Keeping Bad Company

by Caro Peacock

  Tabby was never sure about her own age, but I guessed that three years ago she’d have been not much older than twelve.

  ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘Weeks, months, what does it matter? I told you, I got away.’

  ‘So when we started investigating Eckington-Smith, you recognized him?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nah. He made sure he never showed his face there. It was when you set me on following him and I saw him with the man what managed the house. I’d have known that one out of all the demons in hell.’

  I remembered. She’d come back one night and told me how she’d seen Eckington-Smith secretly meeting a man in a cab and getting out with a bag that clinked. She’d given me an address in Clerkenwell where the other man lived. At the time, I’d praised her for her clever tracking. When Amos told me what he’d discovered about the brothel in Clerkenwell I’d taken Tabby off the case, or thought I had.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said.

  ‘I’d put you on to what I knew. What business was it of yours how I knew it?’

  ‘Tabby, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry.’

  I went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. It was like touching granite. I went back to my chair and tried to put on a businesslike tone, though I felt anything but businesslike.

  ‘Very well, you think I’ve failed you and I have. But that’s in the past now. The question is what we’re going to do about Eckington-Smith.’ The silence seemed marginally less hostile, so I went on. ‘As it happens, he’s come up in quite a different case. A friend of mine’s been murdered and Eckington-Smith is running errands for a man who wanted him killed. If we can find out who that man is and prove that Eckington-Smith’s an accessory to murder . . .’

  ‘Accessory?’

  ‘Somebody who knew about it and helped. If we could prove that, he’d probably go to prison for a long time.’

  ‘My way would have settled him quicker.’

  ‘Well, that’s no use now. For better or worse, what happened tonight will have put him on his guard, so why not try my way?’

  ‘What is there to try?’

  ‘In all honesty, I don’t know. But we’re getting near to something, I’m sure of that. Stay here, or at least let me know where you are, and I promise I’ll let you be part of anything that happens to him.’

  She considered it, then gave a reluctant nod of the head.

  ‘All right, but I’m not waiting forever.’

  As a sign of truce, I used the last few coals in the hob to rouse up the fire and brew more tea. After a while, I risked asking her whether she’d been living in the backyard den all the time she’d been away. She shook her head.

  ‘I’ve bin to Birmingham.’

  In spite of everything, there was just a touch of pride in her voice. To the best of my knowledge, she’d only ever been out of London in my company, then no more than a few hours’ coach drive.

  ‘Why in the world did you go to Birmingham?’

  ‘Following ’im.’

  It took a while to piece together. She’d followed Eckington-Smith to a coaching inn, then paid to take an outside place on the same coach. He’d taken a room at an inn in Birmingham and visited several offices the next morning, a Saturday. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t completed his business because he was in a bad mood when he booked two more nights at the inn, stayed there on the Sunday and visited more offices early on the Monday before taking the coach back to London. By then Tabby had used up her small store of money – it couldn’t have been more than a few shillings in the first place – and gone back to her old trick of clinging to the back of the coach, losing him somewhere along the way when a post-boy spotted her. She’d taken some time to pick up the trail again back in London.

  It fitted with what Mrs Eckington-Smith had said about his travelling and trying to raise loans, and all the time there was Tabby, clinging to him like a barnacle to a rackety ship.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Didn’t want to lose ’im when I’d found ’im.’

  She’d had the knife with her all the time, but decided not to use it because she’d have less chance of escaping afterwards in a place she didn’t know. That suggested she wasn’t as careless as she’d pretended about whether she hanged or not. Perhaps that was encouraging in its way. Then, back in London, she’d formed the idea of accounting for him and his brothel manager at the same time and spent many days watching and waiting. While I was drawing all this out of her, a depressing idea was in my mind. I fetched a calendar and tried to pin down the days when Eckington-Smith had been out of London. Dates and even days were foreign to Tabby’s way of living, and it took some time. We managed to work out that it had been about a week before I’d caught sight of her outside Capel Court. By the time we’d established that, Tabby was more than half asleep. Reaction from the events of the night and probably the first food she’d eaten for days were catching up with her at last. It was hard work for both of us, pinning down for certain those days when she and Eckington-Smith had been in Birmingham, and brought no satisfaction. At the end of it, she was so drowsy that she even let me go with her to her old cabin and see her settled on her pallet that was at least more comfortable than sacking.

