Page 7 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)

P hoebe waited at the iron rail around the green center of Soho Square where she and Jones were to meet. Old King Charles stood on his pedestal in the middle of the dying lawn looking a little seedy, but the wide square itself bustled with life. She kept her veil in place, and thought of other times in Soho with her school friends. They came for Georgie to buy art supplies and Maddie to buy weather instruments, and to look in the windows of a print dealer who displayed Georgie’s botanical drawings. It was a neighborhood of ups and downs, marked by the grand houses of the last century, now divided into dozens of cramped dwellings, and newer edifices doing modern sorts of business. And even, if reports could be believed, one exclusive brothel. You could hear passersby speaking French or Spanish, German, or even Greek.

She kept an eye out for gentlemen in red ties, but saw none. Shattuck’s red tie alone shouldn’t make her think she and Jones were on the trail of the missing footman. But like the red tie, the shop’s closeness to the registration office for servants, was a striking coincidence. It had got her thinking. Plainly, Boyle had been a man of secrets. He had left behind possessions, few though they were, from some other life. She had had only the briefest glimpse of Shattuck’s ledger, but the neatness of the script and the watch and the ten pounds had struck her. She had a theory, but she wanted to hear what Jones made of it all, and what he had found in the lining of the old leather case.

If she could get him to share his thoughts. She suspected that he was going to be difficult. He had not wanted her to come along and now he would want to be rid of her, but she wasn’t going quietly back to Marchmont House without picking his brain. She had been useful, and she, too, had found a scrap that might help the search. In her bag was a torn square of paper from the inner pocket of Boyle’s coat. On it there was only a name and a number. Hayward’s 1946. A clock struck the hour, echoed by others in the usual way of London clocks, each insisting on its claim to the proper time. Jones loped across the square, the leather case tucked under his arm.

“Let me get you back to Charles Street,” he said.

She didn’t move. “I have questions for you.”

“You can write them down when you get home.” He looked about and signaled a cab. “I’m still making sense of things.”

“I can help you.”

The cab approached, the driver up behind on his high perch, whip in hand. “Don’t you have to return to… managing a household?” Jones asked.

“Not before we consider our evidence.” Phoebe’s cousins would be coming, and she needed to show them an agreeable face. Putting them off, giving them reason to think she was ready to resume a place in society was another disguise she was wearing, a far heavier one than Mrs. Kendall’s black gown.

He frowned. “ We don’t have evidence. I work alone.”

“Really? Because for the last half hour, you worked with me. You looked at Shattuck’s ledger and that watch because I distracted him. Not once, but twice. You could thank me, you know, instead of behaving like a rudesby.”

“Thank you? We’re not in your drawing room having tea. This is Soho. For every legitimate business, there are two coiners, ten receivers, and dozens of housebreakers.”

“Nobody knows this case better than I do.”

“And why is that, Mrs. Kendall ? Why is the housekeeper so well-informed about the young lord’s disappearance? Or did you want to be honest with me about who you really are?”

“I told you before, who I am doesn’t matter.”

The cab stopped, and Jones offered a hand to Phoebe. It wasn’t a gesture of polite assistance, but a command for her to step up into the cab. Under that plain appearance there was something lordly and aloof about him, as if he answered to no one but himself. She ignored the hand and gathered her skirts, lifting her foot to the step. Reason wasn’t working on him. A change of tactics was necessary.

“How much do you think Shattuck charges for false papers?” she asked. She had an instant to enjoy the stunned look on his face. Then his hand snagged her elbow.

“How did you work that out?”

“Interested? You might want to see what I found in Boyle’s pocket as well.”

He muttered something she was sure she did not want to hear, followed by, “Get in and make room.”

She scrambled up into the cab, squeezed into the corner, and made an effort to contain her billowing skirts. He climbed in after her. The cab yielded to his weight. His shoulders and long legs filled the space. He laid the leather case on his knees and angled to face her, all business. In one way they were alike. They both wanted answers.

