by Issy Brooke
“You were playing with me. You must trust me, Cordelia.”
“As you trust me?”
They paused for a moment in a mutual appreciation of the impasse. Then Hugo said, “Right. Well, you are something of a card shark yourself, I remember. Devilishly good at holding and hiding a hand. So, if you want to meet this man, why not challenge him to a game?”
“It could work, if you could effect an introduction.”
“And then,” Hugo went on, mocking her now. “I am sure that you will win, and your cunning skills will so unnerve him that he will confess all, and you will have your murderer, and that will prove the police have the wrong culprit, and that will help me to expose them. Is that how you think this will work?”
“Not entirely.”
Hugo sprang to his feet. “No, wait, I have it. I will be hiding in a secret place during the card game. You will beat him, and he will be a broken, shamed man. He will confess, and I will spring from the hiding place and take him to the police who will have to confess that you are right and they are wrong, and so their superintendent and all his cronies will have to resign, and then I can install my own man, and— what?”
Cordelia glared at him. “Your own man?”
He blustered and he huffed but now she was sure this was about more than the blackmail and bribery of the police. He wanted more than just the go-ahead for his own boxing matches. He was corrupt, and she had always really known it.
Before she could challenge him, he spun around on his heel and strode up to her, closer than she was comfortable with. “Right,” he said. “I will get you close to Socks. I will arrange a meeting. No, not a card game. And I will do it discreetly. I assume that you do not want me to expose your interest in this man?”
“No, I do not.”
“Well, then. I will do this for you, and you will make contact again with your friendly policeman, and you will help me to bring them all down. Is it a deal?”
She did not want to agree. But this was her only chance. She opened her mouth to ask if he knew of any connections with Mrs Clancey’s lodging house — was it a common place for politicians to meet their mistresses, that sort of thing — but she swallowed her questions. She did not want Hugo to know too much about her investigation. He already knew more than he needed to.
“It is a deal,” she said through gritted teeth. “Now, go.”
He left, and she stamped through into the kitchen, nearly knocking over her staff like a heap of skittles.
“You are not even pretending that you weren’t listening at the door!” she said angrily.
Only Stanley had the decency to look contrite.
Chapter Twenty-three
In the far corner of the dining room, a woman was singing a plaintive tune. In all other respects, the eating house superficially was a decent one, but the singer made it have something of a saloon bar feel, or like a low-brow musical theatre. Such things might be fashionable in Paris, Cordelia thought, but had they really become so current here in London?
Certainly, as she looked around, there was a good mix of well-bred folks. But there were hints at less savoury characters, too. There was a woman who was a good deal older than the man she was with. There was another man, a finely dressed gentleman, with two identical young women to either side of him. His manner of interacting with them suggested — or one hoped — that they were not his daughters.
And here she was, dining out, almost in public, with the minor politician, Albert Socks.
Scandal would surely follow.
She stole another glance at him and cringed inside. How on earth did Florence bear it? She could not spend much longer in his company, even if her life depended on it.
The food was excellent, and worthy of any classier dining room or private club. The wine, likewise, was of the very best quality. The staff were dignified and unobtrusive, and the furnishings were light and glittery, sparkling as they reflected the lights and lamps of the high-ceilinged room.
They were tucked away on a small, round table. All of the areas were discreet and half-hidden, and Cordelia was grateful. This had been Hugo’s choice of meeting area, and he assured her that she would be quite safe. She had expected him to arrange a private room in an inn, perhaps. Not this edge-of-society place. When he had told her she would be safe, she had imagined he meant safe from gossip and prying eyes.
But the understated attentiveness of the waiters hovering around were the real key to her security, and Hugo must have known that. In a private room, she would have been at this man’s mercy completely. She had everything to fear from the man she was with.
“How is your pigeon, dear? Mine seems a little overdone.”
“In truth, it is perfect,” she said, though she wished she hadn’t had as much soup in the preceding course. There was quite a lot of food still to get through.
Albert Socks’ lower lip was red and pendulous and it shone with the continual flicking of his tongue as he wetted it. His eyes were bright blue rimmed by pink, with pale eyelashes and a limp brown-blond hair that was neither light nor dark nor mid-toned. The best thing one could say of his hair was that it was plentiful.
As unprepossessing as his visage was, his manner was worse, at least to Cordelia’s mind. She wondered if she was judging him unfairly, based on her preconceived assumptions as to his possible guilt in the murder.
Then she felt something press against her ankle under the table, and she withdrew her legs sharply. How he had managed to snake his own foot past her petticoats was a feat in itself; he must be practised at it.
She reminded herself of her purpose. She needed to unpick his relationship with Florence, the Lord Brookfield and, indeed, the dead Louis Bonneville.
“I am so grateful to you for bringing me here,” she said. She dredged up all she had ever learned of acting the coquette and making light, idle conversation. “Since I arrived here in London, why, I have not stopped! I have been here, there and everywhere. This ball, that soiree, the other gathering … it is so delicious to be able to simply sit and converse with someone.”
He smiled and met her eyes, holding her gaze. She let him stare, though she soon felt uncomfortable. “My dear, the pleasure is all mine. But do you really tire of gaiety and life?”