  I went back to the embers of the fire and some uncomfortable thoughts. Tabby’s account of Eckington-Smith’s travels fitted well with what I knew. If his trip had been unsuccessful in raising loans, he’d have returned to London desperate enough to do anything for money, easily bribed to arrange for Mr Griffiths’s pamphlets to disappear. I might have gone further and concluded that he’d been paid to commit the murder itself. I’d have liked that, only there was one great obstacle. Unmistakeably, and on the evidence of a girl who wanted him dead, Eckington-Smith had the strongest of alibis. On the night Mr Griffiths died, Eckington-Smith had been spending the night at a coaching inn at Birmingham, around twelve hours’ travelling time away, with Tabby watching the entrance from a doorway across the street. If Tabby knew that, she’d be gone again, with no trust at all that I’d bring Eckington-Smith to account. She hadn’t dropped the knife. From the careful way she’d moved when she stood up, even half-asleep, I was sure she was still carrying it. Of course, I should have taken it off her, but she’d only have refused and run away. And, as she’d told me, Tabby wouldn’t wait forever.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Indian Orphans’ Society is holding a GRAND BAZAAR and Sale of Work at St Mary’s Church Hall, Kensington, this SATURDAY. Doors open promptly at 2p.m. The Ladies of the Committee hope all their FRIENDS will attend and generously support this GOOD CAUSE.

  The invitation had been delivered while I was out, with Mrs Glass’s name on it. I vaguely remembered that she’d mentioned some such event. Normally, I shouldn’t have given it a second thought, but by Saturday I was so desperate for ideas that I decided to attend. My brother had not called on Thursday evening, when I was out, or on Friday when I’d waited in. Tabby was still resident in Abel Yard, but lingering around and looking at me in a way that suggested she wouldn’t be there much longer if I didn’t think of something. I’d neglected Mrs Glass, I knew. If somebody had tried to poison her to stop her talking to me, it followed that she knew something. Getting to it was another matter.

  ‘So glad you could come, my dear. Now, you must see Miss Bradley’s lace. Simply fairylike. Taught by a French governess. Miss Bradley, a customer for you.’

  Mrs Glass delivered me into the hands of Miss Bradley and rushed away to greet another arrival. I bought the least expensive thing on the stall, a tiny lace mat to accommodate a scent bottle, and worked my way back to Mrs Glass to inquire after her health.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I’m entirely recovered. Just a passing upset. I do hope you said nothing to Mrs Talbot about the punch. I saw her two days ago when I was delivering our invitation and she didn’t mention it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t tell her. Is she well?’

  ‘Very well. She has guests, otherw
ise she’d be here. She’s still a little disappointed about that dinner, but I told her gentlemen will have these little political differences and I’m sure nobody takes them too seriously. Of course, it was embarrassing at the time, but . . .’

  Then, just as I hoped we might be heading in a useful direction, she spotted somebody else.

  ‘Excuse me, dear, that’s Mrs Eckington. Just moved here. I’m hoping she’ll join our committee. Now, you must look at dear Philly’s beautiful painted goblets. Philly dear, a customer.’

  I pretended to admire the dreadful things the girl Philly had inflicted on some innocent drinking vessels while keeping watch on Mrs Glass. I’d no intention of imposing my company on the former Mrs Eckington-Smith for the second time in three days and was glad to see her out in society. Sad, though, that her attempt to revert to her maiden name did not seem to be having much success. When they finished talking I made my way back over to Mrs Glass, with the least objectionable goblet added to my haul.

