by Joan Smith
“I shall put my sign in the window,” I decided, and drew one up to look as official and businesslike as my wobbly print could make it. That it be legible from the street was the important point. “House for Sale. Inquire within” was all I wrote.
Meanwhile, Esther had discovered the entertainment page of the paper and was busy regaling us with all manner of divertissements open to Londoners and tourists. There were plays and concerts, operas and ballets, lectures, and public dances enough to satisfy the entire population of London. Esther soon decided that what suited a clutch of unescorted ladies from Bath was a comedy to be played for a week at the Haymarket Theatre. She received tentative agreement, pending arrival of our servants with our clothes and approval from Yoofa Mailer, who was to be our social arbiter.
I spent close to an hour checking the real estate columns to determine if the price we planned to ask for our house was fair. I couldn’t make head or tail of the prices demanded, but I assumed that the reason one eight-room house was going for seven thousand guineas and another for four must have to do with location. As there was nothing “with gas” under five, I decided to ask six and judge by my first customer’s face if he thought me insane or a flat.
With no candles shrinking to alert us to the hours’ passing, we stayed up till midnight. The gaslight was remarkable, turning night to day. Mama and I repaired a rent made in the saloon draperies when they were torn from their tracks, while we all discussed the vandalization of the house.
“It seems like spite, plain and simple,” Mama said. “I don’t believe a single thing was stolen. The silver candlesticks are still here, and a very fine silver tea service. You’ll want to take that home, Belle.” She went on to name other easily removable objects that hadn’t been pilfered.
“Graham’s jewelry box has in it everything I remember seeing him wear, too,” I agreed. “Except his diamond stickpin, and the lawyer said he will be sending over a package tomorrow with the items he was wearing when ...” I swallowed down a lump, and Mama spoke up to rescue me.
“That is an odd sort of thief,” she opined.
“It was just hooligans. I’m grateful they didn’t do more mischief while they were about it—break dishes and mirrors and windows, I mean.”
“How do you think they got in?” Esther asked idly. “You had to unlock the door, Belle, and there were no windows broken, were there?”
I jumped up in alarm to double-check. “I didn’t notice any!”
“There were none broken. They were all closed and locked. He must have had a key,” Mama announced. She was a good housekeeper and noticed such things. I stopped in my tracks.
“He might have gotten in through the cellar,” Esther suggested. Comforting thought!
There was nothing for it but to take a candle to the cellar and check. I was thankful we did, despite the frightening trip into the black bowels, for there, where it was not easily seen, was a window wide open to the elements, both criminal and climatic. The wrongdoer had obviously crept in there and gone up the stairs and into the pantry. There was no lock on the pantry door. We locked the basement window, propped a chair under the handle of the pantry door, and returned to the saloon, carrying two dusty bottles of wine from Graham’s well-stocked cellar.
“It’s odd Graham would have left that window unlocked when everything else was closed properly,” Mama said.
“Especially as it exposed his wine cellar to the cold,” I agreed. Graham was a bit of a fanatic about his wine.
“What I wonder is how the thief ever discovered it,” Esther mused.
“Very true,” Mama nodded. “The back yard has no easy access from the street. There is that pretty bit of iron fence enclosing the yard. Fairly high, and with a spiked top. It is certainly odd.”
“Officer Harrow is right,” I said. “London is full of thieves.” He was supposed to have dropped around earlier, but I doubted we’d ever see him.
“Yet after the whole two years, nothing much is missing, so far as we can see,” Mania pointed out, frowning over the drapery, her needle poised for action. “It certainly is odd.”
So it was, and we were fortunate no other marauder had discovered the secret. We agreed we must keep all doors and windows locked when we were out of the house and left it at that.
When we finally went upstairs to bed I found it impossible to occupy the master bedroom, which had been chosen as mine. Graham had done it up in dusky blue and white, according to my wishes. The canopy and drapes were blue, the carpet and walls white with some blue and gold ornaments. His things were laid out there as if he might walk in the door any moment and smile at me. I could almost imagine him coming. I felt the old excitement, aggravated now by a shivering chill. So tall, so handsome—or so he seemed to me. He had the loveliest chestnut hair, just touched with a natural wave. My favorite of Graham’s features was his noble brow. It was high and clear, with the hair growing to a widow’s peak in front.
I picked up his silver-backed brush, touched the comb with one of his hairs still on it. The blue jacket he must have worn to work that day was still slung over the back of a chair. The servants should have tidied up before leaving. I knew from the lawyer that the two servants had been paid and sent off, his horses sold, and other such exigent matters attended to. But no one had packed his clothes and personal effects. It would be for me to do.
I’d have Hotchkiss make up a bundle of anything he didn’t want and give it to charity. Some few mementos I would keep—Graham’s watch, perhaps, or a bit of jewelry. I drew open the drawer of his desk and saw bound up in blue ribbons my letters to him, as his to me were in my desk at home. The oval miniature I had given him of a young Belle Haley was there on his desk where he could look at it while he wrote to me, as he mentioned once in a letter he did. It was an eerie sensation, almost like having a last chance to talk to Graham. I said what one must say in a final conversation. Good-bye, dear Graham. I love you. Then I quietly closed the door and met Mama, come to see if I was in tears.
