The Sleeping Partner

by Madeleine E. Robins

  Miss Tolerance arrived at Tarsio’s in the wake of a party of gentlemen in a considerable state of merriment, who shouted instructions to Corton about the number of bottles they wanted delivered to them straightaway, even as they disappeared into the Library. It was necessary for Corton to confer hastily with one of the waiters before he could turn to greet her.

  “You’ve a visitor waiting in the first little room upstairs, miss.” He spoke with the manner of someone bearing great and confidential tidings. “A lady.”

  “Thank you, Corton.” Miss Tolerance pressed a coin on the porter. “Did the lady give a name?”

  “Mrs. Brown, miss.” Corton clearly believed it to be an alias. “She ordered tea, which I made sure to send up to her. I hope I done what you would have wanted, miss.”

  Miss Tolerance assured him that he had anticipated her wishes admirably. “The first withdrawing room, Corton? Thank you.”

  As she climbed the stairs to meet Lady Brereton she organized her thoughts. What good news had she to give? There was no evidence from anyone that Evadne Thorpe even had an admirer, let alone one who could have enticed her to elope, which only made finding the girl the harder. How could an inexperienced girl of sixteen have vanished so completely?

  She entered the little room and greeted her guest. After an exchange of curtsies Miss Tolerance would have begun to explain where the case stood, but her sister-at-law advanced across the room with a paper in her hand.

  “You will forgive that I came, I know, when I tell you that this was delivered this morning.” Lady Brereton’s voice throbbed with a little forgivable melodrama.

  Miss Tolerance took the paper and unfolded it. The note was writ in a loopy schoolgirl hand, rather rushed and careless:

  Clarissa—

  I am well, but do not wish to see you. Please do not look for me. I have friends who are seeing to my welfare. I send you my dearest love, but beg you not to look for me!

  Evie

  Miss Tolerance read the note twice. “This is her hand?”

  Lady Brereton nodded. The girl was alive. That was a relief.

  “Ma’am, what do you make of it?”

  Lady Brereton’s face was pinched. “What am I to make of it?” she asked. “‘Tis such a strange letter.”

  “Strange in what way, ma’am?”

  Lady Brereton opened the note. “She does not want us to look for her. She said so twice.”

  “Is that what strikes you as odd, ma’am?” It was possible that Evadne Thorpe was not, as her sister and Miss Tolerance had both imagined her, regretting her elopement. That despite the opinion of the household, the girl had plotted her own disappearance. But how, Miss Tolerance wondered, would the girl have known that there was a search for her unless the investigation had come closer than she herself had surmised?

  “She called me Clarissa,” Lady Brereton added. “She never does that. When she was a baby she called me Clary, and that has always been her name for me.”

  “Could it be that she is attempting to put herself on a more adult footing, now she is—” How on earth to finish that thought with any sort of tact? “Now that she is a woman grown?”

  “Then would she not sign herself Evadne?” It was a reasonable question.

  Miss Tolerance examined the note again. “You are certain the writing is hers?”

  Lady Brereton nodded. “Yes. Although it looks hurried.”

  “Or forced?” Lady Brereton thought, then nodded. “That suggests that the persons who are so careful of her welfare do not intend that she should quit them any time soon. So, Lady Brereton, it appears on the one hand that your sister is alive, which is a very good thing. It appears, upon the other, that she may be held against her will, which is not good at all. Will you take some tea?”

  Chapter Ten

  Miss Tolerance filled her sister-at-law’s dish with tea and pushed a plate of ginger biscuits—a specialty of Tarsio’s kitchen—toward her. “How did you come to receive this note, ma’am?”

  “It was brought to my father’s house.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but by whom?”

  “Oh, just a little boy. The sort of child you might see on any corner. I gave him a sixpence, which he seemed glad of—”

  “What did the boy look like?”

  Lady Brereton blushed. “I hardly looked at him. I asked his name, and told him he was a good boy, and gave him sixp—”

  Miss Tolerance controlled an impulse to shake the woman. “You asked his name? What is it?”

  “Would that help? Martin, he said.”

  The name stirred Miss Tolerance’s memory. “He was young, you say? Ten?” Lady Brereton shook her head. “Eight? Six?”

