Chapter 28
“Well, it looks like I’ve ruled out Ralph Aldine,” said Tibbs with a bit of boasting in his voice.
The two Bow Street Runners had left the King’s Theatre, but Pevensey was determined to return the following day for more interviews. “How have you done that?” asked Pevensey dryly.
“Why, with the notebook. There’s no mention of Ralph Aldine in it the night of the murder, so he must not have been at the theater, or Danvers would have noted his name next to ‘E.C.’”
Danvers’ notebook was snug against Pevensey’s sketchbook in the inside pocket of his coat, and behind both of those books were the letters he had found.
“But we know Mr. Aldine was at the theater,” he said patiently.
“He says he was there the afternoon of the murder, just not in the evening after the show when it happened. So, to argue that the journal entries prove he was not there is fallacious.”
Tibbs shrugged. “Maybe Danvers missed seeing him enter.”
“Maybe he missed seeing the killer enter as well. There are no entries for the date of the murder.” The wheels of Pevensey’s mind began to turn faster. “Maybe the entries mean something else entirely.”
“Oh.” Tibbs looked crestfallen. He fingered the stripe of silver in his hair. “Is the book not important then?”
Surprised by the man’s sudden change from boasting to dismay, Pevensey offered him cautious comfort. “I think it might be very important, but we haven’t fully reasoned out what it means yet.”
“Will you mention it in your report and mention that I found it?”
“I don’t have a report to make yet.” If he could not shake Tibbs’ constant interference, Pevensey wondered if he would ever have the latitude he needed to solve this case. “Let’s return to Bow Street,” he offered, “and then I have an errand or two of my own to undertake.”
“What errand?” asked Tibbs quickly. Pevensey could tell the fellow was desperate not to be left behind on anything important.
“Well,” he said, sacrificing a tidbit of personal information on the altar of expediency, “there’s a girl I know with eyes like sapphires.
I’m going to see a man about a piece of jewelry for her. ”
Tibbs gaped. Apparently, he had never thought of Pevensey as a man of flesh and blood with personal pursuits of his own.
The hackney trip back to Bow Street was uneventful.
Pevensey kept his eyes open out of the window for any wagons of overturned vegetables that he might tell Miss Cecil about, but the cart drivers were careful and upright today, and he encountered no mishaps.
After depositing Tibbs at Bow Street, he set off on foot towards St. Paul’s dome with the destination of Rundell and Bridge.
At first, the man at the counter was wary of his presence and declined to answer any questions about previous customers. “If you’re not going to buy something, you’ll need to show yourself out,” the thin-necked fellow said superciliously.
“Now, listen here, young man,” said Pevensey calmly. “Do you want me to tell Sir Richard Ford at Bow Street that Rundell and Bridge fences stolen gems?”
“But that’s ridiculous,” spluttered the salesclerk. “We are the premier jewelers in the city.”
“What is ridiculous,” said Pevensey evenly, “is that you are still talking rather than finding me someone who can assist in my investigation.”
“What is it, Laurence?” asked a woman, coming out from the back room.
“This insolent fellow—” began Laurence in high dudgeon.
“Ah, Mr. Pevensey,” said Luella Covington, the manager of Rundell and Bridge’s shop on Ludgate Hill. “How can we help you today?”
Laurence’s mouth dropped open with a squeak.
“Thank you, Mrs. Covington,” said Pevensey.
He had met her three years ago in the course of a prior investigation, and since then, he’d had occasion to utilize her expertise half a dozen times.
“I have some questions about some of your more important clients. Perhaps we could speak privately?” He gave a half nod towards Laurence, intimating that what he had to say was not for such a lowly underling’s ears.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Covington, inviting Pevensey into her office in the back room.
She closed the door, something a gentlewoman would have been loath to do.
But Mrs. Covington was a tradeswoman who merely happened to look more elegant than half the gentlewomen in London.
Her earbobs were made of rubies of the perfect shade to catch the glint of auburn in her brown hair.
She wore a gold chain about her neck with a ruby pendant that caught the brilliance of the window light in the small room.
Instead of ogling Mrs. Covington as many men might have done, Pevensey paid her the compliment of coming straight to the point. “Have you received any commissions or purchases from Lord Fremont in the last six months?”
“Yes.” She bade him take a seat at the desk across from her, just as if he were one of her clients ready to inspect a set of gems. Then, she pulled out a ledger and placed it on the desk, skimming it with a trained forefinger. “Here in January, then again in March.”
“What were the pieces?” Pevensey pulled out his sketchbook and a short pencil.
Mrs. Covington read off the descriptions. “A gold filigree necklace with an oval emerald pendant. New. A pink topaz parure, complete with earbobs, a tiara, two bracelets and a necklace. Cleaned and refurbished.”
“Round topazes?” asked Pevensey, sketching the first piece of jewelry while he asked about the second.
“A mix of round and square gems. The parure was already in existence—a family heirloom—but we polished and reset some of the gems according to Lord Fremont’s specifications.” She showed him a drawing of the pink topaz set, including the way the gems had been arranged for the necklace.
“Extravagant,” murmured Pevensey, sketching quickly.
“Many of our clients are.”
“Do you know for whom these pieces were intended?”
“I do. We were given an address for delivery.” Mrs. Covington hesitated.
“Might one conjecture that they were not intended for Lord Fremont’s wife?”
“Ah, you understand the delicacy of the situation.”
Pevensey tapped his pencil on the page. He could appreciate Mrs. Covington’s unwillingness to break her code of discretion. “A simple nod or shake of the head will suffice. Were they delivered to Miss Elizabeth Clifford at the King’s Theatre?”
Mrs. Covington nodded.