“Well, I find I need to withdraw and rest from time to time. But no, I shall never tire of dancing!” She laughed and hoped she didn’t sound like a braying donkey with its tail trapped in a gate.
“I should love to see you dance,” he murmured. “I imagine you are like a fine thoroughbred.”
In that I could kick you in the head and run off very quickly, she thought. Yes, that fits. She smiled and looked down as if she were flattered. “Do you know,” she said, “I think we have a connection in common.”
“We are bound to have!” he said. “You are a titled lady, and I am a man of some repute.”
She was not titled, and carried the “lady” as a relic of her dead husband’s status only, but she did not correct him. She said, “My butler’s daughter, Florence Fry, she was an employee of yours, was she not?”
Socks was good at hiding his feelings, except that his tongue ran over his lip a little more frantically. Other than that, his face was impassive. “Oh, yes, I had a maid of that name. They come and they go. Indeed, I regret to say that she was not all she seems … you know, I suppose, of her unfortunate fate? I hope your butler is not of the same ilk. Watch him. It is usually in the blood, you know.”
“She was not always so,” Cordelia said. “I feel for her. We women are not born bad, I promise you!”
“Yet Eve…”
“Oh, hush.” She lightly tapped the back of his hand, and he looked at her with a seductive cast to his eyes. “No, I cannot countenance that. It is my understanding that poor Florence was quite the innocent, once. I wonder. Before she came to you, she was in the service of another — a Lord Brookfield. And you know of him, I think?”
“Oh, um, old Brookfield, yes, our paths do cross fro
m time to time.”
“Perhaps it was he who … oh, I am sorry.” She clapped her hand over her mouth as if she had said too much. Then she thought she might be over-egging the drama somewhat, and let her hand fall. “Forgive me. Are you two friends with one another, perhaps?”
She watched him intently. He blustered and then gave a hearty laugh but when he spoke, his voice had an edge of uncertainty. “Well, no, I would not say that, no. We share common goals within the party, I think you might say. Oh, that’s politics, of no interest to a lady such as yourself, of course.”
No, she thought, I am only interested in needlework and giggling. “And are you an ambitious man?”
“Of course! Any real man wishes to rise to the very peak of his profession, does he not? Ah, you ladies have it most easy in life. You are not sent out into the dirty world to claw one’s way to the top.”
She smiled thinly but it wasn’t as if he was saying anything she had not heard before. “More wine?” she suggested.
And so it went. He drank heavily and his foot probed beneath the table, and her skirts, with clumsy abandon. She took to kicking him quite sharply and he seemed to count such violence as mere flirting.
They ploughed their way through more courses, and she let him rabbit on about his ambitions. She tried to steer him to talk about relationships: “And surely you need a wife? You cannot work hard all day and come home to an empty house…”
“Oh, I live quite the social whirl,” he said. “Of course in good time I shall choose a wife but there is no hurry.”
Cordelia begged to differ, but she kept her uncharitable thought to herself. He wasn’t a looker even now, and time was not going to be kind to him. Obviously, he thought that money and power would be enough to net him a pretty woman.
She had to concede that he might be right about that.
She tried to steer the conversation to his relationship with Lord Brookfield, but he was not to be led. She didn’t think that he was artfully evading her any longer; he simply couldn’t hold a meaningful conversation. She probed him about Bonneville, trying to sound as if she were a mere gossip, but he reacted dramatically.
“Oh, no, dear lady, not again; I cannot bear it!” He pushed his half-eaten pudding to one side. It was an impressive display of red and yellow custards in layers, with jelly and thin slices of gold leaf and almonds set into it. She resisted the urge to snatch it from him; she’d politely opted for a stewed pear and was regretting her dietary restraint.
“But this murder is the most exciting thing to have happened!” she said, wincing as she heard her own words.
“It is all too troubling and too close to home,” he said. “I mean with that girl being the murderer. Honestly! I can barely keep my staff from one month to the next, and when I do, they turn out to be murderers. I really am the unluckiest man when it comes to finding decent domestics.”
“But what if Florence is innocent?” she said.
“Inconceivable,” he said flatly. “She was there. And she should not have been there. She was in my service.”
“It was in a lodging house, in a rented room, was it not? I believe it read it,” she said, carefully. She didn’t want him to know that she already knew some facts. If, indeed, Florence had been telling the truth about the room.
“So I believe,” Socks said, as if he didn’t really know. “Some terrible cheap place somewhere.” He affected a shudder. “No, I shall not think of her nor speak of her again.”
His face was red now, and his eyes were growing smaller. She did not want to push him into anger. She encouraged him to finish his glass and order another.
Her aim now was to get him drunk enough that he fell asleep, so that she could ask the maître d’ to call her a cab.
And the sooner the better.
Chapter Twenty-four
Cordelia woke early the next morning. The day was not full of the spring-like promise that she had hoped for. It was grey and dank, with a light drizzle which made the sitting room gloomy. She sank into her armchair, wrapped in a housecoat, and asked Ruby to make up a small fire. The maid clicked her tongue at the extravagance.
