Death by Silver (17 page)

The Admiral’s Hand stood at the corner of Cable and Johnstone Streets, convenient to the Shadwell Basin where Bolster was at least nominally employed. Julian pushed through the main door, aware of the moment of attention that eased as he made his way toward the bar. Early on a Saturday afternoon, the pub was busy, men from the docks with a pint or three, clerks from the warehouses finishing their half-day with a longer dinner, a crowd at the bar and a couple of ragged boys with pint-pots bouncing from foot to foot as they waited to make their deliveries. Julian insinuated himself into the group at the bar, nodding to the barman. He ordered a pint of bitter and waited, nursing it, until the crush eased and the barman came over to wipe the spotted oak in front of him.

“Another, sir?”

Julian shook his head. “Is Bolster about?”

“Who’s asking?”

Julian couldn’t help lifting an eyebrow at that. Finn knew him perfectly well by now, as evidenced by the “sir,” but he supposed the game had to be played. He slid a shilling across the bar. “My name’s Lynes.”

“Oh, yes.” The barman scooped the coin neatly into his pocket. “He’s not here right now.”

He never was, of course. Julian said, “I’d like to talk with him tomorrow. If he can make himself available.”

“A job, then?”

Julian shook his head. “Not exactly. More – questions needing answers, for which I’m willing to pay.”

“Ah.” Finn smiled, showing a missing front tooth. “I’ll pass the word, then, Mr Lynes.”

“Tell him to send me a time,” Julian said, and pushed himself away from the bar.

It was too late now to visit any of the workshops on Albert’s list – they’d be closed for the half-day already, and all day tomorrow – and that meant there was no reason to linger in Limehouse. Bolster would contact him, he was nothing if not reliable, and with any luck Lennox would have answered by the time he returned to his lodgings. He stopped at Blanding’s for a quick dinner, but there was no sign of Ned, and walked back home in a state of mild discontent.

Lennox’s answer was waiting, the note in its pristine envelope stuck impatiently into the front of his desk. Julian slit the flap, sighing as he read the invitation –
come to tea, and we can trade questions
– but scrawled a suitable acceptance and sent young Digby for a messenger boy. He just had time to bathe and shave and change his clothes before he presented himself at Lennox’s house in Mayfair.

It was small but elegant, a delicate jewel box of a house with a long bow window beside the front stairs, elaborate iron railings, and spotless brass. The parlormaid, handsome and severe, took his card and brought him eventually into Lennox’s study. It was surprisingly cool and pleasant, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the air scented with leather and books and an enormous vase of peonies. Lennox himself was equally at liberty in a deep-burgundy dressing gown and an odd brimless smoking cap with a black silk tassel that fell almost to his shoulders. It helped hide his receding hairline, Julian knew, but it had a certain bravura grace as well. They clasped hands, a hold that lingered an instant too long, and Lennox waved him toward one of the brocade chairs.

“Lynes, dear boy.” He was a big man, almost as tall as Ned, and fleshier, but his voice was lovely, mellow and resonant. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“Business, I’m afraid,” Julian said, and seated himself. The unsmiling parlormaid brought in the tea cart and dispensed the first cups before Lennox waved her away.

“Now we can be cozy,” he said. “And you can tell me all about him.”

Julian felt himself flush. “There’s no one in particular, Lennox. You should know that.”

“I find it hard to believe that you’ve had so much business the last three months that no one’s seen you anywhere,” Lennox said. He held up one finger. “But! I won’t press you, as long as you eventually introduce me to your paragon.”

That was one thing to be said for Lennox, Julian thought. He at least knew when to let a subject go. “Speaking of paragons, whatever happened to Fitzjohn’s young scholar?”

“Oh, that’s a pretty tale,” Lennox said, and proceeded to tell it with relish. Julian laughed at all the right places – and it was a farce, complete with slamming doors, shrieking discoveries, and even, if Lennox was to be believed, an escape out the bedroom window, with no real harm done to anyone – and by the time it was finished, he’d poured them each a second glass of sherry and felt somewhat more in charity with the world. He returned to his chair, and Lennox held up his glass, examining the amber liquid with a critical eye. It seemed to pass muster; he drank and leaned back in his chair.