A sudden inspiration struck Pevensey. “What were the dates of delivery?” As Mrs. Covington looked at her ledger, he pulled out the second notebook from Danvers’ desk.
She named a day in late January and a day in early March.
Pevensey’s heart almost leaped in his chest. These were the exact dates written by the name Fremont and the initials “E.C.” Perhaps Danvers’ notebook was actually a log of deliveries!
“Can you go even further back in the ledger to check something for me? Did Will Aldine, son of Viscount Aldine, make any purchases from you?”
Mrs. Covington leafed back through the pages but found nothing with the name Aldine on it. It did not surprise Pevensey. But it did confirm that the original letter, which referenced Rundell and Bridge, had not been written by him.
“Mr. Pevensey,” said Mrs. Covington, “This might not be important, but a lady came in several weeks ago also asking about Lord Fremont’s purchases.”
“A lady? Who was it?”
“She did not give a name. But she was quite commanding.” The jeweler offered up a vague description—brown hair, brown eyes, good figure—that could have fit a quarter of the women in the ton. Pevensey sketched the enigmatic inquirer without giving her a face.
“Thank you, Mrs. Covington, you’ve been most helpful.”
“Is there anything else I can assist you with?” The rubies in her ears glinted like fire. “Perhaps some jewelry for a sweetheart of your own?”
Pevensey cleared his throat and reached for the cravat around his neck to loosen it.
He had only been halfway joking when he told Tibbs the reason for his errand.
But after seeing the prices on that emerald filigree necklace and the topaz parure, such a purchase seemed impossible.
“I daresay you haven’t anything small enough for my purse, Mrs. Covington. ”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. What are you looking for?”
“Blue sapphires,” he said promptly.
“Ah, she has blue eyes,” said Mrs. Covington perceptively. “Have you thought about paste? You would be able to afford larger stones.”
“No. Paste is pretense. I prefer to deal only in the real.”
Mrs. Covington stood up from her desk and walked over to the left wall, to a bureau with hundreds of tiny drawers.
She opened two or three until she found the one she wanted.
Then, extracting the entire drawer, she carried it over to the desk and set it down.
Using a pair of tweezers, she pulled out two tiny gems and laid them on the black cloth lying between them on the desk.
She handed Pevensey a small magnifying glass so he could observe the gems more closely.
“Small but brilliant,” he said, surprised by how much fire there was in such tiny gemstones.
“I could have them set in simple gold flowers for you as a pair of earbobs. Only twenty pounds, Mr. Pevensey.”
Pevensey swallowed. Twenty pounds was half his salary for the year—not counting the occasional reward money from a large case. But he did have that amount laid by. “Yes,” he said with decision. “I would like that.”
Mrs. Covington gave him a friendly smile. “Excellent. If you call again in four days, they should be ready.”
“Helena,” Ralph moaned, his face still buried in her hair as he held her close. “You shouldn’t be here.” His reason had returned, and he was aghast that his pregnant wife had made the dangerous journey to London to visit an insalubrious prison.
“Clearly, you dislike seeing me,” said Helena without the timidity that usually characterized their conversation. She nuzzled closer to him.
“Good heavens! As if you could ever think that.” He leaned his face away from hers to cough and felt alarm ripple through her body as his whole chest spasmed violently.
“You’re ill, Ralph! It’s the prison air, isn’t it? We must free you from this place.”
“Next week is the trial,” he said, containing a second urge to cough with an iron application of willpower. “I’ll be out of here one way or the other.”
“Oh, Ralph!” Her face drained of color. “You can’t really think it possible that the court will rule against you!”
“In the absence of another suspect, they might. My card, you see, was in the actress’ dressing room. There was a good reason for it since I had been there earlier. But one of the other actresses says she saw me come back that night. It’s a lie, but—”
“Never mind that,” she said, allowing him the luxury of forgoing an explanation.
Did she truly have no curiosity about why he had been in the back rooms of the King’s Theatre?
Innocent, angelic Helena—how endearingly naive she was.
“I cannot believe you will be found guilty. Not after I’ve come all this way to find you.
Ralph.” She took his hands and looked into his eyes earnestly.
“I love you.” She leaned in and placed her lips on his, gently, exploringly.
They kissed passionately until he lost his breath enough that he was forced to break away.
“And you came all the way to London to tell me this. Oh, Helena, love! What about concealment? What about the baby?” He looked down at her waist and realized, for the first time, that she was wearing a gray pelisse over a lavender dress.
Where were her black dress and her black bonnet and her cloak as black as a crow?
“I have not gone out in public. No one knows that I am here. Your trial is next week. I am confident that Mr. Pevensey will discover what is needed so that you will be acquitted. He is quite eager to do so, to be of service to my friend Edwina Cecil. They are exchanging letters, you see. And then we can return to Carham by easy stages. There will be plenty of time before the baby is born.”
Ralph looked at her doubtfully. The danger of scandal had always been foremost in his mind, followed in recent days by contemplation of the danger of the hangman’s noose.
But now, as he held his wife in his arms, he could think only of the danger of travel and childbirth.
“We’ll do nothing that is not safe. You must consult a doctor as soon as possible and see what he advises.
Promise me, you’ll do so. Even if I’m not there to—”
“You will be there,” she said fiercely, stopping his mouth with another kiss.
They were only given a quarter hour together before the warden knocked on the door, refraining from barging in this time out of deference to the lady.
As Helena unwound herself from his arms, Ralph felt like a piece of his body had been severed.
If only his sweet, helpless Helena was right about Pevensey!
Their whole future was riding on his investigation.
He watched her disappear into the corridor where her friends were waiting. “Miss Cecil,” he called out just before the door swung shut. “Tell Pevensey to search my flat. There’s a letter there that might help!”