The Shadowcutter

by Harriet Smart

  “Janey,” she said sitting down on the bed and patted the space beside him. “What’s your fancy? I do most things, but if you want anything French it’s extra.”

  He hardly heard what she said. He had noticed she was wearing heeled slippers in pale-blue damask with striped rosettes. They were the double of a pair that Laura had bought in Stanegate. She had been most unwilling to tell him much they had cost, as if she expected him to be angry at her extravagance. Certainly a fashionable novelty and they had been shockingly expensive, but he had not cared, because her amusement in getting them had been so delightful to him. And they had suited her well. Now the sight of them, on the feet of this strange creature who was offering indecencies for a handful of shillings, threatened to break him. He felt he could have sat down in the armchair and wept from the pain at the sight of them, and the thought of their forlorn companions, hidden swiftly away in her boxes by Sukey so that he should not have to see them.

  He took a deep breath, mastered himself and said, “I want a word with you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “One of those. You’re not a preacher are you? Talk away, but just spare me the tract. Well, you don’t have to. We use them in the privy.”

  He had to smile at that.

  “I’m not a preacher. I saw you at the dog fight at Byrescough,” he said.

  “Oh, did you? So what?”

  “The men you were with – punters, I suppose? A foreigner and a man who cuts shadow pictures.”

  “How do you know that?” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Who are you?”

  “Not your concern,” he said. “So, I want to know what happened that evening. Every little detail.”

  “You really don’t want a fuck, then?” she said plucking at the ribbon of her chemise, exposing a little more flesh to entice him.

  He shook his head.

  “Tell me about the night of dog fight. Did you know who those men were?”

  “Johnny Edgar and the other, he was something grand and fancy sounding – foreign like you said. Don Loois?”

  “And why were you there?”

  “The landlord is a friend of the missus. We were all there – it was a bit of a spree, all in all, and the missus was in a good mood, which makes a change, I can tell you. I did go upstairs later with the foreign gent. He was nice enough and he gave me this funny gold coin – the missus has it. I was a bit worried in case it wasn’t the real thing but she was happy enough. And I suppose he did have plenty of tin on him, because he bought that bracelet.”

  “Tell me more,” he said, now sitting down beside her.

  “Johnny Edgar had it. And I have never seen the like! Lovely thing it was. Lovely. Gawd only knows where it came from,” she added with a giggle. “Not the sort of question you want to ask, is it, when you’re being asked to model a bracelet?”

  “You modelled it?”

  “Oh yes. Didn’t want to take it off!” she said, laughing. “Rubies, pearls and gold. Though I suppose the rubies were paste, I mean they couldn’t have been real, could they?” She looked at him, rather searchingly “Could they? Oh my God... Was it knocked off then? What do you know about it? It wasn’t yours, was it?”

  “Belongs to a friend of mine,” Giles said.

  “I knew it was hot!” she exclaimed. “And you were watching us all that time? What’s your game?”

  “Trying to get it back, that’s all.”

  “I can’t help you there.”

  “No, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “Have I?” she said, and she playfully reclined herself on the pillows, a practised, enticing move. “Do I deserve a reward?”

  The false flattery of the whore, Giles thought; make the fellow feel she wants him – a counterfeit of love. It was extraordinary what money could buy. She adjusted her position a little further, showing him more of the goods and reaching for his hand.

  He got up from the bed.

  “You’d know this bracelet if you saw it again?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And would you be prepared to say what you just said to some other gentlemen?” She frowned. “I’d make it right with your missus,” he added.

  “Who are you?” she said, getting up from the bed. “You’re not the police, are you?”

  “What if I am?” he said.

  “Then you shouldn’t be poking your nose around here. We have an arrangement. No-one bothers us.”

  “We?” he said

  “The missus,” she said. “With his nibs.”

  “His nibs being?”

  “The boss,” she said and then stared at him as if he was being a fool. “Sir Arthur. Your boss, ain’t he, if you’re a policeman?”

