Chapter Fifteen #2
“How many did you give him?” Solomon asked, truly appalled now, although he strove not to show it.
“Two. One in Mayfair. I think he recognized me, because he laughed as he retreated. I don’t quite see how he fits into any of this, but we need to speak to him.”
“I do.”
“Solomon, he is not of your world.”
“Nor of yours,” Solomon said implacably. “And I have seen more of life than you imagine. Besides, you are too…recognizable. I can go to such places without notice—”
“No you can’t, Sol.”
“Less than you,” he amended.
“Perhaps, but Griz was right. You really can’t go alone.”
“I’ll take David,” Solomon said, suddenly inspired. “I think he needs something to do.”
“Take one of the establishment men, too.”
“I’m not going to pick a fight, Constance,” he said patiently. “I’m not even going to gamble. If I have to, I’ll just leave word I’m looking for Madly and leave our office address.”
“He might come from curiosity,” Constance allowed.
She lapsed back into silence, and he watched her, loving her.
Now. Now, she will finally tell me the suspicion that’s troubling her.
“Perhaps he knows Veronique,” she said at last.
And Solomon looked out of the window.
At the office, Janey, with Lenny in tow, hustled them into Solomon’s room and closed the door, telling them everything she had learned from Veronique’s assistant, the existence of the dressmaker’s large and threatening husband, and the discovery that Mrs. Willow and her sister were also customers.
“Now that is interesting,” Constance said. “I’ve no idea what it means, but it’s definitely interesting.”
“They were odd,” Janey said. “Not like themselves at all.”
“I thought that at church,” Constance said.
Solomon caught his breath.
He lifted his gaze from the growing pile of case notes in front of him. “Veronique has lost her golden goose. She’s catching another.”
*
Being an observant man, Solomon had learned to suit his posture and his manner to his clothing.
With David, it seemed to come much more naturally.
As he donned his old sailor’s clothing, with a secondhand coat and a new hat, he actually became the swaggering sailor with money in his pocket and ambitions for more.
He had jumped at the chance to accompany Solomon on the adventure—another sign that he was bored in his new life. As they left Constance at the establishment and headed eastward into St. Giles, Solomon was thinking desperately how to relieve his brother’s boredom.
“So, we’re not going to play, and we’re not going to pick up women,” David said. “I’ve just to watch your back and listen for the name Jason Madly.”
“A dull night out, I hope,” Solomon said lightly. “Play if you want, but the dice will be crooked and the cards marked, and if you take your hands out your pockets, you’ll get them picked.”
“That kind of place. But you know, if you want to be inconspicuous, you should choose another bodyguard. Two not-white men who look exactly alike are going to be noticed.”
“I don’t mind that.”
David’s lips quirked. “I’m here to pacify Constance?”
“You’re here instead of Constance.”
David laughed.
Not without difficulty, they found the first den on Lady Grizelda’s scrap of paper.
Inevitably, it was halfway down a dingy alley where every opening in the greasy walls seemed to have eyes, and metal flashed among the shadows—not coins but blades.
Solomon walked beside David as far from the doorways as possible until they found the one they sought, flanked by two large and watchful bullies.
Rather to Solomon’s surprise, they were nodded straight in and down some dark steps to an only slightly better lit room below.
There was everything Solomon had expected: tables for cards and dice, the clank of coins and glasses, screeches of female laughter, and a whole variety of voices, from the broadest London accents to the most cultured.
Many slurred; some shouted. The place stank of smoke and tobacco, which also helped to obscure one’s view of what was going on there.
Scantily dressed females toured the room, looking for business and no doubt emptying pockets while pretending to bring luck to the players.
An oily specimen greeted Solomon and David, rubbing his hands. “Good evening, my fine gents! What’s your pleasure? Cards or dice? How about a glass of fine brandy to begin with?”
They sat down where the man indicated, and he sent a girl to fetch their drinks. “Actually,” Solomon said, “I’m looking for someone. Jason Madly.”
“Never heard of him,” said the oily man, adding only a moment later, “What do you want him for?”
“I think I owe him money,” Solomon said, as the quickest route to a man of uncertain fortunes.
The oily man cackled. “Well, I wouldn’t owe it too long. But you’re still out of luck ’cause he ain’t here.”
“No matter,” Solomon said amiably.
