by Elsa Hart
“Nothing at all,” said Meacan. “After that, I wasn’t certain what I would do. I didn’t think I’d be allowed to stay in the house, but I was worried if I left it, you would walk straight into danger. And I was proved right, wasn’t I?”
“Then the inventory was your idea?”
Meacan shook her head. “No. I told you the truth about that. It was Lady Mayne who suggested it. I was happy when she did, though, and accepted at once. It was a way for me to continue, tactfully, to follow the course of events, and to keep an eye on you.”
“It would have been easier,” said Cecily, “if you’d confided in me instead of giving me oblique warnings.”
Meacan sighed. “Not to trust too quickly is a lesson that has been impressed upon me a little deeper with each passing year. People do change, you know. I didn’t know for certain who you’d become.”
“No,” said Cecily. “Nor I you.”
“And so did not take me into your confidence either,” said Meacan. She leaned forward. “But now that I have told you how I know Dinley didn’t do it, tell me what made you start peppering us all with where were yous and what did you sees and could it really have beens. What made you suspect things weren’t as they appeared?”
Cecily told her. As the fire dwindled and the level of the posset went down, she told Meacan about waking in the middle of the night and thinking of the bloody half handprint. She reported what Martha had told her about the missing Spanish pistol and how no one had actually seen Alice Fordyce leave the house. She told her about Anthony Holt’s letter, the Rose collection, and the locked cabinets.
Meacan listened, nodding occasionally, a crease of concentration between her brows. “Any one of those three could have slipped that note among your plants,” she said when Cecily had finished giving an account of her conversations with Inwood, Carlyle, and Warbulton. “And hired that man to kill you. He seemed to me the hired type. I would know. Covo employs them often enough.”
Cecily was turning an idea over in her mind. “This Mr. Covo,” she said. “I suppose he is very knowledgeable about the collecting community?”
“None more than he. And he likes to be called Signore Covo.”
Cecily raised a brow at this. “I would appreciate an introduction. That is, unless you are going to renew your insistence that I stop prying into the matter. I know there is danger here, but I know also that at least some of the questions I have asked must have been the right questions. And I—”
“Stop?” Meacan’s soft features all at once took on the solidity of a marble goddess. “Under other circumstances, I would be happy to let the titan collectors wage their wars over land and sea while we stayed clear of the crashing rocks and hurricanes. But someone tried to kill you today, and that cannot be allowed to pass. It’s the two of us together, now. We’re going to find the villain, and we’re going to make it very clear that we are not such little creatures after all.” This proclamation made, her face relaxed into a small smile of anticipation. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to talk to Covo. I think he’s going to like you.”
CHAPTER 18
“Thomasin has left us,” declared Lady Mayne when Cecily and Meacan entered her chamber on the following morning. Black silk still shrouded the cabinets, but had been removed temporarily from the windows. Light was required for the widow to review the proposed designs for funeral invitations, which were scattered on the table before her in a printed carnival of skeletons and winged hourglasses.
Lady Mayne continued in an aggrieved tone. “She has gone to find a new situation. It is a terrible inconvenience. Not only is there no hope of replacing her before today’s mourners begin to arrive, but she was a good maid. Like my own Susanna, she had a neat appearance and a courteous matter, and she understood that cleaning floors and windows must in any civilized household take precedence over preening the feathers of dead birds. It is a trial, Lady Kay.”
“You have my sympathy,” said Cecily. “Did she give a reason for going so abruptly?”
“She did not need to give a reason,” replied Lady Mayne with a sigh. “I cannot blame the girl for wanting to leave this house behind.” The widow’s gaze flickered resentfully over the covered shelves. “Would that I could do the same, but I’ll not shirk my responsibilities.” She nodded toward the door of the master bedroom where Sir Barnaby’s body lay. “He may have rejected the willingness of his wife to serve him in life, but he cannot deny me in death. No fault will be found in my loyalty.” She turned to Meacan. “The inventory was very important to him, Mrs. Barlow. Essential, I understand, for the successful transfer of the collection. I hope it is nearing completion?”
