Barbara Metzger (8 page)

  Dimm had trusted his own intuition and come acropper. Intuition was what a good investigator could rely on when he had no solid facts, but intuition was like a woman, all moods and megrims. Dimm was thinking that mayhaps he should have stayed retired in the country if he was going to make mice-feet of his first case back. But life in the shires was too peaceful, too quiet. The only excitement was a bull getting out of its pen, and the only noise was birdsong. How did they expect a fellow to sleep without carts and street-sellers and all-night travelers outside his window? Besides, a parcel of his kin were out in the country now, right on his doorstep with all of their in-laws and all of their infants. Having them all together at Christmas had him hieing back to the city for some solitude. Now he was in the middle of Harry Miner’s murder case, a major jewel heist, and a holdup of the Royal Mail.

And he’d made a royal blunder.

Mr. Dimm lit his pipe, wishing he had his aching feet soaking in a tub of hot water instead of sloshing through the foot of slush at the sides of the road. The governor believed his men didn’t need to be taking hackneys. The governor also believed every crime had a simple and easy solution, bless his clutch-fisted heart.

The pipe went out in the wind of the street, but Mr. Dimm chewed on its stem anyway. It helped him think. By Harry, he repeated to himself, he’d thought the chit was a lady to her toes. It wasn’t like him to be so far afield. Jeremiah Dimm was losing his touch, slipping— no, that was the ice underfoot.

He hadn’t been entirely negligent, he reminded himself, at least sending Nipperkin back along the coach route to check out the coaching crew’s accounts of when and where Harry Miner left the carriage, if anyone’d seen him leave the inn yards or bespeak a room—anywhere he could have stashed the gems. Nipperkin was also supposed to corroborate the passengers’ stories, the girl’s in particular.

Ripken got back this afternoon. He hadn’t found the jewels, of course, nor any hint of where they might be.
Dimm wasn’t surprised that Harry Miner hadn’t made it easy for them; he’d stayed out of Bow Street’s nets for years. With so much snow on the ground up north, Ripken couldn’t search around all the privies, but he did make sure the innkeeps and ostlers along the route knew about the reward for a cache of stolen booty.

Ripken’s report on the female was more disturbing. She was Hannibal Partland’s daughter, all right, and left on her own when the tutor died recently, as she had said. According to Nipperkin, the local vicar and his wife said that she was also niece to Lady Madorra Bellamy of Manchester. The family had disowned Miss Partland’s mother for marrying an impoverished scholar, and Lady Bellamy continued the tradition. Despite having married well, a nabob from the East India Company, Lady Bellamy had made no effort to assist the tutor or his orphaned daughter. Madorra Bellamy, coincidentally or not, was also the lady most recently relieved of her jewels by Harry Miner and his gang.

“And she never onct said she was related.” Ripken strode by Dimm’s side, not even noticing the slippery patches or puddles, he was so excited to be near to solving his first case.

Dimm just grunted. “I don’t recall us asking after her relations, nor saying whose baubles had been nicked.”

“I say she set out to prig her aunt’s sparklers out of revenge, and ‘cause she thought her ma’d been cheated of her inheritance.”

“Harry Miner stole the diamonds, you paperskull. He had them on him, b’gad. And he’d been operating up north for months. It had nothing to do with revenge.”

“But Harry Miner had a wife, we know he did.”

Dimm paused to flip through the pages of his Occurrence book, where he kept his notes. “Ursula Miner’s got bright yellow hair.”

“So she dyed it. You would, too, if you was Harry Miner’s widow and had the loot his cutthroat partners was after.”

Dimm put away his book and his pipe, now that it was cool. He started walking again. “You said yourself Miss Partland was living with her father, some pence-per-hour tutor. ‘Sides, she ain’t old enough to be Harry Miner’s wife.” He shook his head, sending a shower of snow-flakes off the brim of his hat, down his neck. “And she didn’t have the stolen property, you booberkin.”

“So why’re we going to Lady Rotterdean’s?”

“To ask Miss Partland about her relatives, of course. And to see if she remembered anything Harry might of said during the coach ride. Maybe the reward’ll look more inviting after a week of taking care of some blue-blooded brats. Amazing what discontent can do for the memory.”

But Miss Kathlyn Partland wasn’t taking care of the Rotterdean rug rats. She wasn’t there at all. The only one of the household who was there, a footman left behind to guard the place, wouldn’t open the door until he saw the shine of gold. The governor didn’t approve of buying information either, but Dimm found it the fastest, easiest way of finding what he needed, especially since he wasn’t so fast with his fives anymore.

