Waiting Game (6 page)

Hard on this thought came the recollection that she knew exactly what he earned, for he had told her himself.
Unless you
want
to be a Bow Street Runner’s wife and live on twenty-five shillings a week,
he’d said, hurling the words at her like a challenge—daring her to accept, knowing she could not.

Oh, really?
taunted the little voice that had tormented her for the last six weeks, ever since he had first told her of their accidental marriage.
And what would you have said if he’d gone down on one knee and asked the question in earnest?

“That is hardly the point,” she muttered aloud, causing another patron to give her a curious glance.

It was nothing but the age-old lure of the forbidden, she told herself as she fixed her attention firmly on the sleek folds of satin she weighed in her hands. If he had been a gentleman of her own class, if there had been no insuperable bar to such a marriage, she would never have given him a second thought. But here, too, the little voice came back to mock her, defying her to name a single “gentleman” who would be willing to sacrifice himself for her as Mr. Pickett was . . .

“Stop it!” she hissed under her breath. “Just stop it!”

“May I help you, ma’am?” asked a young man in a leather apron, regarding her with a look of concern.

“No, thank you,” Julia said, giving him a bright false smile. “The new satins are all so lovely, I’m having trouble deciding between them. Miss Robinson said something about a pale blue in the storeroom, which she’s gone to find. Perhaps it will make the decision easier.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back with it directly,” he assured her, then glanced toward the storage room door with a sullen expression. “If not, I’ll go and fetch her.”

No such action was necessary, for Miss Robinson came hurrying from the storeroom, breathless and rosy-cheeked and burdened with a fat bolt of shimmering blue cloth. “Here it is, your ladyship,” she said, setting the new bolt down atop the others with a soft
whump
. “If you will forgive the impertinence, ma’am, the color just matches your eyes.”

“So it does,” Julia agreed, although in truth she had lost much of her earlier enthusiasm for the project. Still, she bought six ells of the blue satin and another three of matching net for the overskirt. The fact that she failed to notice the unseemly haste with which the linen-draper’s daughter measured and cut the requested lengths said much for her own perturbation of spirits.

* * *

“I’m sorry to be so long,” Miss Robinson told Pickett as she burst once more through the storage room door. “I was obliged to wait upon a customer. Now,” she said briskly, dismissing Lady Fieldhurst out of hand, “let me see what that wicked dog did to you.”

Thus adjured, Pickett held out his wounded hand. Miss Robinson unwrapped his makeshift bandage, all the while fussing and fretting over his injury in a manner that would have been most gratifying, had it come from a certain other female of his acquaintance.

“Come upstairs,” she said at last, “and let me wash it and dress it properly for you.”

Pickett consented to this plan, curious to see what the linen-draper’s lodgings looked like for reasons not entirely connected to the case. This dwelling, as he saw when she opened a door halfway up the narrow, uncarpeted staircase, proved to have nothing in common with his own flat save for its location over a commercial establishment. Large windows looked down onto Piccadilly, their curtains tied back to admit the pale winter sunshine that cast checkerboard patterns on the fringed carpet covering the floor and reflected off the glass protecting the framed prints on the walls.

To Pickett, whose childhood had been spent in London’s worst slums, and whose cases over the past year had thrust him into the homes of some of England’s wealthiest and most powerful families, the linen-draper’s abode represented just the sort of respectable middle ground to which he himself might someday aspire, if he prospered in his profession. So respectable was it, in fact, that he wondered if it was quite proper for him to be here with Miss Robinson unchaperoned. Noises from the next room, however, indicated that they were not alone, and a moment later a middle-aged woman with reddened face and hands entered the room, wiping her work-roughened hands on her apron. Not Mrs. Robinson, he told himself; as he recalled, Miss Robinson had said her mother was dead. Clearly, the linen-draper’s shop was profitable enough for its proprietor to afford a servant.

“Have you any hot water on the hob, Sybbie?” Miss Robinson asked without preamble. “Our wicked Brutus has bitten poor Mr. Pickett.”

“Mr. Pickett, you say?” Sybbie regarded Brutus’s victim speculatively, giving Pickett to understand that he was being weighed as a prospective suitor for Miss Robinson’s hand.