Cecily observed with interest the demure professionalism that Meacan assumed in the presence of her employer. She wore a white cap pulled down tight to imprison her curls and discourage any association between herself and mischief, disorder, or irresponsibility. Her face was serenely immobile, but she maintained one deliberate crease across her forehead, a single line that communicated deference, honesty, and eagerness to please. “Oh, it’s progressing very well, Lady Mayne. Lady Kay thinks I could have it finished in two months.”
“Two months?” Lady Mayne gasped and began to shake her head. “I had no notion it would take so long. Can it not be hastened?”
“The estimate is short, given the size of the collection,” said Cecily. “It will require two months at the very least.”
Lady Mayne, frowning in displeasure, turned to Susanna, who was replacing the candle in the silver taper. “If Giles Inwood comes again today, tell him I wish to speak with him,” she said.
Meacan glanced nudgingly at Cecily, who cleared her throat. “Lady Mayne, you have been so hospitable I hesitate to ask this favor, but if I might borrow Mrs. Barlow this afternoon to serve as my escort, I am expected to pay a call on my cousin and would prefer not to make the journey alone.” She remembered Lady Mayne’s initial expression of distaste for the city and added, “London is so dangerous.”
“I suppose if you must,” said Lady Mayne. “But before you go, and after you return, I expect Mrs. Barlow’s complete dedication to her work here. Two months is too long. It is too long. I will ensure his contract is honored. I am pledged to do so. But he cannot have expected me to wait so long to be rid of it.” Lady Mayne shuddered. “He cannot. Now please, leave me. The stationer requires a decision.”
They accepted the dismissal and left the room. Once they were out of earshot, Meacan shook her head. “If she wanted the inventory completed in a week, she could have hired a flock of Warbultons eager to prove themselves in the collecting community. I am aware that I radiate efficiency and intelligence, but she knows I am only one person. I’ve never had a project commissioned by someone so ignorant of what it entails.”
While Meacan went off to the library muttering, Cecily sought out John and Martha in the garden, where they were claiming the time they had before the arrival of the new day’s mourners to attend to their own interests. John was weeding his plot of kitchen herbs, while Martha was taking advantage of a visible sun to clean an assortment of objects from the collection. As Cecily approached, she unrolled a red-and-gold-embroidered saddlecloth faintly speckled with mildew and set it out on the gravel to dry.
They were discussing Thomasin’s departure. “It’s hardly surprising,” John was saying. “Of course she’d want to be off to more secure circumstances. She wouldn’t want to stay in a house where there’s been a murder.”
Martha nodded an unsmiling greeting to Cecily as she picked up a large goblet set with colorful stones and began to polish it. “She didn’t go because of what happened. She never liked it here. A wealthy household full of ladies needing their hair styled and their gloves perfumed. That’s what she wanted. She would have left before any of it if she could have.”
“What prevented her?” asked Cecily.
Martha turned the goblet over in her hands, scrutinizing the ornately worked silver for stubborn tarnish. She returned it to the cradl
e of her arm and continued polishing. “Her high opinion of herself. She didn’t want to go unless she had the prospect of a good situation.”
“And does she now?”
“Oh yes,” said Martha. “Didn’t you see her dress?”
Cecily shook her head. She had only seen the maid in the gray dress in which she’d first answered the door, and the black one she had worn since Sir Barnaby’s death.
“Brightest blue silk I’ve ever seen,” said John. “And colored ribbons. As if she was costuming herself as one of the master’s butterflies.”
Martha nodded. “She was always saying she’d leave as soon as she could buy herself a fine dress.”
“A fine dress secures a fine position,” said John. “She did like to say that. Must have been saving her earnings.”
