God Is an Englishman (72 page)

“No, by God! That bastard Figaro killed her. It’s hard to say why unless he was afraid she had access to the loot.”

“What loot?”

“Everything I had. Including your rubies.”

Adam came out of the bedroom and closed the door. Without mov ing from where he stood just inside the parlour Avery stared at him, still blinking.

“Well?”

“Let me attend to that wound first. Then we’ll talk about it.” Something seemed to ebb from the man. He pushed himself off the wall and slumped a little, swaying as he moved the few steps to the sofa where he sat, almost involuntarily. Removing the sling and his jacket Adam could hear his breath whistling and smell the sour odour of his brandy-laden breath. The wound in his upper arm was not as serious as he had feared. The knife had sliced through the flesh below the biceps but it had missed the bone for Avery could still flex his elbow. It was very swollen, however, and still uncleansed. Avery lay still while Adam washed it thoroughly with a napkin soaked in brandy and water before re-bandaging it and readjusting the sling.

“That’s all the damage?”

“A bruise or two. Figaro worked with his feet, but you’d expect that from a dancer.”

“You had to kill him?”

“It was him or me. But I’d have killed him anyway. She was dead when I got here.”

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Flight of a Sleeping Partner
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“Tell me about it.”

“It’s a tedious story. Most love stories are, told by a middle-aged man.”

“You were in love with that girl?”

“How does a man like me define love? I was besotted with her.”

“To the extent of letting her bleed you of everything you pos sessed? A man like you? It’s damned hard to believe, Josh.”

“I find it hard to believe myself. All I feel for her now is pity. She should have taken her wages and got out ahead of him. She worked hard enough for them, I saw to that. But maybe she had no such in tention and I’ve no means of knowing now. Not that it matters a damn, to me or anyone else. The money and rubies are past recovery, and that disposes of all obligations, mine or yours.”

“Why do you say that?”

“What else does a man say to someone whose pocket he has picked? Does he demand the cab-fare out of range of the police?”

“You can leave me out of it for the moment. You killed that Spaniard in self-defence. There’s the wound and the weapon to prove it.”

“That might serve a hard-used, respectable bourgeois. It wouldn’t help me much, except maybe to save my neck and even that’s unlikely. A man like me makes enemies, some of them placed to pull strings. Then there’s Esmerelda. When the full circumstances are known would anyone believe I didn’t kill her?”

“What are the circumstances? Apart from her milking you?”

“What do they matter? To you or anyone else?”

“Damn it, man, of course they matter,” Adam blazed out. “What kind of partner would I be to turn my back on you in a situation of this kind?”

“You might if you knew how things stood between us and have done, from the moment you came to me with that necklace.”

“I said leave my involvement for the moment. We’ll come to that. Tell me what happened, so that I can make some kind of guess at your claim on help.”

“Is that bottle empty?”

Adam picked it up and poured the last of the brandy into the tumbler. There was no more than a couple of fingers and Avery contemplated the liquid, swirling it round.

“You could begin by telling me what was so special about that dancer. She’s a very beautiful woman, granted, but you’ve never had much difficulty in hiring bedspace alongside beautiful women. How did it come about that you lost your head to this extent over a parti cular whore? And don’t tell me she wasn’t as much a whore as any of those girls at Kate Hamilton’s.” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 383

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A flash of the familiar Avery showed in the green eyes that con tinued to consider him, coolly. “There are whores and whores. Some are more accomplished than others, or perhaps appear so to a man nudging fifty.” He paused a moment, still assessing the man who stood over him, “You took your fun where you found it before you decided to put on that tall hat and watch chain. Before that, when you were younger bones, were you never sexually enslaved? For a brief space, perhaps? A month or less?”

“No, but maybe that was because we were always on the move in those days.”

“It happens,” Avery said, “it can happen to the cockiest of us. I was capable of astonishing myself. It might have something to do with age.” A flash of his habitual charlatanry returned to him. “Take care it doesn’t happen to you, Adam.