  ‘I gather some of them are very annoyed about a pamphlet,’ I said. ‘Mr McPherson included.’

  Mrs Glass was keeping a shrewd eye on the stalls and had to drag her mind back to what we’d been talking about, until my mention of Mr McPherson’s name produced a reaction. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one I’d wanted. She beamed.

  ‘I’m afraid some people are very unfair to that gentleman. He may seem a rough diamond, but after all he has spent most of his life in the Far East, associating with all sorts of characters. And he has been most generous to our orphans.’

  ‘Generous?’

  ‘Yes. I took the liberty of approaching him after that dinner party and he subscribed more than anybody else to our new school. Much more. Just look.’

  She pulled a folded list of subscribers from her reticule and showed it to me. As she said, Alexander McPherson’s name headed the list with a donation of one hundred pounds. Nobody else was giving half as much.

  I didn’t recover in time to ask her another question, as a committee member arrived with a despatch that they were running out of change on the tea counter. Mrs Glass left in a rush, throwing a question to me over her shoulder.

  ‘Shall you be going to the reception at East India House this evening? I expect your brother’s been invited.’

  It took me an embroidered linen handkerchief and a sachet of spices to find out more about the reception and then Mrs Glass disappeared behind the scenes, probably to count the takings. I left, thinking I’d learned very little. In fact, Mrs Glass had handed me a vital part of the puzzle, though I didn’t find that out until much later.

  If you need to attend some function to which you haven’t been invited, it’s an advantage to be female. The footman standing at the top of the steps between the classical columns of East India House might have asked for an invitation card from a gentleman he did not recognize. In my case, he bowed and opened the door. Admittedly, I’d taken some care in dressing for the occasion: my best midnight-blue silk with pointed waist and bishop sleeves, matching pumps with bows, simple pendant of lapis lazuli. I’d have liked to wear my lucky dragonfly in my hair, because I certainly needed luck, but it would have made me too conspicuous. I slipped into the main reception room along with a large and noisy group, gratefully accepted a glass of champagne. I’d deliberately arrived late, so the room was crowded, the level of noise high. A string and wind band on a dais was playing airs from Donizetti, almost drowned out by the buzz of conversation. No dancing on this occasion, which was probably just as well given that most of the guests were well into their middle years. A preponderance of gentlemen, many with red faces that might have come from years of service in India or long sittings over the directors’ port. The women were mostly wives, bearing with stoicism the double burden of heavy jewellery and having to listen to husbands’ familiar jokes.

  The first essential was to make sure that my brother was not amongst those present. I was gambling on the hopes that he’d be too junior to be invited or, if invited, too disgusted with the Company to attend. A quick circuit of the periphery of the room confirmed my hopes. After that I lingered on the edge of various groups, watching and listening. I gathered that the evening was, unofficially, a celebration of the Company’s having come through the latest ordeal by parliamentary committee more or less unscathed. Its directors were confident again, looking forward to pickings from the forthcoming war with China. The guest I was interested in arrived even later than I had. Suddenly, there he was in the centre of the crowd, surrounded as usual by a male chorus of hangers-on. Eckington-Smith was not one of them. I wasn’t the only one to notice McPherson’s arrival. Conversation dipped then rose again, heads half-turned then snapped back. It wouldn’t be easy to get McPherson alone.

  The band played a march. One of the directors made an optimistic speech. We all filed into the supper room. It was buffet style, which from my point of view carried less risk of discovery than a formal meal, but was still dangerous. A lady sits down on one of the gilt chairs by the wall and waits for her gentleman to bring food. A lady sitting on her own risks having three or four spare gentlemen converging on her with unwanted gallantry and even less wanted things in aspic. I remained standing, half hidden behind a fern in a pot. McPherson and his coterie weren’t interested in eating either. They’d managed to exchange their champagne glasses for tumblers of whisky and soda and were talking together in the far corner of the room. Fern by fern, I moved towards them. One of the hangers-on crooked a finger for a waiter. He was evidently ordering more whisky, because the waiter disappeared through a door and came back with a loaded tray. I stopped him on his return journey with a trayful of empty tumblers.