“Saved earnings or not,” muttered Martha, “she shouldn’t have been flittering off to the shops at Monmouth the day after the master was killed.” Monmouth Street, Cecily knew, was a popular destination for purchasing secondhand clothing. Though scorned by the elite as a place for those who would rather have shabby finery than no finery at all, for a maid seeking a highly paid position, a gown purchased from its cluttered shops could open doors that would otherwise be closed.
“No,” John agreed. “No, there’s little respect for the deceased in that. And with that poor foreigner upstairs in need of care.” He glanced up toward the garret room. “I sent her off on errands for the kitchen, and she came back with a gown.” He stopped and let out a low cry. “My basil! And just after I’d moved them outside. Lucky I left some in safety.” Muttering invectives against thieving starlings, he rose to his feet and went off to the greenhouse.
Martha watched her husband go, shaking her head. “A house of wonders, and he would spend all his time in the kitchen, the garden, and the greenhouse,” she said. She set the goblet down and picked up another. It was made from what appeared to be an ostrich egg enclosed in silver. “I remember the day the master acquired this,” she said. “It was a gift to him from foreign royalty.” She turned the goblet over to show the red label pasted to its base.
Cecily leaned down and read it aloud. “‘Presented to me by Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, on the occasion of his visit, 14 October 1700’—the tsar of Russia came here?”
Martha nodded, her lip trembling. “On his tour of England. I saw him myself with my own eyes striding on these very paths.” Angrily, she brushed away a tear. “Why that girl didn’t think herself fortunate to be employed in this house I’ll never understand.”
Susanna’s voice called then from the door. “Lady Mayne says the guests will arrive soon and you’re to stop what you’re doing and prepare for them.”
CHAPTER 19
Signore Covo’s Coffee and Collectibles, read the sign painted on a piece of driftwood artfully crusted with barnacles. The babble of emphatic voices inside the building was audible outside it, and a fragrance of coffee and tallow wafted from its seams. Through the thick windows glazed with rain, Cecily could see bewigged heads bobbing and nodding at one another like puppets.
Meacan led her past the sign and around to the back of the row of buildings. They approached the coffeehouse through the mews, and were admitted by a man with a dark beard parted by a ropey white scar. He grunted a greeting to Meacan, made a cursory assessment of Cecily, and nodded them through the door. “He is with a client,” he said as they started up a narrow staircase. “You know where to wait.”
The room to which Meacan guided them was a triumph of disorientation. It was lit by lanterns, its two windows covered by layers of silk and velvet embroidered with labyrinthine patterns. No portion of the walls or even the ceiling was visible. Objects, many of which offered no clue as to how they had been mounted, crusted every surface. No sooner had Cecily caught a shape she could discern—a sword, a shell, a skull—than her eye was carried to another place. Even the door of the room swung strangely when Meacan closed it, as if it was straining its hinges, and Cecily saw that it was covered in colored tiles fitted together like scales of a thousand different fish.
Meacan surveyed the room impassively, her hands on her hips and her head tilted back. “It always feels to me as if I’ve crawled into a treasure chest and someone has shut the lid and locked me inside.”
Cecily reached for an object near to her on the table, then paused. It was the kind of place that felt as if it had rules.
“Oh, pick up whatever you want to and put it back anywhere,” said Meacan. “He doesn’t keep any of it in order. I think he likes it when objects move about.”
Cecily picked up the small sphere. It was a walnut shell turned into a box with a tiny golden clasp and tiny golden hinges. She opened it. Resting inside was a tiny pair of silk gloves.
“Ah, the walnut,” said Meacan. “He told me once that the gloves were made to protect the paws of a hedgehog beloved by a Chinese princess. At another time it was the mouse of a Portuguese prince. If you ask him about it today, I expect he’ll tell you something different.”
They heard a door open and voices in the hall. “I do have your assurances, Covo? The sale is final? You will entertain no other offers?”
The reply to this question was delivered in an accent unlike any English accent Cecily had ever heard, or any Italian one. If the English familiar to her was a smooth pond, this voice was that pond with something glinting under its surface. “Be assured,” it said. “And multiply the assurance a thousand times. The merman is yours. As soon as I receive the sum upon which we have agreed, I will wrap him in Paduan silk of deepest blue and deliver him to you myself.”
