Chapter 20 #2
“So we must go before Monday,” I said. “Less than a week. It’s not much time to practice.”
“You have clever hands.”
Like yours were, once.
“And what if Simonson wants to take one last look at the necklace before it’s picked up?” I asked.
“Simonson is away for a week beginning Thursday.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
I merely looked.
Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling in annoyance. “He’ll be visiting his mistress in the country.”
So you’ve hired someone for that, too, I thought. “You’ve anticipated everything.”
“I’ve had years,” she said softly.
I considered the dodge from her side, imagining her waiting here for us to return with the gems.
“And after I’ve finished my part,” I said, “what’s to prevent Billy or your cracksman from killing me and throwing me into the river, to keep me from telling anyone what I’ve done? Why would they keep me alive?”
“There’s no reason to kill you.” She turned over the palm of her injured hand. “If you’ve done as I ask, you can hardly betray me without incriminating yourself.”
But if I’m alive, I might let something slip—or I might hold what I know over your head, I thought. No, you won’t be able to live with that threat, so you’ll have to kill me—and likely Sarah, too, unless we’re beyond your reach.
The truth struck me like a blow to the chin.
If I managed to do this dodge—the minute I had Sarah safe—we would have to flee Elephant and Castle, perhaps even London.
I stood and went to the window to hide the trajectory of my thoughts.
The door to Mr. Ardle’s shop swung open and shut as a customer left.
I turned and leaned against the broad sill, settling my hands on it. “Does Mr. Ardle know what you’re doing with the paste?”
“Of course.”
“You’re holding out hope to him, aren’t you? He thinks you’ll love him for it. Because he loves you.”
“He’s foolish over me,” she corrected me, a bitter little smile twisting her mouth. “Love is just another long con that hasn’t ended yet.”
A dark belief, but no doubt hard-earned and fixed.
“When’s the dodge?” I asked.
She pursed her mouth. “You’ll go Sunday night.”
Six days. There wasn’t enough time to rehearse her plan, much less make a different one.
I stepped forward until I could rest my fingers on the top rail of the chair. My thumb found a crack in the wood. “And you swear that if I bring you the three diamonds, you’ll give me Sarah, safe and sound.”
She shook her head. “No. I need the story to break and see Simonson arrested.”
My fingers tightened around the rail. “That could take weeks!” I shot back. “Once I hand over the gems, you’ll have got everything you can out of me. I can’t choose how quickly a story will appear or when Scotland Yard—”
“It won’t be weeks,” she interrupted. “The marquess will be advised to consult a second jeweler immediately.”
The thought of Sarah in some basement, trapped, tied up, terrified for yet more days—it billowed fear inside my chest, and I clawed it back down. She needs me, I reminded myself. I must keep my wits.
Even in the direst moments, there was something to be gained.
“The gems and the story, then,” I said stubbornly. “Not the arrest.”
She scowled and made an irritable motion with her left hand. “The gems and the story for Sarah.”
“The minute the story breaks, whenever it is, you let her go.”
“I said I would.”
“Swear it in a way I’ll believe you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I swear it on my son’s grave.”
The words chilled me.
So she’d had a child in Swan River. She’d left his grave to return here. For this.
“All right,” I said. “But I’m staying here until Billy gets back with that letter.”
She was impatient at all these concessions, but she nearly had me, which was what she wanted most. “Fine.”
She sat in silence while I tallied our takes.
The scales were balanced. We both had something the other one wanted more than anything—she wanted revenge, and I wanted Sarah.
But I considered—could I tip the scales in my favor? Could I take this moment to learn something that might matter later?
I went to the window, peered out, and saw no sign of Billy returning. There were only three stray dogs, heavily furred at the shoulder and furtive as thieves.
I reclaimed my position behind the chair. “Does Billy know you killed Rose Pratt?”
It was a stab, but it found its mark, for her breath paused, then resumed.
“You’ve no proof I did that,” she said.
“Well, I don’t, but the police have an eyewitness,” I said. “He can identify you, once you’re found. So if anything happens to me, there will be a letter that will land at Scotland Yard giving your name and a photograph.”
She looked incredulous. “You’ve no photograph of me!”
“My ma did,” I replied, passing the lie as well as I knew how.
