Rivals in the City: A Mary Quinn Mystery

by Y. S. Lee

  “Put down the gun,” said Mrs Thorold. She continued to retreat towards the mouth of the connecting tunnel.

  James hesitated.

  “Or I’ll snap her neck like a chicken’s,” sneered Mrs Thorold. “It’s not much thicker.”

  James swallowed visibly. “All right,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m putting it down.”

  “Don’t…” began Mary, but Mrs Thorold squeezed her throat tighter, choking off her protest. They were in the shadows, now, poised to vanish into the brick labyrinth.

  “Now kick it towards the door.”

  James obeyed with slow, steady movements, never taking his eyes from Mary’s.

  Mary stared back at him, willing her gaze to convey all the things she felt and had neither time nor breath to utter. As she and James stared at one another, she noticed a subtle change in his expression, from grim neutrality to desperate affection to a tiny flare of … triumph?

  A moment later, Mrs Thorold emitted a small, brief gasp. Instantly, the crushing pressure at Mary’s throat fell away and she stumbled backwards, suddenly deprived of the support of Mrs Thorold’s body. She tripped on something and struck out blindly, furiously, before crumpling to the floor, desperate for air.

  “Mary!” James was instantly by her side. “My God, Mary.”

  For several seconds, all she could do was sputter and choke. The fetid air of the tunnel flooded her throat and lungs, and with it the stinging sensation of life returning. She sobbed and shuddered some more, and feared that she couldn’t possibly get enough air. As her senses spun and tilted, she caught the thread of James’s voice. “How did you do it?” he was asking.

  Mary tried to protest that she’d done nothing. Then she realized that he was speaking to a third party: a slender, black-haired man with a quizzical gaze.

  “Pressure to a precise spot on the throat,” the man was saying. “I will show you, another time. For now…” He pivoted to welcome a new element to the conversation – a figure who emerged briskly from the shadows, coiling a hunting whip.

  “Well done, sir,” said the fourth person, in tones that were slightly husky. “I, too, should be glad of a lesson at a future time, if you would be so gracious.”

  Mary struggled to sit up in the cradle of James’s arms. This couldn’t possibly be a hallucination; she simply hadn’t the imagination to contrive a meeting between these two people, in her fancy. “Lang?” she croaked. “And Miss Treleaven?”

  Anne tried for her usual prim smile, but her lips trembled and a rapid pulse was visible in her throat. “My dear, I came through the readers’ tunnel.”

  Mary nodded. Speech was painful.

  Lang only smiled at Mary mildly, pleasantly, as though they’d met by arrangement. “Hello, Cousin.”

  James looked astonished. “Cousin?” he echoed. “No, don’t try to talk; tell me later.” A moment later, they felt the tremor of rapid, synchronized footsteps one floor above: a phalanx of policemen, marching into the museum. James smiled. He glanced at their audience of two, then kissed Mary gently on the lips. “Much later, I think.”

  Twenty

  Monday, 22 October

  The streets of London

  The joint directors of the firm Quinn and Easton, Private Detectives, were in conference once again. Their office today was in Russell Square, a location chosen specifically for its evocative associations. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and the weather was, as usual, cold, dark, wet and generally abysmal.

  “It seems especially unfair,” said James, “that although you were the principal in this case – all the work and all the risk was yours, in the end – you were still excluded from the police interviews. I thought Chief Inspector Hall would be more enlightened than that.”

  “He was probably just embarrassed by how effective Mrs Thorold’s diversion strategy was. It took for ever and a day for Scotland Yard to arrive.”

  “It’s still unreasonable of him to blame that on you, however indirectly.”

  “I’m feeling philosophical today,” said Mary. “If Chief Inspector Hall prefers to believe that you did most of the work, and I was simply another busybody female who got involved at the last moment, it leaves me free to work more discreetly in the future.”

  “He seems to have wrapped his brain around the idea that Mrs Thorold planned and executed a large-scale crime.”

