Whom the Gods Love (14 page)

"What do you think it was, sir?"

"Most likely something that doesn't reflect credit on Mrs. Falkland, or she wouldn't be keeping it dark. She may have been meeting with a cent-per-cent about a loan. She may have been conducting an
affair de coeur,
with the maidservant as go-between. She may have been blackmailed. And, of course, she may have been arranging her husband's murder. The trouble with all these explanations is—why would she have gone off with the girl on business of that kind, right under Alexander's nose?"

9: Breaths of Scandal

Dipper felt more at home in the Strand than anywhere else in London. As a child, he had lived in many different places: rookeries like Chick Lane and Seven Dials, where his family was squeezed into a single room; flash houses where apprentice pickpockets learned their trade; doss-houses where boy and girl criminals slept a dozen to a bed. But he had worked most often in and around the Strand. Here people of all classes came to search the shops for bargains, go to the waxworks, see the five-ton elephant at Exeter 'Change, or pick up one of the girls who walked the pavements in scanty silk gowns and gaudy bonnets. Everyone carried bulging pocketbooks, and no one was keeping a close eye on them. It was a pickpocket's paradise.

It was eight o'clock by the clock at St. Clement Danes, one of the two little white churches incongruously islanded in the busy street. The shops were still doing a brisk business, but the pastry cooks were putting out trays of stale tarts at half price, the last clerks in their rusty black suits were hurrying home, the coffee-houses were emptying, and the gin-shops filling. Carriages clattered over the cobblestones, speeding theatre-goers to Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

Dipper walked jauntily along the pavement. Knowing his old colleagues' habits, he thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and looped his coattails over his arms, to keep the tail-pockets under his eye. He passed cook-shops reeking with roast meat, drapers' warehouses awash in colourful linens, a man dressed up as an enormous boot to advertise blacking. At last he reached the broad windows of Haythorpe and Sons, with their dazzling display of polished grates and fire irons. Just beyond was the passage into Cygnet's Court.

He went through. The court was much as he remembered it: narrow and dark, with two grey-brick houses on each side and one at the far end. But now two of the houses—the smallest and the largest—had been refurbished. The smallest was just to the left as one entered the court. It had white dimity curtains in the windows, a red and blue woven mat at the door, and smoke curling up from the chimney. The largest house, at the opposite end of the court, was dark and still. As Dipper drew nearer, he saw a "To Let" sign in one of the windows.

All at once he had a tickly feeling down his back—the preternatural sense that he was being watched. He turned just in time to see a face peeking out at him through the window of the smallest house. It was an elderly woman, who darted behind the curtains when he saw her. He went up to her door and knocked.

A maidservant answered. She was not the one who had accosted Mrs. Falkland. This girl was raw-boned and ungainly, with carroty hair and a wall-eye. Dipper suspected she was none too well furnished in her upper story.

He said, slowly and distinctly, "I'd like to speak to your missus, if I might."

She stared at him dully with her good eye. The wall-eye gleamed white, with just a few flecks of brown iris.

The old lady he had seen at the window came hobbling forward, leaning on a cane. "Out of the way, you silly girl! Don't mind her, young man, she's worse than useless. You're worse than useless, Bet, do you hear?"

Her tone was not angry; it was even affectionate. And Dipper supposed the tone was all the girl really understood. "Yes'm." She nodded inanely.

The old woman peered out at Dipper, a little anxious but more curious. She was plump and comfortable, with a broad face, two dimples, and three chins. She wore a blue calico gown and a white cap that looked like the dome of St. Paul's broken out in lace.

" 'Evening, ma'am," said Dipper, doffing his hat.

"Good evening." His neat appearance and manners seemed to reassure her somewhat.

"I seen you watching me just now—well, you was bound to, wasn't you, living tucked away like this, and not expecting to see a stranger hanging about—"

"Oh, yes, that's all it was. I didn't mean to be inquisitive, mind. Only Bet and I live quite alone, and I do worry about burglars."

"You might not want to be a-telling strangers you lives alone," Dipper suggested. "That's the kind of thing that warms a burglar's heart."

"I'm sure you're right. But you seem such a nice young man. Did you want something?"

"I'd like to ask you some'ut, if I might."

"Oh, do come in! I was just sitting down to evening tea, and you're more than welcome to share it. There's toasted cheese and gooseberry jam, and there might—I'm not certain, mind, but there
might
—be some pickled walnuts."

