by Kate Moore
Goldsworthy regarded him from under craggy russet brows. “And Miss Walhouse gave you the gloves?”
“I danced with her at Lady Vange’s party last night. Whoever wrote the note we intercepted thinks Walhouse is within reach and interested in government documents.” Lynley kept his face expressionless, aware of Goldsworthy’s scrutiny and the big man’s capacity for seeing through the holes in a story.
“That’s a new slant on things, lad,” Goldsworthy said. His eyes shifted back and forth in thought.
“What’s the old slant?” Lynley asked.
Goldsworthy frowned. “We suspect that when Walhouse worked as Chartwell’s secretary, he leaked information about the mission of an agent named George Fawkener to Malikov. Walhouse had a motive. His family was deep in debt, and his father was Fawkener’s nearest male relative. If Fawkener stayed missing or dead, Walhouse’s father, Lord Strayde, would inherit the estate.”
“So Walhouse gained personally from stealing papers about Fawkener. What’s the connection to Ravenhurst?”
Goldsworthy shook his head. “Malikov is the connection there. He was a frequent guest at the house. He was with Ravenhurst in the park during the Radical Race when there was an attempt on Jane Fawkener’s life.”
“When did the Ravenhurst papers go missing?”
“Sadly, that’s where the link breaks down. The papers disappeared shortly after Malikov’s arrest. The Russian was in a cell, and Walhouse had fled. George Fawkener himself searched Walhouse’s room and found no Foreign Office material.”
“Someone else must have known about the Ravenhurst papers.”
Goldsworthy let out a snort of disgust. “Ravenhurst has a damned loose tongue. Half of fashionable London knows he prides himself on the contents of his red box.”
He tossed the gloves back at Lynley.
“You think the gloves are a dead end?” Lynley thought of the message he’d found in those gloves—I depend on you—a message he now knew was intended for Walhouse. He couldn’t make sense of it. Who needed to depend on a man cut off from family and friends, in hiding from the authorities?
Goldsworthy waved one of his huge hands. “No, lad. If you want another go at Walhouse, have at it, but try not to tip off the family or the servants. We’d still like to catch the fellow. You can use Wilde to get you into the house if you need to search the room again. He’s got ties to the cook.”
Goldsworthy returned to the study of his papers, and Lynley went in search of Wilde.
* * * *
“Lynley, explain the plan to me again.” Emily had lost the argument about what role she was to play in the search of Clive Walhouse’s room. Another day of spying, and once again she was to be the “distractor.” She had agreed because it made sense, and because he had been willing to tell her something more of the case. But she drew a line at what she was willing to do.
“If you think I’m going to knock over the tea table in Lady Strayde’s drawing room, or throw china, think again.”
Their carriage pulled up at some distance from the Walhouse townhouse. Teddy Walhouse, Lord Strayde, continued to occupy the house that belonged to his cousin George Fawkener, even though Fawkener had returned alive from a mission abroad. Apparently, George Fawkener was both indifferent to the property and generous to his family.
“Could you faint?” Lynley asked.
“You know me better than that.” She laughed.
“You’ll think of something. And remember—”
“I’m not to mention the missing brother. I know.”
He leaped down, shut the door, and signaled the coachman to drive on.
It was a bright April day. The street bustled with activity. The neighborhood bells rang one, the perfect hour for a morning call. No moonlight. No kiss, no backward glance, just partners moving forward to trap a spy. It was as if the kiss in the carriage had never happened. She did not understand how he could be so wholly unaffected while his kiss had kept her awake for hours, her body bubbling with energy like a spring-fed brook.
The plan was for Lynley to meet a confederate of his in the guise of a former servant known to the staff in the kitchen. Emily meanwhile was to pay a call and create enough distraction for Lynley’s confederate to sneak Lynley up to Clive Walhouse’s room for a search. She had no idea what he hoped to find. Like her, Lynley would be making up the plan as he went along.
