by Susan Green
“Finish your supper, and don’t you fret about your friend, miss,” she said, seeing I was a mite twitchy and anxious to get upstairs. “He’s got Sir Barrington Topp with him, and as he’s the personal physician to the Duke of Cambridge, he ought to be good enough for Mr Saddington Plush.”
Eventually, she let me go into the front parlour where SP was lying on the sofa with cold compresses on his forehead. It seemed he was asleep.
Sir Barrington, looking like a toff in his evening suit and smelling of gardenias, was just about to leave.
“The young man has sustained a blow. The brain naturally resents being thrown around inside the skull and, as any injured tissue is liable to do, it swells,” he was saying. Even though he was trying to whisper, his voice was loud and plummy, and it was clear he liked the sound of it. “Our patient needs to be kept quite quiet, in a darkened room, on a bland diet, for at least a week. I have prescribed a sedative and a sleeping draught.” He scanned the room, as if half-expecting applause, and then his eye lit on me. “So this is our young friend. Another patient for me, Maria?” In spite of my saying I was perfectly fine, he insisted on taking my pulse, looking at my tongue and feeling my forehead before he was satisfied.
“My work is done,” he said, and with that he gathered up his top hat, cloak and cane, and said, in quite a different tone, “Goodnight, Maria dear, and let me know if you need me again, won’t you?”
“Yes, Barry, I will. Thank you for coming.”
“Any time,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.
Miss Lillingsworth watched him leave the room. “He’s so good to his old governess,” she said fondly. “He was such a shy little boy too. He’s come out of himself wonderfully. Now, Saddington.” She tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Here is Verity, as I told you, quite safe.” She turned to me and whispered, “He’s been in agonies of worry about you.”
SP spoke like he was still dreaming. “It’s really you, Verity?”
“It is, SP, and I’m safe and sound so there’s no need to worry yourself.”
“Really, Verity?” SP sounded weak as a kitten.
“Really,” I said, kneeling next to him. “A few scrapes, but no harm done.”
“Tell … tell Inspector Grade …”
For the first time I noticed someone sitting in the shadows near the fireplace. He was a small balding man, wearing a baggy tweed suit. He stood up and offered his hand, and I noticed that under his bristly ginger moustache he had bad teeth and a very kind smile.
“I’m Inspector Grade, and I’m glad to see you, miss,” he said. “And I’m very glad you’re unharmed. A nasty thing for a young lady like yourself to be running at night through those streets. But here you are, and that’s one less of Her Majesty’s subjects in harm’s way, for which I’m grateful. Are you up to giving me a statement?” He flipped the pages of his notebook.
“Statement?”
“If you’ll just tell me what happened, that’ll be good enough for Her Majesty.”
There wasn’t really much to tell. All I could say for certain was that the man who chased me was tall and well-spoken.
“And his voice was quite unusual.”
“Can you elaborate on that?”
“Very deep and sort of smooth, if you know what I mean. He had a way of talking that wasn’t foreign, like Mr Savinov or Mr Plotkin, but somehow different. Like a gentleman, but … but not quite.”
Inspector Grade’s pen was poised in midair. But I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“He was a good runner too,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Could be a young man. Could be an active older man.”
“Young, I think, sir.” But when he asked me why I thought that, I couldn’t tell him. Dookie, Sam, Polly and the rest of the urchins might have had a better look at him, but I didn’t want to send the police round to Flash Harry’s, for they’d move them on, or worse – round them up and put them in some poorhouse where they’d be separated. It was no way to thank them, so I said nothing.
I was giving Inspector Grade more useless answers when the knocker banged loudly. We heard voices and footsteps in the hall, and Mr Opie burst into the room.
“SP, old chap.”
“Shhh,” said Miss Lillingworth.
“Sorry, Maria,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “SP, I was with the Professor when the message came. I just had to let you know. We found John. He was in the mews behind Lady Skewe’s house, wrists and ankles tied with rope, and doped with chloroform.”
“Is he all right?” asked SP.