“Go to bed, Mama. It’s very late,” I said.
“Are you… all right, Belle?” she asked.”
“I’m fine. Graham wouldn’t want me to cry willow forever, but I shall sleep in the other room. I was just—saying good-bye to him.”
“It’s for the best, dear,” she consoled, and patted my shoulder.
I kissed her cheek and went to the rose room at the end of the hall. This room facing the street was noisy, even past midnight. How could people live amid such bustle? Did folks never settle down in London? It was impossible not to think how things would have been had Graham lived. I would be lying with him in that lovely blue canopied bed. By now, a child might be sleeping in another room. But it was not to be, so I would sell the house, let some other lady fill up the nursery here, and get on with a different life for myself back home at Bath. Oh, but what a hollow, meaningless life it was without Graham!
Chapter Two
At Bath we considered ourselves early risers, but we were not in the habit of entertaining callers at such an early hour as nine o’clock. That was the time our first caller arrived at Elm Street. A respectable-looking woman in a navy pelisse with sable trim stood on the doorstep. She had determined that the house was for sale and expressed an interest in seeing it. I didn’t want to let her get away, yet to take her on a tour, when Mama and Esther were still making toast over the coals in the saloon grate was obviously undesirable.
“If you could come back in an hour ...” I suggested.
She tossed her head and sniffed. “There are plenty of homes for sale. If you’re not interested ...”
I ground my teeth at her lofty manner and said, “Do come in.” She entered, looking all around at the windows, uncleaned for upwards of two years, ran her finger over dusty window ledges, opened cupboards and found their doors poorly hung or requiring oil, or the shelves within badly spaced. With tsks of annoyance from the customer and disjointed explanations from myself, the tour continued to bedrooms wit
h unmade beds, everything “so terribly small,” halls “pitch black,” stairways “dangerously steep.” I came to appreciate my mother’s manner of description that morning.
And after it was all over the woman had the gall to say, “I am not really looking for a house at the moment.”
“Then why are you here?” I demanded, eyes flashing.
“I am your next-door neighbor,” she said, as though that gave her carte blanche to barge in at dawn, disturb our breakfast, and disparage everything. “Mrs. Seymour. My husband and I live in the large house on the corner. We have often mentioned removing to a smaller place now that the children have left home. This spot is so handy it seemed worth a look, though of course it is much too small and really in very bad repair.”
“The size, at least, must have been apparent before you entered,” I pointed out. She simpered and looked around the room once more.
She cleared her throat and said, “Is this the room where—it happened?”
I knew perfectly well what she meant, but decided to make her confess her morbid and ill-bred curiosity. “Where what happened?”
“Ah, you do not know the house’s history, Miss Haley. The fact of the matter is a man was murdered here!” She looked triumphant at telling me so. She thought I’d bought the house unawares and she was thrilled to point out my folly. “Yes, in this very room, I fancy. The papers said the saloon, at least. A very grisly business it was, too. There was some theft involved—a huge sum of money the man had embezzled.”
I gave her an icy stare. “You are mistaken. Mr. Sutton was robbed; he had stolen nothing. I am quite aware of the matter. And as you were only interested in looking, Mrs. Seymour, perhaps you will want to leave now. I expect your husband is waiting for his breakfast. I know I am ready for mine.”
She looked at the kettle boiling on the hob, the plates on the sofa table, shook her head in weary disdain, and left. She was about as impressed with our housekeeping as we were with her manners.
“The nerve of that creature!” I exclaimed.
“I thought her very curious—vulgarly so,” Mama said mildly.
Esther put a piece of bread on the fork and resumed making our breakfast. When another woman appeared at the door half an hour later, with no evidence of a carriage, I took for granted she was another nosy neighbor. She confessed as much on the doorstep. She lived on our other side.
“I’m Mrs. George,” she said. “I noticed you have the house up for sale.”
“Yes, are you in the market for a very small house in some disrepair, ma’am?” I asked coolly before inviting her in.
“Oh, no, I only came over to get acquainted, to see if I could be of any help. It’s nice to have someone to point out the shops nearby, and so on.”
My short temper had led me into unintentional rudeness. As I let her in I noticed that she was altogether a better class of person than Mrs. Seymour, which is not to say that she was above a few prying questions as to where “it” happened. Of course, she didn’t know of my relationship with Graham or how painful it was to speak of it. During the course of our conversation Mama mentioned that someone had gotten in and made a mess of the house.
“Is that what he was up to?” Mrs. George asked. “My daughter had some notion it was ghosts. They will often haunt a place where there has been a violent death,” she informed us with perfect seriousness. “I have seen the lights moving about in here at night. I sent off for a constable the first time, but by the time he came the ghost had left. That was just after poor Mr. Sutton was killed. Then the lights did not appear again till just recently. One night about a week ago I saw the light. I mentioned it to my husband, but he said it was none of my business; it was probably the new owner having a look around. As if the owner would not have entered by the front door! I tell you no one did, for my sewing corner gives a very clear view of your door. And the ghost didn’t leave by the front door, either. I kept a sharp eye, and no one came out, even after the lights vanished.”
