The Sleeping Partner (8 page)

The Library at Tarsio’s Club was a small room generally reserved for the use of the club’s male subscribers. Women were permitted in the library only if a porter was sent beforehand to ascertain that feminine presence would not perturb the men dozing there over the newspapers.

Miss Tolerance, mindful of these rules, arrived at the club and at once enlisted Corton as her advance guard.

“I only need to look at a book for a few minutes, then I shall take myself back to the Ladies’ Salon,” she promised.

After this anxious preparation it was a disappointment that there were no men in the Library whom Miss Tolerance could inconvenience with her female self. She went at once to the Peerage, a thick, important looking tome bound in gilded calf, which rested on its own stand but, by the evidence of a slight rime of dust, was not much consulted by Tarsio’s members. Miss Tolerance paged through until she found the entry she sought.

Lyne of Wandfield

Charles Loudon Thorpe, Third Baron, b. June 12, 1758, Wandfield, Warwickshire, m. September 12, 1781 Henrietta Mallon, daughter Sir Peter Mallon (d) and Anne Crossways of Warwick. Issue: Henry Mallon Thorpe, b. 1782; John David Thorpe, b. 1784; Clarissa Adele, b. 1787; and Evadne Henrietta, b. 1795. Principal residence Whiston Hall, Wandfield, Warwickshire.

There was more regarding the family’s history; the book was also a decade old, and did not mention the husband to which “Mrs. Brown” had referred, but it was quite sufficient for Miss Tolerance’s purposes. Blessing the fondness of her countrymen for setting down such information usefully where a working woman could find it, Miss Tolerance copied the entry, made her way downstairs, and desired Steen to call her a hackney carriage to Savoy Court. She intended to call upon an expert of her acquaintance, to see what she could learn about the family of Evadne Henrietta Thorpe.

The Liberty of Savoy has been since the days of Henry III a harbor from arrest for debtors and Sunday-men of all sorts. Here can be seen gentlemen whose silver buttons, pocket watches and handkerchiefs have lately been pawned to pay for dinner, drink, or another round of play; businessmen hoping to stay ruin by borrowing at calamitous interest; ladies picking their way through the muck to find a sympathetic cents-per-cent with an open purse; and, always, poor men on the lookout for the Bailiff’s staff. The air in the Liberty of Savoy might smell of ordure, sweat, mold, and coal dust, like many other London neighborhoods, but the underlying reek was of desperation.

Mr. Boddick, the tapster at the Wheat Sheaf, was drawing off a pint. On observing Miss Tolerance he nodded cordially, delivered the ale to its purchaser, and inquired what her pleasure might be.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Boddick. How do you do? And Mrs. Boddick? Is Mr. Glebb very busy?” She looked toward the corner nearest the fire, where an elderly man wearing blue broadcloth and a clean, highly starched shirt was in close conversation with an anxious fellow in smock and gartered sleeves.

“There’s two or three already waiting for ‘im, miss. Will you take something?”

Miss Tolerance slid a coin across the bar, ordered coffee for herself and, as was her custom, urged Boddick to draw a pint of something for himself. The tapster nodded his thanks, served Miss Tolerance, then drew off a pint of bitter and drank a long gulp with every evidence of pleasure.

“The weather is turning warm,” Miss Tolerance observed.

“‘Tis that, miss. What brings you ‘ere today?”

“The search for understanding, Mr. Boddick. A consultation with Mr. Glebb seemed the place to start.” Miss Tolerance drank a little of her coffee and looked around the room. In one corner near the fireplace Mr. Joshua Glebb held court over a crowd of five or six people. The rest of the room was near empty; she did observe a man sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar by the hearth, in an attitude which suggested that he was not a patron but a member of the establishment. The man’s singular aspect of misery drew Miss Tolerance’s eye; he was pale, unshaven and, despite the fire burning nearby, shivering.

Mr. Boddick’s gaze followed Miss Tolerance’s. “My brother Bob. Used to be an Army man ‘til his lot got sent to Walcheren with Chatham’s force that took the fever.”

Miss Tolerance regarded the unhappy Bob with sympathy. The British assault upon Napoleon’s naval forces in the low-lands of Holland in 1809 had been turned back, not by force but by a virulent malaria which had killed more than four thousand men outright, and invalided twice that number.

