by Alex Grecian
“Please just . . . Will you tell me . . . What about Esther?”
“Yes. Esther. She is disposable, I’m afraid.”
“No!” Day stood quickly and the chair fell back, smacking against the floor.
Jack scowled at him and held a finger to his lips. He tucked the loose end of his bandage under itself, then rose and went to the door and looked out, up and down the hall, shut it softly, and returned. “Pick up your chair, Walter Day. And lower your walking stick. What do you plan to do? You can’t hurt me and you don’t want to. Let’s not pretend to be other than what we are. And let’s not bring passion into this. Lust and passion are not the same things at all.”
Day shook his head, but picked up the chair. He sat down and waited, but he kept his fist gripped tight on his cane. He might get one chance to swing, and he didn’t want to waste it.
Jack crossed behind him and went to the cabinet. He found a clean white shirt and took his seat across from Day. “You have much to learn, and we’ve only begun our journey.” He pulled the shirt on, and Day noticed again how strangely he moved. Jack was clearly in a great deal of pain. “I think perhaps you didn’t have a strong father figure in your life. Was Arthur Day too busy valeting to teach you about the world? Or have I asked you that before? I get confused.”
“You keep bringing other people into our discussion.” Day fixed Jack with what he hoped was a steely glare. “Leave Arthur . . . you leave my father out of it. Leave Esther and everyone else I know out of it. It’s you and me.”
“It has ever been thus. But you miss the larger point. I genuinely don’t care about anyone else, but you do, and that makes you vulnerable. So I am going to have to harm Esther Paxton to get my point across to you. I ask you, is that fair to her? Is that justice, Walter Day?” Day started to rise again from his chair, but Jack waved him back. “Be calm.”
“I told you. This doesn’t involve her.” Day could barely speak.
“It didn’t, but now it does. And that’s your fault.” Jack looked down at the blotter. “I’m still so . . . All you had to do was go home, live your life, and go back to work. Why didn’t you do that?”
“Is it too late?”
Jack raised his fist and brought it down in an arc that would have ended with the blotter, but he pulled his arm up at the last minute and opened his hand and laid it atop the other and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he smiled again, but it was not a real smile at all; it was nothing Day had ever seen on another human being’s face. “I unlocked your door. I left your clothes where you would find them at the end of the hall—”
“I never saw them. I was out in the cold, naked, with nothing. You left me with nothing.”
“I gave you everything, even money. Certainly enough to hire a cab to take you anywhere you might have wished. It was all right there, great detective, and you walked past it.”
“I never saw any of that,” Day said. “I never saw it.”
“I asked so little of you. Only the smallest favor in return for months of my hospitality.”
“Why? Why did you let me go?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I think you’ve deliberately forgotten. And you’ve somehow made yourself unable to see things around you. Even today, you didn’t seem to recognize your own . . . Well, Walter Day, you are turning backflips to avoid going home.”
“I’ll go home now.”
“And where is that? Where is your home? Tell me.”
Day said nothing.
“You see? You are determined to forget,” Jack said. “Perhaps your forgetting begets a deeper strength than I knew you had. Your ability to trick yourself and to build a new life indicates a bottomless capacity for rightness within you. As I say, one coin, two men, you, me. I learn from you, you learn from me, and we both benefit, don’t we? But enough. Here.” Jack turned the telephone around, swiveling it on its post so that the receiver hung nearer to Day. “Ask for Scotland Yard.”
“Scotland Yard?”
“Ask for the commissioner, and when he accepts the call, tell him where you are. Ask him to send someone for you. Have him send that ass Tiffany. Or Blacker, or even Wiggins. It doesn’t matter. If you value Esther Paxton’s life, do it.”
Day picked up the telephone receiver and held it to his ear. When the switchboard responded, he was able to choke out the words Jack had told him to say.
“Tell them who you are,” Jack said.
They waited in silence in that anonymous office, Day and Jack, and the space seemed to Day to grow smaller and more uncomfortable as each minute passed. He could hear the operator and other voices in the background like distant birds, other women connecting other calls, and he wondered what those people had to say to each other, what might be important to them, whether there were other lives depending on other calls. When Sir Edward Bradford’s voice finally came on the line, Day couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say.
“Hello,” he said.
“Walter? Is this Walter Day on the line?”
“Please,” Day said, “help me.”
Sir Edward continued to talk, but Day could no longer hear him. He looked up and into Jack’s eyes, and the room seemed to spin round him. He dropped the receiver and fell sideways off his chair, dragging the telephone with him. As darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, he heard Jack say (kindly, as if talking about a particularly troublesome but much-loved child), “Oh, Walter Day. What am I to do with you?”
21
When Claire Day opened her eyes again, Robert and Simon were kneeling beside her on the floor. Simon was holding her hand, and Robert bore a worried expression that Claire would have done anything to erase. Behind them, Fiona was shielding the pram, keeping the babies from seeing what had happened, and Mr Goodpenny was turning in circles, hollering for help. She felt ashamed that she was the cause of so much concern and embarrassed that she had fainted. After everything she had been through in the past two years, she felt she ought to be made of sterner stuff than that.
