Chapter Thirteen #2
When they made love that night, it was fiercely, almost desperately, and it made her want to weep because love came in so many forms, and they could all turn tragic in an instant.
*
It was midnight before Esther Willow could bring herself to speak to her sister. Ruth’s frightened face and vocal twittering annoyed her almost more than the insolent policemen who had visited this morning and spent the rest of the day catechizing her servants.
At last, when even the servants had gone to bed, Esther said abruptly, “We cannot go out tonight.”
“Oh, no, no, of course we must not,” Ruth agreed fervently. “So frightening!”
“So outrageous!” Esther corrected her, still fuming.
“Vile suspicions about us—us!—while That House continues to exist! What can one expect from such people? Of course there will be all manner of crimes there, a swirling, ugly mess of immorality, hatreds, and petty jealousies. Violence is the inevitable result. But do the police look there for their culprits? No, they come to us, to me, to the occupants of a godly house who live according to all the rules of decency. When all they need to do to stop this wave of atrocities is to shut down that house of sin. Drive them out, as Jesus drove the moneylenders from the temple.”
“I know,” Ruth sighed. “I know. And yet it is we who have been confined. The sin goes on unchecked.”
Slightly mollified by her sister’s understanding, Esther stood and said, “Put out the lamps, Ruth. We can at least keep a short vigil at the window.”
A carriage passed in the street, pulled by two ambling horses. Inevitably, it stopped a few doors down—at That House. There was no crest on the carriage doors, of course, and the man who leapt into it only a few moments later was unrecognizable.
“Shame on him,” Esther said.
“Shame on them,” Ruth added.
Comforting sentiments. Comforting words in their familiarity, if nothing else. Esther began to feel she could go to bed and sleep after all.
“We shan’t allow ourselves to be cowed,” she declared. “We must maintain our dignity. Tomorrow we shall order new gowns. And in the afternoon, we must support the poor St. John family by going to the memorial service. How easily man is led astray.”
Including Joshua Willow, her husband of blessed memory. A good man, a godly man. And yet even he had been led into the sin of adultery by such women as inhabited That House. Their very presence in the crescent was a personal insult, and they deserved every ill perpetrated against them.
“Perhaps we could take just a short walk,” Esther said at last. “I see no signs of watching policemen.”
“Even if there are,” Ruth said eagerly, “two innocent ladies have every right to take the air before bed.”
With a triumphant thrill, Esther went out into the dark hall and seized her coat and hat.
*
Despite the intense passion of last night—or perhaps even because of it—Solomon was aware of something troubling Constance deeply. Something she was not yet ready to discuss with him. Whatever it was, it had made her afraid of losing him.
It was hardly the first time such fears had struck either of them.
The life they had chosen together was full of risks and dangers they had faced alone and together.
But this was an odd case to be quite so fearful about, with little more than dotty old ladies and jealous wives to fear.
Probably. He had to wonder if it was something other than the case, and that worried him more.
But since it was a confidence that could not be forced, he tried to be patient, making no demur when she suggested she go to the establishment alone to see if any more “presents” had been left on the doorstep, while he went on to the Silver and Grey office.
Janey and Hat were already there, drinking tea and opening post, but Janey brought him a cup into his office immediately.
“I spoke to the dressmaker’s assistant yesterday afternoon,” the girl said cheerfully. “She’s called Anne Morris, and she’s not stuck up at all.”
Solomon gestured to another chair, and Janey sat down. “Does she like her position?”
“She does. Some of the customers are demanding to the point of rudeness, and God help you if you stick a pin in ’em when their own wriggling caused it.”
Solomon grunted, shuffling the letters already left on his desk. “What about Veronique?”
“Tartar, expects perfection, and if she don’t get it she can melt your ears—language no better than mine, by the sound of it, though fortunately some of it’s in French so Anne don’t understand it all.”
“Isn’t Anne tempted to leave?”
“No,” Janey said. “She’s a good employer in other ways. Wages are good, and she gets breaks for luncheon.”
“How good are these wages?”
“Good enough that she can afford to eat in that very nice tea shop on the corner. Which reminds me, if you want me to go back there today, I’ll need more money.”
Solomon nodded. “Do they have happy customers?”
Janey nodded. “Seem to. She has a gift, this Veronique, so Anne says, and her customers appreciate it. I asked her about Mrs. St. John and her daughter—said I used to be lady’s maid to a friend of theirs.”
