Chapter 5 #2
The room was warm from the fire at the hearth. A young woman greeted James by name and directed us to two seats at the end of a long, lively table. As I unbuttoned my coat, I looked about and felt unexpectedly shy.
This was nicer than anywhere I’d ever eaten.
It was still what people called a public house, but it had a more prosperous air than the taproom at Elephant and Castle, with a gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace, turned silver candlesticks that would’ve fetched at least a pound each at Mr. Ardle’s, and two oval oil portraits over a broad sideboard.
The tables were wood but shiny with veneer and polish rather than rough planks.
Along the wall nearby stood a wooden slatted rack draped with the Times, the Falcon, the Examiner, tidily folded.
At the hearth stood armchairs draped with antimacassars, and the orange flames sprang properly upward instead of smoking.
Sconces and lamps cast a steady light over the smooth plank floor swept clean.
Several people called to James, and the barkeep waved from across the room.
“My lodging house is around the corner,” James explained as he took my coat and hung it on a rack beside us. “So I’m here quite a lot.”
“The food looks delicious.” I observed the filled plates of the other diners. Fish in a creamy sauce, potatoes with herbs, and some sort of long green vegetable I didn’t recognize.
“It is,” James said as he took his seat across from me. “There’s only two dishes each night, but Augustine is French, so they’re all good.”
“Oh,” I said uncertainly. So far as I knew, I’d never eaten French food.
Glasses of wine appeared before us, along with a handwritten card listing the day’s offerings.
He picked up his glass and raised it toward me. “I brought you here because there’s something special on Saturday and Sunday nights.” His eyes were warm and sparkling in the light from the lamps.
“What?”
A piano chord struck up, and I turned to the corner of the room. There sat a young man of perhaps fourteen or fifteen, gangly, with large hands and wire-rimmed spectacles that rode halfway down his thin nose. His eyes were on the keys, and he played without music.
“It’s Augustine’s son,” James murmured. “He’s a student at the Royal Academy in Tenterden Street. He’s why they moved to London.”
A series of chords rolled out, and then the boy began a melody that I’d never heard, something haunting and slow, something that roiled my heart. I listened, mesmerized, until the end. There was polite applause, and he began another.
I turned back to see James pleased at having surprised me. “I thought you’d like it,” he said. “I remember you sitting on the stoop at Three Boars when Mack used to play.”
“That’s right.” I dragged up the memory from years before, when Ma was still alive. “They wouldn’t let me in.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Because back then it was a brothel upstairs.”
I laughed. “That’s right, it was.”
“Bonsoir,” came a woman’s voice, musical. Beside us stood a slender woman of about forty, with dark hair and eyes, a narrow nose. She wiped her thin hands on her apron.
“Bonsoir, Augustine.” James stood and kissed her on both cheeks. “This is my friend Kit Jimeson.”
“Enchanted,” she said, and I smiled back.
“Would you like the beef or the fish tonight?” she asked. Her accent was like lace, making our English words prettier.
I hesitated.
“We could have one of each, so you can taste both,” James offered, and I nodded.
Augustine said something approving in French and took the card from the table before she whisked away.
I turned my attention back to the pianist. He was so young his cheeks were pale and smooth as a girl’s. What would it be like, to be so talented at making something beautiful?
The song ended, and he rose, gave an awkward little bow, and pushed his spectacles back up his nose.
“I heard about Josie,” James said. “It’s a rotten thing.” His expression altered. “Though I heard from Benny she was in her cups.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” I said uneasily. “I heard she ignored Bea’s warnings.”
“Might be that, too,” he said. “I’m sure Amelia’s doing what she can.”
As I sipped my wine, I spotted the evening edition of the Review newly placed on the rack. The pages were slightly askew, but on the front page below the masthead was the bold headline, clearly visible: mayfair murders!
“James, could you hand me that paper?” I pointed.
He fetched it off the wooden rack and handed it to me. I read the first sentence—There has been yet another housebreak in the West End with tragic consequences, resulting in the death of two servants—and tore through the paragraphs below with increasing unease.
“What’s the matter?” James asked.
I looked up. “A housebreak in Mayfair. The family was away—but they’d left two servants behind, and the burglar stabbed the housekeeper to death in the parlor and then went upstairs and killed the maid in her bed.”
