The Sleeping Partner

by Madeleine E. Robins

  Miss Tolerance reached out and attempted to pry open cupboard number five with her gloved finger, but it was locked.

  “Shall I break it down, zor?” Penryn asked hopefully.

  Sir Walter shook his head. “Whatever is there will wait until the landlord has returned.” He directed Penryn to stay and oversee the opening of the cabinet. “I do not want anyone to anticipate us in doing so. Anything of interest that you find should be brought straight away to Bow Street.”

  Penryn nodded dourly. Miss Tolerance doubted he was enthused at the prospect of sitting in the fetid heat waiting.

  “There is one other thing we might try, Sir Walter,” she offered.

  Sir Walter raised an eyebrow encouragingly. Miss Tolerance reached up and removed a hairpin which she held up to the candlelight and bent. It took her several minutes working at the keyhole with the pin. At last it yielded to her efforts with a click, and she prised the cupboard open.

  Penryn shouldered her out of the way and removed from the cupboard, cataloguing as he did so, three pairs of stockings, two shirts, a leather wallet, a pair of shoes in good enough repair to have been Proctor’s Sunday best, a small knife, a half-carved figure of a soldier. At the bottom was a small coffer of dark wood banded in copper. It was locked. Without comment Miss Tolerance offered her hairpin to Penryn and he attempted to pick the lock. When he failed, Miss Tolerance tried as well, with no more success.

  “We will take it with us,” Sir Walter said.

  Penryn tucked the coffer under one arm and led the way out of the room and down the stairs. “Nasty place,” the Runner muttered. “Not a breath of air. Three men to a bed, packed close as African cargo. You lie down here, you wake w’ the fleas.”

  Yet it was no worse than many such places in the city and—depressingly enough, Miss Tolerance thought, rather better than some. The party reached the ground floor and the little bit of fresh air that stirred through the crooked front door. Sir Walter paused long enough to make sure the boy in the office understood that he expected to see the landlord in Bow Street at his first opportunity. Then, gratefully, they reached the street and their hired coach.

  “I have known you for a twelvemonth and still you surprise me,” Sir Walter said to Miss Tolerance as the carriage rolled away from Well Street.

  “How is that, sir?”

  “Your…skill with a hairpin. I am not certain I should take official notice of it.”

  Miss Tolerance laughed. “I should certainly never exercise it except under the aegis of the law.”

  “But where did you learn such a thing?”

  “From a man in Amsterdam who could not pay for his tuition in our salle any way but in kind. He wished to learn to fence.”

  “I would have thought the sort of man who could pick locks would have been well able to defend himself.”

  “The man was working for British Intelligence, Sir Walter. There are times, I gather, when a pistol is too loud.”

  Penryn, again seated opposite Sir Walter and Miss Tolerance, pursed up his mouth consideringly, then gave a bark of laughter. The coffer, which rested in his lap, jumped.

  “Will you open the box?” Miss Tolerance asked.

  Sir Walter nodded. “A wedge and mallet should take care of the matter. Do you wish to stay to see what is inside?”

  “I should like to, just to satisfy curiosity. Do you mean to open it at once?” Sir Walter nodded. “Then, if you do not mind it, I will stay. Once we have discovered what is in the coffer, I must return to my own business.”

  “You do not think this business is in any way connected to your own, then?”

  “At this moment I do not. Still, I am of a curious nature, and a locked box belonging to a murdered man must always command some interest.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the carriage drew up in Bow Street, Mr. Penryn led a small procession through the thronged foyer of the court, holding the coffer clutched to his chest as if it contained rubies. Miss Tolerance and Sir Walter followed into Sir Walter’s office, where Penryn placed the box on the desk and went to find tools. Miss Tolerance and Sir Walter stood across the desk from each other and bent to examine the box. She was aware of his nearness; the brim of her bonnet seemed to envelop him as well as herself.

  Penryn returned. Sir Walter and Miss Tolerance stepped back and watched as the Runner applied wedge and mallet to the lock. It took two blows to splinter the hasp from the coffer.

  Sir Walter stopped Penryn from striking again. “No need to destroy the box itself, man.” The magistrate lifted the lid and all three, Sir Walter, Miss Tolerance, and Mr. Penryn, stared at the contents.