“I need something to look at while I order my thoughts,” Cordelia explained. “There is too much whizzing around in my head. I need to make sense of my meal last night with Albert Socks. He was an odious man, you know.”
“So I understand. His staff have no love for him,” Ruby said as she bustled around. She brought in some thin sticks from the kitchen and began to lay them out in the grate.
Cordelia didn’t reply. Her head was somewhat thick and fuzzy from the overindulgence of the previous evening, and she had only risen from bed because she was thirsty. Once up, she decided she would stay up.
Three hours later, and she was finally dressed and had breakfasted though it had technically been lunch, and had resumed her place in the chair by the fire, when Ivy Delaney arrived on a morning call. She was early as it had only just gone midday. Neville Fry leaped at the chance to do something and answered the door. Cordelia heard the now-familiar voice of the magistrate’s wife enquiring if Cordelia was “at home” and she jumped to her feet. She hadn’t given Neville any orders so she was afraid he would turn Ivy away. She popped her head into the lobby.
“Dear Ivy! Please, come in. A tea-tray if you will, please, Mr Fry. Perhaps some light snacks.”
“At once, my lady.”
They got themselves settled quickly. Neville efficiently set up a small table in between two comfortable chairs at the fire, and Ivy perched on hers, hampered slightly by her very fashionable skirts. Cordelia had decided to cling to the older styles and blame it on her widowhood. She sat back, teacup in hand. They exchanged a few pleasantries, and discussed the weather for the minimum acceptable amount of time.
“I am glad you have a fire lit,” Ivy said. “My Anthony would not countenance it between the months of March and October.”
“I am grateful to be the mistress of my own house. Oh, if you are hot, please ignore formality and remove your gloves if you wish. I shall tell no one.”
“Are you not lonely?”
Cordelia forgave Ivy’s impulsiveness. “Not yet, as I have not had the time.”
Ivy smiled. “Now, listen, my dear, for I am here on an important matter. At least, I think it is important. It is certainly odd. Not all odd things are important, of course, but…”
Cordelia sipped at her tea.
“I am sorry! I do run on so. You must tell me to stop and gather my thoughts. My old governess would slap a cane across the back of my hands. That usually worked.”
“Have you brought a cane?”
“Well, no, I rather feel I have grown beyond quite such … oh, you jest.” But Ivy took the teasing in good stead. “Where was I? Ah! The visitor.”
“Which visitor?”
“A man came to see my Anthony this morning, rather early. Too early, if you ask me, so of course Anthony received him, for if someone feels compelled to call at such an hour, then there must be something very important about the call, don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” said Cordelia.
“Now ordinarily I would not be party to these things but as soon as the man had left, Anthony called me in, because he knows that I have visited you.”
“Mm-hm?”
“My dear, I fully support your investigation, for it is both exciting and morally correct. But, and I hate to try to advise you, but you are an innocent here, so I feel that I must, but — do be careful not to go out and ask questions directly of people.”
“I have totally lost the thread of this conversation,” Cordelia said. “Is that what the visitor said? Who was this visitor?”
“Oh! Of course. This man who came, he was asking questions about you, you see.”
“Me?”
“Indeed, he mentioned you by name, and asked what connection you had to the case, and what capacity you were acting in. We were both most concerned! And so you see, you ought to be a little careful
about how you go about this. You can most effectively use your mind from a distance, and consider the facts in cold objectivity. There is no need for you to chase about in the world, like a common detective.”
“I need to seek out the facts first before I can consider them,” Cordelia said.
“Discreetly, dear, discreetly. Oh, and this man, he had the most curious name. Socks! What do you make of that? I am fascinated by the history of one’s surname; Cornbrook is easy, of course, and did you know that Delaney is Irish and originates from something rather unpronounceable?”
“Albert Socks!” Cordelia said, refusing to be distracted by Ivy’s conversational detours.
“Yes, and what is more, he was trying to put pressure on my Anthony to bring the trial of that poor girl forwards!”
“Is that so?”
“I know! I can barely believe it myself. Of course, my Anthony is approached by all manner of people all the time, with this demand and that demand. He is used to it. He told this fellow, quite firmly, that it must go to the monthly court at the Old Bailey. The man even insinuated that he could give my Anthony money for the trial to happen this week instead of next month! But my Anthony isn’t even connected with this case.”
“You are a good woman and you are married to a very good man,” Cordelia said. “Thank you so much for coming to me with this information. For, you know, it does help to stack the case up against this Albert Socks.”
“Do you know the man?”
“Indeed I do. I was dining with him last night.”
Shock and horror crept over Ivy’s face. “And yet he came to our house this morning … oh, goodness, is he a suspect?”
“He is my primary suspect at the moment,” Cordelia said.
Ivy’s eyes were round and full of life. “How terribly exciting!” she said.
“More cake?”
* * *
After Ivy had left, brimming with excitement and sweet pastries, Cordelia went to the kitchens. Her servants had adopted the room as their day room, although Mrs Unsworth was not delighted about the fact. She had absented herself again, and no one knew where she was. Cordelia gave leave for Stanley to go out, and Geoffrey was already established in a local alehouse.
