Chapter 10
If Harry had been able to get a message to Beth in time, she might have postponed the visit to Petticoat Lane on Saturday morning.
Despite the exhaustion she felt when she had finally reached her bed at almost one o’clock, she hadn’t slept well.
Remorse over Polly Spender’s untimely death, combined with the irrational guilt that she had somehow contributed to it, had kept her restless and staring at the ceiling.
When she had slept, her dreams were plagued by a shadowy figure chasing her along endless streets, with Oliver and Beth begging her to run faster, and it did not take the brilliance of Sigmund Freud to determine that her nightmares were born of the very real fear that Moriarty was on her tail, and might target one of her associates if he caught wind of who they were.
Oliver was already in danger, having publicly represented Mildred Longstaff, and Beth’s visits to the Spender family might mean she was at risk too.
It meant Harry had eventually risen with a dry mouth and a dull ache in her temples that aspirin did nothing to alleviate.
Her fingers were clumsy and slow as she dressed herself as Sarah Smith, dulling her blonde curls with boot polish and adopting some of John Archer’s stage make-up techniques to give herself subtly sunken cheeks and a wan complexion.
The drabness of her appearance matched her spirits as she took the Underground to Liverpool Street station.
Beth was waiting for her on the corner of Frying Pan Alley. The other woman surveyed Harry with a narrowed gaze as she approached. ‘You look how I feel,’ she said with a sniff of disapproval. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been burning the midnight oil again.’
Harry hesitated. She had spent most of the journey from Bond Street wondering how to tell her about Polly. ‘In a manner of speaking.’
Beth studied her shrewdly. ‘I take it that means yes. Still, at least them bags under your eyes help you look the part. Did you bring something to show?’
Nodding, Harry reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver charm bracelet laden with intricate charms. ‘Very nice,’ Beth said, brushing a tiny carriage with the tip of a gloved finger.
‘Not too flashy but worth a fair bit. It should keep them busy at the counter while you get a feel for the place.’
This was the plan they had hatched together – Beth would present the bracelet to the pawnbroker and haggle over the price, while Harry gave the shop a discreet once-over.
She wasn’t sure what she expected to find – if the thieves were connected to Solomon Pole in some way then the Sora-Sora diamond would hardly be in plain view.
But it was a place to start, if nothing else, and she might discover something she could report to Inspector Wells.
‘Just to be clear, this bracelet belonged to my grandmother as a child. I don’t actually want to pawn it. ’
Beth grinned. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll offer a low price, I’ll pretend to be offended, maybe try and get them to offer a bit more. Then we can sweep out in high dudgeon and nip away sharpish before they twig we were wasting their time and send the heavies after us.’
‘The heavies?’ Harry repeated, fragments of her unsettling dreams flashing across her thoughts. The pounding of monstrous feet upon the pavement had felt all too real.
‘I expect there’ll be at least one,’ Beth said, her tone matter-of-fact. ‘To make sure no one gets any ideas about taking the law into their own hands. Pawnbrokers come in handy if you’re short of ready cash, but I can’t say anyone likes them much.’
That was understandable, Harry supposed.
She had no experience of such things but she was well aware that some people were only too happy to exploit those with little money.
Knowing they had their customers over a barrel meant a pawnbroker could offer less than an item might be worth and demand much more to repay a loan settled on it, meaning it could take a long time for a much-loved treasure to be reclaimed.
And if the pledge was not repaid within the time agreed, the item became the property of the pawnbroker, to display and sell in the shop.
It seemed only natural to Harry that such custodians of hope and heartbreak were not especially popular, just as it was perfectly reasonable that they might feel the need for security, but Beth’s words still caused her stomach to churn.
They needed to handle this reconnaissance mission with caution. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Petticoat Lane market did not operate on Saturday, so Middlesex Street was not thronged with stalls and traders the way it would be the following day.
The shops that lined the road were still doing a brisk trade, although Harry saw several that were boarded up, clearly out of business.