Solomon regarded her skeptically. “Did she believe you?”
“Oh yes,” Janey said, toning down her accent deliberately without sounding too obvious. “I can be refined when I want to be. If I stop swearing long enough.”
“You’re a lot better at that, too.”
“Bloody am,” Janey said, grinning. “Anyway, Anne’s dealt with them only under Veronique’s supervision.
They’re very valued customers. I didn’t ask any more in case she got suspicious, but I’ll get more details today.
Veronique lives above the shop with her husband, but she’s talking about moving to a bigger place. ”
“Retiring?” Solomon said quickly.
Janey shrugged as the doorbell rang. “I’ll try to find out.” She stood and moved toward the door before she clearly remembered it was Hat’s job to answer now and turned back. “Where’s herself?”
“At the establishment.”
“All quiet today—I looked out the back before I left the house.”
Hat knocked on the door. “Inspector Harris, sir,” she said nervously. Policemen made most of Constance’s girls nervous.
“Show him in, Hat,” Solomon said.
“Shall I get on with that?” Janey said, edging further toward the door and effacing herself as soon as Harris walked in.
If he was aware of his effect, Harris did not show it.
“Just passing,” he said briskly. “Thought I’d step in and tell you what we know about yesterday’s body on the doorstep. It was removed from a paupers’ grave in Holborn which was due to be filled in. One of the workers was bribed to lift the top one and put it on a cart.”
“Bribed by whom?” Solomon asked. “And when?”
“By an old lady muffled up as if it were winter, at about five in the afternoon when the men were finishing up for the day. Couldn’t get much more out of the man.
He couldn’t tell her accent because of the scarves around her face, and I don’t think he looked very hard either.
A shilling’s a shilling, and he thought she’d be selling it to anatomists anyway. ”
“Mrs. Willow? Or the sister?”
Harris sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of them.
They’re positively vitriolic about Mrs. Silver’s house.
Some people get completely addled by religion and lose sight of the point.
In any case, I can’t pin it on either of them.
They were both out at the right time, claimed to be on church business, but frankly, I don’t have the men to confirm that right now.
Just as well, for they have friends in high places. ”
Solomon stood up, frowning. “You’re going to let them get away with it?”
“I have no evidence,” Harris retorted. “I am already investigating several murders. And frankly, you can’t have it both ways with the police—no attention one minute and every attention when it suits you.
I gave them both a severe lecture on the law, disease, and nuisance, and though they were absolutely livid, I believe they took it to heart.
If it was them, I doubt they’ll do anything like that again. ”
“You will have no objection if we continue our own investigation?”
“None. As long as you don’t cause your own breach of the peace. I seriously doubt they’re involved in the earlier business, though. They don’t have anything to do with drugs or even herbal remedies.”
“Did they tell you that?” Solomon asked skeptically.
“No, the housekeeper did, and the lady’s maid confirmed it.”
There was a short silence. Solomon sat down again.
“What have you learned?” Harris asked at last.
“That St. John and Neville knew other. Nevvy was a gentleman fallen on hard times. They grew up together. And died together, oddly enough, by accident or design. Also…we think St. John or his family might have been blackmailed by the dressmaker Madame Veronique. Is she known to you?”
Harris’s eyebrows had almost reached his hairline.
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “For what it’s worth, St. John’s flask definitely contained opium in quantity, probably laudanum, and brandy.
The flask itself was made about two decades ago, but he doesn’t seem to have used it much in the ten years before the night he died.
I’m thinking stupid, but accidental death. ”
“Only he wasn’t stupid,” Solomon said ruefully.
Harris rose this time and headed for the door. “Keep us informed.”
“Likewise,” Solomon murmured.
He was far from satisfied that the old ladies should get away with nothing more than a lecture.
They would keep up their nuisance campaign, probably as soon as police attention moved on from the area.
He could not allow Constance—or her girls—to be menaced or even hurt.
In his experience, ill feeling only ever escalated.
He was still sitting deep in thought when Constance came in, reporting, as Janey had, that all was well with the establishment. “But all the same, I think I shall go back tonight, perhaps organize some kind of watch.”
She looked rather carefully at Solomon, as though she expected him to object.
“Good idea,” he said. “Harris more or less told me that they’ve ruled the Willow household out of the murder and they’re giving up on the ‘nuisances,’ as he calls them. So it is up to us.”
By the time he had reported everything about Harris’s visit, Hat came in and said a young lady was asking for Mrs. Grey.