That plump little part ridge you married might keep you snug and cosy for the time being, but a man oughtn’t to take it for granted until he knows all there is to know about himself. He can always turn a blind corner, as I did when I first took Esmerelda to bed.” He paused again but Adam said nothing. “That was close on a year ago and I’ve had no other woman since. Nor wanted one.”

“You were thought of as a very warm man. What went wrong? I’ve heard artistes of her kind are well paid but surely not so well as you could pay her?”

“That’s what I thought. It’s what any man in his senses would have thought.

But it wasn’t so. There isn’t enough money in the world to satisfy the Esmereldas and when the well runs dry they move on, like any other nomad.”

“So you ran yourself down to the last penny?”

“It doesn’t happen like that,” Avery said, “it’s a zig-zag track, a small-time gambler trying to claw back losses. When I began to feel the drag I plunged and when she realised what was happening and applied the screw I went under a second and third time. I wasn’t going to lose her while there was breath in my body, and that wasn’t solely the need to have her exclusively. It was more of a point of honour. My kind of honour. I knew she was fleecing me and didn’t care. What I didn’t know was that she was getting her brief from that pimp on the floor.”

“What happened here, and when?”

“I heard she’d missed an appearance and that her dressing room had been cleared. The prospect of cutting my losses was more than I could face. I came here with some kind of idea of forcing a decision, of latching on to her wherever she went—making sure of seeing she didn’t leave the country at all events; or maybe of getting at least your share of the money back if it was concealed here.”

“It wasn’t?”

“It’s been transferred to the Continent in droplets, and in his name. I found that out going through his pockets.”

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Flight of a Sleeping Partner
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“He was here when you arrived?”

“Another two minutes and I would have missed him. Did you notice her fingers? He had trouble getting the rings off. You could say he was killed collecting his small change, or most of it.”

He took out a ring and Adam recognised one of the smaller rubies, set in a diamond cluster not unlike the ring Avery had had made up for Henrietta. The sight of it recalled his own situation.

“I went to these lengths to run you down because I bought Tryst. Apart from that, expensive renewals can’t be put off much longer.”

“I knew about the house. I’d like to believe it was one reason why I acted.” He studied his empty glass. “They say a man changes every seven years. Maybe a conscience moved in to keep company with adolescent goatishness.”

“How long have you been holed up here?”

“They’ve been dead thirty-six hours.”

“Why didn’t you make a run for it?”

“It was too risky. There are always people coming and going at that bawdy house below. No. That isn’t the real reason. I’ve kissed my hand to a hundred women. Esmerelda was different.”

He leaned back on the sofa-head, closing his eyes. For the first time Adam saw him for what he was, an ageing, used-up rake who had been experimenting with himself and most of those who crossed his path since puberty. A man without any kind of faith, who had shed belief in himself with the erosion of his belief in others, so that cynicism seeped into his mind as Figaro’s blood had been absorbed by the carpet at his feet. The one thing that redeemed him, Adam thought, was his courage, and after that a self-mocking honesty that only those who knew him would recognise as such.

“Suppose you got clear. What would you do, Josh?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Think about it then.”

“They’ll soon be looking for her, no doubt. A person like Esmer elda doesn’t just disappear without trace. Her things are still at the hotel. I checked there first.”

“They’re looking for her now. A man wanted to search your Guildford Street rooms. Vosper thought he was a detective. There’s already a cancellation slip on her billing. If she walked out on a contract the theatre people will try and trace her to recoup their advance fees. We don’t have long to make up our minds, Josh.”

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“
We
don’t? I told you, I don’t expect you to concern yourself in this. Why should you? You’re already committing a felony by being here. Lend me what money you have about you and I’ll make a run for it.”

“A run for where, Josh?”

“Harwich. I’ve got a standing arrangement with a Dutch skipper there. A man like me has to keep at least one back door unlatched.”

