Paisley winced; it hurt just looking at the mangled digits. “Good God! How were you able to do anything with them?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “They need proper splinting—and quickly—or they’ll be permanently damaged.” He hesitated a moment, weighing the disagreeable notion of taking a stranger into his quarters against the wisdom of trooping downstairs, with Law trailing more blood all the way.
“Thomas, fetch a basin of hot water and come back to my chambers. Detective Law,” he said, crutching back to his room. “Come in here and sit in this chair beside the lamp. I will take a look at your foot while you tell me where his lordship is,” he said as he pulled out the box of bandages and sticking plasters that he kept in his medicine cabinet.
Paisley turned all the way around when the other man didn’t answer. Law was slumped in the chair, staring sightlessly at the doorway he’d just come through.
“Detective,” Paisley repeated, startling them both with his sharp tone. “Where is Lord Jasper?”
“He was fightin’ a man we’d gone to arrest, Adolphus Vogel.” He stopped, shaking his head.
“Yes?”
Law swallowed. “He went off the pier.”
Paisley dropped the box to the floor with a clatter. “What do you mean off the pier? Why didn’t you get him out? Why isn’t—”
“I tried to find him—just seconds after he went over,” Law protested, half rising from his chair. “But it was dark, and he didn’t answer when I called his name—neither of them yelled or made a sound and—”
“And you just left him there?”
“No! Of course I didn’t leave him there. We got four boats looking for him, Mister Paisley.” Law’s expression was a mix of guilt and anguish. “Don’t you think I wanted to find him? The man saved my life again tonight. Those bastards would have killed us both if he hadn’t acted as quick as he had.” He shoved a hand through his curly ginger hair and then grimaced and dropped it.
They stared each other, Law’s anguished words heavy in the air between them.
Paisley’s brain seized like a piece of machinery that had rusted shut; he had no words.
Law rubbed his eyes hard enough to make Paisley wince. “I was out there for the first three hours lookin’ for him up and down the pier. My cousin knows a man with a skiff small enough to go between the pilings, just in case he got caught up on one. I’m goin’ right back to help after I leave here. I just came here to tell you,” he added miserably. “Christ,” he said with a dead look in his eyes. “It happened so damned fast.”
Paisley shook his head: this could not be happening. He could not have cared for Lord Jasper all through the nightmare of their time in the Crimea only to have him die here, in this wretched, filthy, savage city.
He pursed his lips and glared at Law. “His lordship is an excellent swimmer and has spent a great deal of time around water.”
Law nodded. “I figured he might be a swimmer—I know he spends a goodly amount of his time hittin’ the bag, so he’s tough. He was awake and conscious when he went over.” Law snorted softly. “He was in prime fightin’ shape. I don’t think Vogel even got in a hit, except right at the end, with that big damned knife.”
“Knife?” Paisley shrieked.
Law recoiled. “No, he didn’t get cut—the blade hit more on the flat.” He held up his mangled hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I went to the harbor patrol, and they’ll start sweeping for him at dawn to make sure he doesn’t go out with the tide. He got lucky in that it’s an incoming tide. It’s a high tide—the highest of the month. He could have been pushed up quite a ways.” He hesitated and then said. “We found the other man—Vogel.” Law grimaced. “Well, we found parts of him.”
“What in the name of God do you mean?” Paisley demanded.
“Oh,” Law pulled an unhappy face. “I’m doing a bang-up job, ain’t I? Vogel got caught up in a steamship. We found him not an hour after the two went into the water.”
Paisley stared at the blood pooling on the wooden floor. “Let’s get your boot off.”
“I’ll do it.” Law gritted his teeth as he toed off his bloodied boot with a wince, exposing a wad of cotton that had been clumsily wrapped around it.
Paisley lifted the foot onto a footstool and then knelt beside it. He removed first the cotton and then the stocking, hissing in a breath. “This is quite serious,” he told the younger man. “It’s gone all the way through. There might be damage inside. You should go to—”
“A doctor won’t do no more than stitch it shut, sir.” Law chewed his lower lip, his sun-browned skin pale. “Er, do you think—”
“I’ll stitch it. But first we need to wash it.”
