Laura Lee Guhrke (25 page)

Only minutes later, Sophie discovered just how true Mick’s words would prove to be. She had managed to get back upstairs without being seen, and once safely in her room, she had followed Mick’s instructions to take her time.

Hannah had already put fresh water in the pitcher on her washstand, and a cup of morning tea was on her dressing table. It was cold, but Sophie drank it anyway, She washed her face, used her toothbrush and tooth-powder, and combed out her hair, pinning it up into a twist at the back of her head. As she dressed in a striped skirt and shirtwaist, Sophie decided her excuse for being missing was that she’d been out in the garden. What she didn’t know was how Mick was going to explain the truth to her mother in a palatable way. It would not be easy.

By the time she went downstairs, knowing Mick would be with her, Sophie felt much more prepared to face the onslaught of questions she was sure to get
from her mother. When she entered the drawing room, she saw that not only were Agatha and Violet there but so were her sister, Charlotte, and Auntie’s lodgers.

She realized in dismay that Mick had not yet arrived.

Before she could even open her mouth to greet anyone, her mother was standing in front of her, holding a copy of a newspaper out to her. It was folded back to a particular article with a prominent headline.

Scotland Yard Using Psychics Now? What Are We Coming To?

Sophie took the paper and stared at the words, assimilating their meaning with growing dismay. And that wasn’t all. There was a sketch of a man and a woman standing beside the dead body of Jack Hawthorne, and though hastily drawn, the couple bore an unmistakable resemblance to Mick and herself.

“Heavens above, Sophie Marie, where have you been? We’ve turned this house upside down looking for you all morning. As for last night—”

“I was in the garden, taking a walk,” Sophie interrupted, giving her prepared lie automatically, still staring at the newspaper in her hands.

“Well?” Her mother tapped the paper with one gloved finger. “What have you to say for yourself? Do you realize the ramifications of this? You are ruined. Absolutely ruined.”

Sophie looked from the newspaper to Agatha’s furious face. “Mama—”

“People thinking you’re psychic now, and you racing about London in the middle of the night, working
with the police on these horrible things that no proper young lady should even read about much less participate in. Where is Mr. Dunbar? I want to know what he has to say about this. Where is he?”

“I have no idea.”

“I knew he was the lowest class of person the moment I met him. How he could allow this is beyond my comprehension. He is a cur of the lowest description.”

She jumped to Mick’s defense. “Mama, really! That is so unfair. You don’t understand the circumstances—”

“Quite right. I don’t understand any circumstances that could justify this. Sophie Marie Haversham, I don’t know what has come over you. I might expect such uncivil behavior from a policeman. They are so common. But you? What on earth were you thinking?”

“She didn’t think at all,” another voice piped up, and Sophie turned to see her sister glaring at her. Sophie sensed not only outrage at how Sophie’s actions might affect the reputation of herself and her husband but also a certain pleasure that Sophie was in trouble with their mother. Again. “She’s ruined all of us. Harold and I will suffer by association. How will I bear the shame?”

Aunt Violet’s voice entered the conversation. “Charlotte, these theatrics are hardly helpful. I’m sure Sophie had no intention of causing anyone any shame. She was only trying to help the police in any way she could.”

“Quite so,” put in Miss Atwood.

“Perhaps. Perhaps,” the colonel said, “but going to the police just isn’t done.”

“To say the least.” Agatha nodded, the feather on her hat bouncing with each emphatic movement. “Sophie, I am so appalled, I don’t know how to begin. What has gotten into you?”

“She’s always been this way,” Charlotte said. “With her talk about seeing things, and all her ghoulish, made-up stories.”

Those words snapped Sophie out of her numbed state. “I didn’t invent the murder of that policeman!” she shouted as she slapped the newspaper she held across the palm of her other hand. “Can’t you think of anyone but yourself, Charlotte? A man is dead, for heaven’s sake. And he had a wife and children.”

“Well, it’s my own husband and children I’m thinking of just now. We will all share in your disgrace!”

“Not only murdered, Miss Haversham,” Mr. Dawes spoke up with macabre enjoyment. “His heart was cut out with surgical precision, so the papers say.”

“Must we discuss such gory details?” roared Agatha.

