Undesirable Liaison (3 page)

‘Oh, not on
your part,’ said Flo in haste. ‘I believe the lady who brought this
garment in to you had perhaps not intended to dispose of it.’

The
pawnbroker’s head rose up straighter on its stalk of a neck. ‘Then
she had ought to have come and got it before the end date, hadn’t
she? All them clients knows as I puts the goods up for sale if they
don’t come before the end date. I’ve paid ’em for it, and I’ve to
get my money back, ain’t I?’

‘Without doubt.
But for my part, Mr Vaul, I would feel far more comfortable did I
assure myself this particular item was not still wanted by its
previous owner.’

Vaul appeared
nonplussed. He sniffed, his gaze going from Florence to Belinda and
down again to the greatcoat dress.

‘I could keep
a-hold of it until she come in,’ he offered grudgingly.

‘Only you
cannot tell when that might be, and my need is urgent.’

Quick suspicion
shot into the pawnbroker’s beady eye. ‘If it’s urgent, there ain’t
no point in risking a-losing of that there gown. I ain’t got
another like it.’

Florence began
to feel a trifle irritated with Mr Vaul, but she quelled the
feeling, preparing to pursue the argument. But she reckoned without
her impatient younger sister.

‘Well, she can
find one elsewhere, can’t she?’ cut in Belinda. ‘Why don’t you just
give us the lady’s direction and stop making such a fuss?’

Vaul visibly
bridled. ‘And who might you be, if I may make so bold as to
ask?’

‘You mayn’t!’
she snapped back.

‘Do be quiet,
Belinda,’ begged Flo in an under-voice. ‘Leave this to me.’

‘But we could
be here all day.’

Florence
ignored her. ‘Mr Vaul—’

‘If you think
I’m a-going to give you any client’s direction, miss, you’re
mistook. Nor I ain’t doing it at the bidding of any pert young
madam, and so I tell you.’

A growl to her
left induced Flo to rap at her sibling with a surreptitious
backhand, meanwhile pinning what she hoped was an ingratiating
smile to her lips.

‘Allow me to
apologise for my rag-mannered sister, Mr Vaul. And instead, let me
draw to your attention the fineness of this material and the
excellent cut. Would you not suppose it to have been fashioned in
Paris?’

But the
pawnbroker, eyeing the younger girl with repugnance, was not to be
seduced by this means. ‘I don’t know nothing of fashion, miss, nor
I don’t want to.’

‘Yet I am
certain you have a good eye for quality.’

Vaul’s gaze
wavered, dropping to the cloth where Flo’s gloved hand was
stroking. ‘I knows a good broadcloth when I sees it,’ he
conceded.

‘Exactly so.
You are far better placed than I to judge, but am I wrong to think
the dress has been made quite recently?’

It was clear,
from the softening at his shoulders, that the pawnbroker was as
susceptible to flattery as the next man. He took a fold of the
fabric in hand and felt it.

‘Plenty of wear
yet,’ he muttered. ‘No stray threads. Two, three year mebbe.’

‘I knew you
must be able to tell,’ said Florence with assumed affability. ‘Do
you not think the owner may have meant it for a temporary loan?
Perhaps she had not the means to reclaim it by the due date and was
too ashamed or afraid to ask you for an extension.’

For a moment,
Flo feared she had overdone it. Mr Vaul did not look as if he
relished the thought of granting anyone an extension. He hesitated,
she guessed, only because it would not look well on his part to say
so. She pressed her advantage.

‘I know it must
be an unusual request to grant, for naturally you will wish to
honour the trust your clients have placed in you. But as a busy
man, I could not ask you to waste time going to see the lady
yourself, so that—’

‘Lady?’
interrupted Vaul with a derisive snort. ‘She ain’t no lady. Might
be a lady’s maid, a-coming on behalf of one for all I know. Ain’t
my business to enquire.’

‘Then pray let
me do so, Mr Vaul.’

‘I might, if I
could remember her name,’ said the pawnbroker, entering a caveat.
‘Nor I don’t remember no direction neither.’

Belinda began
simmering beside her, but Florence kept her temper.

‘But you have
it written down, I don’t doubt,’ she said sweetly, and waited.