  “Yes,” Giles said. “But he hasn’t told me about this.”

  “He bloody should have done. Lord knows he’s always going on about it, how grateful we should be and all that.”

  “You know him?” She nodded. “He comes here?”

  “Three times a week, without fail.” She sniggered. “We draw lots for him. He’s such a fussy bugger, no mistake. And he farts.” She looked at him narrowly. “Do you really work for him?”

  “We’re in the same profession, let’s put it like that.”

  “Shame you’re not the boss,” she said, “We wouldn’t be drawing lots for you, we’d be fighting over you.” She reached and tried to caress his cheek, at the same time smiling suggestively at him.

  “Ah yes,” he said, catching her hand. “Take me for a fool, do you?”

  “Can’t a girl admire a nice-looking gentleman?” she said, wresting her hand free, and catching hold of his lapels, pressing herself against him. “Come now, sir, since you’ve taken the trouble to come here, you might as well take what’s due. I know that you’re inclined. I can see that you are.” Now, she attempted to lay her hand onto the fall of his breeches, and he was obliged to push her away rather sharply.

  “Don’t worry, I will tell the missus you were more than obliging,” he said.

  “Suit yourself,” she said and yawned.

  Giles made his way back to the Saracen’s Head wondering what could be done with the information Janey had given him.

  It would not help him a great deal with undermining Lady Warde’s monstrous presumption of innocence, but he now had a powerful weapon with which to discredit Sir Arthur.

  In fact it would be enough to get him dismissed from his post. It would be a great scandal, enough to raise the question of reform of the county constabulary at the highest level. If the two forces were to be amalgamated, then this might be the moment. Reform in the wake of corruption. Lord Rothborough would be delighted.

  The threat of exposure would perhaps be enough to make Sir Arthur sacrifice Lady Warde for his own skin. Should he use the threat of disgrace to make him drop the cause, and press the charges against her? It was rather a devious strategy, useful in the short term, but it did him no credit in the long term. It was not advisable.

  He would have to take the longer route.

  Sir Arthur would have to go, and if they all came down with him, then so be it. Lord Rothborough would no doubt advise him to look to his own future and seize the chance to take control of both forces, and a year or two ago, he realised he would have had no hesitation in doing so.

  But such ambition was anathema to him now. He stood looking into the haberdasher’s window by the Saracen’s Head, as he waited for Holt. He stared at the lace collars and cuffs and at the Best Quality Fancy Northminster Ribbons, and could only think how short life was, and how fragile.

  Holt’s reflection, ghost-like, appeared behind him.

  “Any luck?” he said, turning.

  Holt shook his head and tugged at his collar. He looked hot and uncomfortable.

  “This town is a right midden, sir,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.”

  Yes,” Giles said. “I’ve had enough for today.”

  “Very glad to hear it, sir. You look like death, sir, and no mistake. This place would give you
a fever just to look at it. I’ll go and get the gig.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Felix stood on the platform at Swalecliffe Station, waiting for the train to arrive from Northminster. He had only been there an hour himself, having just got in from Stanegate. It was really remarkable the possibilities that the new railways allowed a man. Major Vernon had once said they were a gift to the criminal classes, and Felix, feeling something of a criminal himself in that moment, was inclined to agree.

  For Sukey would be on the Northminster train. She had not gone to Leeds and thence to Manchester to take up her new position. Instead they had determined on a tryst in Swalecliffe.

  The train came steaming in, and the platform was soon filled with passengers and their baggage. He could not see her at first, and he wondered if she had decided at the last moment not to come. Perhaps her courage had failed her.

  But there she was, by the luggage van, retrieving her boxes. He ran down the platform towards her, his heart in his throat.

  “So the Major didn’t ask too many questions about your coming here alone?” she said, as they drove away from the station towards that pleasant lodging where he had stayed previously at Swalecliffe. “I’ve been sick with worry that he’d insist on coming with you.”

