Winters came around the desk and put his hand on the inspector’s shoulder. Grant had been his protégé, and Winters had spent considerable effort making him the best policeman the Yard had. “Don’t get too hard, Matthew.”

Surprised, Grant stared into Winters’s eyes. The older man was taller and more powerfully built, and there was an air of power in him. “Well, the girl was . . . vulnerable, I suppose you might say.”

“I suppose every murderer has some good relatives, but I don’t have to warn you, surely, that it’s dangerous to listen to your heart. Too many have said that you don’t have one.”

Grant saw that Winters was mocking him in a good-natured way, and he nodded. “That’s me, the heartless Inspector Matthew Grant.Well, I’ll keep you posted if I turn up anything new, but it doesn’t look good for young Newton.”

“Viscountess, there’s a man here who wants to see you.”

“What man is that, Ellie?”

“I—I don’t know, ma’am. He’s not a gentleman. A rather rough-looking old man.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“He said he has to talk to you.You want me to have Barden send him away?”

“No, I’ll see him.Where is he now?”

“I didn’t want to let him in the house, miss, so he’s outside the servants’ entrance in the back.”

“I’ll go out there and see him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Serafina made her way through the house and down the hall past the kitchen, and turned off toward the door that led to the back of the house. As soon as she stepped out, she saw the man, his hair dirty and dead-looking and his face grey as old bread. He was wearing the roughest of clothing, his shoes were terribly worn, and he leaned on a rough stick.

When he turned to her, she saw that his head was turned to one side, apparently in some kind of permanent fixation. A shapeless old hat that he didn’t bother to remove covered part of his face. As soon as she stepped out, he said in a cracked voice, husky and rough, “Be you the viscountess?”

“I’m Viscountess Trent.What do you want?”

“What do I want?” The old man cackled and winked at her. There were wrinkles in his face, and she guessed his age at somewhere past sixty. He took the stick and jabbed it in the ground.“I comes to do yer a favour, that’s wot,” he said, then he began to cough. He dragged a dreadful-looking rag out of his pocket and held it over his face while he seemed to strangle. Finally he blew his nose, hawked, and spat on the ground. “I got a bit of a cold.”

“What do you want?”

The old man leered at her, leaned forward, and whispered huskily, “Wot would yer like better than anything in the world,Viscountess Trent?”

Serafina did not know what to make of this man. He was obviously a transient of some kind, and she said, “I don’t have time for this. If you’re hungry, I’ll have them bring you something to eat.”

“Well now, that’s good of you, ’cause I could use a bite to eat, but you ain’t found out why I’m ’ere yet, ’ave you now?”

“What do you want with me? Speak up, man!”

“Why, Viscountess Serafina Trent, I’m surprised that you be so cruel to a poor old, broken-down man.”

Serafina gasped with surprise, for as the man stood up, she saw that he was taller than she had thought—and the voice was one she knew. She gasped. “Is—is that you, Dylan?”

“It’s myself, I am—and nobody else.”

Anger that he had deceived her rose in Serafina’s breast. “What in the world are you doing in that awful garb?”

Dylan moved closer. “I’m going down to question some people in the Seven Dials section about the woman Clive was with. Too many people know me in that area. I’ve gotten respectable now, and they’re not going to trust a respectable man. But they’ll talk to a broken old man sometimes.”

Serafina was shocked at his appearance. “I would never have known you!”

“Why, good to hear, that is. One good thing about acting, I’ve learnt to disguise myself fairly well, but nobody down in the Seven Dials will trust a toff—a swell, that is.”His eyes were clear as he watched her, and he smiled suddenly, saying, “We never know who anybody is. An American writer said that, fellow named Melville.Wrote about a whale. He’s right, I think. People are one thing on the outside and another on the inside.”

“That’s not always true.”

“Maybe not always, but it usually is.”

“Dylan, I want to see the room where Kate Fairfield was murdered.”

“The police probably have the house locked. I doubt they’d let you see it.”

“But I need to get inside.”

“How badly?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I can get us in, but it will be against the law. Can’t you just see the papers? ‘Aristocratic lady and actor break into house.’”

“I must see that room even if it’s risky.”

“Very well.We’ll do it tonight.”

“What about your play?” she asked, surprised at his quick agreement.

“After the play’s over, we’ll do it. We’ll wait until after midnight.

Shakespeare had a great line about that time. He said the night is the time when ‘thieves and robbers range abroad unseen.’” Dylan’s magnificent voice rolled with the words, and he laughed suddenly. “That’s us, Lady Serafina—thieves and robbers. Come to the play tonight. Afterwards we’ll burgle the house. Now I must go to work . . .”

“I’ll see you tonight, Dylan.” She watched him go, bent over and hobbling as soon as he turned to leave her. She was amazed at how complete and effective the disguise was, and as she turned, she thought about what he had said. And then she straightened her shoulders and muttered, “If I have to be a robber to clear my brother, I’ll do it!”