Cecily and Meacan listened to steps pass by their room. Another door opened, briefly admitting the chatter of the coffeehouse below, and closed again. “Remember,” whispered Meacan, “we trust him only enough to ask the questions to which we want answers.”
The bearded man who had admitted them below reappeared and showed them to Covo’s office. As Cecily’s eyes moved over the chaotic clutter, she began to sense that it was not the result of an unintelligent or unfocused mind, but a deliberate attempt to confuse and overwhelm. For one, it was too chaotic, as if the patterns that formed naturally within disorder had been scrupulously disrupted. For another, it was clean. There was picturesque rust and tarnish, to be sure, but there was not a trace of cobweb or smudge of coal to be seen.
She looked at the man who had just finished writing an entry in a ledger. He was standing behind a desk, the quill still in his right hand. His left hand was extended, the long fingertips resting on the desk’s surface. In the firelight the dark hair on his knuckles glowed copper. His jacket was of auburn brown silk subtly embroidered in red. He wore no wig and his dark hair, tied at the nape of his neck, had the look of a mane constrained.
His eyes went first to Meacan, then to Cecily, then back to Meacan with an inquiring lift of an eyebrow. They were intelligent eyes set in a face that balanced sharp-angled arrogance and easy humor. A face that said you want me to like you. Meacan crossed to the couch in front of the fireplace and sat. “Something to drink, Covo, and for my friend also.”
The corners of Covo’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Brandy or chocolate?”
Meacan considered. “Brandy, today.”
Covo moved to a table covered in bottles of glass, wood, and stone. “How pleased I am you have come at last. I have waited in great anticipation and concern, and was most devastated to learn you came in search of me when I was occupied with other business.” He poured three cups from a shimmering decanter. “A rare vintage,” he said. “Seven bottles, found by the pirate Dampier in a cave on an uninhabited island. And the decanter—” he held the vessel up to the firelight to enhance the play of iridescent color over its faceted surface “—was made from the same sand that produced the chalice of Abadur.”
“What is the chalice of Abadur?” asked Cecily.
Covo affected hurt. “I see I am not at my best today. Educated ladies and gentlemen never ask me to explain wha
t something is when I pronounce its name that way.”
“What way?”
“In a way that makes them worry they will appear foolish for not having known already. It is a trick of enunciation.”
“You needn’t try to use your glamor on her, Covo,” said Meacan. “She is no fool.”
“No friend of the divine Meacanmara would be.”
Cecily glanced at Meacan. She hadn’t heard her full name since they were girls. Meacanmara was the Irish word for the sea radish that grew on the windswept cliffs near the village where Meacan’s mother had been born. It wasn’t the root that inspired the name, Meacan’s mother had explained, though a radish was a healthy, hardy vegetable not to be underestimated, but the flowers, clouds of golden yellow bright against the blue sea that danced when storms blew in.
“But please,” said Covo, handing them each a glass of amber liquid, “introduce us.”
“This,” said Meacan, “is Lady Cecily Kay.”
“Lady Kay, an honor,” said Covo. “Of course. I understand you are recently arrived from Smyrna, breaking your journey in London to identify plants in the home of the late Sir Barnaby Mayne. You arrived on the Unicorn, if I am not wrong. Please sit down.”
Cecily took a seat beside Meacan, appreciating the warmth of the fire. Pale curls of steam hovered around their skirts and the toes of their boots as the rainwater evaporated from them. “You are not wrong,” she said warily. “But how do you know so much?”
Covo waved a hand modestly. “In this instance I cannot in good conscience boast of my aptitude for discovering what is hidden. Since yesterday morning, a significant number of the collecting community has passed through the Mayne residence. Of those who did, most have brought their ensuing conversations here to my little establishment. I need only open the hall door and listen. They find your and Mrs. Barlow’s continued presence in the house intriguing.”