Chapter Sixteen
“We want you to take the train down to Dover,” Solomon told Janey and Lenny.
“Find out if Darrow and Caterina had booked a passage on any packet or other vessel sailing to the Continent. According to Darrow, they planned to leave London on the evening of Friday the eighth, so try to get hold of passenger lists from then onward. Tell them whatever story is appropriate, that your master has lost his ticket, or whatever, just to see if their names were ever listed.”
“And if their names ain’t there?” Janey asked.
“Go on to the next one. If necessary, travel to the next port and the next. I’ve listed them here for you.”
Janey took the list from him, scowling at it. “Why don’t you just ask this Darrow?”
“Because he lies,” Solomon said, “and we haven’t quite worked out why.”
“You think he done it?”
“It’s more likely he’s the reason Montague’s done it,” Constance said dryly. “Either way, we need to know.”
Lenny was peering over Janey’s shoulder. “That’s a long list,” he said. “We’d never get round all those ports in a day.”
“You might be lucky in Dover, but take tomorrow too, if you need to,” Solomon said. “There are plenty of respectable hotels on the coast.”
Lenny straightened, meeting Solomon’s gaze. “That’s not right, sir, for Janey.”
Janey blushed rather painfully as though she expected everyone to laugh.
“Respectable hotel,” Constance repeated mildly. “There is enough money for two rooms. Tell them you’re brother and sister if it makes you feel better. But as Solomon says, with luck, you won’t need to and can come home this evening.”
“Why don’t you two go?” Janey demanded.
“Because I’ll be doing the same here in London,” Solomon said, “and there are other lines to follow, like Caterina’s friend whom she apparently visited three times in one week, probably as an alternative trysting place.”
“And then she went back to Marianne Locke’s again to meet him on the day before she died,” Constance said. “There’s something here we’re not understanding, and we need to.”
Janey shrugged. “We’d best be off, then.”
“Take the carriage,” Constance said, “collect anything you need from your respective homes on your way to the station.”
“I got everything,” Janey said quickly. “I come prepared.”
It might have been true, but more likely she was keeping Lenny away from Constance’s establishment, where she still lodged. Perhaps it was time she had rooms of her own somewhere else. Which would leave a vacancy for some other street waif.
Since they had no idea who or what they would find at the address in Theobalds Street, Solomon elected to accompany Constance before he began his trawl of passenger lists. As he picked up his hat, the heap of correspondence on the desk caught his eye.
“It’s getting out of hand,” Constance remarked, following his gaze. “I’ll see what I can do today, if I get the chance. Unless I would be better employed searching passenger lists?”
“I can probably do it more quickly without wasting so much shoe leather,” Solomon said wryly. “The correspondence might be a good idea, if nothing more urgent comes up. First, though, let’s find out who lives on Theobalds Street.”
They took a hackney to the end of the road and, since they did not have a house number, began by speaking to the tobacconist at the corner to try to establish who lived where.
Solomon bought a newspaper and some tobacco he would never use. Then, since they doubted Caterina and Darrow had met at a family home, he asked casually about a fictitious family called Grey, old friends he was sure lived in this street.
The tobacconist frowned. “Grey? Hmm, there’s the Whites at number six, and Greens at number eleven, but I can’t think of a Grey…”
“Wait, though,” Constance said, “the family won’t be called Grey, will they? Jane was his mother-in-law! Perhaps you know a family who lives with the wife’s mother whose name is Grey?”
This elicited a few more house numbers and families, which they crossed off their mental lists before thanking the tobacconist for his help and departing.
They managed to cross off several more houses in similar fashion at the greengrocers’, where they were fortunate enough to meet with the local gossip who knew everyone’s business and was not shy about passing it on.
In this way, they discovered a house that was completely locked up and empty, and another that was so full of people that it was never empty for a moment.
Someone had lots of visitors, some had none at all except the woman herself, who liked to make sure the old dears were well.
With the houses left, there was nothing to do but knock on doors and say they were looking for Mrs. Montague, and was it true she was visiting the house?
At the first four doors approached, they encountered only blank headshakes. On the fifth, they were shouted at by the grumpy master of the house for wasting his time. The seventh door, nobody answered at all, so Solomon noted the number in his head to come back to later.