“They’ll be watching the railway termini. You’ve never hidden your light under a bushel. Any detective worth his salt would recog nise you at a glance.”

“I daresay I’ll give them their money’s worth.” Adam said, slowly, “It isn’t just a matter of you, Josh. I’m in volved, whether you like it or not. Or whether
I
like it or not. Every London customer on my books knows of our association. I’l have a hard enough task riding this out financial y. Seeing you in the dock at Old Bailey wouldn’t help and I’ve put too much of myself into Swann-on-Wheels to see it advertised in the Newgate Calendar. Did that occur to you?”

“Yes, it did. But that isn’t the reason you’d run counter to the law to get me clear of the country.”

“It’s reason enough.” He got up, stepped over the man on the floor, and went to the window.

A line of cabs were dropping fares at the Chanticleer and using the mews to turn. The harsh thump of a brass band had replaced the piano, and the sound seemed wildly incongruous in that setting, like fiddlers on a hearse.

“When does that place down there slacken off ?”

“Round about three in the morning.”

“It’s not light until seven. I could get in touch with Vosper…”

“Leave Vosper alone. If the police have called they’ll have a man watching.

Either that or the bailiff ’s men.” He smiled. “If you’re con templating cloak and dagger work you’d best leave it to me. I’ve had more practice over the years.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Nothing until you know the full facts. I talked of picking your pocket from the beginning. Well then, before you try and stick your head in my noose you’d best hear I sold those stones for nearly twice the sum I quoted. Notwithstanding that I’ve still been collecting interest on the initial outlay, plus fifty per cent of your net profit over a long time. I’ve done pretty well out of you already. I was always one to drain the cup to the dregs, Adam.”

“I’ll come myself in a frigate and turn in the mews at around three-ten, give or take a few minutes. You be at the foot of the stairs, ready to climb in the moment I stop level with the door. That’s your only chance as I see it.” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 386

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Flight of a Sleeping Partner
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“There are conditions. With a Puritan there always is.”

“There’s one. Leave that revolver on your shrine in there. It’s just possible they’ll conclude they killed each other and give us a longer start. If they come before I’m back give yourself up. These people are nothing to me, but I’m damned if I’ll have a police officer’s death on my conscience.” He went over, unfastened the door and let himself out without look ing back.

At the foot of the stairs the blare of sounding brass hit him in the face like a wind and behind it was a confused uproar of laugh ter and squealing women. He thought, gloomily, “Uproar and violent death—they go hand in hand,” and three separate images appeared to him, the carnage at Jhansi, the roar of the Seddon Moss rioters, and general lamentation in his own drawing room, the morning Luke Dobbs died in the flue.

3

He came down from the tower about one carrying his overnight bag and a spare topcoat he kept there. The counting house was locked and it occurred to him that if he opened it and the safe with his private keys the night-watchman and stableman would be disinclined to believe the story that he was driving a frigate down to Blubb for a rush removal job within a few miles of Tryst. They had both looked startled when he had issued orders for the team to be harnessed up, and a large, straw-filled crate placed inside the waggon, but it was not for either to question a gaffer renowned for his eccentricities. He managed to borrow a carter’s uniform cloak and cap without their knowledge, guessing there would be a hue and cry among the first shift when it was found to be missing from the rack in the waggoners’ shed. It was a detail, he thought, that he would have to explain away on his return, like his own two-day absence, and the non-existent house removal in Kent. Money was a problem. He had less than ten sovereigns about him, and the petty-cash box in the tower had yielded five more. It looked as though Josh Avery would have to start again from scratch if his passage money cost him more than fourteen pounds.

The traffic at that time of the morning was light and he could take his time, pulling into a waggon park at Waterloo to change his hat and greatcoat for the uniform concertina cap and cloak of a regular driver. It seemed strange to the point of absurdity to be wearing his own livery and driving one of his own teams, as though he was taking part in some kind of charade that would result in ribald laughter at the yard, and perhaps as far away as the regions if he was seen and GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 387