“Mr. Pickett is from Bow Street, Sybbie. He’s investigating our burglary.” Miss Robinson’s gently chiding tone, as well as the color that flooded her cheeks, was sufficient to inform Pickett that he had been correct in his interpretation of the older woman’s motives. “Now, about that hot water—”

“Aye, miss, I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” she grumbled. She shuffled out of the room and returned a moment later with a bowl of water in her hands and a cloth draped over her arm.

“Thank you, Sybbie, that will be all,” Miss Robinson said, when the woman seemed inclined to linger in order to observe the proceedings. Sybbie gave a little huff, but trudged away, leaving Pickett apparently alone with the linen-draper’s daughter. Still, he would have bet his last week’s wages that she was still within earshot—although whether the woman thought to protect Miss Robinson from any unseemly advances on his part, or merely hoped such advances might occur, he was not at all certain.

“Pray sit here, Mr. Pickett,” Miss Robinson said, indicating the chair before the hearth. As he sat down, she picked up the poker and stirred the banked fire to life, then knelt at Pickett’s feet, dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, and began gently swabbing his injured hand.

“I’m sure Brutus didn’t mean it,” she assured her patient, who was equally certain the big dog had done exactly what it had intended to do. “He’s a good dog, really. He only means to protect us, poor lamb.”

Of all the words Pickett might have used to describe the Robinsons’ four-legged guardian, “lamb” was not one of them. Still, it would not do to cast aspersions on an animal of which Miss Robinson was obviously fond. “I won’t argue the point, since you know Brutus rather better than I do,” he said. “Still, I confess I feel a bit like Caesar must have done after being betrayed by
his
Brutus.”

Her face lit up in a smile. “Why, Mr. Pickett! You are familiar with Shakespeare?”

“I live not far from the theatre at Drury Lane,” he explained. “I go there as frequently as work and finances allow.”

“Papa’s business was founded in the theatre, you know,” she said proudly. “My great-great—I forget how many greats—grandfather began as a costumer for the Drury Lane Theatre. He dressed the great Nell Gwyn, and when she became the, er, when she found favor with King Charles, she gave my ancestor the money to establish himself in business.”

“ ‘Linen-draper to the Quality since 1668,’ ” Pickett quoted, recalling the sign over the door.

“Just so,” said Miss Robinson, beaming at him.

“I suppose I must feel honored to have been bitten by a dog with such a distinguished theatrical history,” Pickett said, as his nurse tore a strip of cloth and began wrapping it around his hand. “But your patrons might not feel the same, if Brutus should choose to distinguish them with the same attentions.”

“Oh, but he isn’t allowed in the shop where he might molest the customers,” she assured him, neatly tying off her work and snipping away the excess cloth.

“I see,” Pickett drawled. “That honor is reserved for me.”

She dimpled at him. “Well, you
were
trespassing on his property, you know, for he considers the back room his own. Although the fault is mine,” she allowed generously, “for failing to put him out into the alley behind the shop until you had finished. I hope you will forgive me.”

Pickett did so readily enough, but his assurances were somewhat mechanical, as a thought had just occurred to him. “Tell me, Miss Robinson—”

“Oh, pray call me Nancy.”

Pickett suddenly realized that although she had finished bandaging his hand, she still held it cradled between both of her own—and that she was gazing up at him with a warm glow in her eyes. Gently but firmly, he withdrew his hand from her grasp. “I, er, I think I’d better not,” he said, and took his leave with, perhaps, more speed than grace.

* * *

So hasty was his departure, in fact, that he all but ran over a tall, cadaverous man just entering the premises as he was leaving.

“I—I beg your pardon,” Pickett stammered, grabbing the man by the arms to steady him until he had regained his balance.

“My fault entirely, for not watching where I was going,” the man assured him quite untruthfully. “I’ve had much on my mind of late, and have not been minding—and we see what has come of it.”

As Pickett stooped to pick up the hat that had been knocked from his head in the mêlée, it occurred to him that here was the man he had been trying for two days to see.

“Mr. Robinson? George Robinson?” He gestured toward the sign hanging over their heads.

“Guilty as charged,” the older man said, sketching a bow.