“Now, my dear,” he said. “It’s time to confide in your kindly Uncle Peter. Why are you here?”

Julian smiled. “I need an introduction.”

“Oh?”

“The young man who was the model for Ganymede,” Julian said, and nodded toward the closed cabinet.

“He’s a bit above your touch,” Lennox said, suddenly serious. “And not entirely a nice boy.”

“I don’t want to sleep with him,” Julian began, and Lennox arched his eyebrows, so patently disbelieving that Julian had to laugh. “Well, put it that way, no, I certainly wouldn’t turn him down. But that’s not why I want to talk to him.”

“One of your investigations?” Lennox asked, and Julian nodded.

“And I can’t tell you any more than that, Lennox, I’m sorry.”

Lennox mimed a pout that sat oddly on his broad, good-humored face. “Make something up, then.”

“Maybe when it’s resolved,” Julian said. “But I really do need your help.”

“Does your young man know about this?”

“I don’t have a young man,” Julian said. And he had no idea what Ned would think. That thought was unexpectedly painful, and he set it firmly aside. “Will you do it, Lennox?”

Lennox nodded. “And – as soon as possible, I imagine?”

“That would be helpful.”

Lennox tipped his head to one side, considering. “Are you free this evening?”

“I can be.”

“I have a box at the Opera,” Lennox said. “And I daresay we’ll find him there tonight. Or if not, at supper after.”

Julian hid a groan – he wasn’t particularly musical, and Lennox knew it – but had to admit it was his best option. “Thank you. That would be helpful.” He paused. “What’s the opera, anyway?”

“Does it matter?” Lennox retorted, and Julian shook his head.

“Not particularly.”

“Philistine.” Lennox reached for his sherry. “I’ll call for you, shall I?”

Lennox was as good as his word. They made their way sedately through the lobby of the Italian Opera House, Lennox pausing frequently to chat with friends, bowing over the ladies’ hands and complimenting them on their dress, commenting knowledgeably about the new tenor with the gentlemen. Julian, who knew almost none of the people involved and even less about the music, smiled and bowed, hoping he looked reserved rather than ignorant. Not that it mattered, he supposed, but he hated feeling foolish.

“Lynes!”

The call startled him, and for an instant he didn’t recognize the speaker, fair and plump, with a striking young woman on his arm. And then he remembered: Challice, who had been a fixture at certain gaming houses until about a year ago, and with whom he’d had a brief but pleasant liaison.

“Challice,” he said, and Challice grasped his hand like a drowning man.

“How nice to see you. I don’t believe you’ve met my wife? My dear, this is Mr Julian Lynes, an old friend.”

Julian bowed over her hand, murmuring a polite answer, unable to miss the faint unhappy lines that bracketed her mouth.

“A bachelor evening, then?” Challice went on.

“Afraid so,” Julian answered. “I came with Lennox – you remember Lennox.”

“Oh, yes,” Challice said, politely enough, but a flicker of something like hunger crossed his face, wild and angry. His wife saw the change, though Julian hoped she didn’t fully understand. Her own frown deepened, and she tugged him gracefully away.

Julian replaced his hat, turned back to Lennox, who’d caught the last of the exchange, and shook his head as they moved up the stairs toward Lennox’s box.

“There’s a tragedy waiting to happen,” Lennox said, as they settled themselves in the fragile seats, and sent the usher for brandies.

“Challice?”

“No names, dear boy. But he will be loyal, come what may, and she wants a husband with more blood in him.” Lennox shook his head again. “It would be better if they didn’t care.”

The usher arrived with their drinks on a tray, and Lennox scribbled a note to take to his friend Soames’s box, which the man accepted with another bow. “Because that’s where Elisha will be, if he’s here at all.”

