A Broken Vessel (23 page)

“But you don’t like him?”

“No,” she admitted. “He’s so quiet, and he watches everything so close, and he always seems to be sneering, even when you can’t see it on his face. And there’s a way he looks at me—it’s not leering, exactly, but it makes me afraid to be alone with him. He—he’s not quite real.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, he never laughs, never shows any feelings, sets himself so apart from people. We don’t even know where he lives. He wouldn’t give an address, and since he pays his rent so prompt, Pa don’t like to press him about it. And there’s something else. Once when he was here buying a newspaper, he got a bit of grit in his eye and had to take off his spectacles. He laid them down on the paper for a minute, and the print didn’t look any different. They’re not real spectacles—they’re just plain glass.”

“He sounds like a rum customer. I wouldn’t have nothing to do with him, if I was you.”

“Do you think he—he could be doing something illegal?”

Dipper shrugged. “When a cove keeps himself to himself like that, the odds is he’s got some’ut to hide. He could be a fence, or a resurrection-cove, or be drawing the King’s picture.”

“Drawing—you mean, forging banknotes? Lord, how dreadful! Suppose the constables found out, and thought Pa knew all about it! We could lose the shop, and—”

“Now, don’t take on,” he said soothingly. “This cove Rawdon may be on the square. I’m only saying—it’s possible he ain’t.”

“I wish I knew for sure.”

Dipper cocked his head, considering. “You ever thought of having a look round his office, to try if you can find out what he does?”

“But he always keeps it locked when he’s not there.”

“Don’t your pa have a key?”

“Y-es,” she said uncertainly. “But he wouldn’t want me going up there while Mr. Rawdon was out. He says it makes no odds how he gets his living, so long as he pays his rent. I think, if there’s something hole-and-corner about Mr. Rawdon’s business, he’d rather not know. But I don’t feel that way. I’d as lief know the worst.”

“Mr. Rawdon ever work late, or come to the office at darkmans?”

“No, not as I’ve ever seen.”

“So if you was to get the key and nip up there some night, you could have a look round, and he’d never be the wiser.”

“But Pa might find me missing and come looking for me, and if he caught me up there, he’d comb my head—” She broke off.

“You’ve got an idea,” said Dipper.

“Well—Pa’s going away on Monday, to visit my aunt in Kent. He’ll be gone a whole day and a night. I’m to stay behind and look after the shop.”

“There you are, then. You can have a look round the office while he’s gone.”

“But I’d be afraid. It’s true Mr. Rawdon never comes here at night—but what if this one night he came, and caught me?”

“I’d come with you, if you wanted me to.”

She blushed. “That’s good of you, but I—I couldn’t. It ain’t proper—and besides, I don’t even know you—”

“That’s true,” he admitted. “I could be meaning to rob the till. But the fact is—I ain’t. I’d like to see you get shut of that Rawdon cove. It ain’t safe for you as long as he’s up there.”

Realization dawned in her eyes. “You came here on purpose to ask me about Mr. Rawdon! You know there’s something wrong about him.”

He nodded candidly.

“What do you know?”

“Not so much as I’d like to. I’ll tell you this: he had a brush with me sister, and darkened her daylights.”

“Lord! I’m sorry.”

“So, you see, I’d like to serve him out. And if I can find out what racket he’s in, I can shop him.”

“Yes, I see,” she said slowly. “We could help each other.”

“That’s the ticket! Will you trust me?”

“I don’t know if I ought to—but I will. Come on Monday night, at midnight. You—you wouldn’t mind coming in through the back basement window? People hereabouts talk so, and there’s no telling who might be awake.”

“I will.”

“You know,” she said in a low voice, “I’d have agreed at once, if you’d told me what you were about.”

“But I didn’t know you, did I, any more than you knew me? I had to be a bit peery, till I’d dropped down to you.”

“Yes, I see that. Only—you made me think it was because you liked me that you was being so friendly.”

He ducked his head, coaxing up her downcast eyes. “I do like you.”

“You don’t have to say that to be civil.”

“I ain’t being civil. Do I look as if I was?”

“You—you look as if I ought not to let you in while Pa’s away!”

“You’ve still got time to change your mind.”

“What would happen if I did?”

“I’d stay right here till you changed it back.”

“That might be nice,” she said shyly. “But you’d better go. Pa will be back any minute. Oh, wait, I’ve thought of something! Pa will take the key to Mr. Rawdon’s office with him when he goes away.”

“How do you know?”

“He always takes his keys when he goes on a journey. He keeps them on a ring, in the left front pocket of his greatcoat.”

“Oh.” Dipper broke into a grin. “When’s he piking off to Kent?”

“His coach leaves at half past five on Monday morning, from the George.”

“That’s all right, then.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You say it’s the left front pocket?”

“Yes.”

“Right as a trivet. I’ll have the keys with me when I comes on Monday night.”

CHAPTER
17

O
n Thursday evening, Julian dined early and alone. Dipper told him all he had learned about Joseph Rawdon. When they had talked the subject out, Julian spent an hour or two at the pianoforte, trying over some Schubert compositions that a Viennese friend had sent him. But his mind wandered; an old ballad ran through his head, and his fingers strayed over the keys, picking out the tune:

Of all the girls that are so smart,

There’s none like pretty Sally.

She is the darling of my heart—

He shut up the piano, put on his hat and gloves, and went to call on Charles Avondale.

It was only a few minutes’ walk to Avondale’s house in Bury Street. But the night was rainy, the cobblestones slick with mud. Julian had no choice but to take a hackney: a gentleman with a sartorial reputation to maintain could not arrive at a friend’s house in mud-spattered evening trousers. So he sat in the damp, dingy coach, picking straw from the floor out of his shoes, while the driver negotiated his way inch by inch through the traffic in Piccadilly. A thick fog made things worse: the street was a yellowish grey blur, shot through with light from gaslamps and shop windows.

