Keeping Bad Company (28 page)

‘Y
ou should've let me kill them.'

‘You'd have hanged.'

‘Wouldn't matter.'

Tabby hunched in the chair, hair flopping, eyes burning.

‘I thought you were going to get him stopped, that time you found out about him,' she said. ‘I waited for you to do something, but you didn't, so it was up to me.'

Her anger against me was so fierce I could feel the heat of it, like standing too close to the fire. No use pretending I didn't know what she was talking about.

‘I didn't know you knew, Tabby. I suppose I was trying to protect you. That's why I took you off following him, as soon as I found out what he was.'

‘You thought you took me off.'

Six words like so many punches. I didn't know my work. I didn't know Tabby.

‘So all the time, that house in Clerkenwell . . .?'

‘Yes.'

‘He had to close it, you know. I made sure influential people knew about it, so it closed.'

‘And opened again three doors down, a week later.'

She said it like a fact of life, sure as rain falling.

‘I didn't know.'

‘Lot of things you don't know.'

No answer to that, so I didn't try. She sat staring at the fire for a long time before she spoke again.

‘I'd worked it out, how to get both of them. Thursday nights, he always brings the takings round to the back door.'

‘The man with the bag of money?'

A nod.

‘Is he the manager of the house?'

Another nod.

‘You wouldn't have got away.'

‘Yes I would, if it hadn't bin for you interfering.'

‘For heaven's sake, was I supposed to stand there and let you knife them?'

‘Nothing to do with you.'

More silence. She was forcing me back, making me defend myself. I tried to keep my voice level.

‘You think I didn't do enough,' I said. ‘You're right. If that wicked place has opened again, I didn't do enough. But we did manage to do a lot of harm to him. If he'd managed to trick us into thinking his wife had gone mad and was trying to kill him, he'd have got all her money. Without it, he's overstretched financially and nearly running out of credit.'

Silence. I might as well have been speaking Greek.

‘And he'd have managed to take her children away from her.'

‘
Her
children,' Tabby snapped out. ‘What about the others?'

No use pretending I didn't understand her. She was right. I'd been too pleased with myself for what I'd managed to do for the man's unfortunate wife, too ready to believe that the brothel in Clerkenwell had closed for good.

‘How did you know?' I said.

‘How do you think I knew?'

The eyes fixed on mine weren't burning any more. They'd gone dull as pebbles.

‘You?'

‘I got away, three years ago it was. There were girls there younger than me, a lot younger.'

Tabby was never sure about her own age, but I guessed that three years ago she'd have been not much older than twelve.

‘How long were you there?'

‘Weeks, months, what does it matter? I told you, I got away.'

‘So when we started investigating Eckington-Smith, you recognized him?'

She shook her head. ‘Nah. He made sure he never showed his face there. It was when you set me on following him and I saw him with the man what managed the house. I'd have known that one out of all the demons in hell.'

I remembered. She'd come back one night and told me how she'd seen Eckington-Smith secretly meeting a man in a cab and getting out with a bag that clinked. She'd given me an address in Clerkenwell where the other man lived. At the time, I'd praised her for her clever tracking. When Amos told me what he'd discovered about the brothel in Clerkenwell I'd taken Tabby off the case, or thought I had.

‘Why didn't you tell me?' I said.

‘I'd put you on to what I knew. What business was it of yours how I knew it?'

‘Tabby, I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry.'

I went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. It was like touching granite. I went back to my chair and tried to put on a businesslike tone, though I felt anything but businesslike.

‘Very well, you think I've failed you and I have. But that's in the past now. The question is what we're going to do about Eckington-Smith.' The silence seemed marginally less hostile, so I went on. ‘As it happens, he's come up in quite a different case. A friend of mine's been murdered and Eckington-Smith is running errands for a man who wanted him killed. If we can find out who that man is and prove that Eckington-Smith's an accessory to murder . . .'

‘Accessory?'

‘Somebody who knew about it and helped. If we could prove that, he'd probably go to prison for a long time.'

‘My way would have settled him quicker.'

‘Well, that's no use now. For better or worse, what happened tonight will have put him on his guard, so why not try my way?'

‘What is there to try?'