  “He was small—perhaps six or seven years. His hair was dark, he was grubby but not—not filthy.” To her credit Lady Brereton was clearly trying to recall the boy’s looks. Miss Tolerance sighed. How often in a day did one really note the faces of servants or climbing boys or street-sweeps?

  “That note had to travel from your sister’s hand to your own. If we can trace it back to her—”

  Lady Brereton paled. “I should have asked. I ought to have looked more carefully.” She put her tea cup down with a rattle. “It never occurred to me.”

  “Of course not.” Miss Tolerance was bracing. “You are not accustomed to deal with such drama, nor should you be. It is my daily meat, and I know how to use what you have told me. This is good news, Lady Brereton, I promise it.” She found she had taken the other woman’s hand in her own and pressed it reassuringly. “To be frank, I have had less success in tracing her than I had hoped. This gives me a new avenue to investigate, and new hope as well.”

  Lady Brereton nodded. Miss Tolerance was relieved to see that the tears which had been imminent were gone.

  “Now, I hope you will forgive me if I do not linger. I am eager to be about your business. If you would care to stay for a few minutes?”

  “You are very kind, Miss Tolerance.” Lady Brereton took up her cup. “I think I will finish my tea.”

  Miss Tolerance rose and curtsied. “Please stay as long as you wish, ma’am. I hope to have good news for you soon.” She turned to leave.

  “Miss Tolerance?” Lady Brereton was frowning thoughtfully. “I do not know why you—who you once were, but I wish I had known you then. I very much admire you.”

  Miss Tolerance was moved, enough so to be momentarily tempted to reveal to her client their close relation. But she had given her word to her brother. Finding out that they were sisters-at-law might at once damage Adam’s bond with his wife, and Miss Tolerance’s own with her client. “You do me too much honor,” she said. “I shall let you know when I have any news.” She curtsied and was gone.

  Again Miss Tolerance returned to the corner of Jermyn and Duke of York Streets. There was only one boy on duty at the corner, his broom tucked under his arm as he dug the toe of his boot into the join between two flags, trying to prise the stone up. This casual pose was misleading: Miss Tolerance saw that the boy’s eyes were fixed firmly on Lord Lyne’s front door. She stopped beside him and pretended to button her glove.

  “Have you been here all day?” she asked.

  The boy looked up at her in surprise. Between his focus on the house and the absorbing destructive work he was attempting with the flagstones, he had not sensed her there. “All day, missus.”

  “Very good. Did you see a boy—a little boy—go in today?”

  “Smaller than me? I seen ‘im. Looked a right figger, ‘e did. Went in to the kitchen door—”

  “Was there anyone with him?” Miss Tolerance knew the word figger had some criminal connotation but could not recall just what it was.

  “When ‘e went in? Nah, ‘e gone and rapped at the door—I’ll tell ye, might ‘a bowled me down when they let ‘im in. I wonner if they give ‘im sommat to eat? So ‘e stayed for mi’ be ‘alf a hour, then come off wiv the ol’ woman—”

  “Wait. There was a woman with him?”

 
; “Din’t I say?”

  Miss Tolerance’s control was admirable. “No, you forgot that part.”

  “Yeah, ol’ fly-by-night wiv a face like Friday. She came wiv ‘im, gave ‘im a paper to take in, then ‘e rapped and they took ‘im in, and she waited there—” he pointed to a spot perhaps twenty feet from where they were standing; just across from Lyne’s house.

  “And can you describe the boy and the woman for me?”

  The boy nodded. “‘E was little, brown ‘air, ‘ad a nasty face ‘til ‘e knocked on the door, then ‘e went all wheedlin’. She—‘e called ‘er Granny. Big ol’ woman wiv gray ‘air, maybe your ‘ight, missus. All frowns ‘til the boy come out to ‘er. Then she put on a face like one ‘o them you see in the park wiv the rich babbies, and off they went.”

  Miss Tolerance nodded. A tall, heavy woman with gray hair and the ability to put on a motherly face. It appeared that Mrs. Harris of Bermondsey and her grandson had reentered the picture in a most unexpected way.