“A week ago, you say—and no lights since?” I asked.
“Not a one. And I kept an eye peeled.”
“That is odd,” Mama allowed, with a little frown.
Mrs. George nodded her head and said, “Perhaps it was someone looking for the money.”
I assumed she had been gossiping with Mrs. Seymour and prepared to give her a setdown. “Mr. Sutton was not a thief! He was the victim.”
"But there was talk at the time that he had gotten hold of some huge sum of money—I don’t know exactly what it was. It wasn’t in the papers, but there were police officers searching the house for money—a whole bag of it. They asked me if I had seen anything of it, but I could not learn from them how that nice Mr. Sutton came to have such a sum. It stands to reason he was not rich, buying a tiny little place like this for his wife. He was to have been married very soon.”
She didn’t leap to the conclusion that I was to have been the bride, and I saw no reason to tell her. My mind was occupied with her more interesting statements. She soon rose to leave and said she hoped we could all come to call on her after we had settled in.
“Or will you be staying at all?” she asked, remembering the sign in the window.
It began to seem we might be staying longer than we had planned. I meant to discover what this bag of money was that Graham was supposed to have had the night he was murdered.
When we were alone again, Esther said, “What can it mean?”
“It must have something to do with his legal business,” I decided. “I thought it odd anyone would kill him only for the contents of his purse.”
“And leave his little diamond stickpin behind, too,” Mama reminded me.
“Graham had no partner—there is no one to ask.”
Mama was frowning, biting her bottom lip. “If the man came back several times and came again just last week, Belle, it looks as though he did not get the money,” she pointed out.
I felt a moment’s weakness from fright, but it was the tyrant’s job to be in charge, so I assumed a bold front. “How nice! Then we can look forward to more visits from him. I shall have the locks changed this very day. We shan’t sleep tonight in a house without safe locks.”
“Mrs. George said he didn’t use the door,” Esther reminded me.
“Mrs. George is a goose. He used the back door—or that cellar window. We’ll have the locks changed anyway, and a bolt put on the cellar door as well.”
After a frowning pause, Mama said, “I do wish Hotchkiss were here.”
I pointed out that Hotchkiss would not even have my letter yet and couldn’t reasonably be expected for a few days. “I’m going down to Bond Street this, minute to see if I can find a locksmith.”
“I’ll go with you,” Esther volunteered eagerly.
Mama blanched and shrieked, “I’m not staying here alone!”
“We cannot all go and leave the place empty. Someone might come to see the house,” I reminded them. “I’ll stay.”
“Not alone, Belle,” Mama objected. “There is no saying all the customers will be ladies.”
“Very true. We haven’t had a real lady so far,” I said, but of course it was a gentleman caller she feared, and I had no wish to tour the place alone with a gentleman. “We’ll all go together this afternoon. It won’t take more than an hour.”
Just after we got the breakfast debris cleared away, we heard a third tap at the door. Things move quickly in the city. At home, the Barrows had their house up for a month before they had a caller. It was Esther who pranced to the door, gold curls bouncing, when she spotted the handsome black carriage in the street and the elegant, many-caped greatcoat emerging from it.
“This is Mr. Desmond,” she said, showing him in. “He wants to see the house.”
Why? was the first thing that popped into my head. A gentleman who drove that elegant carriage outside our door and who emanated such a strong air of wealth and fashion did not belong in this toy house on Elm Street. He belonged in a mansion
in the very heart of fashionable London. He was exceedingly handsome in a dashing way that was new to me, and to Esther, too, to judge from her adoring gaze.
The thing that set Mr. Desmond apart from Bath gentlemen had to do with his manner as well, his open way of appraising us all, not trying to hide his curiosity; yet the manner was friendly enough. Short, dark hair sat smoothly on a well-sculpted head. The word “sculpted” suited his entire body, for it was of ideal proportions. The carving of the face was particularly fine, from the high cheekbones and strong jaw to the slightly sensuous lips. It was his liveliness and a pair of dancing dark eyes that removed the look of a Grecian statue. Those bold eyes, that mobile expression, had nothing to do with cold marble. A flirtatious smile began and then subsided as his glance flitted from Esther to me to Mama.
The vision opened its lips, and a deep, melodious voice spoke. “Good morning, ladies. I hope I haven’t dropped in at an inconvenient hour. When will it be best for me to return and tour the house?’’
“Now!” I said swiftly, “You may as well look now, Mr. Desmond. We plan to go out this afternoon,” I explained, but in a voice suffering from discomposure, that we had just arrived without servants and that the place wanted a good cleaning.
“That suits me.” He removed his outer coat, revealing a blue jacket exquisitely molded to broad shoulders. Sparkling linen and a discreetly patterned waistcoat were also displayed.
Something about this elegant Adonis robbed me of my wits. Instead of taking his coat and getting down to business, I just went on looking and smiling back at him, for his flickering gaze had finally settled on me. Only Mama proved immune to the man’s charm. She said, “The house is small.”