  “Precisely. We’ll let him grapple with that enormity first before opening the door to a whole parade of female freaks.”

  “Otherwise, what might come next? Women owning property in their own names! Women at university! Women who vote!”

  Mary grinned. “Witches, succubi and vampires.”

  “Speaking of vampires, how is your arm?”

  “Sore, but the physician thinks it ought to heal. The bite wound is not too deep, thanks to the very thick wool of my sleeve. I’m to flush it regularly, keep it well dressed with honey and rest it for a few days.”

  “And your throat?” His gaze hovered at the high collar of her dress, as though he wished to peel it away.

  “Black and blue and nothing more.”

  “You were fortunate.”

  “We were both fortunate. Have the police linked Mrs Thorold to the attack upon you?” Mary shivered. James had told her of it in a minimal, off-hand fashion, but she could picture the gleaming knife only too clearly.

  “Not yet. I doubt they will unless she makes a full confession.”

  Mary frowned, knowing how very unlikely that was. “What about her inside contact at the Bank of England? Has he said anything useful? It seems astonishing to me that she could bend somebody so powerful to her ends.”

  “I don’t think there was much bending to be done. The man in question, Mr Bentley, is well known as a businessman and even better known as a collector of antiquities. His collection of ancient currency pieces is especially admired. I think so long as the Bank’s holdings were never in real danger, he was happy to assist with her project. It was simply another way of augmenting his collection.”

  “Is there any evidence that he and Mrs Thorold have worked together in the past?”

  “Not yet, but Chief Inspector Hall is optimistic.”

  Their boots crunched in the gravel and Mary indicated a particular bench, currently occupied by a nurse and her two small charges. “That’s where Mrs Thorold laid out her plan to Angelica, and promised to shed no blood.”

  James frowned. “She never had the slightest intention of keeping her word. Even at the time she made that promise, she had administered an initial dose of arsenic to everybody at the museum. That’s about forty people.”

  “It was definitely arsenic?”

  “Chemical tests show that large quantities of arsenic were mixed into the sugar, flour and salt stores in the pantry at the museum. Although the different households at the museum have their own cooks and dining rooms, they all obtain their supplies from the same storeroom. By ensuring that all the dry staples were contaminated with significant quantities of arsenic, Mrs Thorold was able to ensure that every person, no matter his or her appetite or dietary preferences, consumed some of the poison.”

  “She mentioned a run of dysentery amongst the staff,” said Mary. “I shouldn’t be surprised if she’d tinkered with the process before Saturday night. She is meticulous enough to want to know whether such a delivery system would be effective. In fact, she may have toyed with it for a few weeks, as a way of accustoming the staff to put up with moderate amounts of digestive upset. That way, on Saturday evening, they would have been less inclined to call for a doctor at the first signs of illness; they’d have thought it was more of the same minor complaint.”

  James nodded. “Very likely. Museum records show that she was taken into employment about a month ago. It would be interesting to chart her time at the museum against recurring illnesses amongst its members of staff.”

  Mary was silent for a moment. “How many have died, thus far?”

  “Nine, with more like
ly to succumb.”

  “Arsenic is a bit of a cliché,” mused Mary. “So many of the most infamous poisoners are women. I wonder why she chose it?”

  “Perhaps because it’s relatively subtle. She may even have dosed herself with a small amount, on a couple of occasions, to produce convincing symptoms of illness. It would certainly throw others off her trail.”

  “And it’s still easy to procure, even with the new restrictions.”

  “Yes. The police are now at work searching for her trail of purchases.”

  “Everything else seems straightforward enough,” said Mary. “After all, she was caught in the act with a bag full of loot.”

  “The dictionary definition of ‘red-handed’. Although what’s distinctly complicated is Angelica’s role in the affair. And how is Angelica, do you know?”