  ‘When you’ve taken those back, would you be kind enough to tell the gentleman in the middle there that somebody wishes to talk to him urgently about a lady at Richmond.’

  He looked surprised, but did as I asked. I watched as he delivered the message, saw McPherson’s head turn in my direction then walked through the service door.

  It opened on to a stone-flagged passageway, dimly lit, probably leading to the kitchens. Within seconds, the door from the supper room clattered and McPherson was beside me.

  ‘You again. What do you want this time?’

  His tone had no pretence of manners. Evidently, he remembered snubbing me at Beattie’s dinner.

  ‘A talk,’ I said. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘So what does she want this time?’

  ‘The Rani? Nothing, as far as I know. She didn’t send me. I just needed to attract your attention.’

  ‘What is this? What are we supposed to be talking about?’

  I looked at him, making him wait.

  ‘Jewels,’ I said.

  I missed his reaction, because the door from the supper room swung open and another waiter hurried out, obviously surprised to see us there.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ McPherson said.

  ‘Where, then?’

  He turned without answering and led the way along the kitchen corridor, then right through another door that led back to an anteroom in the grand part of the building. Either he knew the place very well or he had a good sense of direction because a door off the anteroom took us into the library. It was a cavern of a room, two floors high with a gallery round it, deserted but softly lit by two oil lamps. The marble fireplace had no fire in it, but from habit McPherson strode across to the rug and turned to face me, as if master in his own home.

  ‘So.’

  ‘Your secret is safe with me,’ I said. It was a line I’d always wanted to try, but never had the opportunity till now. ‘On conditions,’ I added.

  ‘And what is this secret supposed to be?’

  The posture hadn’t changed, but just a shade of doubt was on his face.

  ‘That you’re not a jewel thief,’ I said.

  I think the words ‘jewel thief’ penetrated his mind first because he’d been expecting them. What he hadn’t expected was the ‘not’. When that sank in the cha
nge in his expression went from doubt to shock.

  ‘You never had the princess’s jewels,’ I said. ‘Only that hawk, and she gave it to you freely. It’s worked hard for you, that hawk. I wonder where your credit would have been without it.’

  He wasn’t a stupid man and knew when it was no use blustering. He did tell me I was talking nonsense, but only as an automatic response while he was thinking. I didn’t want to give him time to think.

  ‘Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you what I think happened,’ I said, settling myself into one of the leather armchairs on either side of the fireplace.

  He remained standing.

  ‘And why don’t I have you thrown out?’

  ‘Do, by all means. It will make an excellent column in the newspapers: A certain well-known trading gentleman throws a lady into the street for defending his honour.’

  ‘You, defending my honour!’

  ‘But then, the last thing you want is your honour defended, isn’t it? You had to choose between honour and credit. Or should I say, creditworthiness. You made sure that everybody knew how angry you were about that paragraph pretty well accusing you of jewel theft. That was as good a way as any of spreading the story all round town. Like back in Bombay, hiding your hawk on poor Mr Griffiths’s desk.’

  ‘Poor Mr Griffiths!’ Now he was genuinely furious. ‘Why will you and everybody else persist in regarding that man as some sort of saint? There are things I could tell you that might make you think differently about your beloved Mr Griffiths.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you could. So why don’t you?’

  That took him by surprise. I looked up at him and nodded at the vacant armchair opposite. He sat down as if he couldn’t believe he was doing it. We both waited.

  ‘You were going to tell me about Mr Griffiths,’ I said. He said nothing. I let the silence draw out before speaking again. ‘Very well then. Shall we start where he started, in his pamphlet?’

  ‘I haven’t read the confounded thing.’