Chapter 33
Danvers, grudgingly, gave Pevensey an address for Dolly’s tenement building.
“And tell her if she’s not back tomorrow, she might as well not come back at all.
The new girl in Libby’s room doesn’t want her for a dresser and doesn’t need her to teach the Italian.
The chorus sounded just the same without her today as it does with her. Goes to show she isn’t needed.”
Pevensey noted the address mentally and also the strange insinuation that Dolly had taught Libby the Italian for her arias.
A strange skill set for a lower-class woman who claimed not to know how to read!
Deciding that there was still time in the day to walk to Dolly’s flat, Pevensey set off towards Seven Dials.
The streets grew narrower and the building facades dirtier, until he entered a maze as convoluted as the corridors of rooms behind the King’s Theatre.
This was one place where Tibbs would have come in handy.
As it was, he was glad to feel the handle of his knife inside his boot.
He always carried it with him, but he rarely had need of it when solving cases in Mayfair.
Finally, Pevensey found the address Danvers had given him, a ground floor apartment whose door was standing wide open.
Puzzled, Pevensey entered. There was no sick woman lying in bed.
Instead, the room had been ransacked, either by the occupant leaving in great haste or by a burglar who had no care for breakage.
Pevensey saw nothing of value, only a few stained clothes strewn about.
Going back outside, he knocked on the door beside Dolly’s.
“Whadda yer want?” demanded a toothless crone with one eye looking his direction and the other staring off at the door jamb.
“I’m looking for your neighbor. Dolly, isn’t it?”
“Aye, Dolly. But she don’t be my neighbor no more.”
“Oh?” said Pevensey, pulling a penny out of his pocket and tossing it in the air nonchalantly. “Where’s she gone?”
The old woman’s good eye followed the penny up and down. “Don’t know. She packed up all her things yesterday an’ took off like Old Boney was after her.”
“What did she pack?”
“All her clothes an’ such. Nothin’ valuable left in her room. I know because I searched it.”
“Thank you for saving me the trouble,” said Pevensey dryly.
The crone held out her hand for the penny, and he almost gave it to her, but at the last moment, his fingers stopped, the coin suspended in the air. “One more thing—did she have any friends she might have gone to?”
“How would I know that?”
“You must give me something, my good dame,” said Pevensey, “or I’ll keep my penny.”
“She liked the pawn shop by St. Martin’s,” said the woman promptly, “and if she had some picking, that’s where she’d take it to market.”
“So, Miss Dolly was a thief?”
The old crone shrugged, taking advantage of Pevensey’s question to seize the penny from his hovering fingers. “Aren’t we all, love?”
Pevensey gave a faint smile. Whatever else she might have stolen, Dolly had certainly stolen a march on him and disappeared into the warren of streets surrounding Seven Dials.
“This appears to be quite a crush, your grace,” said Sir Philip, his sonorous tones disappearing into elegant affectation. He eyed the Comptons and Helena and looked back at Geoffrey who was standing stiffly by the mantelpiece. “Perhaps we might go somewhere more private.”
“Whatever you have to say about the case, you may say in front of me,” said Helena. “Ralph Aldine is my husband, and these are our close friends.”
Sir Philip ogled her pregnant belly before lifting his eyes back to her face. “My dear Lady Helena, you are so altered, I did not recognize you immediately. Surely, when a woman is breeding, it would be best to avoid introducing indelicate topics which might cause distress—”
“When a woman is breeding,” said Lady Compton authoritatively, “she has additional reason to want her husband alive. Out with it, fellow. What news do you have?”
Sir Philip cleared his throat with annoyance.
“There has been a dire dearth of details in this case. Normally, the accused’s solicitor will present me with a dossier of all the relevant information, but in this case, my secretary and I have been forced to put our noses to the grindstone, as it were, and discover that information for ourselves.
I visited the coroner just an hour ago to see if any new information had come to light since the inquest. Imagine my dismay when I learned that Bow Street had discovered a bottle of poison in Mr. Aldine’s flat, the same poison with which Miss Clifford is reputed to have died. ”
Helena felt her heart lurch inside her chest like a ship swamped by a sudden swell. She hugged her arms about her belly, as if she could protect the unborn child from being swept away by such a grave piece of news.