  Mary nodded. “She wasn’t shot, as I’d feared. In hindsight, I think Mrs Thorold must have struck her unconscious with the butt of the revolver, which then discharged into the ground. She is recovering, although it was a nasty blow to the head. She’s still feeling very shaky.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At the girls’ school in Acacia Road.” Mary paused. “I believe you met the head teacher, Miss Treleaven.”

  “Yes.” James hesitated. “For now, let’s continue talking about Angelica. Did she really seek to prevent her mother’s crimes?”

  “It is her current story, and I confess to planting its seed that evening. It goes like this: Angelica initially sought a reunion with her mother for all the usual reasons – last remaining family member, seeking her mother’s blessing for her new life as a music student, that sort of thing. Then, when Angelica first realized that her mother was up to something criminal, she knew she couldn’t go through with it. But she pretended to participate, in the hope that she could dissuade her mother from wrongdoing and prevent harm to others. And when Mrs Thorold threatened my safety, Angelica was forced to act against her.” Mary smiled and made an equivocal gesture. “It’s fairly close to the truth. Not bad, I think, considering that Angelica suffered a significant injury and thus hasn’t had a great deal of time to work out a coherent story.”

  “If that narrative is so close to the truth, why bother with fiction? Not for the sake of mere moral posturing.” James added hastily, “Only it’s more difficult to keep track of a story. Besides that, the truth won’t land Angelica in jail.”

  “Angelica thinks it necessary to protect her reputation for the sake of her future career as a musician. There might be a certain sensational value in having been a burglar, however briefly, but nobody would invite her into their homes to give a concert, after that. And,” added Mary, “I don’t know precisely what the truth is, and I doubt Angelica does, either. Motives are murky, confusing things. Once you add family loyalties and a sense of obligation, they are prone to change minute by minute. Perhaps Angelica seriously embraced the prospect of a life of mother-daughter crime; perhaps she was only playing at it, waiting to see what happened; perhaps she genuinely hoped to dissuade her mother from the thefts. I suspect all those theories are true, depending on the moment in question.”

  James nodded, and they walked a turn of the square in silence. “Is she off for Vienna, then?”

  “Scotland Yard have asked her to delay her departure by a fortnight, in case of further questions. But yes, she’ll return to the Continent as soon as possible. I doubt she’ll miss London much.”

  “She’ll miss you. You seem to have been the closest thing she had to a friend.”

  “A friend with an agenda.” Mary shivered. “This sort of work is always so morally compromising. Even when one begins with the best of intentions.”

  James looked at her keenly. “Does it put you off?”

  Mary thought about it. “Sometimes. Not enough to stop doing it, I don’t think. Not yet, at least. But enough that I need these sorts of conversations, to remind myself of who I am and what I believe.” She thought for a moment of the Agency, and the debriefing she was missing. It was the denouement she would never get: the meeting where she made a final report to Anne and Felicity and heard the full case from their perspective. Mary missed the closure that a formal report seemed to confer, and yet she didn’t. It was simply another interpretation, another lens through which to see the events that had transpired. Here was a new measure of her independence, now that she was the person creating the narrative, the author of her own case report.

  “This is a good time to explain to you about Mrs Frame and Miss Treleaven,” she said, after another brief pause. She wasn’t surprised by James’s delicacy in not asking directly about the Agency. He was too observant to miss her hesitation there, her obviously conflicted loyalties. “I’ve wanted to tell you about them for some time, now, but never felt able: their secret was not mine to divulge. Now that you’ve met them, however, and seen them in action, it’s only reasonable to fill you in.” She paused for a moment.

  “You know – I’ve told you – what happened when I was twelve.” Nearly a decade later, it remained difficult to articulate. Her almost-fate was hedged round with words, mere words, yet each time, those words caused her to relive the nightmare of her conviction for housebreaking, the despair of her prescribed fate at the gallows.

  James nodded. “I know. Don’t pain yourself with the details.”