He liked that. He liked uncertainty and risk, and she had to admit that she did, too. That was why the kiss in the carriage had stayed with her. She had liked it because it had been risky, like going in disguise to see Malikov, not because her heart was softening toward Lynley. She had to be clear about these matters.
Once again, she noted the calling cards on a silver dish as she handed her hat and gloves to a footman. She followed him up one branch of a forked staircase under the eye of Admiral Nelson’s famous spyglass pointing down at her from a magnificent painting on the wall.
In the drawing room, the butler announced her to Lady Strayde and Allegra, sitting on a black and gold striped sofa chatting with another lady and her two daughters. The girls had their backs straight, hands folded primly in laps, bosoms proudly lifted.
Emily strode forward. The three girls, younger than Roz, stared. Emily wondered whether she should have brought a cane or a Bath chair, or worn an old maid’s cap, but she had forgotten about the ring, Lynley’s ring. It was the ring to which every female eye in the room immediately turned. She took the offered seat, keeping the ring in view, as the first pleasantries were exchanged.
Emily recognized the scene as one she’d endured in her first Season, the girls obliged to sit demurely silent while their mothers exchanged competing narratives of their daughters’ triumphs in society.
“And then Mr. Talbot danced the second waltz with Marianne,” Lady Rivers was saying. “We thought perhaps we’d see your son there, Lady Strayde.”
Allegra gave her mother a quick pleading glance at the mention of Clive, but Lady Strayde was made of sterner stuff and simply said, “I’m sorry you missed him.”
Emily took a sip of the tea she’d been offered, looking about for some means of distraction that would bring the servants running. The tea tray sat securely on a low table. A pretty fire screen was in place, so she could hardly faint from the heat. Then she caught the younger of Lady Rivers’s daughters staring at the ring.
“You must wonder,” she said, “at my betrothed’s choice of ring.”
Lady Rivers gently pressed her daughter Marianne’s chin up, closing the girl’s astonished mouth.
“He brought it from Spain, and of course, it’s the history of the thing that made him think of it for me. But enough of my ring. I came to see how you were, Miss Walhouse, and whether you enjoyed Lady Vange’s ball.”
At the mention of the Vange ball it was Lady Rivers’s turn to stiffen. Emily’s remark had given a point to Lady Strayde. Allegra seized the conversational opening, pleased to name the partners she’d enjoyed after her dance with Lynley. Lady Rivers retaliated with a catalogue of morning callers and posies received by her two girls.
Emily looked about again. Really, she could not prolong the visit any further without straining the bonds of politeness. An extraordinarily ugly vase on the mantel caught her eye. She set her cup aside and considered whether the vase would break if it slipped from her hands to the carpet, or whether she might have to drop the thing on the tea table.
Just when she thought it must be the table, the door to the drawing room opened, and a large gray puppy with a black muzzle burst into the room and bounded toward Allegra, who jumped to her feet shrieking, “No, not my gown!”
A younger girl burst into the room after the dog. She called, “Come, Ulysses” to no avail.
Emily snatched a macaroon from the tea tray and called the dog. He heard his name, paused to look at her outstretched hand, and h
urled himself her way. Emily stepped squarely in his path and let herself be knocked backward and down. The puppy pinned her skirts to the floor with wet, muddy paws, belatedly remembering his manners and coming to a sit. Emily tossed the macaroon in the direction of the tea table, and the puppy scrambled after it, circling the table madly, bumping against the corners, setting cups and saucers rattling, and leaving a muddy trail across the pale Aubusson carpet.
Lady Rivers’s daughters squealed and pulled their skirts close. Allegra wailed that the dog ruined everything. Lady Strayde signaled the girl at the door to pull the bell. Servants came running. Emily pulled herself to her feet and surveyed her ruined gown. She hoped Lynley knew what to do with his opportunity.
