“’E’s an arse,” Mrs. Whit’s mum grumbled.
And before Mrs. Whit could rebuke her, Colin held up a hand and allowed a sympathetic smile to cross his face. “You mustn’t trouble yourself about your mother, Mrs. Whit. She is entitled to her opinions, and I see no reason to take the least offense in them.”
Mrs. Whit gave something of a smile in return, but it was easy to see that hers was tinged with shame. “Yer a right thoughtful man, Mr. Pendragon.”
“You don’t like Mr. Fischer, then?” Colin said right to Mrs. Whit’s mum.
“’E’s a right nob,” she fired back. “Full a ’imself, that one. Flashin’ a bit a jewelry wot is filled with diamonds and sayin’ it were ’is mum’s, and yet ’e ain’t got shite jest like the rest a us. Stole it, is wot I think. All ’e does is boss Viv ’round like they was married.” She turned to her daughter. “They ain’t married, is they?”
“Mater.” Mrs. Whit flushed, and I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed for her. “You know they ain’t married.” She turned back to Colin. “Mr. Fischer is good ta us,” she explained, though once again I noticed she did not contradict her mum’s statement. “’E brings us food from time ta time and gave me the loveliest little necklace fer Christmas last year.”
“’E knocks Viv about.” Her mother spoke up as she reached for another biscuit. “Not that she don’t deserve it, mind ya. Gotta mouth on ’er. . . .”
“Please . . . !” Mrs. Whit’s tone was tinged with begging. “What you must think a us. . . .” she said to Colin and me.
“Mama . . .” a hesitant voice called from behind us, and I turned to see a girl of five or six in a nightshirt, rubbing her eyes as if she had been asleep.
“Emmy.” Mrs. Whit jumped up and took the girl by the hand. “Say ’ullo ta these gentlemen. They’re famous and come all this way ta talk ta yer oldest sister.” The little girl shied behind her mother, and I could see that Mrs. Whit meant to whisk her back to bed.
“Biscuit?” Colin popped up with the linen in his hands, moving the few steps toward the door with delicate strides so as not to further unnerve the little girl. “Take it back to bed with you. They’re ginger biscuits. Do you like ginger biscuits?”
The little girl’s shy smile widened as she nodded her head even as she carefully avoided looking directly at him.
“Well, go on then, Emmy,” Mrs. Whit prodded. “And you’d best say thank you fer it too.” She glanced back at Colin. “This one loves ’er biscuits. Especially me butter and ginger.”
Little Emmy darted an arm out and snatched a biscuit from the cloth, quickly muttering something in a high singsong voice that I took to be a stand-in for her thanks.
“You are entirely welcome,” Colin answered, giving her a dazzling smile as he stood upright and turned back to the other adults in the room. “You have all been most gracious with your time and hospitality.” He spun back to little Emmy and held out the remaining biscuits. “Why don’t you take the rest of these and share them with your brothers and sisters tomorrow.”
The girl giggled and clung to her mother’s leg, but even so, still managed to reach out and take the proffered bakes. “What do ya say to the nice gentleman?!” her mother hissed.
The child gave another sort of mumbled response, which earned her a quick tousling of her hair by Colin as he folded and slipped the empty cloth into his coat pocket. It was easy to see that he was well pleased; I only hoped he had real cause to be.
A few minutes later as we climbed back into our waiting cab, I could not hold my tongue another second. “You seem awfully gratified considering all we’ve learned is that Vivian Whit’s little sister likes ginger biscuits.”
Colin glanced at me with a single raised eyebrow as he called up to our driver. “Regent’s Park, if you please. Albany Street just up from Redhill.”
“Ay . . .” the reply drifted back.
“We have the means now,” Colin answered as he settled back in the seat. “That was critical.”
“The means? By that I assume you are referring to the connection between Devlin Fischer and Vivian Whit?”