Miss Partland was supposed to be here—she hadn’t lied about that—but she got to London too late to join the family before they left for their country property.

“Deuced convenient, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t, so shut up, Nipperkin.” Mr. Dimm turned back to the guard, with another coin. “The fambly left. So what did you do with Miss Partland?”

“Do? Nothing I could do. Couldn’t give her fare to join them ‘cause I didn’t have any. Couldn’t call out a carriage for her ‘cause there’s no one to drive. ‘Sides, Lady Rotter-dean hired another female to bear-lead those brats. Would of offered her a bed for the night, mine, a’course,” he said with a wink and a leer, “ ‘cept she didn’t need it, not with that gentry cove waiting in his carriage. Sporting vehicle, it was, right expensive-looking, and horses with style, too. Real Quality, I could tell. Matched bays, they were.”

“Like every other Nonpareil’s cattle,” Dimm muttered in frustration.

“See, the mort pulled the wool over our eyes,” Ripken crowed. “It were all a sham, that prunes-and-prisms act. She had her aunt’s jewels all the time. Or else,” he expounded, warming to his theory, “she passed the sparklers to her partner at some inn outside Town, and was waiting to get here to claim them from him. That governess rigmarole was only to throw us off the scent.”

“No, she was a governess, all right and tight. She had Lady Rotterdean’s letter. And don’t go off half-cocked about forgeries and such. That watchman said they was expecting her, only she got here too late what with the snow and all. Raw deal for a gently bred female.”

“Then where is she now?”

“You finally asked a good question, my boy.” Dimm took out his pipe and cleaned it, then refilled it. He didn’t bother lighting up, not out in the street, but did some thinking while his hands were busy. Ignoring the flash cove for now, Dimm still figured the female for a governess. “Say she found a place to shelter—”

Ripken snickered. “Warm place, by the looks of it.”

“She’d still need a job. We’ll try the agencies first.”

They split the list in half. Dimm found one employment bureau that had sent Kathlyn Partland out on an interview. She never came back, and they were still looking for someone for the post. Ripken located two agencies where she was remembered, but they’d had no jobs to offer.

The Runners went back to the Swan Inn, to see if Miss Partland had returned there, or if she’d left any baggage behind. Sure enough, her trunk had been picked up by a swell in a yellow-wheeled curricle, with matched bays. He didn’t give his name.

“You see?” Ripken was gloating over his ale in the Swan’s public room. “The mort said she knew no one in London, but she landed on her feet in a hurry. That was too fast for any light-skirt to find a new protector, and it was snowing. She must have arranged with her lover aforehand, even if she had to toss the gems out the carriage window.”

“The other passengers would have noticed.” Dimm was looking over the waybills. Miss Partland’s name wasn’t on any of the recent lists, but Dimm decided to send Ripken north again. The bird was flown, and the overeager youngster was getting on his nerves, seeing criminals behind every bush. He’d never wanted a partner in the first place.

“But I just got back from there, and the roads’re like washboards this time of year. My arse is still sore from bouncing in that carriage.”

Maybe the next bounce would put some sense into the Nipperkin’s brain. At least he’d be gone so Dimm could do his own speculating in peace.

“What are you going to be doing while I’m chasing after the jade?” Ripken wanted to know.

“I’m going to read the newspapers and feed the squirrels in the park.”

“While I’m off riding the mails on a fool’s errand?”

“Who better to send?”

“The governor ain’t going to like it, not by half.”

Dimm sighed. “ ‘Is nibs likes his fellows guarding the coaches. You’ll get special commendation, I’m sure. ‘Sides, I’ll be working, too, you looby, reading those gossip columns to see what nob has set up a new mistress, and watching the carriage paths. Our bloke’ll be wanting to show off his new ladybird in the park, especially if he’s got a handsome curricle. Horses have to be exercised, even in the cold.”

“How will you recognize the matched bays?”

“I won’t be looking for the horses, you noddy. I’ll be looking for Miss Partland.”

“What, do you think she’s going to be wearing some dingy old hooded cloak? Not while she’s in some rich man’s keeping, she won’t.”

“Didn’t I teach you to notice things? How could a body not recognize that female no matter what she’s wearing? Her eyes are like bluebells pressed in a frame. Her skin’s like white rose petals, and her hair is like a curtain of black satin.”