The girl with the drinks swayed toward them and Solomon placed a coin on her tray, distracting her hand from its furtive journey toward David’s coat pocket.
“Looking for Madly,” Solomon said, adding another coin.
“He ain’t in tonight.”
Solomon put his Silver and Grey business card on the tray. “Drop him a word I was looking.”
“’Cause you owe him money,” the girl said derisively.
Solomon smiled slightly. “Well, you wouldn’t want to be the reason he didn’t get it, would you?”
Her laughter vanished. The card and the coins disappeared into her costume—somehow—and she vanished.
David was watching him with a mixture of fascination and amusement.
“What?”
“I never expected you to be good at this. I thought that’s why I was here.”
“Oh no,” Solomon said. “I just wanted the company.”
David laughed and clinked the bottom of his glass against Solomon’s.
The brandy was anything but fine. It tasted as if it had been made in a coal scuttle from old socks.
They nursed the glasses without drinking, waiting to see if Madly emerged from the woodwork.
Solomon looked about him. As he got used to the dimness and the smoke, he saw there was indeed a group of gentlemen in that night, making no effort to blend in with the lesser mortals.
They were loud and drunk but liable to get into more trouble than they ever caused.
But they were also in their early twenties, far too young to be Madly.
In fact, anyone of about the correct age looked anything but dangerous.
After half an hour, Solomon said, “Let’s try the next.”
The next was off a back court and up a set of outside stairs, but otherwise it resembled the previous establishment, including the disgusting brandy.
“They must make it in a vast communal tub,” David observed, as a girl sat in his lap.
“But it’s probably safer than the water.”
The girl said, “What you playing, gents? Dice is fair.”
“We’ll watch first,” David said.
The girl half slid off his knee, tugging him by the hand while her other hand crept into his pocket. “Come and bring me luck, then.”
“No luck in there, darling,” David said apologetically. “But this kind man will give you a coin if you tell him where to find… What’s his name, Sol?”
“Madly,” Solomon said. “Jason Madly.”
The girl pouted. “He ain’t here. And we ain’t supposed to answer cheeky questions. You could be peelers. Though you talk too nice. You ain’t from round here, eh?”
“No, we’re from Jamaica,” David said.
“Where’s that, then? Got to be better than here.”
Solomon put a coin on the tray she’d abandoned on the table. “A reminder. About Madly. I owe him money, you see.”
“Oh. You want to try George’s place around the corner. I’ll take you for another of them coins. Keeps the guv’nor happy and gets me some fresh air.”
Solomon, wary of being led into places he couldn’t find his way out of, wished he had a huge ball of string or a pocket full of breadcrumbs to mark the path.
But in the end, it wasn’t far, before the girl introduced them to the lookouts as “gents wot are friends of mine.” She skipped off grinning with her extra coins, only one of which was for “the guv’nor”—Solomon hoped.
He wondered if Constance ever recruited from places like this and felt his flesh crawl in fear for her.
This den was marginally cleaner than the first two. It even had one open window, high up in the wall, so it smelled slightly better, too.
Solomon saw him at once, partly because he was the sort of man who did draw attention.
Broad of shoulder, with a shock of black, curly hair, graying at the temples, he was handsome in a sort of harsh, almost brutal way that gave one pause.
His black eyes seemed to glitter, though whether from excitement or drink or sheer volatility was not immediately plain.
He sat at the head of a busy table, surrounded by coins and throwing dice.
A bottle of decent brandy and a half-empty glass stood at his elbow while he threw the dice. A girl fawned over his other arm.
“Who’s that?” Solomon asked the man who was showing them the way.
“We don’t ask names here.”
“But I’m sure I know him,” Solomon said.
“Then what you asking me for? If you want to play, sit down. You want to ask questions, sling your hook.”
Solomon and David moved toward the dice table and watched the game. Most of the gamblers were looking furious and glaring at the man Solomon was sure was Madly. He held the bank and was clearly winning. Just as clearly, the other players were suspicious of his luck.
The banker’s laugh was jeering. “Suit yourselves. Split the dice. Go on, I’ve finished for the night anyway.”
“And if they’re loaded?” one man growled.
“Take it up with the management, old man. They’re not my dice.”
“Then it’s not your money,” the man insisted.
The banker jumped to his feet and roared, “Hammer!”