ELEVEN

C
ome inside,Viscountess Trent. There’s something I have to pick up in my rooms.”

Serafina hesitated. She had attended the play and, even more than at the previous performance, she had been aware of Dylan’s power to move people. His role, of course, was not the key role in the play. That was reserved for the character of Hamlet, but every moment that Dylan was on the stage, he held the attention of the audience, herself included, with an intensity she would not have believed.

The two had waited until the rest of the cast had left, then Dylan had brought her outside and they had found a hansom cab. The night was dark, nigrescent almost, for there was no moon.When the carriage stopped, by the pale glow of the gaslight she was barely able to see the outline of a building. Dylan paid the cabdriver and dismissed him, then he took her arm and led her up the steps. “Why did you send the cab away?” she asked. “Is Miss Fairfield’s house close by?”

“Close enough,” he said, “but we wouldn’t want anybody to give a testimony to the police that they took us there.”

His answer disturbed Serafina. She had never even considered breaking the law, yet now she was set on a course that led her to do exactly that! She steeled herself against such implications, blotting out of her mind the possibilities—which were dreadful indeed!

Dylan opened the door to the house, stepped inside, and then allowed her to enter. He shut the door and nodded at a flight of stairs dimly outlined by the lamp on the table in the downstairs hallway. “My rooms are upstairs,” he said. He stepped back and allowed her to go up the stairway first. At the top of the stairs, he turned and said, “Down on the end to the left.”

Serafina followed him, and when he produced a key and entered the door, he turned and said,“Let me go inside and get on a light.” She waited there, and then she saw the blue spurt of a lighted match before the gaslights came on.

“Come inside. This will take only a minute,” Dylan said.

Serafina stepped inside and looked around. It was not the sort of room she had expected, although she could not have said why. Everything was as neat as in her own room. The furniture was well chosen though simple, and good prints were on the walls. A door to the left apparently led off to a kitchen and dining area, and one on the right to a bedroom area. She watched as Dylan moved over to a desk. He reached behind it. She heard a faint click, and then he slid a part of the desk away. He brought forth what appeared to be a small leather bag.

He closed the desk, came back, and smiled. “Now you know where my treasures are.”

“You have a secret hiding place in your desk?”

“Yes. I think we’re ready now.”

“What’s in the bag?” Serafina asked, unable to control her curiosity any longer.

Dylan untied the leather strap and unrolled the bag. It was not a bag actually but an oblong piece of leather with pouches in it. She saw instruments of steel gleaming in the night. Some of them were tiny as a hair, it seemed, and others were sturdier. Some had hooks and some corkscrews on the end. “It’s a burglar’s kit, Viscountess. I could open any door in London with these.”

Serafina, startled, looked up into his eyes. She knew they were a light blue, but they seemed darker this evening. She saw that he was considering her, and his lips twisted slightly as if he were restraining a smile. He suddenly said, “I don’t suppose you’ve spent many evenings with burglars?”

“No, indeed, but this is different. This is to save my brother’s life.”

Dylan nodded his approval. As he rolled the kit up, he said, “You’re right.”

“Why would you have those tools, Dylan?”

“Part of my misspent youth.”

“You were a burglar?”

“Among other things.When I came to London, I didn’t have a penny. I was starving on the street. A family took me in, fed me. Saved my life, I think.”He reached up and ran his hand over his hair; memories stirred in his eyes. “I didn’t know what they did at first for a living, but I soon found out. They were thieves. Since I was small, they used me in several ways.One was to put me into a small window of a house they were going to rob, then I’d go to open the doors and let them in.After I got older,my stealing got to be more complicated. I was taught to open a safe, a simple one at least, and it was no trouble for me to get through any door in London.”

After hearing the terrible story, Serafina was silent for a moment. “Did it bother you to do that?”

“It was all I knew, Viscountess.” His voice was even and calm. “I would have starved, I think, if they hadn’t taken me in. Of course, later on when I came to know the Lord, I put all that behind me. The past is like a road. It’s behind you, and it’s not going to change. But the Lord Jesus forgives us our sins, and He’s forgiven me for that.”

Serafina was uncomfortable, as she always was, when he spoke of God or Jesus. It disturbed her, but she knew that this was no time to argue. She tried to think of a remark, but finally said simply, “I suppose it was something you had to do.”

Dylan saw her problem but did not attempt to resolve it for her. “Come along,” he said, and laughter glowed in his eyes. “It’ll be quite an experience to see the Viscountess Serafina Trent burgling a house.”

The house to which Dylan led her was no more than a quarter of a mile away. Some of the streets were lit by gaslights, but they were faint flickering things. More than once, shadowy figures stirred and moved toward them, and more than once Dylan raised his voice and said, “Move on there or it’ll be the worse for you.”

Serafina knew a touch of fear then. This was a world that she did not know, the midnight world of London, when—as Dylan had already told her—thieves and robbers ranged abroad.