“What kind of poison?” asked Lady Compton, as matter of fact as ever.
There it was again—that awful word. What could Ralph have been doing with poison in his lodgings? Was it possible that someone had planted it there?
“Cyanide.”
“Oh, pish,” said Lady Compton, waving a dismissive hand at the barrister. “Cyanide is used in all sorts of household remedies. Have you ever heard of laurel water, Sir Philip? It contains cyanide, and it is a famous remedy for the cough—”
“And Ralph had a terrible cough when I saw him!” said Helena, seeing a glimmer of hope. “Perhaps he obtained medicine for it from an apothecary in town.”
“Was this cyanide a tincture or a tonic?”
Sir Philip seemed taken aback. “I am not certain, Lady Compton. I only know that the coroner had sent it out to an apothecary for confirmation.”
“For confirmation that it could not be the poison in question, no doubt,” said Lady Compton.
Helena had never been more delighted with the woman’s larger-than-life presence than she was at that moment.
“One would have to drink a whole bottle of laurel water tonic to get the results of poisoning. If the bottle was still full or even halfway full when they found it, then it couldn’t have been the poison. ”
“Again,” said Sir Philip, more annoyed than relieved to hear Lady Compton’s objections, “I am not certain.”
“Then stop peddling this long-faced pessimism and find out more information,” said Lady Compton sternly.
“Here now,” said Sir Anthony, rising from his armchair. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll knock on the door of all the apothecaries by Ralph’s flat and find out if he bought some medicine when he arrived in London. What do you say, your grace?”
“If you wish to look for the apothecary shop, it cannot harm anything,” said Geoffrey.
Helena could tell that her brother was not ready to discount Sir Philip’s bad news entirely. Could it be that Geoffrey, deep down inside, suspected Ralph was guilty? Or could it be that he was so worried for her that he could not embrace any hope for fear it might be groundless?
“Thank you for letting us know about this matter, Sir Philip,” said Helena. “I trust a little more investigation will prove the bottle holds nothing more than an innocent remedy.” She slowly rose from the sofa and bid Sir Philip farewell to speed his departure.
Then, seeing that Lady Compton and Sir Anthony had gone to the kitchen in search of Gerald, she turned to her brother. “Geoffrey, I’ll admit I was angry at you when you treated me like a child in your orangerie, but now I’m simply glad you are here. There are things we should talk about.”
“I’m listening.”
“At last,” said Helena, and she pulled him down onto the sofa beside her to have a long overdue tête-à-tête.
“There you are, Pevensey,” said Sir Richard. He beckoned for Pevensey to come into his office, a far grander room at Bow Street than the little closet that sufficed for Pevensey’s report-writing endeavors. “What’s this I hear about you abandoning Tibbs?”
Pevensey took a deep breath. He had just arrived back at Bow Street and was hoping to force his hand to write a quick update before rewarding himself with a visit to Miss Cecil. “Abandoning him? I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“I mean that you told him not to come with you on the investigation. Rather bold, that! Especially when I was the one who bid him accompany you.”
“I’m used to conducting my investigations alone.”
That was not strictly true. He had enjoyed Edward Cecil’s help more than once on an investigation, and Miss Edwina Cecil was, without question, his favorite person with whom to mull over matters.
Pevensey took a deep breath and continued.
“I don’t like the fellow, sir. He’s annoying and obtuse and gets in the way every time I have a critical interview. ”
“Dash it all, Pevensey! Do I have to spell it out for you? Of course, he’s annoying and obtuse. That’s why I assigned him to you. You’re supposed to be teaching the poor fellow how to go on.”
“Teaching him?” repeated Pevensey.
“Yes,” said Sir Richard. “He needs to learn strategy and tact in an investigation, and, well, everyone knows you have both.”
Pevensey stared, dumbfounded. He had supposed that Sir Richard had set Jedidiah Tibbs on his tail as a punishment. But now, he was learning that Sir Richard trusted him far more than the average Runner.
Sir Richard shook his head in vexation. “He’s sulking about the premises somewhere.
Go find him and make things right with him and then train him up in the way he should go.