“That’s part of it. But we also know that with Miss Whit working nights at Layton Manor, she also had the opportunity to do whatever she pleased against Miss Adelaide. With or without Freddie Nettle’s knowledge. No one would have given a second thought to Miss Whit moving in and out of Miss Adelaide’s room at any hour. She, more than anyone else, had every right to be there. And now we know she has a little sister with a preference for ginger biscuits who, if I am not mistaken, would fit nicely into a small cupboard. And I’d bet she wouldn’t put up a fuss if her elder sister asked her to do it. Especially if she was rewarded with biscuits for her efforts.”
“And what of Mr. Fischer?”
Colin curled his mouth as if he had tasted something unpleasant. “He has access to the ladders in the stables. Who’s to say he couldn’t easily have implemented a campaign against Miss Adelaide from outside, tossing pebbles and small stones against her window.” He turned to me and his eyes were steely. “You felt the pits along the jamb. Not an easy target. But he needed to draw Miss Adelaide’s eye outside so she could see the crying child . . . lost . . . calling out to her.” His eyebrows knit. “Until that was no longer having the effect he and Miss Whit were after.” He sank down into the seat, his expression darkening. “That’s when they decided to bring the girl inside. . . .”
“And then what?” I could not stop myself from pressing him. “Mr. Fischer started putting the ladder up against the window so he could rap against it . . . ? Or throw ignited powders inside . . . ? Don’t you think Miss Adelaide would have seen him?!”
“It was the middle of the night, Ethan. She was a woman in her eighties woken from sleep. Why are you being so belligerent?”
“I’m not trying to be, Colin. But I cannot figure out why. Why ever would Devlin Fischer or Vivian Whit want to do such a thing?”
Colin gave a feral growl as he shifted his gaze outside and silently watched the passing scene for a few minutes as gas streetlights gradually gave way to electric, marking our passage into the more gentrified area of Regent’s Park. “You ask the one question I cannot answer,” he muttered long after I’d thought he was going to.
He kept his eyes leveled on the brick flats passing by, one huddled against the next, all of them soot stained if better tended than the area of Highbury where we’d just been. People were still trundling about: men with spats and canes and woolen coats, and women in long, deeply hued overcoats, some with fur around their collars, all of them unaware of the conundrum that had cost a wealthy elderly woman her life.
“Where do ya want me ta stop?” the driver called down.
“This will do,” Colin said.
We were halfway up Albany Street, perpendicular to Cumberland Terrace, which was the last place Charlotte Hutton had been seen. I paid the driver his full fare and sent him on his way, and then waited for Colin to say or do something. He was standing at the curb, his hands held behind his back as though he had all the time in the world and was content to merely watch the city clatter past. The humming streetlights cast opaque shadows against the settling fog that had begun to drift in with the night’s chill. If his intention was to spot our young spy, Paul, or one of his chums, I couldn’t see how he expected to be successful at it.
“Mr. P.?” a boy’s voice chirped from behind me, and I turned to find a small lad of not more than nine staring at us.
“Yes . . . ?” Colin answered, his expression still grim.
“Yer ta falla me,” the boy instructed, and without further explanation turned and scurried across Albany and up a nearby alley toward Cumberland.
We followed without comment, though as we entered the alley and the boy began to slow, I could not resist asking Colin, “You knew Paul would have someone looking out for us, didn’t you?”
“He is a resourceful boy. I assumed he would be watching out for us as well as Mrs. Hutton. We are,
after all, his employer of the moment.”
The young lad scuttling along in front of us suddenly pulled up short and held a finger to his lips. Even in the darkness of the alley it was still evident that his face was as smudged with grime as the clothing he wore, from the oversized cap atop his head to the waist-length coat and breeches I found it impossible to discern the original color of. His shoes were scuffed and while they appeared black I decided they could just as easily have started out their life some shade of brown.
“Back ’ere,” the boy said, pointing toward a metal bin overflowing with trash.
I felt my face cave with my displeasure, unsure exactly what he was pointing at, but Colin did not hesitate in the slightest, immediately following the boy behind the huge bin and disappearing from view. “Ethan,” he called after a second, and it was the first moment I realized I had not followed him.