"Thanks, ma'am, I'd like that."

She waddled briskly down the hall, Dipper following. They went into a tiny back parlour, with a crackling fire that kept it almost too hot, for all the evening chill. The old woman clearly did not get many visitors. Her parlour was furnished for preservation rather than use, with green druggets on the carpet, brown Holland covers on the chairs, and paper mats on the tables. A musty smell, as of windows seldom opened, mingled with the fragrance of dried flowers in a bowl. Two cats, one white and one tawny, lounged on the hearth-rug.

"This is Snowflake, and this is Amber," the old lady introduced them. "And I'm Mrs. Wheeler."

"How d'ye do, ma'am? I'm Tom Stokes." This was Dipper's real name, but it served him as well as an alias, since no one ever called him by it.

While he made friends with the cats, Bet fetched the tea things, and Mrs. Wheeler made the tea. When it was ready, Dipper sat down opposite Mrs. Wheeler and helped himself to gooseberry jam. It was very good, and he told her so. "You've got a sweet tooth," she said.

"Yes, ma'am, uncommon."

"My eldest girl—that's my married daughter, Millie—had such a sweet tooth, you can't think. You won't have a tooth in your head by the time you're twenty, I'd tell her, and how will you find a husband then, I'd like to know? But all my worriting was for naught—she married a law-stationer in Holbom and has three fine boys, and every Friday I go to visit her in the morning and stay till Saturday. 'Course, I have to bring Bet with me, since the poor thing's off at the side and can't be left alone. I wish Mr. Wheeler'd lived to see his grandchildren grow up so bright and bobbish. He was a glovemaker, with a shop quite close to here. When he died, I didn't want to leave the neighbourhood, so I took this little house, as it's quiet, and the cats can run about without being trampled by horses or teased by those hateful boys."

"Bit of a lonely place, though, ain't it?"

"Well, I used to have a neighbour, in that big house on the other side of the court. But
she
was worse than no neighbour at all. Bless me, you wanted to ask me a question, and I forgot all about it. What is it?"

Dipper would have liked to hear more about the neighbour and resolved to make his way back to her as quickly as possible. "I was looking for an old friend of me ma's—me godmother, she was. We hadn't heard from her in so long, me ma asked me to find out if she was all right. I had an idea she lived here, but it seems I was all out."

"Indeed you were. No one's lived in Cygnet's Court these twelve months and more except me and Mrs. Desmond—that's the woman I was telling you about. And
she
was never your mother's friend, I'll be bound!"

"Wasn't she, ma'am?"

"Mercy on us, no. Too young, and not the sort to be anybody's godmother. Not that I ever knew her, to speak to. She gave herself such airs, she'd never have wasted a morning call on such as me. Not that I'd have received her if she
had
come a-calling—knowing what I know. Mrs. Desmond—humph! If she was ever Mrs. anything, I'd be much surprised."

"No better than she should be, was she?" Dipper asked confidentially.

"Well, of course, I wouldn't know—not for a fact. But I've got eyes. She moved in about a year ago, lived all alone except for a maid-of-all-work, and a man called on her often, and always at night! I never got a good look at him—the court's too poorly lit. I only saw what you'd call his silhouette. He was young, though—I could tell by his spare, straight figure, and the way he walked. Dressed like a gentleman, too. Now what was I to make of that, except the very worst?"

"Sounds like a rum go," Dipper owned.

"And she never had any proper callers. Just tradespeople: mantua-makers, milliners, and upholsterers. It seemed she had nothing to do but put fine clothes on her back and fine furnishings in her house. And she never went to church! Oh, it was a dreadful thing, Mr. Stokes, living almost next door to a woman like that. I can't tell you how relieved I am she's gone." She sighed disconsolately.

"Her maid went to church, though," she resumed. "Poor thing, she seemed like a God-fearing soul. She must have been troubled in her mind about working for a bad lot like Mrs. Desmond. P'raps that's why she was so shy and timid, wouldn't talk much, and 'specially would never say a word about her mistress, nor her mistress's gentleman friend. I'd often see her passing in and out of the court and invite her in for a dish of tea, but the poor thing never would stop." 

Dipper tried an experiment. "I think I seen her once—the maid, I mean. I come here once before—the first of April, I believe it was." That was the date the maidservant had brought Mrs. Falkland into Cygnet's Court, and Mr. Kestrel thought dates might be important. "She was blond and pretty, wasn't she?"