  Mary drew a deep breath. “It was Anne and Felicity who saved me. From Newgate, I mean. They brought me to the Academy, where I lived and was educated. They were, essentially, my foster-mothers. I shall never cease to be grateful to them both, for the innumerable things they have done for me.” Her voice shook slightly, and James stroked her hand. They walked for a minute in silence.

  “When I was seventeen, they revealed to me that they had a second, hidden life: they were the leaders of a secret detective agency staffed entirely by women. Its rationale is that because women are so habitually dismissed as foolish, vain and frivolous, we are therefore well positioned to exploit that stereotype as spies. Who would suspect a servant, or a female clerk? They invited me to join the Agency, and they trained me. My first assignment was as a lady’s companion to Angelica Thorold, in Chelsea.”

  James looked startled, bemused. “That night we met, in the wardrobe?”

  Mary smiled. “I should never have tried to search Mr Thorold’s study. I was embarrassingly inexperienced and desperate to impress Anne and Felicity.”

  He squeezed her hand hard. “I’m so very glad you did.”

  She returned the pressure. “A little over a year ago, Anne and Felicity began to have some significant differences of opinion about the future of the Agency. I hoped desperately that they would manage to resolve them. Instead, nine months ago, they parted ways. Anne continued to operate the Agency as a female-only establishment; Felicity founded a new firm, in which she planned to employ both men and women.”

  “She asked if I would like to work with her again,” said James.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, yet. But it occurs to me: that explains why, when Miss Treleaven arrived at the Bank on Saturday night, she spoke only to Mrs Frame. Mrs Frame was already there, and known, in male guise.”

  Mary’s surprise was brief. “Yes. Anne would have wanted to preserve her secrecy as the female head of the Agency. And it would have been easy enough for Felicity to explain away her appearance: a female clerk, or perhaps an upper domestic, charged with a message.” She paused. “And that small act of collaboration explains what I saw yesterday, when I called upon Anne on a related matter.” It had been both a relief and a surprise to hear that Ivy Murchison’s wound was not yet infected. If things continued as they had begun, Miss Murchison might live. “I was extremely surprised to see Felicity there, at the Agency. She and Anne seemed to be in the middle of a long conversation and the atmosphere in the room was … intense. Intense and far from hostile. I think they miss each other more than they would ever admit. To a third party, anyway.”

  “Do you t
hink they might reconcile?”

  “It’s far too soon to say. They are both incredibly stubborn.”

  “So are we.”

  She grinned at that. “And as we know, anything’s possible.”

  They walked in silence for another full turn of the square before Mary said, “I don’t suppose Mrs Thorold deigned to explain to Scotland Yard how she planned to escape with her loot on a Sunday morning?”

  “I don’t think she’s said anything at all. Do you have any theories?”

  “Nothing so grand as a theory, but an idea. She was working as a domestic, and may have taken part in a Sunday excursion or two. She could have mingled with a group of Sunday holidaymakers and thence made her way to the coast. From there, I don’t know. She could have waited for a steam packet on Monday morning. Or possibly she had a boat waiting for her in one of the port towns.”

  “The police may like to investigate that. I’ll pass it on.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be sure to tell them it came from my lady-associate.”

  She laughed. “Only if something comes of it; if not, they can think it was your hare-brained conjecture.”

  “Speaking of associates, is Lang really your cousin? And how far removed?”

  Mary laughed again. “He is my father’s sister’s son. And his tale is so entirely incredible that I don’t really expect you to believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Disowned by his father, trained as a rebel soldier, wanted by the Imperial Army in China, seeking his long-lost uncle in London?”

  James whistled softly. “Your family doesn’t believe in half measures, does it?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “What are his intentions in England? Does he plan to settle here?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure he does, either.”

  “He might be a useful addition to Quinn and Easton.”

  “I haven’t any idea whether he’d be interested, but we’ll certainly meet again. I hope to become much better acquainted with him.”