In spite of how desperately I wanted to pinch my nose, I refused to allow myself such a finicky luxury as I moved around behind the bin, the last of the fresh air clamped tightly in my lungs. To my surprise there was a rectangular gap in the brickwork at the bottom of the building that was covered by the bin. I assumed it had been constructed as a window originally, but the glass was long gone and there was no sign of a jamb anymore, either. The boy dropped to the ground and slid through the opening with the ease of a resident mouse, Colin squirming in right behind him.
I knelt down before realizing I would have to get on my hands and knees, and even then I was too tall to wriggle through. With an exasperated groan I dropped to my belly and pushed myself through the gap feet first, my feet dangling out over unknown space before my waist finally slid through and I was able to lever my legs downward and find purchase on a ladder.
“’At’s got it,” I heard the boy’s encouragement from inside.
I found myself perched atop a ladder of indeterminate height, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim candlelight below me. The room was obviously a cellar, as there were wooden crates and boxes stacked along every wall all the way to the ceiling and many more were randomly placed throughout the space, though I suspected Paul and his boys had done a fair bit of rearranging themselves.
“Welcome ta me ’eadquarters,” Paul said from the center of the room, a broad grin on his face. There was one other boy in the room besides the cap-wearing lad we had followed here, and Colin was already standing beside Paul, though his eyes were riveted to the floor just beyond.
“I am . . .” Colin started to say, continuing to stare at the floor as he began to walk in an arc behind where Paul stood, “. . . amazed.”
I reached the bottom of what I realized was a makeshift ladder, old boards tied together with rope that had been plucked from somewhere else, and hoped we could exit via a proper staircase rather than the way we had entered. Colin, Paul, and the other two boys were all gathered just a short distance away, all glaring at different places on the floor behind where Paul was. As I came up to them, I finally realized why. Sketched across that part of the floor in chalk was a map of Cumberland Terrace, with both Albany Street on the far side and Outer Circle on the near. The map showed precisely where Cumberland Place dissected Cumberland Terrace, and how Cumberland Terrace Mews paralleled a short portion of Cumberland Terrace. Every building and every alleyway was denoted, though many of the buildings had large X’s running through them.
“I finished this place ’ere and ’ere,” the third boy said to Paul, pointing at two buildings just up from Cumberland Place on Outer Circle. “Ain’t neither of ’em got a lady wot lives by ’erself and matches the photograph ya got.”
“Shite,” Paul cursed as he knelt down and X’ed out the two buildings. “Then ya go and take these two next,” he instructed, gesturing to three buildings farther down the street. “And don’t take yer eyes off the street. She could be anywhere and I’ll not ’ave us miss ’er ’cause you lot ’ave yer ’eads up yer arses.”
The young boy who had ushered us here snickered, which earned him a glare from Paul.
“I ain’t missin’ nothin’,” the first boy assured, a tall, skinny chap who looked slightly older than Paul and had black hair and a sharp nose. “You ain’t got nothin’ ta worry ’bout with me.”
“Then get on,” Paul commanded firmly, and the boy took off, scrambling up the flimsy ladder and out the gap in an instant. “You too, Charlie.” Paul glanced over at our young guide. “You done good.” He looked over at Colin. “Ya s’pose you can give Charlie ’ere a little somethin’ for spottin’ ya?”
Colin flicked his eyes to me and I reached into my pocket and pulled out a shilling. “Here you go,” I said as I handed it over, and to my surprise the boy swept off his cap and gave an exuberant bow. The chivalrous gesture caught my fancy, making me quickly add, “And there will be more once we find this woman.”
“I’ll take care a the pay,” Paul quickly reminded him. “Now git. And keep yer eyes open.”
Little Charlie seated the cap back onto his head, still clutching the shilling in one hand, and was up and out of the cellar with even greater speed than the boy before him.
“You have quite an operation here,” Colin remarked with what I took to be a hint of admiration. “How many lads do you have working for you?”
“Six. Seven if ya count Charlie. But ’e ain’t much good ’cept fer watchin’ the street. I ’ave ’im lookin’ fer your lady and, a course, I ’ad ’im lookin’ fer the two a you. Were ya waitin’ on Albany?”