It was a bow
drawn at a venture. While she knew a ticket was all that was
required for the person who had pawned an item to redeem it, there
was logic in the notion some sort of record must be kept. After
all, should there be a question on ownership—it was not unknown,
she believed, to find stolen property in such a place as this—Vaul
might be obliged to demonstrate to the authorities that he had
acquired an object in good faith. For all she knew, records of
acquisition might be a legal requirement.

There was no
reason in the world why Vaul should divulge the necessary
information. But if she had formed a reasonably accurate estimation
of his character, his conscience was not of the order to balk at
breaking faith with anyone.

After a lengthy
pause, during which the pawnbroker ruminated, chewing his lower lip
and staring at Florence the while, her supposition proved correct.
Turning away to the groaning dresser behind him, he extracted a
large ledger from one of its drawers.

‘I ain’t got no
mind to argufy no more,’ he explained in a surly fashion as he
thumbed the pages. ‘Nor I don’t suppose as you’ll go afore you gets
it.’

Which was true,
but Flo refrained from saying so, instead occupying herself with
refolding the greatcoat dress and placing it back in the basket. He
selected a page and ran one grimy finger down it, stopping with a
grunt of triumph.

‘Name of
Pinxton. Charlotte Street.’

Memorising the
number, Flo thanked him and left the premises with alacrity.
Belinda vented her disgust, her breath forming a little misty cloud
in the cold air.

‘What a horrid
creature!’ She gave an artistic shudder under the enveloping folds
of a large woollen cloak that made her look bigger than she was.
‘I’m so glad you didn’t tell him about the ruby, Flo.’

‘No, that would
certainly have been fatal.’ Florence took off at a smart pace, her
mind shifting to the little information she had gleaned.

‘Where are we
going now? Charlotte Street, I suppose.’

There was
resignation in the tone and Flo threw her sister a fleeting look.
‘I see no point in delay.’

Belinda gave a
grunt of agreement, and kept pace in silence for a moment or two.
That she had also been thinking over the interview with the
pawnbroker became evident when she spoke again.

‘What if this
Pinxton person never meant to get the gown back at all?’

‘What, indeed?’
A grim thought, one that had already occurred to Flo.

‘I mean, if she
didn’t,’ pursued Belinda, ‘she couldn’t have known about the ruby,
could she?’

‘I imagine
not.’

‘If she is a
lady’s maid, which is only what Mr Vaul thinks, she ought to have
known about it. Which means she probably isn’t a lady’s maid.’ Her
voice took on excitement. ‘In which case, Flo, she must have stolen
the greatcoat dress.’

Florence looked
round at her sister with suspicion in her eyes. ‘If you are trying
to come by a valid reason why we may keep the ruby, Bel—’

‘I’m not, Flo,
I swear I’m not. At least,’ she amended, ‘I still wish we might,
but that isn’t what I’m getting at.’

‘What are you
getting at then?’

Belinda
grimaced. ‘I’m not sure. But it does look as though this Pinxton
creature has a trifle of explaining to do.’

‘Not if she was
requested to dispose of the gown by the owner.’

‘That won’t
fadge, for the owner must have known about the ruby, and she
couldn’t have wanted to be rid of it, unless she was a
moonling.’

‘Or if she
desired to keep it hidden for a time.’ Florence was thinking aloud.
‘Perhaps she felt the gown was safer in a pawnshop than in her own
home. If she had been ill, for example, and unable to secure the
ruby.’

‘And someone
was planning to steal it from her,’ interpolated Belinda with
relish.

Flo smiled.
‘Nothing so melodramatic, I am persuaded.’

‘Well, but you
said she might have wanted to keep it safe.’

‘Yes, but not
from anyone in particular. Recollect she had already disposed of
the other two in the set.’

Belinda stopped
dead. ‘What other two?’

Remembering too
late that she had not mentioned this particular discovery to her
sister, Florence groaned inwardly and resigned herself to revealing
what she had found. Fortunately, Belinda proved too intent upon
unravelling what she conceived to be a mystery to cavil at this
news having been withheld.

‘Then she must
already have sold the others, which proves she cannot have meant
this one to be put in danger of being lost. But why in the world
should a lady able to purchase such a gown be put to the necessity
of selling her jewels?’

‘That question,
Bel, has been puzzling me for the better part of the night.’

