Untitled (35 page)

   Was that what she once was herself, she wonders, nothing more than a trained monkey? She wraps her arms around herself.

   Jane points up the stairs. "Here they come," she whispers.

   "Then get back to your work."

   "Yes, ma'am." She hurries through the doorway to the stairs down to the kitchen.

   The widow is between the two men, as though she has already been arrested. Her face is a ghastly white, and she trips. Robert reaches for her shoulder to steady her, but she flinches away. Down the stairs she comes, down to the hallway, where they lead her into the drawing room. Mina follows. Hardly has she set foot across the threshold when Dixon spins on his heel.

   "This is no place for a lady like you, Mrs. Bentley."

   She looks beyond him to Robert. "I believe I can be of help."

   Dixon is between them. He says, "Help a detective from Scotland Yard?" He has the effrontery to laugh. "I believe I can handle things from here, madam."

   Then the door swings shut in her face.

Chapter 30

F
lyte is a patient man. For over four hours now he has walked up and down this street, smoking, reading a newspaper, standing in a dark doorway to eat the hot potato Steiner brought him. At times he has had to blow on his fingers to warm them, and when his bladder ached he had to take off down the street and into a dark alley to relieve himself.

   You need stamina for this sort of waiting. Days can pass with no reward. Today he has been in luck, though. The door opened and out came Mr. Bentley. Here he looks small and vulnerable. Funny that, how prison can make a perfectly ordinary gentleman seem more elegant and poised. Coming down the steps, Mr. Bentley looked about him. The last place Mr. Bentley would expect to see him would be standing in his street in a greatcoat. However, one cannot be too careful, so Flyte turned away.

   By the time he turned back there was a woman at a window on the first floor—was it her? He can't be sure. A pale face, a dark dress. He thought she was watching the street. Does she know that he has found her? If she does she'll be worried enough to make an escape, no matter how comfortable that house has been for her.

   How would she have guessed, though? From Mr. Bentley? His name slipping out in the course of a conversation? A description of the curious man who was so attentive an assistant, and who she somehow recognized as him? Or was Steiner not sufficiently inconspicuous, loitering in the street day after day? Not a remarkable man, but one who might be noticed as not belonging. And of course, there was that ill-advised burglary when the new maid started. Steiner never was a man for caution.

   Three hours later Mr. Bentley came back with a shabby man in a bowler hat who has not yet come out. A man with the air of soiled working-class respectability he's familiar with. The air of a detective. He knows he has lingered here too long. Now he feels noticeable, but how can he leave? Has Bentley found her out? Has the detective come to arrest her? Then how will he get what is his?

   There's a movement in front of the house, and he follows it with his eyes while seeming to have his attention on a dog sniffing along the gutter. Just a maid in a tight coat and a cheap hat scurrying up the area steps and along the pavement. Off she goes, rushing along with her arms folded across her chest and a nervous look about her. Has she been sent on an urgent errand? She might be worth following. Yet—what is going on in the house? He watches the maid hungrily as she makes her way down the street, then forces his gaze back to the windows.

        
T
he cold air burns her chest. From inside come noises— pans clattering and a burst of song in a woman's voice. Then the same woman calling, "You going t'get that, Doris? I've got me hands full here."

   Jane still has her arms folded across her chest and they ache. The trouble is that if she moves them the packet could fall out from under her coat and into the filth of coal dust and mold and troddendown snow that covers the area's paving stones.

   A woman opens the door a few inches—the maid from last time. "You again?" she says.

   "Yes."

   The woman sighs loudly. "Come in, then." She leaves Jane just in

side the door and calls into a backroom, "Ted? Ted? Got a job for you." Then she nods at one of the kitchen chairs for Jane to sit down. "He'll take you up in a minute."

   So she sits with her hands folded into her lap. What a piece of luck—the woman assuming she needs to see the master again, and calling Teddy like that. Just as well she didn't call the butler, or Jane would have had to explain herself.

   The scullery maids are shelling boiled eggs at the table, backs to her, but they steal glances over their shoulders. A servant with a message from her mistress to their master, twice in a week—now that is the sort of thing that tempts the imagination. Jane avoids their eyes, concentrating on the grain of the floorboards at her feet and an arc of bread crumbs missed by whoever swept up.

   Teddy comes out with his sleeves rolled up and a mug of tea in one hand. His mouth snaps closed in surprise.

   "Got another message from her mistress, hasn't she?" says the maid.

   "Oh?" He comes closer and sets his mug on the table. He folds his sleeves down carefully, and takes his jacket from the back of a chair. "Mr. Jarman not around?"

   "Gone to the postbox."

   "I see."

   He doesn't seem pleased to see her. She is a chore, a person to be escorted upstairs when evidently he is busy. Is he pretending for the sake of the maids, or has she caught him off guard? Jane stares into his face. He coolly looks back at her.

   "Come on, then," he says, and he jerks his head to indicate she should come with him.

   The air is chilly in the stairwell, and they only make it as far as the landing before he spins around and forces her against the wall and pushes his face against hers. "What on earth are you doing here?"

   "Got a message, haven't I?" His mouth is hot on her neck, almost too hot. "Not for him, though. For you."

   "For me?"

   She's glad the light is dim, because all the way here she imagined

how he was going to look at her, and what she would tell him, and whether she should tell him at all. "She wants to see you."

   "Your mistress?"

   "Yes."

   He leans back, away from her. "She wants to see
me
? Why?"

   "I haven't been doing a good enough job. Finding out about your master." He's looking away, up the stairs. "She sent me here to ask you. And I thought you'd—well, that you'd want to know." Her voice fades.

   "Yes," he says, but she can tell he's thinking of something else.

   She waits, her back still against the wall. At last she says, "So will you?"