Bow Street’s only as strong as our weakest man, Pevensey.
We stand and fall together. It might be Tibbs saving the day someday. ”
“Yes, sir,” said Pevensey. “Right away, sir.”
“Good. Oh, and Pevensey, have you finished ferreting out all the details about the solicitor who killed the actress?”
“Not quite,” replied Pevensey, “but it might surprise you to learn that it was not the solicitor who did it.”
“Hmph,” said Sir Richard. “I might have known the inquest would have it wrong. Carry on, Pevensey. And see that Tibbs understands your methods.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pevensey, recognizing by Sir Richard’s nod that he was being dismissed.
“And it might interest you to know one detail I’ve discovered so far.
If you’re going to send something backstage to the King’s Theatre, you might want to deliver the gift in person. The manager keeps a log of deliveries.”
Sir Richard’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you for the advice, Mr. Pevensey.”
“My pleasure,” said Pevensey, feeling the impious joy of besting Sir Richard in return for the irritating imposition of Jedediah Tibbs.
“What on earth possessed you to go to Newgate?” demanded Geoffrey, leaning towards Helena on the sofa.
Helena was nearly overawed into silence by the frown on his golden brows, but she recalled her lessons from Lady Compton.
She would not let anyone impose on her again, even her well-meaning brother.
“I needed to see my husband. I don’t know why you would think you could write to me of his peril and I would stay passively in Carham wringing my hands. ”
“Because that’s all you’ve ever done before,” said Geoffrey. “You took to your bed for nearly a year when Mother and Father died, and I thought you were going to lose the will to live when Will Aldine drowned. You were infatuated with him to the point of lunacy.”
“Was I?” Helena felt her face turning pink. “Well, Will is not here anymore, and Ralph is. And what is more, Ralph is not dead. He needs me.” She looked at Geoffrey’s confused face, unsure how to make him understand. “What would you have done if Maud was in trouble? Twiddle your thumbs in Carham?”
“No, of course not, but it is a different situ—”
“Why, because I am a woman?”
“No, because I chose Maud—I wasn’t forced into the arrangement by necessity like you were.”
Helena was silent. It was true. That inconvenient journey to the Scottish border had been the most terrifying carriage ride of her life.
But at the end of it she had discovered Ralph Aldine, the upstanding solicitor with the kind word and the comforting cup of coffee.
The thoughtful companion who looked for ways to please her daily.
The generous protector who had married her for more than her money.
Whatever Geoffrey might think, Ralph Aldine had married her for herself.
And she wanted nothing more than to have him for himself, to love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health, as long as they both should live.
“You may have chosen Maud before your wedding day, but I chose Ralph after mine—or whatever you call that preposterous ceremony in Coldstream. I love him, Geoffrey, and I know him through and through to be one of the best men God has ever made. Even if your fastidious Sir Philip Phipps thinks him guilty, I know him to be innocent. I’ll pledge as much on the witness stand.
I’ll shout it from the middle of Charing Cross. ”
Geoffrey stared at her in silent wonder. “You love him?”
“Yes. I did not know it until he went away the last time, but I know it now, as true as anything.”
Geoffrey took a deep breath. “Helena, there’s something I have to tell you. I should have told you months ago, but I swore I wouldn’t—and made Ralph swear it too.”
“If it’s something against Ralph, I won’t believe it.”
“No, on the contrary, it’s all in his favor. It’s about Will, if you can bear to hear it.”
Helena nodded.
“When Will ruined you, he tried his best to avoid his obligations. Ralph was appalled when he learned of the seduction, as appalled as I was. I challenged Will to a duel for your honor, and Ralph stood his second. But he was really my second in the whole affair, forcing Will to attend the duel and putting the pen in his fingers to sign the settlement papers.”
“So, Will never wanted to marry me?” said Helena slowly.
“No,” said Geoffrey. Helena could see him watching her closely, lest she melt into a puddle of despair. “But Ralph stood up for your rights against his own brother.”
“Of course, he did,” said Helena, tears beginning to form in her soft blue eyes. “Because that is who he is. And that is why I went to visit him in Newgate, Geoffrey. Because now someone needs to stand up for him.”