Julian rested his elbows on the edge of the box. This was what he liked best about any kind of theater, the chance to watch the crowd, to pick out the patterns in their movement. The pit was filling, the rumble of conversation rising like an almost solid thing; across the circle, the boxes were mostly full, the women in their best jewels, their escorts sleek in immaculate linen and neat dark wool. The older woman in emerald was starting at least a flirtation, and probably an affair, her friend stooping lower to murmur in her ear and follow the line of her pearls down the front of her bodice. Her husband was oblivious beside them, chatting to another couple and their daughter, tall and bored. In the next box, pair of gentlemen were attending to women clearly not their wives, and beyond them an older couple bent together over the score. He was very tall, and she was tiny, diamonds spangling her graying hair, and they seemed to be arguing happily over something in the music.

Then, regrettably, the lights dimmed, and he leaned back with a sigh. “What is the opera?”

“Incorrigible,” Lennox said. “
Hero and Leander
.”

Julian would have preferred something called “incorrigible,” but then, he knew his tastes were plebeian. He’d rather see a solid melodrama with lots of action and effects, something he’d been able to share with Ned, over the last few months. It had been a relief to be able simply to enjoy the story, without always having to listen to the analysis of the artistic types.

The curtain of the box parted, and he looked up to see a young man in evening dress slip into the chair behind him. Even fully clothed, he was unmistakably the boy who’d modeled for Ganymede, slim and fair, with wide eyes and a heavily sensuous mouth.

“Mr Lynes? Mr Prescott said you wanted to talk to me?”

Prescott would be his current protector. “By way of business,” Julian said, and changed his seat so that they were out of sight in the back of the box. “My business, not yours.”

Elisha nodded. “So Mr Lennox said. Otherwise…”

Otherwise Prescott wouldn’t have sent him here. “I’m looking to find out about the workshops that make automata like the Ganymede,” Julian said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“There’s only two that handle that sort of business,” Elisha said. He seemed genuinely relieved at the question. “Murtaugh’s by King’s Cross, and Devinter in Greenwich.”

Julian chose his words carefully. “And would one or the other be more likely to copy someone else’s work? If it were patented?”

“They’d both – but if there really was a patent, Devinter probably wouldn’t,” Elisha said. “Murtaugh, he doesn’t give a damn for the law.”

He sounded more admiring than not, and Julian nodded, accepting the warning. He asked a few more questions, but it quickly became clear that Elisha didn’t know anything more. He’d been in Prescott’s keeping for a month or so, hadn’t had to do any modeling since then – and, though he didn’t say so directly, fully intended to stay as long as Prescott would have him. Julian thanked him, and let him go, slipping back into his own seat as the curtain closed again. Tomorrow he would talk to Bolster, he thought, and see what he could find out about this Murtaugh. And then perhaps he’d have a reason to talk to Ned again.

Bolster’s answer had specified a familiar public house, the Bird and Bell in Bethnal Green. Julian made his way there a little past noon, shouldering gently through the crowd in the saloon bar, toward the line of booths at the back. Bolster was there, as promised, in the last but one on the left, and Julian hung up his hat and slid onto the bench opposite him.

“Mr Lynes,” Bolster said, and lifted a pint pot in greeting.

“Mr Bolster,” Julian answered. Bolster was, by his own account, retired from the trade, the trade in question being burglary, though Julian was scrupulous not to ask about any dealings in stolen goods. He had been arrested as the man behind a rather gaudy burglary in Pimlico, and hired Julian to prove his innocence. In the course of the case, they’d struck up an unlikely friendship: Bolster was willing to provide information, for a fee, and Julian was willing to take on certain cases, also for a fee. Or sometimes for payment in kind.

“Have you seen Chubb’s latest?” Bolster asked, and raised his hand to signal to the waiter.

Julian shook his head. The waiter arrived, grumbling, and Julian ordered his own pint and a kidney pie.

“Eel pie for me,” Bolster said, and reached into his pocket as the water backed away. “Here you are, Mr Lynes. Only just on the market this Wednesday.”