“A thumping headache, but no worse than that, thank God. He says that he was having a stroll when a cloth was put over his face. He saw no one, and heard nothing.”
“Chloroform, eh?” said Inspector Grade. “Then it was all well planned and executed. Not a robbery, that’s plain. What was he after?” He chewed the end of his pencil and then looked at me sharply. “The answer seems to be you, miss, seeing as how he ran in pursuit. He called your name too. Anything else unusual happened to you recently? Anything at all?”
“I had a letter,” I said. “A letter warning me away from the Plushes.”
“Do you still have it?” asked the Inspector.
“No, I threw it in the rubbish.”
“Pity. Anything else?”
“I had a note from a friend, asking me to meet her. She wasn’t there, and when I saw her later, she knew nothing about it.”
“You mean she didn’t write to you at all? Aha.” He scribbled busily. “So what’s the motive?” Inspector Grade went on, half to himself.
I started to tell the Inspector about Lady Throttle, Miss Charlotte and Mic-Mac Pinner, but Mr Opie interrupted.
“They’re almost certainly out of the picture, Verity. Mic-Mac is in gaol, and Miss Charlotte has run off with the strongman from Leopoldi’s Circus. She’d be in Brussels by now. Without them, Lady Throttle has no accomplices. And more importantly, she has no money.”
SP groaned. Then he groaned again, louder.
“I think our patient has had enough now, Inspector,” said Miss Lillingsworth.
SP nodded slowly and said, “Thank you, Inspector,” in a thread of a voice.
“It’s simply my duty, sir; I do my best for Her Majesty.” He snapped his notebook shut. “But I will need to speak to you again, sir.” He turned to me. “And you too, miss. Will you be staying here, or–”
“I will give you the Plushes’ address on your way out,” said Miss Lillingsworth, and she practically chased him out of the room.
SP sat up so abruptly that the cold compress went flying. “Verity,” he said. “This can’t go on. You’re in danger; perhaps we’re all in danger, and we won’t know why until we’ve solved this mystery.”
“I agree,” said Mr Opie. “We mustn’t delay.”
“What mystery?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
SP answered. “The truth about Verity Sparks.”
The truth about Verity Sparks! Finding it was going to be easier said than done, for we had only scraps and shadows to go on. Somewhere, if Miss Lillingsworth was right about the lucky piece, I had six aunts and six sisters, maybe even a mother still alive. I could be French, but if so, why was I left with the Sparkses of Seacoal Lane? Where did the Russian wedding ring fit in? And what was the meaning of la Belle Sauvage?
But SP was right. I had to find out who I was. Someone was after me, and next time I might not be so lucky.
16
LA BELLE SAUVAGE AND AUNTIE SARAH
There was quite a hullabaloo when we got back at last to Mulberry Hill the following afternoon. The Professor, with a red nose and a cough, in his nightcap and dressing-gown; Mrs Cannister, Etty, Cook and Sarah, all wide-eyed and curious; Judith, pale and worried; Amy, silly and excited – all of them were waiting in the hall as the carriage drew up outside the door.
“My dear boy,” whispered the Professor.
“Oh, SP,” cried Judith.
> SP smiled, and then wobbled. Before Mr Opie and I could catch him, he slumped to the floor in a dead faint.
It was the Professor and Mr Opie who got stuck into the case, for after the blow to the head, poor SP was sick with headaches and dizzy spells and fainting fits, and so, much against his will, he had to obey Sir Barrington’s orders about bed and a darkened room.
“Here is my plan of action,” said the Professor, unfolding a large sheet of paper covered in writing and circles and lines and arrows. “Our first clue is the lucky piece, and Miss Lillingsworth is onto that. She’s finding out everything she can about the septième étoile. She’s already written to one of her old students in Paris in hopes that he can dig up a little information for us, and she’s asking all of her spiritualist friends. Our second clue is the ring.” He took it out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it back to me.