  “No, he said he was too tired to travel anywhere. But he was delighted with my idea. He thought it very likely that Lady Warde would have left something here.”

  “Let’s hope she has,” Sukey said. She glanced out of the carriage window. “Oh, there’s the sea! Goodness, this is quite the spot, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you’d like it.” Felix said. “The band plays on the beach in the evening. When we were here before, I wanted to walk on the beach with you and listen to it and then –” He broke off. “He is not expecting me back until tomorrow. I lied about the trains back.” He reached for her hand, wanting the reassurance of it.“I hope there are rooms.” He could not bring himself to say a room, but that was all they would need. “It seems very busy today.” The promenade on the West Bay was thronged with people.

  The cab drew up at the lodging house where they had stayed before.

  “Shall I stay here, while you go and see?” Sukey

  This struck him as a good plan, but he wished, the moment his hand was on the door to the house, she was with him. He felt a species of fear he had never experienced before as he walked up to the owner who was fortunately standing at her desk in the broad hall. She remembered him and greeted him politely.

  “A single room, Mr Carswell, as before?”

  “No, I am with my wife. We should like it for two weeks.” He was astonished he got the words out. He thought his voice must sound strange. “Do you have anything suitable, perhaps with a view of the sea?”

  “I have just the thing, sir, with a sitting room next door? On the second floor.”

  “That sounds excellent.”

  “Here are the terms,” she said, handing him a card. “Is that agreeable?”

  “Perfectly,” he said, glad he had gone to the bank and cashed the large cheque that Lord Rothborough had left for him before he departed for Scotland. It had infuriated him at the time to find it lying on his desk so recently after that terrible scene with Sukey. He had almost ripped it up.

  Having settled with Mrs Peel, he went and got Sukey from the cab, and the porter got their bags. Together they went upstairs, in the guise of a married couple, Mr and Mrs Carswell, to the large comfortable bedroom and well-furnished adjoining sitting room he had so brazenly engaged for two weeks. They made the correct noises of approbation, he gave a tip to the porter, and suddenly they were alone together, in a bedroom washed with brilliant light from the sea. Sukey went into the bay window and gazed out at it, taking off her bonnet.

  Felix sat down on the chaise at the foot of the bed, now feeling violently sick. He stared down at his boots and then up at the ceiling, anywhere but at Sukey, who stood still in the window, gazing out at the sea. He thought of all the times that he had in his fancy imagined himself alone with her on their wedding night, and all that might proceed from that. But he had never dreamt of this awkward terror which now possessed him.

  “I am going to change,” she said, suddenly breaking the silence. “This dress is not smart enough for here. I don’t want to look all wrong.”

  He glanced at her. She had come away from the window and was unhooking the front of her bodice. She took it off and laid it carefully on a chair, and then took off her skirt. Dressed now in her underclothes she went and opened her box, using a key she retrieved from the embroidered pocket hanging around her waist on a coral-coloured ribbon. This arrangement of things, presumably common to many women, he had never guessed at before. It struck him as delightful that they should keep their secrets in such a manner, hidden from the eyes of men.

  He watched as she knelt down and begun to sort through her clothes, bending over the box, so that her shift slipped from her shoulders, and the pale skin of her back above her shift and stays shone in the brilliant sea light. The same light caught the red in her hair.

  His fear was pushed away by sudden, urgent desire. He went to her, and knelt behind her, pressing his lips to her back, smelling her hair, putting his hands about her waist. He pulled her back towards him, his lips on her bare shoulder now. He felt her fingers on his ear and in his hair. He felt her own hot kisses on his skin as she twisted round to face him.

  He staggered to his feet and began to strip off his clothes. At the same time she went and sat on the edge of the bed and loosened her stays, an action that transfixed him. When she had removed them and sat there, in only her shift and stockings, she stretched out her hand to him, and doing so, the linen covering her shoulders slipped away further.

