Chapter Seventeen #2
He got down stiffly, nodding to the coachman before he walked briskly up the steps and swung right toward the clerk who fielded all visitors.
“Good morning, sir,” Jennings said nervously. They didn’t normally exchange many words.
“Good morning, Jennings. A Mr. and Mrs. Grey just called, did they not?”
“Oh, yes, sir, but they didn’t have an appointment. Mr. Grey was afraid he had already missed one last week or the week before. His wife claimed he had forgotten to make it, and she was right. He had.” Jennings smiled tentatively. “Perhaps not the sort we wish to be doing business with, sir?”
If only you knew, Jennings, Montague thought savagely. “I suppose you had the appointment book out to look?”
“Yes, sir, of course…”
And they had taken a damned good look. They were still investigating him, still suspicious.
Well, it was time—past time!—that they had a taste of their own medicine.
How would they like to be followed and harassed?
And since he had already complained to the police about them, it would be very easy to have them arrested the first time they even looked as if they might step outside the law.
It would be the woman, of course. Grey, he could forgive if he had to, but he was hardly the only rich man in town…
“Cancel all my appointments today, Jennings. I won’t be in the office after all.”
Montague swung on his heel and walked out of the office in search of the carriage he had just dismissed. He would begin at their offices. And follow.
*
Janey was not at the Silver and Grey office. According to Hat, she hadn’t come home last night, or first thing this morning. Constance and Solomon stayed on the premises only long enough to drink a quick cup of tea and tell Hat where they were each going.
Darrow had been watching the office last night.
Montague could easily discover they had been asking questions at his office—and he had indeed been absent from there without explanation several times in the couple of weeks before his wife’s death, once at the same time as Darrow had been with her.
Was that when he had discovered Caterina’s infidelity?
Had he followed her to Marianne Locke’s, and seen her with Darrow?
Either way, every sense that Solomon had always relied on warned him not to leave Constance alone for too long. She would be safe enough with George Martin, but he didn’t want her anywhere near Montague or Darrow—or even Kellar—until this case was settled.
“Don’t go anywhere else without reporting it to Hat,” he urged her. “And Hat, if Janey or Knox come back with news, tell them where we are. We need to know everything as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Hat said seriously, her anxious eyes darting to Constance. “Take care, ma’am.”
“Don’t I always?” Constance said.
“No,” Solomon said with a hint of grimness, “you don’t. Take the carriage to Theobalds Street. I’ll use hackneys.”
For once she didn’t question him, probably due less to any physical fear than to her eagerness to speak to Martin again. Solomon kissed her cheek before he shut her in, but he couldn’t control his sudden feeling of dread.
Foolish. If any woman could take care of herself, it was Constance.
He put his hat on and set off for Darrow’s rooms.
“I’ll be charging you rent soon,” Mrs. Philpot said with a cackle as she opened the front door.
The exquisite sounds of Darrow’s violin both thrilled and chilled his blood. He did not recognize the piece, but could anyone who played such divine music truly be guilty of such a terrible crime? Darrow certainly had the passion, but it was so finely controlled and channeled.
Solomon made some light reply to Mrs. Philpot and hurried upstairs.
Unlike the previous time Solomon had interrupted his practice, Darrow was clearly playing this piece all the way through. If the man heard his knock, he ignored it. Solomon went in anyway.
Standing by the window in his shirt sleeves, violin beneath his chin, Darrow did not acknowledge his entrance by more than a faint, involuntary spasm. The bow kept moving; haunting notes continued to spill forth for several moments, and then an abrupt, angry discord shattered the melody.
Darrow hurled the bow at his bed and dropped the violin beside it.
“What do you want?” he snarled.
It was the first sign of temper Solomon had seen in him. He smiled, easing his shoulder off the closed door against which he had been leaning to listen, and walked further into the room. He didn’t offer to shake hands. In fact, Darrow’s tense poise warned him of imminent attack.
“I thought you wanted to see me,” Solomon said suavely, “since you came by the office yesterday evening.”
A flash of something very like chagrin showed in Darrow’s eyes before his lashes came down like a veil. “I am surprised you did not stop to speak to me.”
“I had a dinner engagement with my wife. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes. I want your reassurance that you’ll stop interrupting my life. It’s hard enough losing Caterina without your haunting me with insulting questions and suspicions.”
