Chapter 12
For the next few days, with James’s warning fresh in my mind, I studied Maggie to see if she treated me any differently than the others, but I saw no sign of rancor.
She seemed to be unfailingly agreeable. She looked approvingly over Nell’s shoulder at the record book; she continued jennying with different thieves; and she seemed to have no favorites, which would have been a certain way of instilling ill will. But it was early days yet.
On Saturday morning, with Sarah due that night, I wondered if she would come home—if she would be afraid to, for fear of seeing Billy or Tommy.
I’d written a discreet note to tell her they were no longer here, but perhaps she worried they might have returned.
As I worked at Mr. Ardle’s shop that morning, fixing and mending, my mind turned over what I knew, what I surmised, and the worst I could possibly imagine.
It was not an exercise conducive to soothing my nerves.
Still, I emptied the tray of jewelry and watches before I headed to the inn.
Maggie was taking Mary out, so she’d paired Fanny and me for the afternoon dodge, assigning us Hunt and Roskell on Mortimer, away from the West End.
Fanny and I started out, but a few blocks from Elephant and Castle, she looped her hand through my arm to slow my steps and halted us on the bridge.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Fanny said.
Her round face, usually cheerful, was anxious.
I understood why she’d stopped here, despite the wind and the chipped green railing covered in bird droppings.
The noise from the passing boats and ships meant no passersby would hear us.
Her light blue coat flapped open, and a spiral of Fanny’s red hair came loose from its pin.
“Here, let me fix it,” I said, and fastened the curl back in place. “What’s the matter?”
The sudden blare of a ship drew Fanny’s brown eyes to the river. “I went to see my mum last Sunday.”
“She’s still living in Erith?” I asked. Fanny’s mother, June, had been a thief under Patty Wirth and now spent her days in this small town well east of London, famous for its marshes and as a place where the steamships docked to let the shilling trippers off to picnic.
Fanny turned toward me. “I wanted to ask her about Maggie.”
My heart gave a thump. “Why?”
She sniffed and folded her arms across her plump chest. “I know you don’t believe in the tarot, but I laid out cards the day I went thieving with Maggie, and there were all sorts of bad signs. The Devil and the Tower, both.”
“Did the dodge go badly?”
“Oh, it went fine,” she said, her brown eyes wide. “But the cards told me it was Maggie being deceptive and dangerous, in ways we don’t know yet.”
In this case, the cards likely aren’t wrong, I thought.
“Maggie asked if my mother was still here,” Fanny said, “and I didn’t want her to know, so I pretended I thought she meant London proper and said no.”
“You don’t trust her.”
“Do you? No matter what Amelia says, I don’t think she’d have let the ring go unless Maggie snaked it from her somehow. If Amelia told anybody, I thought it would be you.”
“She didn’t.” Fanny’s face fell with disappointment at my answer, and I asked, “What did your mother say?”
Fanny turned to put the breeze to her back, and it pulled the same corkscrew of red hair loose, blowing it around her face.
“Mum said the police knew something that doubled her sentence. About a snooze Maggie did at a fancy hotel, going into the rooms. It was one of the biggest pokes of the year. Might be the police were only looking for someone to pin it on, but ’twas likely her jenny that told them. ”
I went cold, thinking of my mother doing this. “Did she say who the jenny was?”
“Oh, it warn’t my mum,” Fanny said hastily.
“But she couldn’t recall. Her memory isn’t what it was.
” As Fanny dug into her reticule, my shoulders eased with relief that at least her mother hadn’t named mine.
“Look at this,” she said, handing me a photograph.
“It’s my mum and Maggie. The date on the back is 1858, about a year afore Maggie was caught.
Don’t let it blow away. I had to beg Ma to lend it. ”
I took it with both hands. There were four people in the photograph, all unsmiling, as they’d no doubt been instructed, although Maggie, in the center, somehow managed to convey that she was repressing a laugh.
Her large dark eyes, made more dramatic with stage makeup, sparkled; her shining black hair was piled high and dropping ringlets on her shoulder; her chin was lowered coquettishly; her full lips were slightly parted, as if about to whisper a secret.
Consciously or not, the three others had all leaned in toward Maggie.
To her right was Fanny’s mother, June, with fair hair and a pretty face.
Her hand was looped loosely through Maggie’s bent elbow.
Standing behind June was a gawky dark-haired boy of about thirteen, who rested his pale fingers on Maggie’s right shoulder.
He looked uncertain, even shy, in what might have been his best clothes.
Beside him stood a fair-haired young man of about twenty-five.
In the style of previous decades, he was clean-shaven except for his small mustaches.
Was this the man who had stirred up trouble between my mother and Maggie? He was handsome enough, certainly.