“Bob was sent ‘ome to us; sixpence-a-day pension, and ‘e’s a good worker when ‘e’s well. But when the fever’s on ‘im, ain’t much ‘e can do but sit as you see ‘im.”

“I am sorry to hear it. Is there no help for him?”

“Quinina—that’s what the Spaniards call it—stops the shakin’ and the fever. Peruvian bark, that is. But it’s ‘ard to get and dear when you find it. Damned Frenchies run up the price by attacking merchant ships. Now if the Crown was doing what they ought—”

For the next quarter hour Mr. Boddick maintained a monologue highly critical of the Government’s pursuit of the Peninsular War. Boddick was a whole-hearted Tory, while Miss Tolerance’s sympathies partook more of the Opposition line, but both maintained a keen interest in the progress of the war. Mr. Boddick, like his brother a veteran, was vehemently anti-Bonaparte; it was one issue upon which he and Miss Tolerance, who had lived under the Corsican’s rule, were wholly in sympathy. Poor Brother Bob, withdrawn and shuddering at the end of the bar, offered no opinions.

When they had disposed of the war, Walcheren, and the politics of the commission investigating that debacle, they returned again to the weather, thence to the price of corn, which looked to return them to the subject of politics again. But Boddick looked back to Mr. Glebb’s table. “Ah, seems ‘e’s free now, miss. A pleasure talkin’ with you, as always.”

Miss Tolerance wished him a good day and carried her coffee off to Mr. Glebb’s table.

Joshua Glebb’s head, bald, with a long fringe of yellowed hair circling the back, shone in the dusty light from the far window. His entire being appeared to be in the process of succumbing slowly to gravity; his mouth turned down, and his chin, shoulders and gut all looked to be making a slow progress downward until they would puddle around his boot-soles. Until that should happen, Mr. Glebb resembled a fussy and dyspeptic head clerk, respectably dressed and sour of expression. His mouth attained—not a smile, but an absence of frown—when he looked up at Miss Tolerance, and his shrewd eyes lit.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t rise, miss. My bones is giving me some trouble today.”

“You must not stand upon ceremony with me, Mr. Glebb.” Miss Tolerance took a seat opposite him. “I have come, as usual, to ask questions.”

“Well, asking’s free. It’s answers cost the ready.” Glebb looked into his coffee pot, found it empty, and gestured to Boddick. “Answers is what I have.”

Mr. Glebb did a brisk trade in information of a specific sort: he had ties to virtually every money lender in the city, from respectable banks to the meanest sharks, and to the pawnshops and fences as well. Mr. Glebb was a sort of financial matchmaker, putting those in need of money together with those of a lending disposition—for a fee. He loaned no money, but he knew everyone who did. Miss Tolerance had always found him to be reliable, if somewhat tainted by cynicism. She opened her pocket book and withdrew several coins.

“I shall get straight to the matter. What can you tell me of Lord Lyne?”

Mr. Glebb pursed his lips together in a soundless whistle. “Flying high, are we?”

“Oh, I mix in the best society.”

“Well, they ain’t the best if they ain’t beforehand with the world,” Mr. Glebb advised.

“Do I understand that to mean that my lord is deep in debt?”

Glebb shook his head. “Just speaking in a general way, miss. Lyne—” Mr. Glebb put his finger to the side of his nose as if that constituted an aid to memory. A drop of clear fluid hanging there trembled but did not drop. “Banks with Coutts and with Hammersely. Man of property and business, as I recall it.”

“And what sort of business would that be?” Miss Tolerance asked.

Glebb shrugged. “New World trade, I think. And the usual sorts of property here at home as well. I can find out more particulars if you’re desirous of it. There’s something else, something in the last few years, but I can’t call it to mind. Tomorrow I can get you a full accounting.”

“‘Tis why I come to you, sir.”

“A full dow-see-hay for you on the morrow.” Glebb mangled the French with relish. “This a new customer? No, no, I know you won’t tell me so.” Boddick arrived at that moment with a fresh pot of coffee. “Thankee, Boddick.” Glebb nodded but did not look up at the tapster. “D’you come back, miss. I’ll have something for you.”

Miss Tolerance rose. “Thank you, Mr. Glebb. May I ask one more favor of you? Would you ask about to learn if this young woman—” she took the portrait from her reticule and showed it to him—”pawned anything here in London in the last fortnight?”

“
Anything?
” Glebb blew his nose. “That’s a mighty broad question. You don’t know what she’d be a-pawnin’ of?”