She smiled at Robert, but he didn’t smile back. That wasn’t a surprise. Robert and Simon had seen their parents murdered and had barely escaped the same fate. Claire had tried to give them some semblance of a normal life, but the boys rarely let her out of their sight. They were convinced she would die, too, or disappear the same way Walter had, leaving them alone again.
“I’m all right, Robert,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
He nodded, but put his small hand on her forehead. Two shopgirls and a floor manager were hovering nearby, clearly not sure how to deal with the situation. Claire nodded at them, trying to convey that she was fine, no harm done, everyone could go about their business in the usual way.
She looked up at the gallery. The table where Walter had been sitting was empty now. Had she really seen him there? Or had she been searching crowds for her husband for so long that her mind was now playing tricks on her?
“I’m not ill,” she said. She held out her hand, and the floor manager stepped forward to help her up, but Robert waved him away. He and Simon pulled at her arms with all their might. If she let go of Robert’s arm, she thought he would fly backward into a display case.
She smiled again, this time at the floor manager.
“Please, ma’am, are you sure you’re entirely well?” he said.
“It’s this place. It’s so huge and lovely. I’m afraid I was overwhelmed.”
The manager finally smiled back at her, relieved and flattered. “It is a bit much, isn’t it? Please, we have an automatic lift at the back, just this way; won’t you have a cup of tea? It’s courtesy of Plumm’s. You can relax and catch your breath and look around while resting your feet.” He glanced down at Robert and Simon, who were now clinging to her skirts as if they intended to prop her up in the event of another fall. “And cakes for these brave little boys,” the manager said.
&nbs
p; “Thank you,” Claire said. “Perhaps I should sit down. Please give me a minute to catch my breath, won’t you?”
The manager clapped his hands once and turned to show them to the lift. The customers, disappointed that the drama had ended so bloodlessly, resumed shopping, and the staff returned to their duties.
It seemed impossible that the man on the gallery had been her husband. If she claimed to have seen Walter, she would be raising the boys’ hopes, and what if it was a case of mistaken identity?
And if she wasn’t wrong, if she really had seen Walter? Why hadn’t he seen her? He hadn’t even looked. He wasn’t a cruel or insensitive man, and she couldn’t believe, couldn’t allow herself to even think, that he didn’t love her anymore, that he had decided to leave and never look back.
“Robert,” Claire said, “and Simon, would you boys check on the little girls for me? I don’t want them to be worried.”
Robert clearly didn’t want to leave her side, but he allowed Simon to lead him a few feet away to where the governess was walking slowly along behind the manager, cooing at the babies. Claire moved closer to Fiona.
Fiona whispered, “Are you quite sure you’re all right?”
“I am,” Claire said. “But tell me . . . Did you happen to look up there, at the tea shop right there, a bit ago? A minute ago, when I fainted?”
“No, I was sketching the furniture for ideas to help with your book. Is it the book? The pressure of it, I mean. Is that why you passed out?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. It’s . . . Well, you’re going to think me mad.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh, please don’t, Fiona. You’re the only one I can tell, and if you give me that look, that pitying look that says you’re only humoring me, then I think I shall scream.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Not ever. Not even if you really were mad.”
Claire smiled and shook her head. “I saw him.”
“Saw who? You mean Mr Day? You saw him here?” Fiona gasped and stood on tiptoe, turning her head this way and that. “Where is he?”
“Stop that. We don’t want to attract any attention to ourselves. He was at the tea shop up there.”
“But where is he now?”
“So you do believe me?”
“Of course I do.”
“He was right there, sitting at a table there.”
“And you didn’t call out to him?”
“He wasn’t alone,” Claire said.
“Not . . .”
“Not what?”
“Not another woman.”
“No, of course not.”
“Then who?”
“I’ll tell you later. It’s too complicated to tell you here.”
“But do you think he’s still here? In the store?”
“I hope so. Surely we would have seen him leave, unless there’s a back way.”
“We have to tell Nevil,” Fiona said. “I mean Mr Hammersmith. We have to find him and get him here right away, before it’s too late and Mr Day disappears again.”
“Oh,” Claire said. “Oh, of course. Nevil will help us.”
She hadn’t even thought. She wasn’t alone. She had so many people around her who loved her and who loved her husband. And if Fiona believed her, then Nevil Hammersmith would believe her, too. He would search the place from top to bottom as soon as he arrived. Nevil would search the entire neighborhood if need be. She had to talk to him right away. She could send a runner to his office later in the day, but she knew he had gone to Scotland Yard today to check once more on any progress that might have been made. If he was still there . . .
She raised her voice. “Excuse me.”
The manager turned around and raised his eyebrows at her.
“I wonder if you might have a telephone somewhere here.”