“Surely not haunting,” Solomon said. “But I can assure you that our inquiries are progressing. In fact, you could help speed things to a conclusion for me, if you would. You told us earlier that Mrs. Montague had agreed to leave her husband and run away with you to Italy.”
“Yes.”
“How were you getting there?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said you and she planned to leave together immediately after the performance on Friday. Where to? Did you reserve a hotel room somewhere, or did your ship sail immediately?”
“That,” Darrow said stiffly, “is none of your business.”
“On the contrary, it is vital. I need to know what ship you had booked passage on.”
“It is not relevant. She died before we could leave.”
“The implication being she died because you were about to leave?”
“I don’t know.” Genuine anguish suffused his voice.
“But I don’t put it past that…” He halted and drew a steadying breath.
“We didn’t book. We didn’t mean to leave a trail for Montague to follow.
We were going to catch the night train to Dover and take the first packet we could find to France.
We didn’t even buy our railway tickets in advance. ”
“I see.” Solomon held the younger man’s gaze, though he could feel the promising theories in his mind crumbling under the weight of the violinist’s sheer pain. “Whom did you tell about your departure? Mrs. Philpot? Mr. Reid?”
Darrow grimaced. “Of course not. I needed every penny I had. If you must know, I intended to flee without paying my rent.”
“Then you didn’t tell Mr. Martin, either?” It was a shot in the dark, to see if the name meant anything to him.
Darrow frowned. “Who?”
“Caterina’s friend, ‘the professor,’ on Theobalds Street.”
“Never heard of him,” Darrow said without much interest. “I told no one. And neither did Caterina. Or so I believed.” Abruptly, he raised both hands, dragging his fingers through his hair.
“Damn it, I hate this. I want it finished. Will you tell me what your suspicions are so that I can allay them, and try to get on with my life?”
Solomon inclined his head, trying not to hope for too much, but he could almost feel the prickles dropping from Darrow’s manner. For the first time, surely, the young musician was preparing to be totally honest with a man he didn’t much like or trust.
“I want to know why Caterina visited Martin three times in one week,” Solomon said.
Darrow exhaled slowly. He seemed…resigned. “I’ll get us a cup of tea. The old dragon downstairs might have a pot brewing.”
He strode past Solomon to the door, leaving it half open as he called downstairs, “Mrs. P?” Then he clattered the rest of the way down.
And Solomon would never have a better opportunity.
He went first to the table, raking amongst the chaotic mix of sheet music, much of it annotated, newspapers, letters, an appointment diary that recorded only professional engagements, including the one Darrow had played at the establishment in the spring.
Flicking through to the pages just before and after Caterina’s death, he found the orchestra dates and an engagement last night.
He couldn’t study it any further just now. He doubted Darrow would be much longer, and there were too many places to look. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.
He moved to the chest of drawers, discovering a couple of folded shirts, neckties, and underwear, nothing obviously hidden.
He went to the wardrobe in the corner, in which hung one good pair of trousers and one mended pair, likewise an old coat and a decent evening coat, plus a heavy wool overcoat that had seen better days.
Hastily, Solomon felt inside the pockets and found nothing more interesting than an omnibus ticket and a miniscule pencil.
He looked under the hat on the top wardrobe shelf, swiftly ran one finger around the lining, and abandoned it.
All the while, he strained his ears for any sound of Darrow’s return.
The violinist must have been making his own tea or waiting impatiently for Mrs. Philpot to do it from scratch.
Either suited Solomon’s purpose, although he was running out of places to look.
He dropped to the floor, peering beneath the wardrobe, and his eye was caught by a half-hidden ball of something on the floor of the cupboard, right at the back among the shadows. He fished it out, discovering it to be a rolled-up coat, very worn and soft to the touch.
What an odd thing to do to a coat. Even one that needed cleaned or mended. His heart racing—surely Darrow could not be much longer now—he uncoiled the garment until he held it by the collar and felt it all over.
There were no holes. It was just a little threadbare. But the back was quite badly roughened, the fabric pulled, as though it had been dragged about stony ground, or…
His fingers encountered something sharp. He pulled it free of the fabric, and a faded red petal fluttered to the floor.