"Who, the maid? Not at all. Drab and thickset, and forty at least."

"The gal I seen was blond and light-timbered, with big blue eyes and a brown checked dress, and a white cap with lappets."

"Ain't that curious! Fanny, the maid, dressed just like that. But the blond, pretty girl—why, she sounds like Mrs. Desmond herself."

"You think she might've put on her maid's togs?"

"Lord save us! Why should she do such a thing? Still, I wouldn't put anything past her. What a pity I missed seeing what she was about! Not that I'd want anything to do with such goings-on, you understand."

"'Course not."

"I just think, if people are going to dress up in their servants' clothes—well, respectable people ought to keep an eye on them, and see they don't do anything to disgrace the neighbourhood."

"That's the ticket," said Dipper encouragingly. "You has to think of the neighbourhood."

"To be sure. Stop a moment: did you say it was April first you saw her? Why, there you are!—that was a Friday, so I'd have been at Millie's. What a pity! Now we'll never know what deviltry she was up to, seeing as how she's gone away Heaven knows where, and Fanny with her."

"When did she pike off?"

"A little over a fortnight ago, sudden-like. Just whistled off one night, and as it was a Friday, I didn't see her go."

Apparently everything hole-and-corner that Mrs. Desmond did was timed for a Friday—the one day in the week when her inquisitive neighbour would be gone. Mrs. Wheeler was clearly the kind of old woman who liked things just so: an orderly house and an unshakeable routine. Her comings and goings would be utterly predictable, and Mrs. Desmond would soon learn all about them.

"I thought at first she'd done a moonlit flit," Mrs. Wheeler went on. "Her fancy-man had cast her off, and she had to run from her creditors. But the bailiffs haven't been in, so p'raps it wasn't that, after all. And it seems she didn't take anything that didn't belong to her—which you might have expected of one of her sort, seeing as how the house was let furnished. But the landlord's man came and took inventory a few days after she left and said there was nothing missing."

"Who's the landlord?" Dipper asked casually.

"He's Mr. Giles Underhill, of Clapham. He used to be a banker, but he's retired now, and prodigious lazy. He let these houses go to rack and ruin for years afore he furbished up mine and Mrs. Desmond's, and Heaven knows when he'll make the other three fit to live in."

Dipper thought a moment. "Did you ever see Mrs. Desmond with a gentry-mort—a real lady, that is—tall and golden-haired, a reg'lar stunner?"

"Lord-a-mercy, no! Mrs. Desmond never had anybody respectable to call on her." She added in a hushed, conspiratorial voice, "She did bring young women home with her once in a way. She'd go out during the day and come back with some pretty girl, and at night her gentleman friend would come, then the girl would leave a few hours later. Well, what was I to think of that, Mr. Stokes? What was anyone to think?" 

"Was it al'ays the same gentleman?"

"I'm sure it was. I knew his shadow and his step, though I never saw his face."

So Mrs. Desmond was not a bawd, thought Dipper, or not in the usual sense. It looked as if she had been pimping for one particular man, for whom her own charms were not enough. Lord knew, there was plenty of choice in this neighbourhood: high-fliers sporting fine jewels and coaches, actresses making ends meet between roles, draggle-tails who would stoop to anything for the price of their next drink. But what could Mrs. Falkland have to do with such people? Could it be Mrs. Desmond's gentleman friend had fancied her and put Mrs. Desmond up to approaching her on his behalf?

That might explain why Mrs. Falkland was so secretive about her visit to Cygnet's Court. Whether she had accepted or spurned the man's advances, she would want to keep the episode dark. After all, once people knew a lady had been involved in any intrigue, they were quick to believe the worst of her. And suppose Mr. Falkland had found out? Gentleman fought duels about such things. If Mrs. Desmond's fancy-man saw a duel in the offing, might he have sought to ward it off by striking first?

*

At the theatre that evening, Julian found he was an object of more interest than the actors. Of course he was used to being stared at. Strangers to London pointed him out as they might Carlton House or the Tower of London. Aspiring dandies took note of how many seals he wore on his watch-chain (never more than two) and whether he approved of coloured cravats in the evening (he did not). But tonight he attracted a particularly rapt, nervous attention, especially from those who had been guests at Alexander Falkland's last party. Gentleman peered at him through quizzing-glasses. Ladies whispered about him behind their fans. He kept his eyes on the stage, making one of an eccentric minority in the dress boxes who actually came to the theatre to watch the play.