The Professor had been quite excited when I first showed it to him, and had insisted that I try to “read” it then and there. But I had nothing from it, except a kind of rustling sound that sounded like stiff satin skirts, so he’d taken it off to be looked at by both Miss Lillingsworth and his friend Mr Osprey, the famous Bond Street jeweller. “It’s a bit disappointing. Neither psychometry or the jeweller’s eye had been able to tell anything other than it was a wedding ring, and it was made in Paris. The Russian style, Mr Osprey said, is quite in vogue with the Continentals.”
“What about la Belle Sauvage?” suggested Mr Opie.
“Yes, I’ve written that here,” said the Professor. He stabbed at the scribbly page with his pen. “Opie, perhaps you could take Verity there tomorrow. And there’s your Aunt Sarah, Verity. She must know something. There are no other relatives?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, we have two paths to follow,” said Mr Opie. “La Belle Sauvage and Aunt Sarah. That’s a start.”
La Belle Sauvage. I’d had such hopes, and what a washout that was. When Mr Opie and I got to Seacoal Lane, there was nothing there. There were a few warehouses, a dingy teashop and a printer’s, but the little lane had been eaten up by the Chatham and Eastern Metropolitan Line and a monstrous great viaduct loomed over everything. The ground shook as trains trundled overhead, spreading noise, soot and smoke. One of the printer’s men told us that the inn had been demolished five years ago.
“Do you remember anything about the inn?” Mr Opie asked me.
“We moved away when I was three.”
I couldn’t even remember what number we’d lived at. I didn’t recognise anything. I’d hoped there might be a shoemaker’s there still, and a residence upstairs. I’d imagined being invited up to see the rooms, and a kind old lady giving me something she’d found all those years ago, under a loose floorboard maybe, or tucked away on a high shelf. A letter, a locket, some lawyer’s papers. Something – anything – that would lead me to the truth. It was the kind of thing that happened in the stories Cook read to us, but it wasn’t going to happen to me.
“La Belle Sauvage turned out to be a dead end, eh, Verity?” said Mr Opie.
I shrugged. “The message must have been for Madame Dumas after all.”
When we got back to Mulberry Hill, Judith was waiting for us. We hadn’t time to catch our breath before she started in on Mr Opie.
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours. Poor SP was worried sick.”
Mr Opie was unprepared. “Miss Judith,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t inform you. Or SP. But … but the Professor knew where we were.”
“He went out.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Judith, I didn’t think–”
“Think. Think. What’s the use of expecting you men to think.” She was well and truly worked up by now, but I couldn’t for the life of me work out why. Her face was red and angry and I couldn’t help staring.
“And another thing,” she continued. “Not one of you has bothered telling me what this investigation is about. You have left me out completely, as if I was no help at all.”
Mr Opie goggled at her, lost for words, and she started on another tack. “And I should think you’d have the sense to see that Verity needs a female along on these madcap expeditions. She needs someone to look after her.”
Which was silly, ’cos I’d been trotting around London on my own since I was ten. And I’ll tell you this for free: I could have looked after her better than she could’ve looked after me.
“I’m sorry, Miss Judith. I’d be happy to explain the investigation to you. And if you wish to come along tomorrow …”
“Tomorrow? What’s happening tomorrow?”
“The Professor asked me to contact Verity’s aunt. I did so, and we are going to meet her tomorrow morning.”
At first Auntie Sarah had said no, but Mr Opie laid it on thick about me wanting to see her, and she finally agreed to meet us in old St Ethelbald’s churchyard at half-past ten.
“Then I shall come with you,” Judith said in a determined voice.
“Thank you, Miss Judith. That will be a great help.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, as if she suspected he was teasing her.
“Very well, then, Mr Opie. Till tomorrow.” She held out her hand, and I noticed that he held it for rather longer than was necessary.