“Don’t smirk,” he said.

“You don’t know that I’m smirking.”

“Yes, I do. You think that veil hides everything. It doesn’t.”

Her impression of him shifted again. He smelled of soap and coffee, pleasant welcoming smells, at odds with his tense energy. He frowned at her, his usual expression, but he was blue eyed and fair haired and laugh lines radiated from his eyes. There must be someone somewhere who could make him smile. And when he did, his face would be quite handsome. She shook off the wayward thought. It didn’t matter whether one surly detective could smile or not. It only mattered that they find her brother. She lifted her veil.

*

Robin rarely used cabs. All the disadvantages of a cab were now doubly evident. Caught in London’s traffic, they could be slow, and they had no room for his long legs. He always left a cab needing to stretch. Furthermore, cabs offended his nose. They smelled of other passengers and of London itself. The left wheel of this particular cab had had a recent brush with horse droppings. But mainly the scent that bothered him was hers: a warm, woodsy mix of lavender and cedar and something more delicate and elusive, like one of those white, hothouse blooms in the gardens at Daventry Hall. Her black skirts made a silken foam lapping against his legs.

And she lifted her veil. He wished she hadn’t. It had been a mistake to taunt her. She had the sort of face that stopped a man thinking. He couldn’t even say why. It was a face made up of the usual elements, eyes and nose, lips and cheeks. Maybe her eyes were a changeable, watery shade of blue, and her nose turned up slightly. There was nothing so remarkable in that. Maybe her cheeks were flushed a rosy pink. Maybe her lower lip was plumper than the upper. Still, these were ordinary, everyday features. Nothing he hadn’t seen before. The three Jones brothers from whom he had taken his name had all married beautiful women, yet his wits never went begging around them. It made no sense that Mrs. Kendall’s face, animated by keenness, her eyes flashing intelligence, should distract him.

“Did the shop strike you as prosperous?” she asked. “What do you suppose the rent is? Can Shattuck cover his costs by selling old clothes?”

“The rent made you think he runs a con on the side?” Running a con was just what Robin expected from a smooth fellow like Shattuck.

“That and his over-friendly manner, his meticulous handwriting, his uneasiness over his ledgers, and his advantageous position to watch persons coming and going from the hiring agency across the street.” She ticked her points off on the fingers of her left hand. “My guess is that Shattuck is all sympathy for the disappointed job-seeker leaving the employment office.”

“You may be right.” She had worked things out while he’d been gawking at her face, a face still turned to him. She had a widow’s peak, the only place where her honey-brown hair was visible under some kind of black netting.

“I am right. We should go back and question Shattuck. If he produced the papers that Boyle used to get a position at Marchmont House, then he met Boyle. He may know where Boyle lives.”

“Whoa!” Robin pressed a fingertip to her lips. She froze. Her eyes widened, and he removed his hand. “Too fast. You’re getting ahead of yourself. Even if Shattuck produces false papers, he may not work directly with those who use them.” Robin was interested in the red-tie connection between Shattuck and the man entering the offices of the Benevolent Assistance League.

“You think there’s a middleman? Who?”

Now he was in trouble. She was quick to make connections. He didn’t want her confronting Shattuck or charging into the office across the street. “I think there are better leads than speculation about false papers. Boyle’s watch for one. With the serial number and the dealer’s name—”

“Which you obtained thanks to me,” she said. “You can find Boyle through the dealer.” She looked at him as if the whole thing were simple and direct. She really had no idea the patience required to follow a trail of clues.

“Don’t expect to find our man today. I’ll go to the watch depot in the Strand tomorrow.” Robin suspected the serial number would lead to a purchaser with a name other than Boyle. John Boyle would turn out to be James Somebody Else who had a woman named Molly in his life, a sweetheart, sister, or wife. And Robin would learn more if he rid himself of his present distracting company.