“Can’t we all calm down?” wailed Miss Peabody, “I’m getting a headache.”

She wasn’t the only one. Sophie felt herself getting one as well. But despite Miss Peabody’s plea, no one seemed willing to calm down. Everyone began talking at once. Sophie sank down into the nearest chair. Dropping the newspaper to the floor, she pressed her fingertips to her throbbing temples and prayed that Mick could rescue her from this mess.

“That will be enough.”

Mick’s voice cut through all the others like the firing of a gun, and Sophie closed her eyes in gratitude
that her prayer had been answered. A silence fell over the group, and all of them turned toward the doorway as Mick entered the drawing room. After a quick glance around, he turned to where Miss Peabody and Miss Atwood stood beside the fireplace.

“Ladies,” he said with a bow, “I believe we are about to enter into some long and tedious discussions, which I’m sure you will find quite dull.” He looked at Charlotte, who was standing quite close to him. He smiled at her. “Mrs. Tamplin, I’m sure you and the other ladies would enjoy a walk through the gardens. It’s quite fine out, and the gardens here are lovely, as you know.”

“Of course,” the two older lathes murmured in unison and started edging toward the door. Charlotte, however, glared at Mick as if he were a piece of meat gone bad, folded her arms, and did not move. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me out of this room.”

Mick’s smile widened. He bent his head and whispered something in Charlotte’s ear.

She leaned back, looking up into his face, an expression of horror on her own. Clamping her lips together, she whirled around, slamming her reticule against the doorjamb in a fit of temper as she walked out of the room.

“Colonel,” Mick said, “would you and Mr. Dawes mind escorting the ladies around the garden?”

“Of course not,” Colonel Abercrombie said, and it was plain that he was relieved to escape the emotional furor in the room. He turned to Mr. Dawes, who had remained seated in his chair, and hauled the young man to his feet. “Come along. We can’t leave the ladies
to take their stroll alone. Just isn’t done, you know.”

Dragging the reluctant Dawes with him, the colonel ushered Miss Atwood and Miss Peabody out of the room. Mick closed the doors behind them, then returned his attention to Sophie’s mother and aunt. “I suggest, ladies, that we sit down.”

His words did not have the tone of a suggestion. Even Agatha sank into a chair, her face still creased with anger.

Mick picked up the newspaper from the floor, glanced at the story, then sat down almost directly opposite Sophie and set the
Daily Bugle
on the table beside his chair as if it were of no consequence. She gave him a look of gratitude, glad not to be facing her mother’s wrath on her own.

Mick turned to Agatha. “Ma’am, I am going to tell you what has happened during the last twelve hours. I know you will have many questions, but I also know that you won’t interrupt my narrative. A lady such as yourself, who knows decorum, and proper behavior, would never do anything as rude as that.”

Sophie sat back, listening as Mick outlined the events of the night before. He gave her mother the bare facts. He made no embellishments, he made no excuses, and he told the absolute truth. Except that when he was done, the impression left on her mother and aunt was that somehow a telephone in Windsor, not Sophie’s psychic ability, had been the source of information about the murder; he had forced Sophie to come back with him on the ten o’clock train, not the seven o’clock; that she had been the victim of his zeal as a police officer; and that she had been given no
choice in the matter. He took full responsibility for Sophie’s involvement.

“We can discuss your appalling conduct at a later date,” Agatha told him when he had finished. “But what about this?” She snatched the newspaper from the table between their chairs and held it up. “Do you know what people will think?”

He shrugged. “They’ll think what everyone thinks about everything that appears in the
Daily Bugle
. They’ll think it’s the trash that it is, and ignore it.”

“Quite right,” Violet put in. “This will all blow over and be forgotten in less than a week.”

Sophie knew her mother was going to disagree, and she spoke before Mother could dispute Auntie’s words. “Mr. Dunbar is right. No one believes what appears in the
Daily
Bugle
anyway.”

“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Agatha opened her reticule and pulled out a sheet of folded pale pink paper. “Katherine managed to gain us an invitation to Lady Dalrymple’s ball a week from now. If you are well received there, you’ll be proved right. If you arc given the cut, we’ll know where we stand, and you will return with me to Yorkshire so that the scandal may die down.”