James grimaced. “That’s awful. Does it say where in Mayfair?”
“No, just the family’s name. Fairleigh.” I bit my lip. “But Mayfair’s small.”
Understanding flickered in his eyes, and genuine sympathy lit James’s face. I half expected it. Sarah brought out the sweetness and sincerity in people. “You think it might be near where Sarah works.”
I nodded, but I was thinking more than that. Did Sarah know something about this? Was that why she’d been so secretive? I scanned the first paragraph again. The burglary had happened last night. So she couldn’t have known about it before she’d come home.
And yet—
“Kit? Can I see it?” James asked. I handed the shuffled pages to him, and he refolded them to read the article.
His frown deepened as he read through the list of the goods that had been stolen, a reminder of the Yard’s recent failures, a description of the crowds of hundreds gathering in front of the Fairleigh house to gawk, and the final line, which to my mind was absurd: “Anyone with information is asked to contact Inspector Stiles of the Yard forthwith.”
Who would have information? And who would talk to the Yard?
“Hmph,” James said.
“What?” I asked.
“The list of things stolen,” James said, and read aloud: “Diamond-and-ruby earrings, three strings of pearls, several unique rings, silver spoons and candlesticks, and small pieces of art, including an oil painting by Rembrandt. Police are canvassing known fences in the area in search of the stolen items.”
“Beg pardon.”
We looked up. A young woman stood beside our table, patiently waiting so she could put down our plates. Hastily, James folded the newspaper away from the table and returned it to the rack.
The server had placed the fish before me, and though the flavor reached my nose, my stomach revolted at the idea of eating it.
Servants murdered in Mayfair. Sarah’s peculiar reticence last night.
The fear in her face when I encountered her on the bridge.
A chill ran over my bones as the gossamer thread of suspicion thickened and took shape.
Had she been threatened somehow? And had she concealed it from me, for fear I’d make her leave her position?
James had picked up his knife and fork, though he had yet to begin.
His eyes met mine, questioning. “It’s a terrible thing, to be sure, but there’s no danger to Sarah.
In fact, now the constables will be all over Mayfair.
It’ll be safer than ever.” As I remained silent, he began to cut into his steak.
“It says the family was away. Does Sarah’s family leave London often? ”
“I don’t know. They’re here now. Sarah mentioned a party for the daughter this week.” I shook my head. “It’s just so . . . brazen.”
“Less brazen if they think the family’s away.”
He glanced at my fish, which was getting cold.
Obligingly, I cut into it and put a bite in my mouth.
It dissolved on my tongue, tender, buttery, flavored with spices I didn’t recognize.
I took two more bites before I set down my fork.
“It’s delicious.” For it was. But my mind was fixed on what James had just said.
“How would the thieves know that the family was away?”
“Announcements in the papers,” he said, “about house parties outside of London. Sometimes they print the guest lists, especially if titles are attending.”
“Why would they do that?”
He shrugged. “To make people who aren’t invited feel low, I expect.
Thieves check the lists to know when families will be traveling.
Or they keep their eyes peeled for a pantechnicon van removing paintings and furniture.
It’s a dead giveaway the family’s leaving for their country house or the Continent. ”
Something about the way he said it made me blurt, “Are you caught up in this?”
James stopped chewing for a moment, then swallowed. His face showed a mix of surprise, indignation, and disappointment that I’d even ask. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I told you I’m done with dodges. But I hear things.”
Of course he would. James still had plenty of friends in Elephant and Castle.
“Are Castle men doing this? Hitting homes in the West End?”
His fork and knife paused over the plate as he gave me a look. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no.
It called to mind the evasive look on Sarah’s face the previous night, and trying to sift the truth, I retraced the steps of our conversation: her insistence that the Willits sons had done nothing wrong, which I believed; her explanation about the chimney sweep and the silver polishing, which felt true but shuffling, as if she was buying time before she had to lie to me; and her assurance that she’d tell me if something frightened her at the Willitses’ house, which now struck me as a carefully narrow promise.
She didn’t say she would tell me if something frightened her nearby.
“Damn,” escaped under my breath.
James’s brow furrowed. “What’s the matter?”