The windows of one had been plastered with posters, many of which were promoting unemployment protests and hunger marches.
Others advertised must-have products or outlandish entertainments.
Harry’s gaze lingered on a garish, eye-catching jumble of images proclaiming the marvels of Cuthbert’s Travelling Circus, which appeared to have set up at London Fields and boasted ‘mighty elephants, ferocious lions and a most rare and elegant unicorn’.
It certainly sounded marvellous, she thought.
Hadn’t Patrick the doorman mentioned visiting one in East London with his family?
‘I see the circus is in town,’ she observed, pointing the poster out to Beth. ‘Have you ever been?’
‘I went last year,’ she said, with a dismissive glance at the red-cheeked ringmaster exhorting them to roll up. ‘The unicorn’s horn fell off right away, but the acrobats were good. It made me want to learn the trapeze, until I realised there’s no safety net. You’d have to be mad.’
Harry eyed the poster more closely and spotted a small drawing of a young woman in a plumed yellow costume, seemingly flying through the air unaided.
A sad, white-faced clown peered mournfully from one corner, while a strongman lifted a colossal barbell, grinning as though it was nothing.
It appeared that Mr Cuthbert had plenty of attractions to boast about.
‘Oh,’ she said, when she noticed the dates emblazoned along the bottom.
‘There are two shows today, but it closes tomorrow.’
‘They never stay in one place for long,’ Beth replied. ‘A week, perhaps – ten days at most – and then poof. They’re off to the next field or park, up and down the country.’
She wiggled fingers to suggest a magical disappearance but something was nagging at Harry, an elusive thought that danced in and out of her mind, tickling at the edges of her consciousness.
After spending a moment or two trying to catch it, she gave up.
‘Oh, that is a shame,’ she said, sighing.
‘I think I might have enjoyed the trapeze artist too.’
Beth shook her head. ‘Oh, it ain’t for the likes of you. The seats are cheap to attract them as won’t think too hard about what’s in front of them. You’d see through the illusion in a heartbeat, and it’s all tatty and clapped out underneath.’
It was the closest Beth had ever come to giving her a compliment, but it made Harry feel a little mean-spirited, as though she lacked the imagination to embrace the magic.
She certainly did not feel particularly sharp at that moment.
Moriarty was running rings around her, Rufus still planned to elope with a woman they knew next to nothing about, and she had no idea how she was going to respond to the near miss – the near kiss – with Oliver the night before either.
In the cold light of day, she wondered whether she might have dreamt his heartfelt declaration.
It had been so very out of character. Could he really have meant the things he said?
It seemed impossible and yet he had taken extraordinary risks to help her.
Would he do such things if he didn’t care for her?
‘There it is,’ Beth cut into her thoughts, nodding across the street to a black-fronted shop that had seen better days.
A bar supporting three brass balls hung over the door, the traditional symbol for a service that catered mostly to the desperate and destitute, and the windows were filled with a forlorn array of mismatched items that made Harry’s spirits droop.
A prettily dressed china doll leaned against a chamber pot, a leather-bound bible sat next to a violin, and a silver-tipped walking cane lay in front of them.
There were multiple pairs of children’s boots in different sizes, and a well-made greatcoat pinned to a mannequin.
As Harry crossed the road and drew nearer, she saw several dusty racks of jewellery.
‘I should have brought something more eye-catching,’ she fretted, noticing there were numerous bracelets adorning the faded velvet cushions, amid clusters of watches and gold rings.
‘And I’m glad you didn’t,’ Beth replied with her customary bluntness. ‘We’d have been robbed blind before we got halfway back to the station. Now, when we get inside, keep your mouth shut. I’ll do the talking.’
Harry did not argue. Sarah Smith’s accent was passable enough in some parts of the city, but she doubted anyone from the East End would be fooled for long and she didn’t want to give the game away before they had even begun to play. She reached for the door handle. ‘Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Beth replied, and winked. ‘In we go.’