Chapter Five #2
“It rained several times on Thursday,” Solomon said. “I suspect any tracks are already spoiled, and tomorrow will do. We should probably go back to Channing House, collect our baggage, and find a decent inn.”
They walked back toward the town until they reached the road to Channing House and Constance began to feel the oppressive weight of death and grief closing in on her.
At the front of the house, the curtains had all been drawn, leaving the windows dark and blank.
A black ribbon had been tied to the knocker, and when the servant opened the door, he already wore a black armband around his liveried sleeve.
The heavy hall mirror had been turned with its glass to the wall.
“Where are Mr. and Mrs. Harvey?” Solomon asked the footman.
“In the drawing room, sir. They have asked that you join them there.”
“Has the doctor left?” Constance asked.
“Just a few minutes ago, madam.”
Mentally, Constance pulled back her shoulders and prepared to meet the distraught parents. She already looked forward to fleeing the house.
But to her dismay, their hostess would not hear of their seeking lodgings in town.
Mrs. Harvey’s eyes were red and filmy from a recent storm of weeping. But she welcomed her guests eagerly, almost with relief, as though seizing on habit and the outward show of good manners in order to get through this day and all the days to come.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Harvey,” Constance said. “The last thing you need at such a time is strangers in your house. Solomon and I will find lodgings in Channing, although of course we remain at your service—”
“Oh, no, no,” Mrs. Harvey said at once, all but jumping to her feet. “We would not hear of your staying anywhere else, would we, Richard? Certainly not one of those low inns in the town. You will be much more comfortable here. Dinner will be at seven. Allow me to show you to your rooms…”
She was so pathetically glad to have something to do, to let habit take over, that Constance did not have the heart to argue. Clearly, neither did Solomon, for he was silent, trailing after them to the floor above and along a long, carpeted passage.
“This is our guest room,” Mrs. Harvey said, rounding a corner and throwing wide the first door on the left.
“Or rooms, really. The connecting door there is to a dressing room, but there is a comfortable bed made up there, too, so please just make yourselves comfortable. The nearest water closet is just across the hall, but you should have warm water in both rooms too. Just ring if you need anything at all. Oh, and don’t worry about mourning clothes, Mrs. Grey.
We quite understand you will not have foreseen this eventuality.
Join us in the drawing room when you are ready… ”
She seemed to run out of steam. Her words trailed off and her smile slipped. She lingered a moment longer, as though seeking a reason to stay. Then she merely nodded and whisked herself out of the room.
Constance sank down on the bed, exchanging a rueful glance with Solomon.
“Perhaps it’s for the best,” he said. “We can question the servants more easily if we stay.”
“For whatever good that will do us.”
“They’re certainly less likely to speak ill of him now he’s dead than if he were merely missing.”
“It’s nearly seven already.” Constance rose and went to the wardrobe, where her clothes had been hung or neatly folded on shelves.
“Yours must be in the dressing room,” she murmured, seizing on the dark-blue evening dress.
Worn with a shawl and no jewelry, it would be severe enough for respect, if not for mourning.
The evening was going to be excruciating. And incalculably worse for the bereaved parents.
*
David, his folded easel under his arm, was on his way back from the riverside, where he had been painting ships emerging from the mist, when a girl loomed out of the fog and touched his arm.
Taken by surprise, he jerked away at once, belatedly assessing the danger, not only from the woman but from any of her allies who might have been creeping up from behind or on his other side.
But he was on a well-lit street, and the girl stood under the pale glow of a streetlamp. She looked familiar, even before she pushed back the hood of her thin cloak. It was the prostitute he and Solomon had spoken to last night. Ellie May.
His skin prickled. “How did you find me?”
“I asked around. You’re a pretty rare bird, even if there are two of you.”
She thought he was Solomon. Then she had something to say about Solomon’s new case.
She lifted her chin. “Got a couple of pennies? I got a name for the man you was asking about.”
David dug in his pocket and pulled out a few pennies. “Well?”
“Henry Hope,” she said, though she didn’t pronounce either H.
Was she making it up for the easy money? “Why didn’t you tell us that last night?”
“’Cause he was following you down the alley. Think I got a death wish?”
The hairs on the back of David’s neck prickled uncomfortably. He changed position, hefting the easel and turning so that he could see anyone approaching them. “He was the one following us? Who is he? Why are you frightened of him?”
“Anyone who’s got any sense is frightened of him. Even the peelers give him a wide berth, ’cause they can’t catch him neither.”
“And he’s a friend of Mr. Harvey?”
“Don’t know about friend, but he was with him in Orrie’s Den. He left with us, then went his own way.”
David racked his brains, trying to think what Solomon would want to know. “Were they cordial when they parted? Was Mr. Harvey frightened of him?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. He don’t have the sense he was born with.”
“Did Hope threaten him?”
“Nah. But then, he don’t need to.”
“I see…”
The girl held out her hand, palm up, and David dropped the handful of copper into it. Her hand closed around it greedily.
“Where would we find this Hope? At Orrie’s?”
“Sometimes.” She hesitated. “Look, don’t go sticking your nose into his business. It’s a handsome nose and you deserve to keep it.”
David looked at her more closely. She was younger than he’d first thought, her face and hands too thin, her eyes sunken and shadowed. She was probably ill. She’d followed him for money, money she needed and didn’t have to earn in the usual way.
“You want out,” he said.
She didn’t look amused, only weary. “We all want out, mister.”
“You ever heard of Constance Silver?”
Her lips twisted. “Whores’ fairy godmother? Stories told to get through another day.”
“Tell her I sent you,” David said. “And Ellie? Thanks.”
As he walked on, he had the impression she was still staring after him into the mist. She probably thought he was kind, rather than understanding. We all want out.
But he could breathe and let himself into his comfortable home that his brother had passed on to him as part of his share in their father’s estate.
He liked that it had been Solomon’s before him, another connection to the brother he’d been parted from for so long.
He even had a manservant and a cook, also inherited from Sol. He was his own man and comfortable.
His situation had been different from Ellie May’s, but even so, he felt stupidly rattled by the encounter. After dinner—the delicious smell of his coming meal wafted from the kitchen—he would take the girl’s information to Solomon. He would want to know.
Jenks emerged from the kitchen, allowing a more intense preview of dinner to hit him, and picked up a note from the hall table. “This came by messenger, sir. From Mr. Solomon.”
David propped his easel up against the wall to take the paper from Jenks and read it.
Disappointment hit him first, because Constance and Solomon had left Town with their client.
He read on to discover that Solomon had actually written to his art-buying friend urging him to contact David and see his work.
Warmth drowned out the foolish disappointment. Family feeling meant Solomon would always help. But David also knew his brother well enough to acknowledge that Sol wouldn’t have gone so far, so quickly, if he hadn’t been impressed.
“Are you ready to dine, sir?” Jenks inquired. “Five minutes?”
“Perfect,” David replied, running upstairs rather more jauntily than he’d entered the house.
While he washed his hands, he decided to write to Solomon with Ellie’s information. Only the note hadn’t given a specific address, only the name of the town. Channing, Buckinghamshire.
Emerging into the main room where the table had been set for one, he went straight to Solomon’s bookshelves to fetch a map, which he spread out on the floor.
He found the town of Channing easily enough, and it was not so far from London.
Even on bad roads, he could ride it in a few hours if he changed horses…