Pickett shifted his hat to his injured left hand, so that he might offer his whole right one to the linen-draper. “How do you do? I’m John Pickett, from Bow Street. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance at last, although I do regret the violence of the meeting.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Pickett. My daughter told me about you,” said the linen-draper, regarding the caller with so speculative a gleam in his eye that Pickett wondered exactly what Miss Robinson had said about him. “Tell me, have you anything new to report regarding our robbery?”

“Not yet, sir, although I hope to make some progress very soon,” Pickett told him. “In fact, I should like to ask you a few questions, if there is some room where we may speak uninterrupted.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Come inside, and we’ll go to the back room. Nan, you and Andrew may keep an eye on things out front, there’s a good girl.”

“Yes, Papa.” Nancy had apparently descended the stairs to the shop in Pickett’s wake (albeit at a more sedate pace), and now hovered about the door. If she was disappointed at not being invited to join their conversation, she gave no outward sign, although Pickett felt her eyes following him as they passed through the showroom into the storage room at the back of the shop.

“Now, Mr. Pickett, what can I do for you?” the linen-draper asked, once they were alone in the back room with the door firmly closed behind them. Brutus emitted a low growl, and Mr. Robinson, seeing Pickett cast a wary eye in the big dog’s direction, made haste to reassure him. “Pay no heed to Brutus, there. He’ll not harm you.”

“I hate to disagree, but as it happens, I’ve already made Brutus’s acquaintance,” Pickett said, lifting his bandaged hand.

“Have you, by gad? Well, I’m that sorry for it. I trust your injury isn’t serious?”

“I don’t believe it is. In any case, your daughter did a fine job of dressing it, and I am confident that the patient will live.”

“Aye, she’s an excellent nurse, my Nancy,” boasted the linen-draper.

“I’m sure of it. Just as I am sure Brutus makes an excellent watchdog,” Pickett said, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Still, I can’t find that anyone heard him barking or growling on the night of the robbery.”

“Aye, well, recollect that it was Christmas night,” Mr. Robinson pointed out. “We’d all had a drop or two of wassail in celebration of the season, you know. I don’t doubt we were all sleeping a bit more soundly than usual.”

“What about bloodstains?” Pickett asked, as his gaze settled on a couple of bright red drops on the wooden floorboards where he had been standing just inside the door, safely out of sight of Lady Fieldhurst. “If Brutus felt compelled to defend the premises with his teeth, surely there must have been some evidence left behind.”

“I confess I was more concerned with the condition of the safe than the state of the floorboards,” the linen-draper said. “Still, if there had been any bloodstains, you can be sure my daughter would have seen them, and would have cleaned them up. A fine little housekeeper she is, my Nan.”

“Er, I don’t doubt it. But about the safe,” Pickett said, determined not to be diverted into a discussion of Miss Robinson’s domestic virtues. “I hope your losses were not too great. Is there any chance that you might be recompensed for them?”

“Insured against loss, you mean?” The linen-draper raked long fingers through his thinning hair. “If there had been a fire, aye. I pay dues to the Sun Fire Company—you may have noticed their mark mounted on the wall, just outside the door—but only the largest commercial ventures can grease the palms of Lloyd’s underwriters sufficiently to persuade them to insure against theft. It happens so frequently, you know, and the likelihood of their having to pay out is so great that the dues for that sort of protection would cost more than most thefts do. No, most of us just take what precautions we can—doors locked and bolted, a bell over the door, even a dog on the premises—and hope for the best.”

“And yet all your precautions failed,” Pickett noted, not without sympathy. “Tell me, Mr. Robinson, how many people have keys to the shop?”

“Three, but all of those keys are accounted for: mine, my daughter’s, and Andrew’s.”

“Andrew’s?”

“Aye, my apprentice. He comes down early every morning to light the fire, and locks up at night after me and Nancy have gone upstairs.”

“He ‘comes down,’ you say?”

“Aye, for he has a room in the attic. So does Jem, for that matter. Jem is the lad who summoned you from Bow Street,” he added, anticipating Pickett’s next question.

“I see. But about Andrew—is it possible that he forgot one of the locks that night? Someone must have heard the bell if the front door had been opened, but the one at the back—”