The rest of the
way was beguiled by a series of lurid suppositions put forward by
Belinda, despite Flo’s suggestion that further speculation was
useless. It was preferable, however, to being subjected to
arguments on the subject of keeping the ruby. Although Florence,
faced with the prospect of confronting the person called Pinxton
without disclosing her true reason, was hard put to it not to
succumb to a craven desire to abandon the search and do precisely
what Belinda had wanted in the first place: dispose of the gem and
make use of the proceeds.

Paying scant
attention to her sister’s chatter, she half lost herself in a
beatific daydream of a comfortable little house tucked away in a
country parish, with a maid to do the heavy work and a few pleasant
families with whom to socialise, perhaps among whom a suitor might
be found for Belinda. A curate? Or the local doctor’s son. Even a
lawyer. If one were to invest some of the money in the Funds, a
thousand pounds would go a long way.

‘This is it,’
announced Belinda, coming to a halt. ‘Gracious, what a dingy
looking place!’

Florence came
to herself with a faint feeling of regret. She was standing before
a narrow building, one of a long terrace, with a set of dirty steps
leading up to a columned portico. The stone was etched with cuts
and abrasions, and dark paint was flaking on the heavy door. A bay
window to one side showed dull and dusty, and one of the panes was
cracked. Was this what the fair owner of the gown had come to?

Taking a breath
to steady a sudden lurching in her stomach, Flo trod boldly up to
the porch.

‘Come along,
Bel. Nothing is to be gained by standing there gawking.’

She lifted the
knocker and dealt the door a couple of sharp raps. There was a wait
of several moments.

‘Maybe there’s
nobody in,’ said Belinda from behind her. ‘Knock again, Flo.’

But even as
Florence put up her fingers to do so, she heard sounds within
betokening an arrival. The door opened a short way and an elderly
female face peered round. It was not at all what she had
expected.

‘Yes?’ An
unfriendly tone, almost belligerent.

‘Mrs
Pinxton?’

The door opened
a little wider, revealing a female of small stature, dressed in the
manner of a housekeeper. ‘First floor,’ she uttered succinctly, and
stepped back to allow the visitors to pass.

With a murmured
word of thanks, Florence approached the stairs, relieved to find
this was not her quarry. On the landing, she hesitated between two
doors, both closed, and finally chose the one closest.

‘Look at the
wallpaper, Flossie,’ whispered Belinda.

There was not
much light let in by a small window above the stairwell, but even
in this dim atmosphere, it was easy to note the grime and patches
where spreading damp had smudged the print of leaves and flowers on
a faded ground of crimson and white stripes. The house must once
have been almost fashionable. Like its inhabitants, it had come
down in the world.

In the midst of
this examination, Flo was startled by an insolent voice demanding
her business. Turning sharply, she discovered a female standing in
the aperture of the now open door. Light from the room behind
revealed an angular creature, garbed in a pretty chintz gown
Florence at once suspected was unsuited to her status, or indeed
her years.

Lank brown
locks fell to her shoulders, restrained by a bandeau. Within them
was a face pinched and tight. With defiance? Or was it suspicion?
An impression accentuated by a thin nose, a pursed mouth and small,
snapping grey eyes. The woman could have been anywhere between
thirty and forty, but it was instantly apparent she was not the
owner of a dark blue and fashionable greatcoat dress.

‘Are you Mrs
Pinxton?’ Flo asked her, maintaining an air of calm.

‘What if I am?’
returned the other, the grey orbs flicking from Flo to Belinda and
back again.

Flo summoned
her best authoritarian manner. ‘I have business with Mrs Pinxton.
If you are she, perhaps we may be permitted to talk with you for a
moment or two. In private, if you please.’

The woman
hesitated, seeming unable to make up her mind whether or not to
trust her unexpected visitors.

‘What sort of
business?’

‘That,’ said
Flo, becoming haughty, ‘concerns only Mrs Pinxton.’

The creature
sniffed. ‘It’s Miss. I was never married. Miss Pinxton.’

Flo nodded
carelessly, instinctively taking a high hand. A very different type
of character was this from Mr Vaul the pawnbroker. ‘You will not
object to letting us in, I think.’

A grudging
respect showed in Miss Pinxton’s eyes, but she did not budge.

‘That depends,
ma’am. What is it you want with me?’