   "All right, then. Tonight. I'll come tonight. Tell her that. I don't know what time, so she'll just have to wait." His face swings back towards her. "And you?" he says more gently. "Are you going to wait for me too?"

   "Yes."

   His head tips towards hers, but he doesn't kiss her. Instead his lips brush her cheek, then she feels the warmth of his tongue across her skin and the coolness of the moisture it leaves. It moves down to her mouth, over her lips, across the ledge of her chin and to her neck. He pulls her hard against him, and from between them comes the crackle of stiff paper. He pulls back. "What's this?"

   "Something for you to keep safe for me." She pulls the packet out from under her coat. "I haven't got anywhere to hide it."

   He takes it from her. "What on earth have you been up to?"

        
M
ina comes into the study and stands beside him at the desk. "Well?" she says.

   Robert leans back in the chair. "Well? Well, he says he'll 'look into it,' whatever that means."

   "And what did she have to say for herself ?"

   He reaches for her hand and holds it in his. "I hope you're right about her, my darling. Because she told a good story."

   "She's had plenty of time to think of one." She squeezes his hand. "So what was it, this story of hers?"

   "That they got married on board the steamer. They met the first day of the voyage and Henry was so taken with her that he proposed soon afterwards. She says she was eager to escape her dreadful employer, whom she was accompanying on a trip home—an unbearable woman, she says, who detested Henry and whom he detested in turn. So they got married, right there on the ship."

   "Did the detective believe her?"

   "Dixon? What's not to believe? He never met Henry. He doesn't have any idea how unlikely the whole thing is."

   "It's preposterous. She can't provide any proof."

   "Dixon said he'd investigate. The ship's log is lost, so the best he can do is to chase up the other survivors and see if they've heard of this marriage."

   She pulls her hand free and sits on the edge of the desk. "Even if he bothers, I know what will happen. None of them will remember a marriage, and for lack of other evidence we'll be told to presume they
were
married. How will we be able to protest without looking heartless?"

   "We can't assume she's guilty. We have to let him look into it."

   "Oh, Robert." She gives one hard shake of her head. "Do you really think she's what she says? The scheme is a clever one, but she could have come up with it herself. Or perhaps someone else did, someone else who stands to profit from it."

   "Now really, Mina—"

   "Don't you read the paper? The world is full of swindlers. The good ones succeed because they appear to be what they claim."

   "Darling, I've come across many criminals in my work. I think I can tell—"

   "You've only seen them once they've been found out. They're they ones who've failed. How about all the ones still out there, undiscovered?" She gestures towards the window. "Why is it so impossible to believe that we could be harboring one?"

   "You should join the detective force, my darling. You look at a respectable woman and see a criminal."

   "No, Robert. It's rather that she's not a practiced liar. Maybe this is the first time she's attempted something like this—do you see why I suspect someone put her up to it, someone who's kept out of sight, letting her take the risk but who's waiting for the insurance company to pay her? Fifteen thousand pounds, Robert, that's quite a prize, even if they don't wait for this house to be sold and Henry's share of it."

   "Dixon advised her not to do anything rash." He weaves his fingers together and lays them on his belly. "So she's going to be on our hands for a little while longer. Leaving now would make her look suspicious."

   "Then let's hope she keeps to her room. I don't think I could bear to eat dinner with her again, knowing she's lied and not being able to do a thing about it."

   He sighs. "Mina, we don't have proof."

   "Isn't that the beauty of the scheme? There's little chance that there's any proof to be had." She crosses to the window, where she stares out into the dimness of the winter afternoon.

   Is it the widow she is thinking of ? Perhaps. Or perhaps it is the fact that she sent Jane off over an hour ago, yet Popham's valet still hasn't come to see her. Of course, he must be working. But tomorrow is Thursday, and at seven o'clock Popham's carriage will stop in front of this house, and he will step down, and she will have no choice but to go with him.

   Still, it is only Wednesday. There is still time.

   And she is sure the valet is nothing if not greedy.

        
T
here's something more tempting about gold than banknotes, and something more usefully anonymous. Mina spills the sovereigns onto the desk between them—no point being coy when so much is at stake. One rolls off and falls silently to the carpet.

   She sees him move ever so slightly, as though instinctively he must pick it up. But he doesn't; he merely follows it to where it has come to rest, somewhere by his feet.

   "You're generous, Mrs. Bentley," he says. "But you still haven't said what you want from me."

   She lets her head rest against the back of the chair. He's a younger man than she expected, and more handsome, too, with dark hair combed back and a narrow nose. No wonder Jane didn't object to letting him befriend her. It occurs to her that maybe the maid has been
too
eager to please this young man, and him her. As soon as this is over, she will have to make sure that Jane leaves her service. How could she keep a maid who's become friendly with the valet of a man who means her harm? How, for that matter, could she let her take a position in the house of anyone whose path she and Robert might cross? These things, though, are not difficult to arrange. An accusation of a small theft, the proof found in Jane's box—a pair of earrings, or silver spoons—the police called in. After that no respectable lady will hire her.

   She rests her hands on the edge of the desk. "Your master has something belonging to my family that he has declined to return."

   "Let me guess—you'd like it back, would you?"

   Already he is a little too at ease. She mustn't let him see how this annoys her. Instead she lays one hand on the other on the desk. "Indeed I would. Some letters. Probably a dozen at most."

   There is the slightest suggestion of a smile around his mouth. "Love letters, Mrs. Bentley?"

   She bites the side of her tongue and stretches her fingers, slowly. "Naturally," she says. "And naturally, the person who wrote them is unable or unwilling to arrange for their safe return herself. I will pay you for your time and the risk that you will no doubt take in locating them and getting them to me."

   She nods at the coins on the table. "Since the matter is urgent, I will pay you the same amount again when the letters are in my hand."