Sophie had no intention of returning to Yorkshire, regardless of the circumstances, and she looked at the invitation her mother was holding without enthusiasm. Still, she supposed going to another ball was a small price to pay if it meant her mother would let this whole issue drop.

The door opened, and Grimstock stepped through the doorway. “Pardon me, madam,” he said to Agatha,
“but Mr. Tamplin has arrived in a hansom. He has left the cab waiting outside, and has asked me to convey to you that it is now half past twelve. He suggests luncheon at Claridge’s.”

“Oh, Agatha, you must go!” Violet cried, jumping to her feet. “You know how Harold hates to pay the fare of a waiting cab, and you must not miss luncheon. I managed to have some breakfast this morning before we left, but you’ve had nothing to eat. For the sake of your health, you should not go so long without food. Luncheon at Claridge’s is excellent, you know.”

Reluctantly, Agatha got to her feet. Sophie gave her mother a peck on the cheek in farewell, but Agatha gave her a sharp look in return. “We’ll see what sort of damage this does to your reputation, young lady. The Dalrymple Ball will tell us if we can still hold up our heads in society.”

She turned to Mick. “I don’t expect my daughter’s name to appear in any newspapers again, and I will not have her associating in any way with the police. If you do not respect my wishes in this, I will have my cousin, Lord Fortescue, take this matter to the Home Secretary himself.”

With that, she marched out.

“Whew!” Violet said as the three of them sat down. “It’s a good thing Harold arrived when he did. By the time you see your mother again, Sophie, she’ll be calmer and more reasonable.”

“I’m not so sure.” Sophie turned to Mick. “Thank you.”

Mick shrugged. “I told the truth.”

“And told it in a most clever way, too,” Violet said,
smiling. “You are now the most vile man of Agatha’s acquaintance, but Sophie seems to have escaped unscathed, at least for now.”

“I hope so, ma’am.” He rose to his feet. “I need to get to Scotland Yard. I’ve a great deal of work to do.”

“Wait.” Sophie grasped his sleeve. “There’s one thing I have to know. What was it you whispered in Charlotte’s ear that got her to leave?”

He slanted Sophie a wicked look. “I said, ‘Charlotte, if you don’t leave right now, I will drag you out by your hair.’”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.”

Sophie and Violet both laughed as Mick bowed to them and turned to leave.

“You know, Sophie,” Violet murmured as they watched Mick walk out the doors, “I think your mother and sister have met their match in that man. I have come to admire him a great deal.”

“So have I, Auntie,” she replied, astonished by the realization. “So have I.”

When Mick arrived at the Yard, he found that Sophie’s mother was not the only person upset by the article in the
Daily
Bugle
, Only a few moments after he went upstairs and entered his office, Sergeant Thacker brought him a crate of case files and a note from DeWitt. The note demanded to see Mick at once.

After reading the terse demand, he looked up at Thacker, who stood beside his chair. “Is he upset?”

Thacker’s wooden countenance softened with a rueful smile. “You might say that, sir. I believe that
throwing a newspaper across the room, and cursing you for idiocy qualifies as upset.”

Mick grimaced. “I think I’ll wait until he calms down before I go up to his office. What are these files you’ve brought me?”

“I remembered the theory we discussed after you were shot, that perhaps it was vengeance for a previous case you’d solved.” He placed the crate of files on Mick’s desk. “With Jack’s death, I decided to pull all the cases the two of you have worked on together, I did that this morning.”

Mick eyed the crate. “My God, how many are there?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“I hadn’t realized Jack and I worked so many cases together.”

“There may be more. If so, it will take time to find them. You know how difficult it is to find records in this building.”

“That’s because there’s nowhere to put them. There are always boxes of files and reports stacked in the hallways, piled on the stairs. We’ve only been in this building seven years, and we’ve already outgrown it.”

“As you say, sir. It makes things a bit difficult, but if there are any more, I’ll find them.”

Mick loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. “Thank you, Henry.”

“There is one other thing I wanted to tell you. Miss Haversham’s brother-in-law is being investigated by CID. Detective Hull was just put in charge of the case.”

“Investigated for what?”

“Fraud involving the trust funds of some of his clients. He’s an attorney.”