“I’ve no idea where she got it, but there’s four of you.
You’re sitting next to Fanny’s mum, June.
Billy was in it, too, standing behind you, looking to be about thirteen, and there was a man.
Tim Lowry. It was taken when you were an actress. ”
This shot told, too. Her lips parted.
“And if Sarah isn’t returned to me alive, I will tell the police that I nicked the three gems at your demand, and the jeweler wasn’t to blame,” I said. “So your revenge will fail.”
“You can’t do that,” she said dismissively. “You’ll hang.”
My two hands hard around the top of the chair, I leaned in. “When will you understand I don’t care? Love is not just a long con for me. For God’s sake, you’re counting on that!”
“I’ve no doubt you love her! But not as much as your own neck.”
“I would risk mine to save hers.”
Her jaw came out, jutting stubbornly. “This is a stupid conversation. I’ve no reason to harm Sarah or you. Why would I? Annie was decent to me. You’re a tool for this, nothing more.”
A tool that knows what you’ve done, I thought.
“Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Then tell me. On the day we thieved together, why didn’t you tell me my mother was your jenny?”
“Because it was clear you didn’t trust me, and I didn’t want you to make anything of it.”
“When did you learn Rose informed on you to the police?”
“At the trial,” she said. “As soon as they mentioned the hotel by name.”
“You didn’t expect it, did you? That Rose would do such a thing.”
Maggie rubbed her thumb over a nick in the desk’s surface, back and forth, like she was sanding it smooth.
“We were friends, rather like you and Mary Pratt,” she said, her voice brittle.
“We slept in the same bed. We sat together at night, mending our pockets or our hems, drank together in the taproom, played cards, flirted with young men so they’d buy us pints.
There used to be a man named Winkie John with only one eye who played the fiddle some nights, and we’d dance.
We looked out for each other. No man could get the better of either of us, if the other was around.
” She laid her palm over the nicked wood.
“Then along came Tim Lowry. He was shiftless and useless as every other Castle man, and he wouldn’t let me alone.
But he was handsome, and she wanted him.
” She shrugged, and I could guess the rest.
The door swung open, and Billy reappeared. He handed the note to Maggie, who read it and passed it to me.
I’m alive, Kit. Please be careful.
It was Sarah’s tidy writing, familiar as my own hand. I looked up to find Maggie’s eyes narrowed.
I folded the page and tucked it into my pocket. “All right, Maggie. You’ve got me. Now what?”
“Tomorrow, you’ll go to Seamus’s shop to start preparing your tools and stones,” she answered. “I’ll see you on Sunday morning, here.” She laid both hands flat on the desk and pushed herself to standing. “Needless to say, you tell no one about any of this.”
“I’m not a fool.”
I turned away, left the room, and started down the stairs, cold running over me, scalp to arms.
I made it halfway down before I had to stop, my courage falling away. I set my spine against the wall, for my legs would no longer hold me.
Two deep breaths. Steady, Kit, I told myself.
I drew one more deep breath and kept on.
My fear for Sarah made me clumsy, tripped me down the final steps.
Numbly, I made my way through the taproom, opened the front door, rounded a corner, and took refuge in a dark alley that ran beside the inn.
A cat slithered around a dustbin with a mouse screeching and writhing in its mouth.
I closed my eyes, pressing my spine into bricks this time, imagining Sarah, caught and terrified.
Likely bound to a chair or bed and gagged so she couldn’t cry out.
But alive. And at least she knew that I knew and was doing what I could. She wasn’t alone anymore.
I opened my eyes and scanned the open area in front of the inn, seeing as if for the first time the hundreds of rooms and attics and basements within half an hour’s walk of the Elephant and Castle. Finding her would be impossible.
What could I do but go along with Maggie’s dodge?
What frightened me wasn’t simply being caught with the gems. If the dodge went as planned, I’d be embroiled in the murder of a policeman. I’d hang for certain if I was caught. And Sarah would never forgive herself for being taken.
As panic rolled over me, my head began to buzz. I bent over, settling my hands on my knees.
I couldn’t give into it. I must be on my mettle.
There was always a way out.
When I was eleven, my mum locked me in a cupboard. She had her reasons.