  He dropped his shirt onto the floor and took her hand. He bent and kissed her, and he dared to press his other hand to her naked breast: warm, rounded and soft.

  Now he felt her hand on him, just on his belly, but close to where his now solid member lay tight up against him. It was exquisite and delightful agony to feel her fingertips brush his skin and then her finger grazed against his member.

  A moment later, he had spent himself. Her touch had been too much for him.

  Horrified he scrabbled to find his shirt to cover himself.

  “It’s my fault,” she said, turning away from him so that her disordered, falling hair screened her face. “I shouldn’t have... I should have been more – modest.” And she covered her face with her hands.

  He grabbed the rest of his clothes and his portmanteau and fled into the sitting room. He dried himself off with his shirt and then threw it across the room in disgust. He sat down, breathing hard still, his body quite at war with itself, wanting to acknowledge the pleasure of the release but at the same time he felt sick with shame and mortification. Was this some dreadful punishment for them?

  He dressed again, getting a clean shirt from his bag and attempting to make himself look respectable again. His appearance in the looking glass above the fireplace was not encouraging – he was flushed and his hair wild.

  At length he went to the doorway to the other room and gently pushed it open. Sukey was still lying on the bed. She had rolled herself up in the coverlet and as he came in, she retreated further into it.

  He went quietly across the room to retrieve his hat.

  “I’d better go to Edgar’s,” he said.

  “Yes, you’d better,” she said.

  -0-

  Mrs Edgar was not at home – she had gone to visit friends for a few days – but the old aunt, Mrs Carnbee, was. She was still afraid of reprisals and was more than obliging. He had been worried that his authority to search the house might be questioned, but she was happy to allow him to wander where he would.

  Lady Warde and her daughter had always taken the two rooms on the second floor. “Our best rooms,” she pointed out with pride. Compared to Mrs Peel’s house on the Esplanade, they were small and shabby and a great contrast to all the great hou
ses she must have stayed at.

  He conducted what he hoped was a thorough search, checking for loose boards and under the mattresses. There was nothing to catch his attention in the first room, and seemed to be nothing in the second, until he opened the press set so high up in the wall that he was obliged to stand on a chair to look into it properly. It contained a carpet bag, carefully closed with a leather strap upon the buckle of which was a padlock. The bag was not stuffed full, but it clearly contained something – it had some weight to it. He wondered if it had belonged to Lady Warde.

  He went downstairs carrying it and found Mrs Carnbee at the front door, taking in the post.

  “Nowt for me, today!” she said, coming upstairs to meet him by the parlour door. She held up the letters. “These are all for Mrs Edgar. Nobody ever writes to a poor old woman,” she added with a sigh.

  “Is there anything there that might be from Mrs Abbot?” Felix said. It had occurred to him she might have ventured a letter from Sir Arthur’s house.

  “This one? I think that’s her hand,” she said. “I see you found her bag. I remembered it when you went upstairs. I would have come up and told you, but then the postman came.”

  He looked at the letter she held out to him. The hand was certainly that of Lady Warde.

  “May I take this?”

  “Aye, you’d better. She won’t like it, I dare say, but I think it’s for the best. If Mrs Abbot is as wicked as you say, sir –” She shook her head. “Now will you take a cup of tea? I have just made a pot.”

  He could not find any adequate excuse to refuse her, finding that a strong, sweet cup of tea with cream in it was exactly what he wanted. She made him eat some bread and butter too, which was equally good.

  “Let me read your leaves for you,” she said, when he had drained his cup. “My mother taught me, and she was considered quite the seer.”

  He indulged her, realising he was in no hurry to get back to Sukey, for he had still not the slightest idea what he ought to say and do.

  “Aha,” said the old woman, swirling round the dregs and smiling. “Trouble in love.”

  It was, of course, very likely that most men of his age could happily agree with such a diagnosis. It was a platitude, a safe generality and he tried to throw it away with a smile.