  “Dirt!” Penryn wrinkled his nose.

  It was not dirt, in fact, but a powder, like in color to snuff but too fine and in too great quantity. The coffer was nearly half full of reddish-brown dust, motes of which skirled into the air and made Miss Tolerance’s nose itch.

  “What soorta cod’s head keeps a box o’ dirt?” Penryn stalked from the room, shaking his head.

  “A fine question.” Sir Walter put a finger into the dust, sniffed it, licked it, and spat. “Foul stuff. I wonder what it is.”

  Miss Tolerance refrained from pointing out the unwisdom of tasting an unknown substance, particularly one found in such unwholesome surroundings. Instead she took a scrap of paper from her reticule and twisted a bit of powder into it. “Perhaps Mr. Penryn’s question is more to the point. Why would your dead man keep a locked box full of—whatever it is?” The air was full of dust motes; she found she wanted powerfully to be away from the musty, acrid smell. “My curiosity has been allayed—if rather inconclusively. Unless you have further need for me, Sir Walter, I must return to my own inquiry.”

  Sir Walter closed the box and bowed over Miss Tolerance’s hand. “Thank you for your help. You will let me know if there is any way I may be of assistance to you.”

  Miss Tolerance smiled and curtseyed, and turned to make her way through the outer offices to the sunny street.

  Miss Tolerance hailed a carriage to take her to Squale House in Pitfield Street. Her thoughts strayed to the note Lady Brereton had received; even if Evadne Thorpe thought she did not wish to be found, she might not know her own best interest. It was still Miss Tolerance’s belief that the girl had written the note under compulsion.

  In Pitfield Street the door to the alms house gaped open. Miss Tolerance stepped inside. To her left behind a closed door she heard the voices of children raggedly chanting their ABCs. Further along the hall in the room in which she had spoken with Mr. Thorpe she saw three very young women, babies in their arms, clustered around a matron with a tin basin. “Never put your babe in the basin without you check how hot the water is first,” the woman said. From the expression on the faces of the young mothers, the notion of immersing a baby in water at all was new and unsettling.

  “May I help you?”

  Miss Tolerance turned. Her interlocutor was a stocky tow-haired man of middle years. His expression was patient rather than kind; his dress and manner were gentlemanlike. Miss Tolerance strove to call his name to mind.

  “You are Mr. Parkin?” That was the name of Thorpe’s partner in benevolence.

  The man inclined his head in lieu of bow. “You have the advantage of me, madam. I am Parkin. How may I be of assistance?”

  Miss Tolerance curtsied. “I am Miss Tolerance, sir. I am seeking Mr. Thorpe.”

  Hearing her name, with its implication that she was not one of the virtuous poor, Parkin’s manner became more distant. “I regret, Mr. Thorpe is not here. Is there some way in which I may help you?” His tone suggested he hoped there was not.

  “Perhaps, sir. Can you tell me if a Mr. Tom Proctor ever called upon Mr. Thorpe?”

  Mr. Parkin looked blankly at Miss Tolerance. “Proctor?” He shook his head. “I don’t know the name. We’ve a good many visitors in the course of the day, but most of them are women and children—” he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the classr
ooms. “Some visitors must be kept away; men who visit are sometimes seeking the victims of their own brutality—”

  Miss Tolerance detected the beginning of a well-rehearsed sermon. “I don’t believe that Mr. Proctor is one such, Mr. Parkin. That is really all I needed to learn. When Mr. Thorpe returns, would you tell him of my visit and my question? He will know how to contact me. It is a matter of some urgency,” she said.

  Parkin, seemingly untroubled that his lecture had been interrupted, nodded. Miss Tolerance curtsied and turned; Parkin did not trouble himself to see her to the door. As she left, Miss Tolerance reflected that were she in need, assistance would have come more palatably from Mr. John Thorpe than from his colleague.

  Until she could speak with Mr. Thorpe it was impossible to tell what importance to put upon the paper found in Tom Proctor’s pocket. Had the man spoken to Thorpe? Upon what business? When? Miss Tolerance picked her way carefully down the steps and came face to face with Hettie the pickpocket. Without thought Miss Tolerance put her hand to her reticule.

  “Ooo ye wantin’ this time, dearie? An’ wossit worth to ye?” Hettie reached out her hand to Miss Tolerance, up.