Ripken whistled. “You noticed all that?”

“I’m old, not dead.”

“But what if she’s wearing a disguise? You know, dark glasses, a wig?”

“What kind of high flyer wears spectacles? ‘Sides, no gent who’s paying for that kind of merchandise is going to hide a light under a barrel. I wouldn’t. Would you?”

Getting up to make his way out to the departing coach, Ripken grinned. “I ain’t an old man. I’d keep her too busy to leave the house.”

“There’s that, I suppose. But the Cyprians’ Ball is coming. She’ll be there.”

So here Dimm was, freezing his tail to the iron bench by the entrance to the park, pretending that he wouldn’t rather be back at his warm little house in Kensington soaking his feet with no one to bother him but the cat. Every once in a while he felt prickles at the back of his neck, as if someone were watching him, instead of vicey versey. But no one was there except the squirrels looking for peanuts.

No, his instincts must be wearing out, gorblimey. He’d have to retire again after this case, and this time not come back even if he did get bored. Iffen an officer of the law couldn’t trust his instincts, he shouldn’t be in that line of work. And he shouldn’t wear a scratchy wool muffler if he was going to get rashes on the back of his neck.

* * * *

Inspector Dimm’s instincts were fine; it was his eyesight that was going. He was indeed being watched, having been followed to the park by two churls getting more churlish out in the cold. The Diamond Mine gang, what was left of it, wanted the ice. Not the ice under the Bow Street Runner’s rump, but the diamonds Harry Miner snabbled out of the magistrate’s strongbox before his trial.

After a talk with the stableboy, who was left cursing the day that gallows-cheat ever arrived at the Swan, Miner’s ex-partners, Quigley and Sean, had as much information as Dimm. Like Ripken, they figured the girl knew something. She’d asked directions to Rotterdean House, so they went there, almost tripping over the inspector and his assistant. Quigley and Sean waited behind some shrubs until the Redbreasts left. Relieving the Rotterdean watchman of his recent windfall and two of his teeth, they found the same news, that Kathlyn Partland had vanished in a toff’s rig.

“Damn, our jewels is gone. You never should of let ‘Arry get away,” Sean, the shorter cracksman, complained.

“Me?” Quigley cuffed his partner on the ear. “Blockhead, I told you ‘Arry was too smart to get on where everyone’d be lookin’ for ‘im. So now we got to find the female ‘e was friendly-like with afore ‘e died. Must of told ‘er where to find the rocks.”

“ ‘Arry always did like the ladies, but how’re we goin’ to find one dollymop in all of London? I never thought to get a good look at ‘er in the coach, just that old ‘Arry wasn’t there.”

“That’s why we pay taxes, you dolt, to let Bow Street do our searchin’ for us.”

“But we don’t pay no taxes, Quig.”

That got him another smack on the head. “Shut up and follow the Runners. I’ll stay with the old windbag, you follow the young’un. Leave a message at Shippy’s if you find anything.”

* * * *

Ursula Miner had a problem: Who was going to lead the way to her diamonds? They belonged to her, no mistake, not to those mawworms who tried to take the loot from Harry because they didn’t understand about waiting for the hue and cry to die down before cutting up the gems. Sean and Quigley were nothing but fools. And so was Harry, for thinking he could take off without her.

She missed Harry, Ursula did. He was a real gent. She was sorry she’d turned him in. Of course, she was sorrier she hadn’t gotten the reward because he broke out of gaol before being convicted. Well, they weren’t going to get away with it, any of them, especially not that little maggot Sean who’d gone and killed Harry. For two bits she’d turn him in to the Runners right now, if she didn’t need him to help find the jewels.

He went after the young Runner, but Ursula decided to bide here in the park awhile in her wig and powdered face. The old man was more experienced, she figured; his instincts ought to be good by now. Besides, he looked like a sweet old gent a girl could wrap around her fingers, maybe get some information out of, after she got rid of Quigley.

* * * *

Gorblimey, Dimm’s neck was itchy. Must be the snow trickling down his back.

Chapter Nine

The sun was finally poking out of the clouds, bringing the temperatures from numbing to almost bearable. The wind was only blowing gale force, instead of the cyclones of the past week. Miss Partland’s new wardrobe was accumulating apace. She would not embarrass his lordship, according to Nanny and the new maid, Lizzie, so Courtney was able at last to make  good on another of his promises.