As though it was a frequent occurrence, a scantily dressed girl brought him a hammer that looked as if it weighed more than she did. There was a sudden surge away from the table as the banker swept the hammer upward—and brought it crashing down on both dice, one after the other.
Some of the glasses foolishly left on the table fell to the floor and shattered. The man threw the hammer onto the table among the detritus of bottles, cups, and coins, and began to clear his winnings into his pocket.
His accuser was inspecting the pieces of dice, all of which he threw down with disgust.
“Madly wins,” he uttered. “Again.”
“Cheer up,” Madly said. “You should have seen me last night. Now, my sweetheart,” he added to the fawning girl, sweeping her up like his coins, “at the end of a hard night, a young man’s fancy turns to—”
“Mr. Madly?” Solomon interrupted. “Might I have a word?”
The beetling brows and the hard, glittering eyes turned on him. Madly seemed surprised, though he only shrugged. “Stay with them—they love to talk. I’m on to other business.”
The girl giggled as he fondled her.
“It concerns an old friend of yours,” Solomon said optimistically.
“I don’t have any old friends. Precious few new ones, come to that.”
“A lady,” Solomon added.
“I definitely have none of those.”
“Perhaps not,” Solomon said, “but I had hoped the lady might.”
Madly, who had been nuzzling the girl’s neck, raised his head and regarded Solomon with a very steely gaze.
“Damn you,” he said between his teeth. “You have five minutes. Less, if I get bored.”
He abandoned the girl, snatched up his bottle and glass, and strode off toward the back of the room, so Solomon and David followed him to a solitary corner, where he threw himself onto the only comfortable chair with an air of insolence, leaving them to sit on the hard benches against the wall.
Madly was looking from one to the other. “Have I had too much brandy? Am I seeing double?”
“No,” Solomon said. “We’re twins.”
“Twin whats? Peelers? Footmen? Lawyers?”
Solomon lifted one brow. “Brothers,” he said gently. “We want to talk about Jacintha.”
“Never heard of her.” Madly poured himself a large brandy and swirled the liquid around the glass.
“We think someone is trying to hurt her,” Solomon persevered.
“Whoever she is, it isn’t me.”
Solomon held Madly’s gaze, which seemed to surprise him, for he lowered the glass from his lips.
“Actually, it probably is you,” Solomon said. “One way or another. We think someone is blackmailing the lady about an elopement twenty years ago.”
Madly knocked back his brandy with a quick, fierce jerk. “Nothing I can do about that. I’ve told you, I don’t know who you’re talking about, and I will never say anything different.”
It took Solomon a moment to recognize that for what it was. Honor. Thin, and perhaps hanging by a thread behind many years of selfish, hedonistic, and probably brutal behavior, but it was there, and its presence felt curiously warming.
“I need to know who else was aware of this elopement,” Solomon said carefully. “Because this blackmailer has already caused a great deal of damage and probably committed murder. The lady and her children could be in great danger.”
“Surely the lady has a husband,” Madly drawled. “Or…are you his servants?”
“No, and he can’t help her, being dead.”
Madly’s gaze flew back to Solomon’s. He jerked his head around to a man who was approaching their table.
“Bugger off!” he growled, and the man slunk away.
“Who did you tell?” Solomon asked steadily.
“No one. How could I when I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
It could have been evasion. He’d had years to practice such arts, but for some reason Solomon believed Madly’s honor had stretched to silence both then and now.
“Did she tell?”
“Women always blab, don’t they?”
“Who to? Her mother?”
“God no, though I’m sure the old bat was in for the kill. Look at the maid.”
Dear God, could it be that simple? “Veronique?”
“Never heard of her,” Madly said blankly.
Solomon almost groaned, for this time, it sounded like truth. Still, the maid could have told Veronique…
“Did you know Terrence St. John?” he asked on impulse.
Madly shrugged. “Sure. I didn’t move in his circles, but I knew who he was. Amiable cove, preferred the more refined aspects of life, music and learning. Not this”—he waved an arm to encompass not only the room but the entire lifestyle—“filth.”
“You don’t have to live in filth,” Solomon said.
“I don’t have to live,” Madly retorted. “You’re in danger of boring me.”
“Sol,” David murmured.
At almost the same moment Solomon looked up, two men playing cards shouted out, “Kenny!” and Solomon saw a large, floridly handsome man stroll across the room as though he owned it.
Surely, Veronique’s husband.