“Maybe there’s something else. Maybe if you go to the watch dealer, I can go somewhere else. What did you find in the case?” She tapped the leather case on Robin’s knees.

“A roll of paper.” He pulled it from his pocket, his elbow bumping her stout middle. It was going to be awkward to unroll the tightly wound paper without touching her. He tried to open the paper with his left hand, but it rolled her way across the case, and she caught it.

“Here,” she said, “Let me.” She leaned forward and unrolled the paper, pressing down, holding it steady as the cab rumbled along. He looked over her shoulder, his head swimming with the scent of her.

It was a letter, or part of one on a torn piece of paper, in a formal hand unlike Shattuck’s.

We are pleased to inform you that your benefactor has left a third draft for you through our agent. You may collect it at your convenience once your task is complete. Please employ the usual precautions and signals.

Against his shoulder Mrs. Kendall gave a little shudder. He understood. There was something chilling about the letter. If the message was intended for Boyle, then Boyle had some connection to a dodgy underground organization operating in secret and expecting obedience to its orders. The idea of a benefactor acting through an agent and requiring a task didn’t fit the word as he understood it. Robin and his fellow lost boys had a true benefactor in the Duke of Wenlocke, whose generosity required no repayment.

The cab rattled along. Mrs. Kendall’s hands held the paper flat against the case. The case pressed against Robin’s knees. “It’s an odd letter, don’t you think, almost legal sounding, but not quite? Who are these people? This we , the benefactor , the agent ? What task was Boyle paid to do?”

Robin could think of several things. The case grew more complicated. It was possible, probable even, that Boyle worked for one of the radical political groups operating in London. While Robin disapproved of the police tendency to round up idle fellows with Irish names at the first hint of a conspiracy, he had to admit that the letter pointed to such an organization. And if Boyle had been employed by them, then perhaps the boy Andrew had witnessed some exchange in the park that put him in danger.

“First,” he said, “I…”

She twisted to glare at him. The movement brought them face-to-face, inches apart. His brain stalled. The only thought he could manage was that she didn’t like the I .

“Could the red tie be their signal?” she plunged ahead. “Could Shattuck be the agent?”

“One thing at a time,” he said. Again, her brain was going too fast. “It’s unlikely that Boyle made regular visits to Soho for mail or money, and we don’t know that Boyle is or was the letter’s recipient. Or, if he was, how the letter got to him.”

Her face fell. “I don’t think Boyle received any letters at Marchmont House. Where would he go to get a letter? A footman has little time to himself.”

Robin thought that, too, but he would try the Chequers pub later. Easy enough for an agent to leave something with the tapster to pass along to a regular patron of the bar.

She straightened abruptly on the seat. “The pub,” she said. “That’s why you asked about the pub. He could go there easily.”

Robin could see what she was thinking. Once again, her agile mind put things together. She’d charge straight into the Chequers if he didn’t stop her. She apparently had no concept of the danger in the situation. “You cannot go to the pub. Even in this black get-up of yours.”

She glared at him. “What am I supposed to do then?”

He did not say the first thing that came to mind. She was supposed to stay home and leave the detective work to him. “Think,” he said.

The murderous glint in her gaze subsided. He’d said the right thing.

“What more do you know or can people remember about John Boyle? Did he do anything out of the ordinary? Did he wear that red tie any other time? The letter says a third draft. What could he have done to earn two earlier drafts?”

“Very well. I will think. But tomorrow…” Her expression showed her dissatisfaction with the role assigned to her. She had a lot to learn about police work, and she was not inclined to take orders. She would never make a beat cop.

“Tomorrow, I go to the watch dealer. Tonight, I’ll be in the pub. Constable Trigg, the beat man for Dean Street, will watch Shattuck’s shop closely. He’s on night duty. Between them Trigg and the day man will observe any comings or goings to the shop and any fellows wearing red ties.”