  Miss Tolerance considered. “Are you here most days?”

  Hettie nodded vigorously. “When I’m not dining with the Prince o’ Wales, I’m ‘ere rain or shine and fog betwixt ‘em.”

  “Do you know Mr. Thorpe, who runs the alms house?”

  “Which, the sourish fellow wiv the yellow poll or the nice liberal gent?”

  “I believe,” Miss Tolerance said, “he would be the liberal gent.”

  Hettie licked her lips. “Lovely. Nice manners, sometimes ‘as tuppence for an old woman, too. Din’ even ‘old it agin me when I tried the dip on ‘im.”

  “A true philanthropist. Tell me, do you see who comes and goes at the alms house? Excellent. Did you ever see a young man—”she struggled to call more of Proctor to mind than his birthmark and scarf. “A young man, tall, dressed like a clerk. Dark hair and a strawberry mark here—” she pointed to her own left cheek—”very likely wearing a red and gray scarf.”

  “Straw-bry mark, miss?” Hettie mimed thought with a finger to her brow. The odor of stale hops and juniper berry clung to her; each time she opened her mouth there was a whiff of decay: one of her teeth was rotting in her head. “Straw-bry mark an’ a scarf. Might be I did, miss. Lemme think on it a moment.” She scratched her scalp audibly. “Coupla days ago, this’d be? Great gawk wiv ‘is ‘air floppin’ down so—” one gnarled finger sketched a diagonal line across her brow—”an’ the mark right there, shaped bottle-like.” She grinned. “Ye might say that’s a shape I got a familiarity wiv, miss. ‘E gone into the alms house, then come right out again. Matter of a minute ‘r two.”

  “Do you know if he spoke with Mr. Th—the liberal gent?”

  Hettie looked affronted. “I ain’t the damned val-let, keepin’ track of who’s jawin’ to who.”

  “Of course not,” Miss Tolerance said. “I only wondered. And this was two days ago?”

  Again the woman scratched her scalp. “One day’s like the other ‘ere. No, the bell was ringin’ for church, so p’raps it was Sunday. It wun’t raining, that I know.”

  It had not rained for a fortnight. Miss Tolerance sighed and gave Hettie a pair of tuppenny pieces. Before she could thank her the woman had scuttled away in the direction of the gin shop.

  All very suggestive, but nothing conclusive. Somewhere, she thought, must be the thread to pull to unravel this mystery, but whether Evadne Thorpe would prove to be at the center of it she was not sure. Miss Tolerance thought of the twist of paper she had taken away from Proctor’s box, and decided to seek professional assistance.

  If she felt any trepidation in visiting Mr. Halford’s apothecary shop, so near the site of an attempt upon her life, Miss Tolerance did not mean to let anxiety rule her. She did survey the street before alighting from the hackney carriage, and gave instructions to the driver to wait for her.

  Mr. Halford, again neatly turned out in apron and cuffs, was making pills from an ivory-colored powder. He was finically careful, measuring out the powder over a piece of paper, wiping out the pill-form and filling it, flipping the lever to compress the powder into a lozenge, and carefully removing the resulting pill to a paper packet he had ready-made on the counter. Miss Tolerance thought it a shame to interrupt him, but Halford looked up from his work and smiled.

  “How m-may I help you, mmmiss?”

  His expression was blankly courteous; he did not remember her from her previous visit. Miss Tolerance took the twist of paper from her reticule and offered it to the apothecary.

  “I wonder if you might tell me what this is, sir. Going through my—” she thought rapidly. “My late grandfather’s effects, we found a jar with a good deal of this substance, and wonder what it is. My brother says it is not snuff—”

  Halford touched gingerly at the caked powder, stirred it with his finger, then, as Sir Walter had done, raised his finger to his lips. Am I the only one who thinks that unwise?

  “You h-have a g-good deal of this substance, miss? I w-would be happy to p-pp—to buy it from you—”

  “Tell me first what it is, sir, if you please.”

  “Cinchona pubescens. Often called Jesuit’s bark or quinina. Good for lowland fevers caused by bad air. Since the W-walcheren exp-p—”

  “It is in very short supply, I believe. But surely you must be adequately supplied with the stuff?”