* * * *
At the tradesman’s entrance Lynley checked his watch, which assured him that more than twenty minutes had elapsed since Emily’s morning call had begun. He wondered if she’d lost her nerve. Then Wilde stuck his head out the door. “Quick,” he said with a grin. “The dog’s got into the drawing room. Ten minutes.”
Lynley followed Wilde through the kitchen to the servants’ stairs, scrambled up three flights to the bedroom floor, and slipped into the room that belonged to the absent Clive Walhouse. Closed drapery made the room dark and cool. The walls were pale gold above dark wood paneling, the hangings and drapery a deep green. The room smelled of dead coal fires, leather, and scent—a faintly familiar woman’s scent. It stopped Lynley just inside the door. He turned from the hearth and let his gaze sweep the room, passing over the mahogany desk with its large surface and three shallow drawers across the front. It had been searched. He had seen a list of the contents of the desk in a report: paper, pens, and pen-mending implements, an engagement calendar, and boxes of calling cards in neat order, a drawer filled with cards of invitation and another with unpaid bills from tradesmen.
He moved a few steps away from the hearth, trying to locate the source of the scent. There was a heavy opulence to the room, but few signs of Walhouse’s presence. A pair of silver trays, one on each bedside table, displayed combs and brushes and scent bottles.
Lynley lifted a lid and smelled the man’s pomade. It was not the scent that had teased his senses when he entered. It occurred to him that Walhouse would not be obvious. He had carried on as a spy under Chartwell’s nose, so he must have learned means of concealment.
Lynley went back to the door and waited for the elusive scent to reach him again. The room was too ordinary, too neat, too lacking in anything distinctive except for the few articles on the trays that suggested Walhouse’s vanity. Lynley could feel it. Walhouse expected to escape detection by appearing ordinary.
Lynley let his gaze wander again, looking for an object that was out of place, unexpected. Nothing caught his notice. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the scent. It was near and to his right. When he opened his eyes again, he noticed the umbrella stand next to the door, dark wood with a brass interior. A half dozen walking sticks and an umbrella stood there. The stand was quiet, unobtrusive, serviceable, meant to be overlooked.
Lynley leaned closer and caught the cloying floral scent. He grabbed the sticks and lifted them out of the stand. The black umbrella bulged oddly. He opened it and found a packet of papers bound to the shaft with black ribbon. Lynley untied the ribbon and grabbed hold of the packet. A sharp rap sounded on the door. He shoved the papers into his waistcoat. Wilde’s voice came from the hall. “Sir, time to go.”
As they came down the stairs, Lynley could hear a commotion in the kitchen, and Wilde indicated another passage. Lynley followed and they emerged under the stairs in the front entry. Above them someone was descending.
Lynley crossed the foyer to the door, turning to face whoever it was, as if he had just arrived. He looked up into a painted scene of battle with Lord Nelson peering down through his famous spyglass.
Then Emily appeared, her head high, her eyes dancing with mirth, her blue gown torn and streaked with mud. The butler and a footman followed after her.
“Oh, hello, Lynley.” She waved from above. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” She came down the last flight.
“I’ve only just arrived,” he said, offering his arm.
While the butler hovered anxiously, Emily accepted her gloves and bonnet from the footman.
Lynley had hardly noticed her gown before, but now he saw how perfectly the blue gown’s simplicity suited her and how ruined it was. He handed her into the carriage and climbed in after her. “What happened to you? Apparently, you did not find any glassware to drop.”
She grinned at him. “I was luckier this time. There was an unexpected entrance of a mastiff pup in the drawing room. More to the point, did you find anything?”
“This,” he said. He undid the top buttons of his waistcoat and pulled out the bundle.
“What is it?” she asked. She lifted it to her nose and gave him a questioning glance. “Scented paper?”
“Do you recognize the scent?” he asked.
She sniffed again, and shook her head. “A woman’s perfume.” He obviously recognized it.
“Shall we get you home and out of your ruined gown?”
She shot him a quick, searching glance. “Oh no. You’re not leaving me behind while you go off with those papers. Open them.”