“We were.”
“’At’s where I told ’im ta be. Knew you’d prob’ly come there so’s ya won’t be seen on Cumberlan’.” He looked over at me. “And I ’membered wot ya said about the lady bein’ dangerous, so I keep me lads rotatin’ around. Sometimes askin’ questions at the buildin’s and sometimes jest beggin’ fer a bit a change while keepin’ an eye out fer that woman.” He half turned back toward the ladder and gestured. “I keep the picture ya gave me of ’er hangin’ right by the ladder so’s the blokes can see ’er face every time they go out.” He pointed to his head. “I aim ta keep ’er face right fresh in their buggered little minds.” He laughed, but it was easy to see that he was pleased with himself, and well he should be.
“So you and your crew have ruled out all of these places?” Colin asked with a note of concern in his voice as he stared down at the boxes that had already been X’ed out, which was clearly the majority of them.
“That we ’ave,” Paul said with pride.
“Well, then . . .” Colin stepped back and managed a smile. “I can ask no more.” He started back toward the flimsy ladder and my heart sank.
“Colin,” I called to him. “Do you think we might leave up the main stairs?” I nodded toward the dilapidated steps that led into the building itself.
“Ya can’t do that,” Paul answered before Colin could. “Door’s locked and we can’t ’ave nobody knowin’ we’re down ’ere. I’ve already ’ad ta redraw me map once.”
“There you have it,” Colin said as he heaved himself up the hanging ladder and, while he was not as dexterous as the lads, he still managed to make a quick exit of it.
I pulled four crowns out of my pocket and handed them over to Paul. “Can you split these between your boys?”
His eyes went huge and round. “A course.”
“There will be more when this is done,” I assured him. “Thank you, Paul.”
He gave a casual shrug, but I could also see a small smile tugging at his lips. This suited him, and it occurred to me that we would need to find something better for him once this case was over. How could we simply walk away and leave him to the streets again?
I made my way up the feeble ladder with far less grace and skill than I had seen everyone else use, so I was glad when I felt Colin’s hand clamp onto my shoulder to help pull me back through the gap. “That’s a muck of a place, isn’t it?” I said as I got up and tried to brush my clothes off, a hopeless gesture at best.
“That boy is resourcefu
l,” Colin muttered.
We headed back out of the alley and turned down Albany in the direction of our flat. I assumed Colin was going to hail a cab but he did not, and I realized he meant to walk the nearly four miles back to Kensington. “They’ll find her,” I said after a minute.
“Eventually. Or at the very least they will find where she has been.”
I was glad the darkness covered my disappointment so he could not see it. “At least you have your little girl in the Endicott case,” I was quick to point out. “And we have the alliance between Vivian Whit and Devlin Fischer. . . .”
“Do we?” He kept his gaze steadily forward, his stride as determined as the dourness that I could feel descending upon the both of us. “Without a motive I’m not so sure we have anything. In fact, with every hour that passes I’m not sure we actually have anything on either case at all.”
I opened my mouth to answer before realizing I didn’t have the slightest notion how to respond. Not even an inkling. Because I too had begun to fear the very same thing. And so we walked the rest of the way to our flat, all four miles of it, in abject silence.
CHAPTER 27
I was running as fast as I could, my lungs heaving, my feet rocketing across the cobbled stones as if they were hot enough to burst into flames, my heart pounding with such desperation it seemed sure to portend its very cessation. No matter how hard I tried, I could not catch my breath, and the only sound I could hear was the hammering of my own heartbeat edging ever closer to its very pinnacle, and then I heard the voice—
“Are ya bloody dead in there, fer shite sake?!” it called out with exasperation just before another savage pounding pelted the door. “Don’t make me come in and drag yer sorry arse outta there. Neither one of us would like the sight a that!”
“Yes . . .” I groaned at Mrs. Behmoth as I rolled onto my back to find myself alone in bed. “Where’s Colin?”
“’E left over an ’our ago. Said ta leave ya be. But ya got a ruddy urchin downstairs and I can’t get ’im ta bugger off.”
The Endicott Evil Page 26