St Ethelbald’s, a tiny church tucked into a dead-end lane not far from Liverpool Street Station, was a dismal place. The whole right side was propped up with scaffolding and timbers, weeds grew on the roof, and the whole building was crumbling away with damp and time. The churchyard was at the side. In it, the gravestones stood as close together as workers on a cheap-fare train. The surrounding buildings must have gobbled up some of the burying ground, for a red brick wall cut off one corner, and against it headstones were stacked neatly like playing cards. In the other corner, broken slabs with bits of lettering and angels’ heads and carved skulls on them were all jumbled together in a pile, with a tree growing out of the middle. There was a lone figure under it. It was Auntie Sarah. She came forward a few steps and then stopped.
“Good morning, Mrs Bird,” said Mr Opie. “Thank you for–”
“Who is she?” interrupted Auntie Sarah in a whisper, pointing at Judith.
“This is Miss Plush,” said Mr Opie. “Verity works for Miss Plush’s father.”
“Much obliged to you, ma’am, and I hope she gives satisfaction,” said Auntie Sarah in a rush, and then stood silently, trembling. I could tell Mr Opie made her nervous. And so could he.
“We will wait for you under the porch, Verity,” he said, and taking Judith by the arm, they moved away out of earshot. Auntie Sarah pulled her shawl around her. She was thinner than I remembered.
“No one knows I’m here,” she said, as if to reassure herself. “Bill’s gone to Gravesend and he won’t be back till the afternoon. But be quick, Verity. I haven’t much time. You’re all right, aren’t you? The gent said you weren’t at the hat shop any more; he said you were working for some professor. That’s Miss Plush’s father, is it?”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“And they treat you right, do they?”
“They treat me very well. Like one of the family.”
Her eyes widened, and then she nodded, talking half to herself, as if something was worrying her. “Then all’s well. Lizzie, I said, I don’t know how I can have ’er, with Bill the way he is … but you’ve got a job, and they’re good to you?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Well, that’s a weight off me mind. Is that all?” She glanced nervously around her.
“Please … I need to know who Ma got me from.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did Bill say something to you? What did he tell you?”
“That I was a foundling. That Ma found me in a basket on the doorstep.”
She bit her lip. “He was never supposed to tell you that. But then I was never supposed to tell him, was I? Except he’s got a way of weaselling things out of a person.” She shivered. “It’s true. But you
were never left in a basket like no one wanted you – what nonsense. It was someone that she knew from her days at the opera gave you to Lizzie.”
“The opera?”
“Lizzie made costumes for the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden – did she never tell you? It was one of the theatre people that brought you to her in Seacoal Lane. Now, what was his name? A dresser, I think he was; that’s like a valet. Victor. That’s right, Victor Drummond.”
Victor Drummond. A dresser at the Theatre Royal … All sorts of ideas and possibilities started tumbling around in my brain. He was my father, and his wife had died. Or he’d got a girl into trouble. Or he was my uncle, or my grandfather, or …
“What was he to me? Why did he give me to Ma?”
“I don’t know, Lizzie never said.” Her eyes were wet. “She was a good woman, Lizzie. A good woman.”
“I know, Auntie.”
“She was the best of sisters. And Thomas, your Pa … he was a good man too. They were happy.”
“I know.”
She was quiet for a few seconds, but then she started looking around her nervously again. “I have to go, Verity. I’m not meant to go out, and if he comes back early and finds me gone …”
“Don’t go back to him,” I said on impulse.
“Don’t go back to him? How could I leave? I haven’t got any money; I haven’t got anywhere to go.” She touched her face like she was feeling an old bruise. “He’d be after me, anyway. It’s too late, don’t you see? I’ve made my bed, and I must lie in it.”
I put my hand on her arm, but she eased it off.
“Goodbye, Verity,” she said. She turned and ran past the dripping gravestones, through the iron gates and out into the street. I started to run after her, but Mr Opie caught me by the arm.
“Let her go,” he said.
Judith patted me awkwardly. “Shall we have some tea?”
Tea. For once it was welcome.
17
MISS MINNIE LOVE AND HER INCOMPARABLE ALBUMS
That night I kept thinking about the tombstones. No longer marking their graves, but just stacked in piles along the churchyard wall with the lettering mossy and crumbling away, names forgotten. And yet they’d all been somebody’s children. Maybe even mothers or fathers as well.