The door opened and Thomas entered, a steaming pitcher in one hand and a basin in the other.
Behind him was Mrs. Freedman, bearing the inevitable tea tray.
“Good Lord,” she murmured, bustling into Paisley’s bedchamber as if it belonged to her, her eyes on Law’s oozing injury. She clucked her tongue, her bright gaze shifting to Paisley. “It’s not been a good month for feet,” she said, setting the tray down on the secretary desk and coming closer to inspect the wound.
She wore a plain white sleeping cap along with a quilted dressing gown and matching slippers. It was eminently proper garb and yet Paisley felt an unaccustomed thumping in his chest when she knelt down beside him, bringing the faint scent of lavender with her.
She was a small woman—a good eight inches shorter than Paisley’s own five foot nine, but she had large hands. Although she couldn’t be more than thirty, he knew she’d led a hard life to have such hands. Law was a ginger, and her dark fingers made his pale, freckled skin look unhealthily white next to them.
She glanced at Paisley. “You were thinkin’ to tend to it?”
“I can stitch a wound,” he said stiffly, annoyed by the challenge in her tone and the knowing look in her light brown eyes.
She snorted. “Could I please have some of that water in a basin,” she asked the hovering Thomas, and then turned to the scattered mess of Paisley’s box and began to assemble the necessary bandages. “And some of his lordship’s whiskey.”
“Oh, thank you,” the young detective murmured.
Mrs. Freedman cut Law a quick, amused glance. “I suppose you could have a little to drink, too, although I’m really wantin’ it for your foot.”
Thomas returned a moment later with the basin, a bottle, and a glass.
Paisley poured two fingers, reconsidered, and added another two before handing the glass to the detective.
Mrs. Freedman took the bottle. “This will sting,” she warned, splashing the wound with whisky and then holding a cloth against it to keep the liquor on the wound.
Law sucked in a harsh breath and then threw back the contents of his glass.
Once she’d cleaned both sides of the wound, she put his foot in the basin of hot water and stood. “I’m going to fetch a needle and thread.” She paused and then asked the detective, “Did something happen to Lord Jasper?”
Paisley left the room without speaking, unwilling to hear the dreadful story again.
Only when he was standing in the corridor did he recall that the triage was in his bedchamber. He couldn’t go back in there.
He cudgeled his brain, but it was like flogging a dying horse. He could not think right now; he needed to do.
Yes, that’s what he needed. Lord Jasper might be back any moment, and who knew what condition he’d be in? Paisley would go get things ready for when his lordship returned.
He stumped slowly down the corridor and opened the door to his master’s room, closing it quietly behind him.
CHAPTER 39
“You need to sleep,” Ian said to Hy when the captain of the small fishing boat—a boat that Paisley’s money had rented—insisted on taking a break.
“Your cousin’s right, Detective,” Captain Phineas Lowell said. “We all need a break and I need some food,” Lowell said before Hy tried to talk him in
to making one more sweep before the tide changed again. “I won’t be any good to you passed out.”
Lowell went off to secure food, with yet more of the valet’s money.
“He’s right, Hy. Don’t you think—”
“I’m fine, Ian. Although you could bring me a growler of Jimmy’s ale, if you’re wantin’ to help.” Hy appreciated that his cousin was trying to offer his support, but he really didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
Ian nodded. “Sure thing, Hy.”
Hy watched his cousin leave through eyeballs that felt as if they’d been sanded. Ian was right: he was dead on his feet. Or his arse, as the case may be. But he was afraid to close his eyes because every time he did he saw the same scene over and over: him pulling Lightner off Vogel, Lightner turning around because of Hy’s interference, and Vogel surprising them both by being conscious enough to pull the Englishman into the filthy, treacherous water of the Hudson River.