  The bootmaker’s on the ground floor of Mrs. Harris’s building in Marigold Street was closed; a sign at the door read Gone to dinner. Taking advantage of the cobbler’s absence, two elderly pensioners, almost insensible with drink, sat in the doorway to the upper stories. Miss Tolerance begged their pardon and stepped past them, sending both old men into paroxysms of laughter. The smell of stale beer rose off them to follow her into the hall. One of the doors on the ground floor was open, and another on the first floor, which provided a sullen glow of light as Miss Tolerance approached Mrs. Harris’s door.

  Her first knock drew no response from within. She knocked again, waited, and was about to knock once more when she heard a low groan from within. This moved her to push urgently on the door, which yielded at once. In Miss Tolerance’s experience doors which opened too easily were cause for caution. She paused to take the pistol from her reticule, then proceeded, quite prepared to find bodies on the floor.

  They were not on the floor. Mrs. Harris and her grandson were slumped together on the sofa. Miss Tolerance’s first thought was that some violence had come to them—it would not be the first time in her experience that she had arrived to find a witness hurt or dead. A moment’s examination, however, revealed that Mrs. Harris was merely drunk, profoundly so. Her grandson appeared to be in the same condition. Three square bottles of blue glass stood on the floor, two of them empty, the third, just out of Mrs. Harris’s lax reach, with little more than an inch of gin left in it. If the two of them had been in Duke of York Street no more than three hours before, they had been mighty efficient in pursuit of oblivion.

  Miss Tolerance returned the pistol to her reticule, stepped round the end of the sofa, and bent to deliver the old woman a sharp slap. Mrs. Harris moaned, low, and slumped a little farther over her grandson. The woman’s cap was half-untied, and had slipped down to cover the side of her face. Her pink scalp shone dully through thinning hair. Miss Tolerance struck the woman again.

  “Whozza?” Mrs. Harris opened a gummy eye. “Whoz?”

  “Mrs. Harris?”

  The woman mumbled a string of half-comprehensible oaths and plumped at her grandson as if he were a feather pillow, trying to make him conform to her body’s shape. The boy snorted and stayed asleep.

  “Mrs. Harris, I need a word with you.”

  This time the woman struck out blindly. Miss Tolerance caught the flailing arm with one hand; with the other she slapped Mrs. Harris once more.

  “Damn your eyes! What business you got a-hittin’ me?” The woman sat upright and glared at Miss Tolerance. The effect of her outrage was spoiled by the cap, which slid down completely to cup the lower half of her face like a drooping mask. Mrs. Harris swiped at the fabric, squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again as if doing so might change what she was viewing. Then she scowled. “Whot you want?”

  “You may not recall me, ma’am—”

  Mrs. Harris leaned forward, peering. “I ain’t that jug-bit. I know you. You’re that—” she faltered, belched foully, and sat back as if puzzled. “Who are you? If you’re here on b-business, I ain’t open for—”

  No, Miss Tolerance thought. You most certainly are not.

  “We have met before, ma’am. My name is Sarah Tolerance—”

  Comprehension lit dimly in Mrs. Harris’s rheumy eyes. “Oh. Miss Wozzit. If you go knockin’ people up in the middle of the night it ain’t no wonder you din’t need my services.” She belched again. “No man in ‘is right mind’d ‘ave you.”

  “It is not quite three in the afternoon. You and your grandson delivered a note in the Duke of York Street this morning,” Miss Tolerance said. “Where did that note come from?”

  An expression of startlement and anxiety crossed Mrs. Harris’s face, immediately erased by a look of studied stupidity.

  “Duke of York Street? Never bin there in all my life, nor ‘ave Martin.” She nudged the unconscious child as if he might corroborate the story. “Lookin’ up the wrong skirt, you are.” Mrs. Harris untied her dangling cap and used a corner of the muslin to scrub at the gummy corners of her eyes.

  Miss Tolerance was not distracted. “I have several witnesses. You brought the boy, gave him the note, and sent him to the kitchen door. Your grandson was admitted to the house and brought up to Lady Brereton, gave her the note, and was given a coin for his trouble. He then returned to you and you left—apparently for the nearest gin shop.”