“Something of the sort that a young woman of good family might have to hand.”

“I take your meaning, miss. Gee-gaws and prinkery. I’ll ask about. Might I know the lady’s name?”

Miss Tolerance shook her head. “That I cannot tell you, Mr. Glebb.”

Again Glebb shrugged. “Half of them that gives a name gives a lie anyway.”

“You have seen what the girl looks like and you may imagine what might be available to her to pawn. If the lack of her name makes the task more difficult, console yourself with the sum you can command of me when the job is done.” She slid a half-crown across the table. “Shall I leave this on account, to be going on with?”

Glebb nodded. “That’ll do for a start.” He regarded the coin with fondness before he deposited it in his waistcoat pocket. “Good afternoon, Miss Tolerance.”

“Good afternoon, sir.” Miss Tolerance curtseyed and departed, nodding farewell to Boddick as she went.

She walked back to Henry Street, enjoying the fine day and the sight of her fellow citizens about their business. On her return to Tarsio’s she ordered tea and went up to the Ladies’ Salon; she had promised her client a report and meant to write it now.

It proved a more difficult note than she had anticipated. Miss Tolerance had not been idle, but she had not been particularly successful, either, and she was certain that a long list of the inns at which Evadne Thorpe had
not
been seen would not allay Mrs. Brown’s anxieties. At last Miss Tolerance began to write, framing her note in terms of what the lack of news told her about Miss Thorpe’s whereabouts.

Unless Miss E and her companion have been more than usually sly, I believe that they must still be in London. No one at any of the coaching inns I have approached has seen any sight of her; and whilst they might have traveled from the city by post, such travel is expensive. As I have not been able to determine any information about the gentleman, I do not know what his finances are and thus how likely post travel might be. It would be very helpful if you could tell me

Here Miss Tolerance paused and sipped at her tea. She had been about to ask if any of the sister’s jewelry was missing, but would that mean the girl had taken it with her, or that it had been pawned over a period of time to finance the elopement? The latter argued a degree of fixed purpose (or moral laxity) which seemed at odds with Mrs. Brown’s description of her sister.

“Beg your pardon, Miss Tolerance.”

Miss Tolerance looked up. Corton, the hall porter, was offering an envelope on a tray.

“This just come for you, and I was sure you’d be wishing to have it.”

In fact she was grateful for the distraction from her own writing. Miss Tolerance thanked Corton, took the letter, and tore it open. It was written in a clear, bold hand.

Dear Miss Tolerance:

It
is imperative that I speak to you. Please call this afternoon at Number 7, Duke of York Street. I shall await your visit eagerly.

CB

Miss Tolerance read the letter twice, folded it, put it in her reticule, and finished her tea. This was curious: by summoning her to her father’s house Mrs. Brown was giving up that anonymity which had been so crucial a few days before. Miss Tolerance could only conjecture what this meant. Had more information had turned up regarding Miss Thorpe’s seducer? Perhaps Lord Lyne had thought better of his harsh stance regarding his daughter. She looked again at the note; it was rather more abrupt in tone than she would have expected from Mrs. Brown, such suggested some excitement of mind. Might the girl have returned on her own? Had there been some new development? Miss Tolerance put on her gloves; the only way to know was to call upon Mrs. Brown.

At the corner of Duke of York Street Miss Tolerance saw Bart and his fellows still at the corner; several of the boys were tussling, but one of them stood with an air of abstraction, ignoring his fellows and ostentatiously not staring at the Lyne house. Pleased, she put her hand to the brass knocker.

The door was opened at once. Miss Tolerance was ushered in by a servant in black broadcloth; sensitive to the ways in which upper servants assess a household’s visitors, she was pleased that, after observing her walking dress, hat, and boots, the footman appeared to find them and their wearer acceptable. The man took Miss Tolerance’s name and left her to wait, briefly, by the door. The house was pleasantly warm and smelled of beeswax and verbena. Miss Tolerance was admiring a cluster of nautical prints when the footman returned.

Whatever had transpired in his few moments away, the man now looked unsure of himself, or perhaps of his visitor. Even his voice, as he bid her follow him, was uncertain. Miss Tolerance put herself on guard and followed the man up the stairs. On the first floor he guided her along the hall, opened a door, and departed with speed. Miss Tolerance, as much forearmed as she could be, entered.