There was something familiar about the boy. “Who are they?” I pointed to him and the man.
“Mum couldn’t remember their names,” Fanny said.
“The boy looks almost sweet, don’t he? He was a cousin of Maggie’s—she took him in after he left home or was thrown out or some such—and the other was one of Maggie’s beaus.
Mum said there were plenty of ’em. Maggie was an actress for a bit—a proper one at a theater, and famous even. Did you know?”
“I’d heard something about it.”
“That’s why this was taken. The photographer came backstage one day and asked to take a picture for the program. She said yes, but she wanted this photograph taken, too.” Fanny looked at it critically. “She’s pretty, ain’t she?”
“Very,” I said.
I handed the photograph back, making sure Fanny had it securely in her fingers before I let go. “Did she say anything else?”
She slipped it into her reticule. “She said Maggie was the brightest, liveliest girl, with a lovely singing voice and slender hands. Men would come to her dressing room, beggin’ to take her out for supper after. She used to bring bouquets of flowers to the lodging house.”
“Until she became a thief.”
“She did it to please her mum,” Fanny said. “Patty wanted Maggie to take the ring.”
That wasn’t what Amelia said, and my mind jumped again to Maggie’s belief about the dead knowing what happens to the living. “I wonder if Maggie’s mother is pleased with her, at last.”
Fanny looked at me oddly. “What do you think o’ Maggie?”
“She’s not changing much, leastwise not yet,” I said. “But I think she’s treading carefully.”
“I’ve heard now that Amelia’s gone, she’s going to trim the ring,” Fanny said.
“What?” My heart skipped a beat. “Who’s she cutting? We all pull our weight.”
“Nell, for sure, and possibly Mary.” Her eyes were regretful. “I know Mary’s your friend. I wanted to warn you.”
I felt a spike of anger. “Who told you this?”
“She told Nell that she wants to keep the books herself—and that Nell won’t be the only one to go.” Fanny shrugged. “The only one who hasn’t worked much is Mary.”
“Because her mother died!” I retorted. “She’s fine now. I should know.”
Fanny raised a hand in protest. “Don’t yell at me. I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“Besides, Mary’s earned plenty for the ring over the years.”
Fanny rolled her eyes. “I know.”
I wonder if Maggie had spoken to Mary yet. “Damn,” I swore. “Doesn’t she know what loyalty is? And what’s Mary supposed to bloody do?”
Fanny shook her head, not as if she didn’t care but as if she had no good answer, and the wind, damp and chill, flapped our coats open.
I would have to tell Mary tonight. It was only Fanny’s guess, but I’d put her on her guard.
We turned and headed across the bridge.
Fanny and I reached Hunt and Roskell, one of the few jewelers who hadn’t moved to Hatton Garden.
I’d passed this shop before, as had Fanny, on a casing trip not long ago.
Two large windows up front, a glass-paned door, multiple cabinets, locks on the left after two thefts some years ago.
The shop was busy, and Fanny waited patiently, admiring the necklaces in a case.
Meanwhile, I edged closer to a woman examining some gold bracelets.
She had a distracted air, asking the clerk to take three out—no, four—and I stilled my face.
I was supposed to be merely Fanny’s jenny, but this woman was making it almost too easy.
Or was she a bouncer herself?
It was a simple matter to find out.
I dropped my reticule and stooped to retrieve it, meanwhile putting a bit of snuff into my glove.
I sniffed and as I stood, I began to sneeze, violently, in a manner that could not be feigned.
I had a handkerchief in my reticule, but instead of taking it out, I pressed my fingers against my nose.
Instantly, the clerk offered me his linen square.
“I beg your pardon,” I managed between sneezes.
“This London air. Sometimes this comes over me.”
“Goodness! How dreadful!” the woman said. But there were still four bracelets on the black velvet.
Not a thief, then.
I set my reticule on the counter, close to the black velvet board upon which the bracelets lay, and dabbed at my nose.
The woman picked the bracelets up one by one, trying them on, and as she asked for two more, one of them slid under my reticule and vanished.
Slowly, I moved away and out of the shop and headed for home, south and west as usual, and soon Fanny caught up.
Her right hand slipped a necklace into my left, under cover of her coat flapping.
“See you home,” she said and walked on.
The necklace went into my thieving pocket.
The bracelet remained in the palm of my glove. I wasn’t sure what I could do with it—I couldn’t use one of our usual fences; and a fence who didn’t know me wouldn’t trust me. I couldn’t give it to James or Mary or Sarah for safekeeping. Amelia had vanished without giving me her address.
But I wasn’t sorry I had it. The future felt damned uncertain.