22
Jack hung up the receiver and set the telephone upright on the desk. He checked Day’s pulse, which was strong and regular. People were such fragile things, full of delicate organs and unbalanced humors.
“Well,” Jack said, “I can’t simply leave you here, can I?” He squatted and got his hands under Day’s arms, lifted him into the chair, then stepped back and pressed his hand to his abdomen. The gauze wrapped around his torso was already spotted with fresh blood. He gave the unconscious man a black look. “This would have been so much easier if you only did what was expected of you, if you only acted like any other ordinary human being.”
But of course, if Walter Day had been any other ordinary human being, Jack might have killed him months ago. Walter Day seemed ordinary enough, but there was something about him, some special quality, that drew Jack to him. Jack wished he understood what it was so he could cut it out of the detective and move on.
He shook Day and, when there was no response, slapped him across the face. Still, Day didn’t wake up.
“Walter Day, I can’t decide whether you’re the strongest person I’ve met or the weakest,” Jack said. “I’ve never seen anyone so thoroughly hide away inside his own head.”
The office door opened and Jack looked up, surprised to see a child standing there, a boy perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. The boy’s face was full of fear and anger, and Jack smiled. He heard the distant rumble of the electric lift.
“Please,” Jack said, “come in. I’ve been expecting you. Close the door, would you?”
• • •
THE FLOOR MANAGER knocked on the door and, when there was no response, he jiggled the knob. He shrugged at Claire. “The new fellow has a lot of work to catch up on. We’ve had some minor staffing problems recently. Not to worry, all smoothed over. I suppose Mr Oberon doesn’t want to be disturbed just now. But come, there’s a second phone in Mr Plumm’s office. He’s out at the moment, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
He led the way down the passage toward a door at the end, but Claire hesitated. She touched the doorknob and quietly twisted it, thinking perhaps it might magically open for her where it hadn’t for the manager. But it was indeed locked, and after scowling at it for a moment, she turned and followed along in the manager’s wake. She rubbed her fingers against the fabric of her dress. The doorknob had given her a slight shock when she’d touched it.
• • •
THE MURDERER TOOK his hand off Ambrose’s mouth and held a finger to his lips.
“There’s a good lad.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, rasping against Ambrose’s skin. “Be quiet now. There will be big trouble for us all if my friend is found here.”
Ambrose nodded. He was trembling, and his nose was running.
“You seem frightened,” the murderer said. “Don’t be. As long as we’re quiet, we won’t have any trouble. Do I know you, boy?”
Ambrose shook his head.
“Well, I could swear . . . But if not . . .” He frowned down at Day. “My friend’s had a bit too much to drink, I’m afraid.”
“Guv?” It was the best Ambrose could manage under the circumstances, but there was no response from the motionless man in the chair.
The murderer looked back and forth between Ambrose and the guv. “Oh, you know him! For how long?”
“A few . . . A week or three.”
“What has he told you about me?”
“Nothin’, sir, I swear it. I don’t know nothin’.”
“He’s never mentioned me? Never mentioned old Jack?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m wounded.” There was indeed a patch of blood creeping up Jack’s belly. He was literally wounded, and Ambrose wondered if the guv had done it. The man calling himself Jack stared at Ambrose until he could feel the hairs on his neck creeping. “I have seen you somewhere,” the murderer said.
“What did you mean you was expectin’ me? What you said before.”
“Providence a
lways provides. I can’t move our mutual friend by myself. I need help, and so you’ve happened by in the nick of time.”
“I need to . . .” Ambrose’s voice trailed off, and he turned toward the door.
“Don’t leave, little boy.”
“But I—”
“I said don’t leave. Now be quiet until they’ve passed back by again. After that, we’ll talk.” The murderer sat on the edge of the desk and smiled at Ambrose. Ambrose felt very cold.
“Is he dead?”
“No. Not in the least.”
“You gonna kill him?”
“Now why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know.” Ambrose realized he was panting, as if he’d run a long distance.
“Be quiet now,” Jack said. “They’re coming back through.”
Ambrose nodded and swallowed. He could hear footsteps and a lady talking outside the office door, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. Whoever she was, the murderer didn’t want her to find him here. Ambrose knew that Jack was going to kill him and would probably kill the guv, too, and his only chance was to speak up, to scream and holler and make the people outside in the hallway break down the door. If there were enough people round them, the murderer wouldn’t dare do anything. They could catch him. Ambrose would tell them about the two dead women, and they would put Jack in prison, and there would be no more worries. He opened his mouth, but before he could utter a sound, Jack’s hot, dusty hand was suddenly clapped over his lips again. He hadn’t heard Jack move up behind him. The voices in the passage were fading as the woman and her entourage reached the lift and the door closed behind them.
The murderer’s lips touched Ambrose’s ear. “Now we can talk.”
The hand disappeared from Ambrose’s mouth, and Jack was already sitting again on the corner of the desk when Ambrose lifted his head.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Ambrose.”
“Good. Did I already say you can call me Jack if you want to? Some people do.”