‘In all honesty, I don't know. But we're getting near to something, I'm sure of that. Stay here, or at least let me know where you are, and I promise I'll let you be part of anything that happens to him.'

She considered it, then gave a reluctant nod of the head.

‘All right, but I'm not waiting forever.'

As a sign of truce, I used the last few coals in the hob to rouse up the fire and brew more tea. After a while, I risked asking her whether she'd been living in the backyard den all the time she'd been away. She shook her head.

‘I've bin to Birmingham.'

In spite of everything, there was just a touch of pride in her voice. To the best of my knowledge, she'd only ever been out of London in my company, then no more than a few hours' coach drive.

‘Why in the world did you go to Birmingham?'

‘Following 'im.'

It took a while to piece together. She'd followed Eckington-Smith to a coaching inn, then paid to take an outside place on the same coach. He'd taken a room at an inn in Birmingham and visited several offices the next morning, a Saturday. As far as she could tell, he hadn't completed his business because he was in a bad mood when he booked two more nights at the inn, stayed there on the Sunday and visited more offices early on the Monday before taking the coach back to London. By then Tabby had used up her small store of money – it couldn't have been more than a few shillings in the first place – and gone back to her old trick of clinging to the back of the coach, losing him somewhere along the way when a post-boy spotted her. She'd taken some time to pick up the trail again back in London.

It fitted with what Mrs Eckington-Smith had said about his travelling and trying to raise loans, and all the time there was Tabby, clinging to him like a barnacle to a rackety ship.

‘Why?' I said.

‘Didn't want to lose 'im when I'd found 'im.'

She'd had the knife with her all the time, but decided not to use it because she'd have less chance of escaping afterwards in a place she didn't know. That suggested she wasn't as careless as she'd pretended about whether she hanged or not. Perhaps that was encouraging in its way. Then, back in London, she'd formed the idea of accounting for him and his brothel manager at the same time and spent many days watching and waiting. While I was drawing all this out of her, a depressing idea was in my mind. I fetched a calendar and tried to pin down the days when Eckington-Smith had been out of London. Dates and even days were foreign to Tabby's way of living, and it took some time. We managed to work out that it had been about a week before I'd caught sight of her outside Capel Court. By the time we'd established that, Tabby was more than half asleep. Reaction from the events of the night and probably the first food she'd eaten for days were catching up with her at last. It was hard work for both of us, pinning down for certain those days when she and Eckington-Smith had been in Birmingham, and brought no satisfaction. At the end of it, she was so drowsy that she even let me go with her to her old cabin and see her settled on her pallet that was at least more comfortable than sacking.

I went back to the embers of the fire and some uncomfortable thoughts. Tabby's account of Eckington-Smith's travels fitted well with what I knew. If his trip had been unsuccessful in raising loans, he'd have returned to London desperate enough to do anything for money, easily bribed to arrange for Mr Griffiths's pamphlets to disappear. I might have gone further and concluded that he'd been paid to commit the murder itself. I'd have liked that, only there was one great obstacle. Unmistakeably, and on the evidence of a girl who wanted him dead, Eckington-Smith had the strongest of alibis. On the night Mr Griffiths died, Eckington-Smith had been spending the night at a coaching inn at Birmingham, around twelve hours' travelling time away, with Tabby watching the entrance from a doorway across the street. If Tabby knew that, she'd be gone again, with no trust at all that I'd bring Eckington-Smith to account. She hadn't dropped the knife. From the careful way she'd moved when she stood up, even half-asleep, I was sure she was still carrying it. Of course, I should have taken it off her, but she'd only have refused and run away. And, as she'd told me, Tabby wouldn't wait forever.

The Indian Orphans' Society is holding a GRAND BAZAAR and Sale of Work at St Mary's Church Hall, Kensington, this SATURDAY. Doors open promptly at 2p.m. The Ladies of the Committee hope all their FRIENDS will attend and generously support this GOOD CAUSE.

T
he invitation had been delivered while I was out, with Mrs Glass's name on it. I vaguely remembered that she'd mentioned some such event. Normally, I shouldn't have given it a second thought, but by Saturday I was so desperate for ideas that I decided to attend. My brother had not called on Thursday evening, when I was out, or on Friday when I'd waited in. Tabby was still resident in Abel Yard, but lingering around and looking at me in a way that suggested she wouldn't be there much longer if I didn't think of something. I'd neglected Mrs Glass, I knew. If somebody had tried to poison her to stop her talking to me, it followed that she knew something. Getting to it was another matter.