If Hy had just shut his mouth and let Lightner beat the man to death—which Vogel surely deserved—he wouldn’t be sitting here sick with guilt and sleeplessness.
Hy must have dropped into a doze because Phineas startled him when he dropped his leather sack of food on the pier.
“I brought enough bread, cheese, corn, and even some pound cake my daughter makes. ’Course the way she makes it it’s more like two-pound cake.”
Hy knew the man was just trying to be sociable, but he had nothing left to give in that department. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing when one of his splinted fingers bent. “I want to go up to the Hell Gate,” he said.
Phineas groaned. “I know the tides, lad. If he went in where you said, when you said, he would have gone upriver with the tide for a good few hours. If he didn’t get picked up or washed up, he would have come back down and then—” Phineas grimaced. “Well, you know.”
Hy did know; he’d been arguing with the man for the better part of a day and a half. Tonight, around eleven, would make it two days.
Phineas had already made his views known on what they should do then. “It will soon be time to pack it in,” he’d said, more than once.
“Want to eat here?” Phineas asked, looking hopefully at the saloon.
Just then Ian came out, carrying a big jug of ale.
“No. I want to eat on the boat,” Hy said, meeting Ian halfway. “Much obliged, cousin.”
Ian nodded and smacked him on the shoulder. “You’ll find him.”
Hy grunted and turned away. He knew he was acting like an arse, but he didn’t care. He turned to Lowell. “I want to go up to the Hell Gate.”
He turned without waiting for an answer.
CHAPTER 40
July 8
Paisley looked down and saw that he’d been restlessly stropping Lord Jasper’s razor, which had already been sharp and ready, lying on the white linen cloth that covered the tray, waiting for somebody to shave—just as it had been for three days now.
It felt like years had passed since the night Detective Law had shown up.
But that had been only three nights ago. The longest three nights of his life.
The harbor patrol was searching—albeit grudgingly—after Paisley had made an appearance in their office. They’d told him forty-eight hours was all they’d do.
A telegram from the governor and a sharp message from Superintendent Tallmadge of the Metropolitan Police had changed their attitude and ensured their cooperation, at least for one more day.
But tomorrow, Paisley knew after speaking with Law earlier in the day, the official search would be over.
Law, himself, had been tireless. He’d accepted, without the expected struggle, money for a fishing boat. The man had patrolled almost nonstop, going all the way up past Two Hundredth Street to around Fort Lee, They had—at Law’s insistence—even gone all the way around to Ravenswood in Queens. Beyond that was a section of water called Hell Gate. While nobody had said it out loud—at least to Paisley if they found Lord Jasper all the way up there, it would have been a freak accident and he wouldn’t have survived.
“I’m not giving up on him,” Law had said just before he left a few hours ago, the skin beneath his eyes dark from a lack of sleep.
Even so, the chances of finding Lord Jasper after three full days had dwindled, and tonight, with the knowledge that tomorrow would officially end the search, the spirts at the house had been lower than ever, the atmosphere one of a hopeless all-night vigil.
The rest of the servants had gathered in the kitchen, huddled around the table, drinking the strong coffee Mrs. Freedman liked to brew, everyone too sick with worry and grief to eat all the cakes and biscuits and breads she couldn’t seem to stop baking.
Paisley no longer had the energy to scold them to be about their work as he had the first two days that his lordship had been gone, back when he’d expected the door to fly open at any moment with the big brash American detective accompanying Lord Jasper.
The thought was too stupid to be borne, really. At this point, if his master were to appear, it would be the same way he had at Balaclava, draped over another man’s horse like a corpse. Only this time, he might truly be a corpse.
Paisley had always considered Balaclava the second worst day of his life, the first being the day his mother, at the age of only thirty-one, had collapsed in front of him, clutching the area of her chest where he now knew the human heart resided. He’d been twelve, the eldest of his six sisters and brothers, and already working almost two years for an English lord.
Later, the old doctor who treated the Irish had told Paisley there was nothing he could have done.
