Chapter Four #2
That was inarguable. “Why don’t we clear out? Cut stick out of London, of England. To hell with Baynes. Forget the whole thing. We write it off and run for France, and Jacky Gaskin can whistle for his money.”
“That’s not what he does,” Eve said. “What he does for his money is send people after you who break your knees and ankles first so you can’t get away, and then your hands, only they do those slower, and then once that’s done, he tells you how you’re going to earn his money back for him, and that part’s even worse.
He doesn’t like people who don’t pay their debts. ”
Then why did you borrow money from him? Nico wanted to scream, but it wouldn’t help. Eve had had a good plan—daring, ingenious, only slightly insane—which had foundered on the rocks of Chilcott Baynes being a murderous swine. Recriminations would get them nowhere.
Eve appeared to be thinking. Nico knew and feared the signs. “You still have the painting, yes? All right, suppose we go back to Baynes—”
“No,” Nico said, with the firmness of the recently nearly murdered. “Absolutely not. He’s mad as a hatter.”
“Hear me out. What we do is, we set up a meeting in a neutral place—”
“Is this plan going to involve the words ‘kidnap,’ ‘abduct,’ or ‘threaten at knifepoint’?”
“Do you want the money or not?”
Nico glared. “We are not fucking about with that bedlamite and his henchmen any more. No, Eve.”
“He shot at you! He could have hit you. Killed you, and I wouldn’t have been there or known, even, and—”
“He didn’t. It’s all right.”
“It is not all right!” Eve shouted. “Why should he keep getting away with this?”
“Because he’s rich so he can,” Nico said flatly. “Forget Baynes. We tried, it hasn’t worked, let it go. Our problem right now is how to pay Gaskin or get away from him. Ideas?”
“The obvious one, but you’re not going to like it,” Eve said. “The other collectors. We sell the painting to one of them.”
It was indeed the obvious answer, probably the only one, and indeed Nico didn’t like it.
He wasn’t a sharp. Granted, he knew how to fuzz cards and Greek dice, and how to put on a facade people would believe until he almost believed it himself, but those things were professional accomplishments acquired in the course of an interesting and varied career.
He’d agreed to cheat Chilcott Baynes because Eve had asked him to and Baynes deserved it.
He didn’t want to commit a fraud on some inoffensive man for money.
The thought probably showed on his face because Eve made a strangled noise.
“All right, but have you got any better ideas? If we give up on Baynes, where else are we going to get the money to pay Gaskin? Or the money to eat, come to that, or pay rent, or all your stupid tailors’ bills that are coming due?
We can’t sell anyone anything if the Comte de La Motte is banged up in debtors’ prison, which I’d rather you weren’t! ”
Nico had undeniably overdone it with his wardrobe. Eve had said he was spending too much, but with Miss Whitecross to enchant, and her fortune so very nearly in his grasp, it had seemed like a good investment. Also, he liked clothes.
“No better ideas,” he said. “It’s just, if it’s not Baynes, I’m stealing from someone.”
Eve gave his hand a comforting squeeze. “It’s not really stealing, though. It’s more, you know…”
“Lying?”
“Acting,” Eve decreed. “You’re selling them a performance, and if they decide to believe it and they don’t find out otherwise, what’s the difference really?
It’s not selling something they need that doesn’t work—a spavined horse, or bread that’s half chalk.
They’re rich enough to pay for a story, and they get a story just like they wanted. Is that so bad?”
“But if it’s not real—”
“Look, they’re only buying something to wank over. Does it matter what the thing really is, as long as they get a good—”
“I grasp the metaphor, thank you.”
“I’m right, though,” Eve said. “Honestly, these people are awful. All that money and they just waste it on nonsense.”
“It’s not a crime to be awful,” Nico pointed out.
“It should be.”
If it was, a lot of people would happily see the Comte de La Motte gaoled.
Nico had slithered into London Society’s lower echelons with relative ease, thanks to excellent clothes, a good story, and his face, but he was well aware how he was regarded.
An ambitious, encroaching foreigner, a mushroom, a soi-disant aristo, a cicisbeo lavishing attentions on rich old women, a havey-cavey sort of fellow.
He couldn’t argue with any of that, and he’d chosen to play this role, so he ought not complain of the consequences.
But he wasn’t used to being generally disliked, and it rankled more than he had expected.
He’d found himself wanting to earn the dislike.
You think I’m beneath your contempt? Well, watch this!
Maybe he should. If people were going to smirk and sneer, they could take the consequences.
And Eve wasn’t entirely wrong in that it would do no real harm, not material harm, and in any case, they had no choice.
Miss Whitecross’s unexpected death had snatched away the safe harbour they had believed theirs, therefore the laws of self-preservation decreed that they could do whatever was needed to get out of trouble.
“Fine,” he said. “Look into who we can sell the goods to, and I’ll go and La Motte at them. And meanwhile—that druggist, the fellow who married Miss Whitecross. Who is he?”
“Paints, and the name’s Pilcrow. Why?”
“Because I bet we can get a few quid out of him. Compensation for breach of promise, something like that.” Eve was making a sceptical face.
“Look, he married my nest egg: he’ll be expecting me to turn up with a horsewhip.
He’ll probably have a handful of notes waiting to make me go away.
Actually, if I can get fifty quid off him, we could hire a curricle and the fastest horses in London, and get down to Dover and onto a ship before Jacky Gaskin knows we’ve gone. How about that?”
“You can’t drive a curricle,” Eve pointed out. “Nor can I. And it’s a long way to Dover, and I’ve waited days for a ship before. What if Gaskin catches us?”
“He’s not a mind-reader,” Nico said, although he well knew that Jacky Gaskin didn’t have to be a mind-reader.
He had a whole lot of ruffians between the ages of seven and seventy who hung around the streets, watching your every move.
“Anyway, we’ve plenty of use for fifty quid, so I’ll go to see this Pilcrow while you look into the other collectors and decide who I talk to first.”
Eve gave him a rueful, grateful smile. “Will do. Thanks, Nic. I am sorry about this.”
“You’ve got me out of stupider situations,” Nico pointed out. “Which were mostly more my fault than this is yours.”
“Yeah, good point, you owe me. Oh, no, hold on. Do you think you could sell this Pilcrow the painting? He’s just got rich; he’s probably spending like a sailor. And he might be interested in art, if he makes paints?”
That would definitely count as compensation, in a roundabout sort of way. “That’s a damned good thought. I’ll sound him out, and if he’s interested, that’s all our problems solved.”
“Would be nice.”
Nico looked at his cousin, all thin, hunched shoulders and bravely suppressed fear, and his heart hurt. “We’ll fix this, Eve, I promise. I’ll get the money. We’ll be all right.”
“Yeah. Course we will.”
It didn’t sound like Eve entirely believed him. Then again, Nico didn’t entirely believe himself.