  “Martin ‘as a cold, poor lamb.” The old woman crumpled the besmirched cap in one hand and regarded her grandson with a parody of maternal fondness. “Gin’s good for what ails ‘im.”

  “I do not think insensibility is a specific for head colds,” Miss Tolerance said. “Mrs. Harris, I do not care where you went afterward, or what you did with the money you received. But I must have the direction of the person who gave you the note.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” The older woman’s eyes narrowed, but there was apprehension, too, in her demeanor.

  “One of my friends is a magistrate.” Miss Tolerance was bland. “I am sure he would be interested to know—”

  “No call for magistrates, Miss Wozzit!” Mrs. Harris waved the cap in her hand and smiled. It was a smile meant to ingratiate, but failed in its object. “Beside, what would you say to your magistrate-beau? ‘Ere’s Mrs. Harris, who let ‘er little grandson earn a penny bringing a note to a lady—”

  “Sixpence,” Miss Tolerance said.

  Mrs. Harris frowned. “Little bastard tol’ me ‘e’d got a penny. Well, that’s for later. But there’s nothing ‘gainst the law in that.”

  The time had come for a show of force. “Mrs. Harris, the man who gave you that note is holding a gently-reared girl against her will. I do think my friend the magistrate will be interested to know you are in league with a kidnapper—”

  “I never did.” Mrs. Harris’s voice climbed in pitch. “I ‘elp young ladies, that’s my work. I don’t ‘arm ‘em. As for the magistrate, I tol’ you there’s no call for that. Can’t we ‘ave this out civil-like? You ask your questions and I shall answer ‘em.” Mrs. Harris attempted to establish anew her professional dignity and maternal authority. “Ask your questions,” she repeated.

  “Very well. Was the note given to Martin or to you?”

  Mrs. Harris’s lip twitched, then she shrugged and said, “To me.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, this morning. Martin and me was in Throgmorton Street early; there’s a ‘pothecary there I do some business with. Man come up to me and asked if my boy could deliver a note for ‘im. Offered me a coupla bob for the service. ‘Ow was I to know there was any ‘arm in it?”

  “This was not a man known to you?”

  “Never seen ‘im before.”

  “Then why would he approach you?”

  The old woman counterfeited careful thought. “Because I ‘ad the boy with me, I spose.”

  “Where were you when the man approached you?”

  “I tol’ you: Throgmorton Street.�
��

  “In the street? In the apothecary’s shop?”

  “In the ‘pothecary’s.”

  “And the name of the shop?”

  “Jos. Halford and Son It’s the son runs the place now.” Mrs. Harris was comfortably on familiar ground.

  “Can you describe the man who gave you the note?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. Medium sort o’ fellow, banty-legged, short. Brown ‘air, brown coat. Nothin’ remarkable about ‘im at all.”

  Of course not. “Perhaps the apothecary would recognize him.”

  Mrs. Harris was cagy. “I don’ think so,” she said at last. “Prob’ly not. It was mighty busy.”

  Miss Tolerance suspected that the abortionist was not considering the truth so much as weighing what was her most believable lie. “Well,” she said briskly. “I will have to talk to this apothecary. I must find this girl, and the note—and the man who gave it you—are my best links to her.”

  The older woman muttered something.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “Why d’you even care? Not like she’s your sister or your daughter. Nor, for all the gentry talk of ruin and fate-worse’n-death, ain’t so bad like to ‘appen to ‘er that ain’t ‘appened to a ‘undred before.”

  “I cannot rescue that hundred, ma’am, but I do intend to rescue this one. And I gave my reason when we first met, Mrs. Harris. I have been hired to find her.”

  “Money.” Mrs. Harris nodded sloppily. “That’s the thing, ain’t it. They’d as well to keep their sil’er, though. Do they think she’ll be returned to them in the same condition she left?”

  Miss Tolerance felt a cold prickle of dismay. “You know something of her condition, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Harris was still very drunk, and the gin seemed to have renewed its pull upon her. She shrugged. “Stands to reason they’d ‘ave ‘ad the use of ‘er. Nor kidnappers ‘d ‘ave reason to treat her gentle. She’ll go ‘ome knowin’ a few new tricks. Mayhap her family will think better of bringing ‘er ‘ome.”