“It’s not your fault, Alistair,” he’d said with an awkward pat to his shoulder, already halfway to the door in their tiny stone cottage. He’d been an overworked man who’d not had time to treat patients for non-bodily afflictions. It had been up to Paisley to comfort his younger siblings.
It had been up to him, too, to find homes for them all, sending them far and wide to his mother’s relatives, none of whom could even afford their own children.
He’d tried to visit them while he’d still lived and worked in Belfast, but when the English baron who’d been with the diplomatic legion had gone back to England, there had been a position in his household for Paisley.
He’d been sixteen the last time he saw any of his siblings, although he still occasionally exchanged letters with one of his sisters, who lived in the same area where they’d grown up.
Paisley sent money regularly for his nieces and nephews, but he’d never found the time to go back.
He feared that time would soon be his.
Just how long could a man survive in the filthy, cold, and dangerous river?
There was a light knock on the door and he sprang to his feet, immediately biting back an undignified yelp when he put too much weight on his blasted foot.
The door opened too slowly for it to be an urgent message of any sort, and Paisley wasn’t surprised to see the boy, John, standing in the doorway.
Paisley had come up to his chambers—well, to his lordship’s chambers—precisely because he wished to be alone. And yet here was unwanted company.
He looked at John’s anxious face and sighed. The little urchin had not looked this grim even while being mobbed and beaten with cudgels and brickbats on the Fourth of July.
“You might as well come in,” Paisley said. “Are the others still in the kitchen?” He really should go and set them all back to their tasks, but—really—what was there for servants to do when there was nobody to serve?
“Yes.” John hesitated and then added, “His l-l-l-lordship’s new horse is here.”
It took Paisley a moment to recall what he meant, but then he remembered the master had gone to a stud farm just across the river in New Jersey—right before the trouble with Mrs. Dunbarton—and purchased a hacking horse.
“I know I’ll not get m-m-much opportunity to ride it,” he’d confided to Paisley, his expression uncharacteristically wistful.
“But I can’t imagine l-living without a horse. It’s bad enough that we’ve n-not got a dog.”
Rather than take enjoyment from his master’s words, Paisley had said something repressive, and likely acerbic, about dogs; he was not a great lover of canines as his lordship was. Lord Jasper, being the good-natured man that he was, had laughed at his sour expression. “Don’t worry, Paisley, I shan’t come home with a b-basket of p-p-puppies next.”
Now Paisley felt like a bloody arse. Every single instance of short temper, irritation, or sarcasm that his lordship had tolerated over the years came flooding back to him. Lord Jasper had never spoken harshly to him. Indeed, the man was almost inhumanly even-tempered.
“I th-th-th-th—” The boy broke off and dropped his chin to his chest.
“Don’t give up so easily,” Paisley chided. “His lordship used to stammer far worse than you,” he said, not entirely truthfully. But his words brought the boy’s head back up, this time with a spark of interest in his eyes.
“Try speaking more slowly. And if people don’t want to listen and wait for you to finish, well, then they likely weren’t worth bothering with in the first place. Now, what was it that you wanted to say?”
“I th-th-th-think he will c-c-c-c-c-come back.” His expression was truculent, and Paisley knew it wasn’t for him but aimed at his own tongue. He recalled when Lord Jasper had been younger—sixteen or seventeen—and had often worn the very same expression.
“Go fetch the black boots that are in my room and bring the wooden hand tray beside it,” he said, not wanting to talk about his master with the boy. It felt … disloyal, even though he knew Lord Jasper would not mind if Paisley used a story from his past to give the young man a bit of comfort.
His lordship had always been kind and thoughtful, even as a very young gentleman. Too kind, in Paisley’s opinion, especially when it came to the members of his family. It never ceased to amaze him that Lord Jasper could tolerate his sister-in-law—the future Duchess of Kersey—after the woman had treated him so shabbily and then gone on to marry his only brother—whom his lordship had always worshipped.
Crooked in His Ways Page 30