Number twenty-one was opened by a stooped old gentleman with wild white hair and a gray mustache. His expression, though distracted, was amiable enough. There was a speck of egg yolk on his lapel.
“Mrs. Montague?” he repeated in clear surprise at Solomon’s request. “But my dear sir, have you not heard?”
At last! “Heard what?” Solomon asked, just to be sure.
“Why, that the poor lady is dead. It is a great grief to me.” And indeed, there was profound sadness in his fading old eyes.
“We’re so sorry,” Constance said quickly. “In fact, we did know that she had passed away. But we understand she visited you several times in the week or so before she died. Could we possibly talk to you about her?”
The old gentleman looked from one to the other, his gaze sharper than had first been apparent. Then he opened the door wide. “Come in.”
Constance and Solomon followed him into the house and into a pleasant but fading sitting room crowded with books and newspapers and sheets of music. A clarinet lay on the table; a guitar was propped against the wall. The connection to Caterina was obvious.
“My name is Grey,” Solomon said, offering his card. “This is my wife and partner.”
His bushy old eyebrows lifted as their host took the card, though he said only, “I’m George Martin. Some people call me ‘professor,’ though I’m not one. I just look the part.”
“Wait,” Constance said, recognizing the name. “Were you not Mrs. Montague’s singing teacher?”
Martin wheezed out a laugh. “Nothing so grand. My talents are limited. My opinions are not! Fortunately, she valued those opinions. What are you investigating and what has poor Mrs. Montague to do with it? Please, Mrs. Grey, sit down.”
“Thank you.” Constance sat on the sofa, so Solomon sat beside her while their host lowered himself into the chair opposite, which, judging by its threadbare state, was his favorite.
“We are investigating Mrs. Montague’s death, at the request of a family friend,” Solomon began. “Perhaps you are acquainted with Mr. Kellar?”
“No. But I have heard his name. Was he not the one who brought her to this country?”
Solomon nodded. “He was. I imagine that is why he felt so responsible for her.”
“The newspapers said it was her heart. Was that not the case?”
“We don’t actually know. There are a number of oddities that we cannot explain.
Pillows moved to positions she would not have chosen, a vase of roses that appeared as if by magic during the night.
And, of course, the suddenness when she had appeared so well even the evening before.
According to her doctor, her heart condition was well under control. ”
Martin narrowed his eyes. “What is it you think I can tell you?”
“You were not at the funeral?” Constance intervened.
Martin shrugged. “At my age, there are too many of those. And she was too young to die. Plus, it takes me all day to walk the length of the street.”
They were all valid reasons to stay away.
“She visited you often?” Constance asked.
“Before she was married, yes. Or we went to concerts together. I often went to hear her sing, at various theatres all over the country. But my health is not so good these days.”
“Our information,” Solomon said mildly, “is that she called on you three times in the week before she died. That sounds quite often to me.”
“It was unusual,” Martin allowed, “for recent years.”
“Was she alone?”
Martin nodded, lifting his brows in faint surprise at the question.
“On each visit?” Solomon pursued.
“Yes. What—”
“May we ask why she came so often?” Constance asked, so gently that it didn’t even sound like an interruption.
Martin gave a slight shrug. “She wanted to go over old times, I suppose.”
“How long did she stay?” Solomon asked.
“A few hours, until she had to go to the theatre. We both enjoyed it.”
“How did she seem to you?” Constance asked.
“Not ill, if that’s what you mean.”
“Happy?”
He thought. “Happy to see me, which is flattering for a lonely old man. I miss my concerts… But now I think of it unselfishly, she was a little troubled.”
“Did she talk about her husband, her marriage?” Constance asked.
“Bless you, no. We talked mostly of music and musicians.”
“Of Carl Darrow, perhaps?”
“Yes, sometimes, though I had little to contribute on the subject. I never heard the man play, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I have several of his notices and reviews.”
“Then you never met Darrow?” Solomon asked.
Martin shook his head. “No.”
Constance leaned forward. “Did she ever confide her reason for the trouble you noticed in her? Did you guess what it was?”
“No.” Martin grimaced. “Looking back, I wonder if she knew she was dying and came to say goodbye.”
*
“Which is possible,” Solomon said as they walked back up the street and went in search of a hackney.
“It’s also possible that she was saying goodbye because she was leaving the country with Darrow,” Constance pointed out.