Julian got out of the hackney at the corner of Bury Street. He had never been to Avondale’s house, but he found it easily enough by the number. It was a narrow, elegant bachelor’s lodging. He had just set his foot on the front step when the door flew open, and a woman appeared. She wore a threadbare black cloak, with a plaid shawl around her head and shoulders.

She stopped abruptly and stared at him, breathing hard. The shawl around her head fell back, and he saw her clearly by the light from the lantern over the door. She was thin and pale, not above thirty, with gaunt cheeks and eyes ringed with shadows. Her rust-red hair was carelessly done up in back. What might once have been fashionable side-curls hung in an unkempt fringe around her face.

“Are ye a friend of his—of Charles Avondale’s?” she whispered.

“We’re acquainted, yes.”

She came close, her great green eyes boring into him. There was a fetid smell about her of unwashed clothes and skin. Her hand shot out and closed around his arm like a claw. “Ask your friend Charles what he’s done wi’ Rosemary.”

“Who is Rosemary?”

“He’ll know.” She let go of his arm and flitted past him.

He pursued her. “Wait! I don’t understand your message. If you’ll stop a moment, let me talk to you—”

“I willna!” She walked faster, slipping and shuffling along the wet pavement.

“How can I help you, if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?”

“I didna ask for your help! Gang awa’, and leave me be!”

“But—”

“No! ’Tis another of his tricks! I’ll not be befooled a second time!” She caught sight of a watchman and hurried up to him, practically sliding into his arms. “Tell that man to stop following me!”

The watchman held up his lantern. The woman did not stay to be scrutinized, but darted off, the fog closing in around her. Julian started after her, but the watchman blocked his way. “Now, sir,” he said, tapping his truncheon meaningfully against his other hand, “what do you want to go disturbing of the peace for?”

Julian cursed his luck. How had he contrived to run into the one watchman in London who was awake, able-bodied, and inclined to do his duty? “You don’t understand. That woman is in trouble—”

“I seen that,” the watchman chuckled, “and it’s up to me to see she ain’t in trouble no more. So you be a sensible young man, and don’t make me take you on a visit to the magistrate’s court. That’s a hunpleasant business, that is. Makes for bad feeling on both sides. And, really, sir, if you don’t mind me being a bit personal, you could do a sight better than that nasty bit of bones you was chasing.”

“Thank you, Officer. I’m sorry to have troubled you. Good evening.”

Julian walked off serenely down Bury Street in the opposite direction from the one the woman had taken. At the first side street, he doubled back, threading his way swiftly through the mass of umbrellas, street-sellers’ carts, and young men on their way to gaming hells or fashionable brothels. When he reached the corner of Bury and Jermyn streets, he looked about for the woman and asked bystanders if they had seen her. But he knew already it would be no use. She had had plenty of time to disappear, especially on a foggy night, in a lively neighbourhood like this.

He gave it up and went into a public house for a draught of hot brandy-and-water. Who was she? he wondered. Her speech was Scottish, and to judge by her clothes she had fallen on hard times. What had she to do with Avondale? What did she mean, she would not be befooled a second time? Above all, who was Rosemary?

He could not recall ever hearing that name linked with Avondale or his family. Rosemary, he mused. Rosemary for remembrance. Rosemary—with an
R
.

Could it have been the Scottish woman who had left the
R
s slashed in the hood of Avondale’s carriage and chalked on his front door? Why was she there this evening? And did any of this have anything to do with Mary and the refuge?

Perhaps not. And then again, perhaps the girl known as Mary had simply dropped the “Rose” from the beginning of her name. If so, the answer to the Scotswoman’s question, what had Charles done with Rosemary, might be grim indeed.

He left the public house and made his way back to Avondale’s. His trousers were caked with mud, and worse than mud, but there was no help for it. He scraped off his shoes at the boot-scraper outside Avondale’s front door, and rang.

Birkett answered. Julian could see why Dipper had likened him to a fish. He had round, vacant eyes, and his mouth hung open a little, as if his jaw had not been fastened properly.

“I have to see your master,” Julian told him. “It’s very important.”

“He’s not at home, sir.”

Julian’s brows went up. Birkett coughed and looked at the ground.

Julian took out his card-case. “I shall send in my card all the same. I have a message for your master, and I shan’t leave until I’ve delivered it. So I suggest you look about, and see if you can find him.”

He wrote on the back of one of his cards:
I must see you about Rosemary
. Birkett let him into the front hall and took the card upstairs.

A minute or two ticked by. Julian walked back and forth unhurriedly, his hands clasped behind him. All at once there was a volley of footsteps on the stairs. Avondale erupted into the hallway, clad in shirt, trousers, and dressing-gown. “What’s the meaning of this? What do you know about—about—what you wrote on your card?”

“What have you done with Rosemary?” asked Julian coolly

Avondale gripped the banister-rail. His face was paper-white. “We can’t talk here. Come with me.”

He led Julian into the front room off the hallway. It was an informal parlour, strewn with riding whips, boxing gloves, cricket bats, and foils. Sporting prints and a racing calendar hung on the walls.

Avondale locked the door, and stirred the fire into life with a few quick stabs of the poker. Then he turned to Julian. “All right. In God’s name, what do you know about Rosemary?”

“What have you done with her?” Julian repeated.

“I must be going mad.” Avondale clasped his head in his hands “How the plague did Megan get
you
to take up her cause?”

Julian had no intention of revealing how little he really knew. “I came to see you about the horse, and found her just leaving. We—talked.”