Chapter Ten #3
Harold scrubbed a hand over his pathetic face.
“I was out with some of the Damocles boys last night. I thought I’d convinced Craddock to let me join their card game, but he kept ignoring me when I inquired for directions.
They all climbed into a cab without me, and I was trying to catch one to follow … and I fell off the bloody curb.”
Sidney blinked at him. “Then where the hell have you been since?”
“I hobbled into the nearest pub and had several rounds of angry drinks with a gentleman who looked like St. Nick. Fell asleep on a bench until a bobby woke me up to a splitting headache, so I hobbled back into the pub and downed black coffee until it subsided.” Harold winced.
“Don’t be stern with me, Sid. Help me upstairs and then scold me, please. ”
Sidney looped an arm around his friend’s shoulders and eased him upright. “Do I want to know where your shoes are?”
“I think,” Harold said meekly, “I gave them to St. Nick when he complimented me on their beautiful shine.”
Sidney choked on a laugh, and his friend lapsed into humble silence.
Together, they stumped across the grounds toward their hall of residence and up the stairs to Harold’s room.
It was the very opposite of Sidney’s Spartan quarters, always a jumbled mess of clothes and books and the detritus of whatever hobby held Harold’s fancy at the moment.
The deck of cards scattered across the floor betrayed what he was currently studying more than his books.
Harold sank onto the bed and swung up his injured foot, groaning. “Thank you, old boy. I owe you, just name your price.”
Sidney stooped and picked up the ace of spades nestled inside a felt slipper. “Don’t play cards with Craddock and his friends. You’ll lose all your money.”
A pained expression flitted across Harold’s face. “I don’t care about the money, Sid. I want to be in Damocles, and partaking in their little soirees is the first attainable step.”
“I don’t understand why you want to be friends with them in the first place.”
“It isn’t friends I want so much as—as equals. I’ll never be welcomed in some circles unless I’m one of them.” Harold drooped, spinning the playing card between his fingers. “Biscuit money is different from old money.”
Sidney studied his friend’s plaintive face. “I suppose you’re right,” he said evenly. “Only if you become an arsehole like Craddock, don’t expect me to lug you up the stairs.”
Harold sank back on his pillows, protesting it would never happen, and Sidney departed for his own room.
If Harold gave more weight to Donald Craddock’s favor than sound advice, then Sidney needed to stop harping on him—casting pearls before swine, his mum would say.
But Harold was nice, too nice perhaps, and it annoyed Sidney to see genuine kindness wasted on something as banal as the Damocles Club.
Of course, he’d also made poor decisions at twenty-one, such as choosing to reenter the mines after the war for a miserable two years. Perhaps it was a rite of passage.
Sidney closed his bedroom door and tilted back his head with a soft thump.
Only if wealth wasn’t enough to secure Harold Webb the life he craved, what hope was there for a miner’s son?
Either they could mold the future they wanted for themselves, or this was all for naught.
And Sidney refused to let Oxford become yet another shiny, uncomfortable suit in his wardrobe.
He needed to find their informant so the Rook would leave, and life could return to the course Sidney had set: no more surveillance, no more tailing, no more auburn-haired girls bossing him about.
It was then Sidney remembered the note in his pocket. He turned, smoothing the creased paper against the door, and the rest of the jumbled letters rearranged themselves like beads slipping onto a string.
If I had found something of potential interest but had forgotten the number for crumpets, would you be able to advise?
Sidney rubbed at the ache in his neck. He could dash off the Rook’s number and tuck it under the bench, but Bishop’s coy use of the subjunctive mood, posing the request as a hypothetical, nettled him.
If she wanted help, she ought to ask for it outright—especially after her dismissal of his advice to proceed with more caution.
She might find his meticulous methods tedious, and yet how did she think he had memorized the Rook’s number in the first place?
Only Ginevra Bishop didn’t seem the sort to admit she’d been wrong. Using others’ strengths as pieces on her personal chessboard probably felt natural—much like the Rook.
Sidney tossed the note onto his desk and stretched out on the narrow bed, considering how long he might let Bishop stew before she barged directly into his room.
He doubted it was an urgent matter, or she could have asked a scout to slide the message under his door as before.
Surely a day or two was enough time to reflect how her own lack of discipline had led to her present conundrum and alter her investigative approach accordingly.
The corner of Sidney’s mouth twitched. Or, perhaps Bishop was due a taste of her own medicine.