‘So glad you could come, my dear. Now, you must see Miss Bradley's lace. Simply fairylike. Taught by a French governess. Miss Bradley, a customer for you.'

Mrs Glass delivered me into the hands of Miss Bradley and rushed away to greet another arrival. I bought the least expensive thing on the stall, a tiny lace mat to accommodate a scent bottle, and worked my way back to Mrs Glass to inquire after her health.

‘Yes, thank you, I'm entirely recovered. Just a passing upset. I do hope you said nothing to Mrs Talbot about the punch. I saw her two days ago when I was delivering our invitation and she didn't mention it.'

‘No, I didn't tell her. Is she well?'

‘Very well. She has guests, otherwise she'd be here. She's still a little disappointed about that dinner, but I told her gentlemen will have these little political differences and I'm sure nobody takes them too seriously. Of course, it was embarrassing at the time, but . . .'

Then, just as I hoped we might be heading in a useful direction, she spotted somebody else.

‘Excuse me, dear, that's Mrs Eckington. Just moved here. I'm hoping she'll join our committee. Now, you must look at dear Philly's beautiful painted goblets. Philly dear, a customer.'

I pretended to admire the dreadful things the girl Philly had inflicted on some innocent drinking vessels while keeping watch on Mrs Glass. I'd no intention of imposing my company on the former Mrs Eckington-Smith for the second time in three days and was glad to see her out in society. Sad, though, that her attempt to revert to her maiden name did not seem to be having much success. When they finished talking I made my way back over to Mrs Glass, with the least objectionable goblet added to my haul.

‘I gather some of them are very annoyed about a pamphlet,' I said. ‘Mr McPherson included.'

Mrs Glass was keeping a shrewd eye on the stalls and had to drag her mind back to what we'd been talking about, until my mention of Mr McPherson's name produced a reaction. Unfortunately, it wasn't the one I'd wanted. She beamed.

‘I'm afraid some people are very unfair to that gentleman. He may seem a rough diamond, but after all he has spent most of his life in the Far East, associating with all sorts of characters. And he has been most generous to our orphans.'

‘Generous?'

‘Yes. I took the liberty of approaching him after that dinner party and he subscribed more than anybody else to our new school. Much more. Just look.'

She pulled a folded list of subscribers from her reticule and showed it to me. As she said, Alexander McPherson's name headed the list with a donation of one hundred pounds. Nobody else was giving half as much.

I didn't recover in time to ask her another question, as a committee member arrived with a despatch that they were running out of change on the tea counter. Mrs Glass left in a rush, throwing a question to me over her shoulder.

‘Shall you be going to the reception at East India House this evening? I expect your brother's been invited.'

It took me an embroidered linen handkerchief and a sachet of spices to find out more about the reception and then Mrs Glass disappeared behind the scenes, probably to count the takings. I left, thinking I'd learned very little. In fact, Mrs Glass had handed me a vital part of the puzzle, though I didn't find that out until much later.

If you need to attend some function to which you haven't been invited, it's an advantage to be female. The footman standing at the top of the steps between the classical columns of East India House might have asked for an invitation card from a gentleman he did not recognize. In my case, he bowed and opened the door. Admittedly, I'd taken some care in dressing for the occasion: my best midnight-blue silk with pointed waist and bishop sleeves, matching pumps with bows, simple pendant of lapis lazuli. I'd have liked to wear my lucky dragonfly in my hair, because I certainly needed luck, but it would have made me too conspicuous. I slipped into the main reception room along with a large and noisy group, gratefully accepted a glass of champagne. I'd deliberately arrived late, so the room was crowded, the level of noise high. A string and wind band on a dais was playing airs from Donizetti, almost drowned out by the buzz of conversation. No dancing on this occasion, which was probably just as well given that most of the guests were well into their middle years. A preponderance of gentlemen, many with red faces that might have come from years of service in India or long sittings over the directors' port. The women were mostly wives, bearing with stoicism the double burden of heavy jewellery and having to listen to husbands' familiar jokes.