Chapter Eighteen
It may be that a particular gentleman comes straight to the husband hunter’s side directly he enters a room. With him she falls into easy conversation. A tacit understanding exists between the husband hunter and this gentleman that reserves to him the last set of the evening. No declaration has been made, and yet he will confide in her as to the size of the park at his estate, and the sad state of the drawing room furnishings there since his dear mama’s death. In such a case, the husband hunter may be pardoned for assuming the conquest of his heart complete. But she must pause, for she and her charming beau are as yet untested in love.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Lynley gave her an approving look as Emily drew off her gloves.
“What do we have?” she asked. He removed the packet from his waistcoat. An unexpected puff of breeze ruffled the scraps of paper in his hand, and he pinned them against his thigh. Emily slipped the top scrap from the pile. “What is it?”
“A note of hand, an IOU.”
“Not missing government papers?”
He shook his head. “But hidden. Walhouse did not want these papers discovered.”
Emily collected the little notes, carefully shuffling through them. Each had a sum, a date, and Lady Ravenhurst’s name. The largest sum, fifty guineas, made Emily gasp. Over the winter Lady Ravenhurst had played deep and lost badly at least eight times. A gentleman was obliged to pay his debts of honor promptly and without complaint. A woman, a wife at any rate, unless she had control of her money, would have to apply to her husband to pay such sums as Lady Ravenhurst owed.
She looked up at Lynley. “Is this what she and Ravenhurst argued about the night of the party? Does she owe Clive Walhouse this much? It’s staggering.”
The breeze had begun to rise, making them huddle together on the curricle’s bench, sheltering the papers.
“Take them,” he said. She tucked them in her reticule. He unfolded the larger pages that formed the packet and spread them on his leg.
“What is this one?” she asked.
They leaned together, shoulder to shoulder to read the thing. “It’s a lease in Walhouse’s name on a terrace house off the Marylebone Road.”
Even with the legal terms of the document, Emily could see that Walhouse had leased it for the Season. “Could he be living there, hiding in the midst of London?”
Lynley shook his head, frowning.
Emily could see that he was thinking, putting information together in his head. “You haven’t told me, by the way, what you know of his disappearance.”
“You think I know something?” he asked.
She raised a brow. “Of course you do.”
He laughed and told her briefly about Walhouse’s connection to Malikov and the Foreign Office and the problem of the timing for his involvement in the loss of the Ravenhurst papers.
“So he was gone or in hiding before the Ravenhurst papers disappeared,” she said. “But his sister says he was forever leaving things with Lady Ravenhurst, gloves, hat, cloak. So he clearly had a connection with the lady. What troubles you?”
His mouth was a grim line. “It’s not a hiding place. Look where it is. Think of the terms of the lease.”
Emily turned back to the document. She read again the description of the furnished rooms, the starting and ending dates of the lease, the discreet address. She was conscious of Lynley, like a tutor, waiting for a slow pupil to understand some obvious concept.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s the sort of house a man takes for his mistress.” As soon as she said it, she turned to him. “Lady Ravenhurst and Clive? What about the IOUs? Could they be...lovers if she owed him so much money?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. When Ravenhurst challenged me, he accused me of exposing his wife to embarrassment in that gaming hell.”
“You think it may have been Clive Walhouse?” Emily had a reticule full of notes that suggested just that.
Lynley didn’t answer right away. “You know there’s an uglier possibility here.”
“What?”
Lynley looked out over the horses’ heads. The chill wind was growing stronger, blowing the animals’ manes and rattling their harness. “It’s possible that Walhouse paid her debts in exchange for...”
“Her favors.” Emily completed the thought. She remembered Lady Ravenhurst’s profound unhappiness the night of the party, her inability to congratulate Emily on her engagement. She took a deep breath. “We’re speculating, aren’t we? We don’t know the truth. We should not jump to ungenerous interpretations without more evidence.”