  “Sadly, no. B-b-bark is often hard to c-c-come by, p-p-articularly now. If you w-wish to sell your supply—” Halford’s expression was hopeful. Miss Tolerance felt a moment of remorse at having raised his expectation.

  “I must consult with my family first, sir. But I thank you very much for your assistance. When I next have need of a remedy you may be assured I shall come to you,” she added, to save the man the trouble of making the request himself.

  Halford gave the slightest of bows, already turning back to his pill press. Miss Tolerance returned to her waiting hackney coach and gave the direction of Tarsio’s. The carriage, fortunately, was fairly new and well sprung; it made the journey from Throgmorton Street to Henry Street without too much juddering, which permitted Miss Tolerance to doze. It was four days since she had been attacked, and she had not really been free of headache in that time.

  At Tarsio’s Miss Tolerance ordered a pot of tea and went directly to the Ladies’ Salon. There she sat at a desk and occupied herself for some little time in writing letters: a second request for payment from a client, then a brief note to Sir Walter Mandif, explaining what the contents of Proctor’s box had been. She was sealing this second missive when her tea, and the mail, arrived. A former client had, she was delighted to see, at last sent a bank draught which had been promised for some time. Miss Tolerance suspected that a run of luck at the faro bank had coincided with the arrival of her last dunning letter, but however the funds arrived, she was happy to have them. The second note was from Mr. Joshua Glebb, whose handwriting was narrow and excessively curled; it took her several minutes to be certain of the contents. He had new information regarding Mr. Abner Huwe; he would be at the Wheat Sheaf until dark fell or the custom died away; he was her earnest servant.

  Earnest? Miss Tolerance finished the tea in her cup and left to return to the Liberty of Savoy.

  Even so late in the day it was mild, but Miss Tolerance found Mr. Glebb alone at his table near the fire, hunched forward as if against a deep chill. She saw why at once; he had a cold. His long nose was red with mopping and his eyes were watery. Whatever he drank from the tankard before him, it steamed and smelled of rum. “Glad to see you, miss.” His voice made Miss Tolerance want to clear her throat.

  “My dear Mr. Glebb, should you be away from home in this condition?”

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders. The yellowing fringe of hair on his collar stirred and settled, and Glebb leaned over his tankard as if to summon warmth from it. “You order som
ething for yourself, miss. Then we can talk.”

  Miss Tolerance raised a finger at Mr. Boddick, mouthed coffee, and turned back to Glebb. “I hope this information is important enough to risk your health for, Mr. Glebb.”

  “I’d no notion I’d be taken so bad, nor so quick. After our business is complete I’m for home and my bed, no mistaking. Mrs. Glebb can put a hot iron to my feet and give me gruel and toddies until I feel better. But I had other business to—” he coughed deeply and spat into the fire. “Other business to tend to than yours, so don’t go putting this to your own account.”

  “At least tell me what you have learned so I may release you to your wife’s care, sir.”

  Mr. Boddick put her coffee down before her and was gone before she could thank him. Miss Tolerance took a sip of her coffee—unfortunately watery and burnt—and gave her attention to Glebb.

  “I did a little more asking about Huwe. He’s a nasty piece of work; bad temper, and mutterings everywhere about shady doings. Nothing as you could point a finger—or a magistrate—at, though.” He stabbed at the air with his forefinger. “What I did learn—did you know that two of his ships was first on the scene bringing shipments to Walcheren?”

  “Provisions?” Miss Tolerance was perplexed.

  “Cinchona bark. There’s hundreds of men fell sick almost as they landed, and the Navy with no more than a teaspoon of the stuff to hand. Then on the horizon privateers appeared with chests full of the stuff. Providential like.”

  His tone was not lost on Miss Tolerance. “The privateers charged hefty prices, I take it. The commission investigating the Walcheren debacle has not looked into the role of those privateers?”

  “Not that I know of. But look you, Miss T: a man owns a ship filled to the rafters with just what’s needful, and sends it along to make a profit, that’s reasonable. A man owns two such? Just at the right time? That’s speculation in time of war. They brought in tons of the stuff, miss. The bark. Where’d he get it, when it’s hard to come by? How’d he know it was going to be needful? I ain’t the sort sees plots, but this is the sort of thing begs a little attention, don’t you think?”