A Lady in Disguise

by Sandra Byrd

  “I’m just back from burying my father—who, by the way, was very good to you,” I said, “to find my house turned upside down without permission.” I heard the stealthy breath of the servants gathering on the back stairs, listening.

  Roberts nodded. “I thought you were to return tomorrow and believed your servants would have gone with you, out of respect.”

  Caught in the act and admitting it.

  “Why are you here, and on your own, in plain clothes?” I felt, rather than saw, Mrs. W move closer behind me, protectively.

  “I’ve learnt, through another officer, that your father had been under suspicion and was the subject of an ongoing internal investigation in the force.”

  “Under suspicion of what? My father? A man of long-standing integrity within the Metropolitan Police! A man who always took the time to return a single dropped coin rather than pocket it!”

  “We’re not talking a single coin, miss. It’s been suspected that he was associating with and protecting criminal elements and profiting by it for giving protection from prosecution.”

  “Profiting by the protection of criminals?” My face flushed.

  He nodded. “That’s what’s been discussed by higher-ups, that he’s been protecting the criminal elite and their investments and colleagues as well as their, ah, feminine entertainments. Perhaps”—he looked downward—“sharing in those benefits.”

  From behind me, Mrs. W drew a sharp breath and I steadied myself by placing my hand on the mantelpiece nearby. The lamp sputtered.

  “Involvement with unsavory women?” I could not bring myself to say the word prostitutes. No lady would use the word.

  He nodded. “Unsavory and illegal situations all round, which is why I’m here. To look for evidence of any kind that might indict those participating with him. To discover who else might have been involved with him in covering up and facilitating crimes. I do not know how he was involved. But because of his odd behavior, because of whispers from police officers of long standing, I know that he was.”

  “Perhaps it was he who was investigating other wrongdoers,” I offered hopefully.

  “Perhaps,” Roberts admitted, pulling himself straight, no longer shy about being caught in my house. “In which case, such evidence would clear him. But your father always—always—documented every suspicion, every contact, every bit of potential evidence for every case and investigation. I can find no such documents in our shared files, although I will continue to look. He was hiding something or not documenting it. Neither indicates anything good.”

  “You come alone with this ludicrous charge, you of all people, who should know his character, and are perfectly content to despoil my home.”

  His face grew sour. “And a very nice home it is, miss, if I may say so. Well beyond the reach of our officers. I don’t think the superintendent himself lives so grandly.”

  My home was very lovely for our station in life. Doubt niggled.

  “I wonder where he came by the money to buy such a grand place? Perhaps your toff grandfather gave it to him,” Roberts suggested.

  “Never!” Grandfather would not give my parents so much as a pound as a marriage settlement: marry beneath you and live with it, he’d said. Then I realized I had just added to Roberts’s suspicions by doing away with a potentially reasonable explanation.

  “My mother worked as an actress, and had some savings. When I became old enough, I contributed, too.” Had Mamma’s money been used to buy the townhouse? I didn’t know. I would send a note to Mr. Pilchuck, Papa’s solicitor, on the morrow, to ask him to clarify as he continued to sort through Papa’s accounts.

  Roberts looked skeptical. “I suppose that might have been enough.”

  “Do the other policemen know about these accusations?”

  He nodded. “Some do. Inspector Collingsworth has commanded that the suspicions remain contained, he said, to protect your father’s reputation if they proved untrue. People are careful not to wrongly accuse, but many believe it.”

  “Hence my father’s ill-attended funeral.” Shame burned at this new realization. “Do you believe my father was innocent?”

  He kept his face impassive. “I hope so. But if not, and others were involved, I have a duty to investigate, not only because it involves criminal behavior, but because there are some”—he looked down again—“who are vulnerable and need protection.” Roberts placed his hands, clasped, in front of him. “Did your father have a special place he kept confidential information?”

  Now I kept my face impassive. Of course he did. I said nothing. “Do you have a warrant?”

  He shook his head. “No one knows I am here. It’s imperative that I find whatever notes he may have taken, miss, and deal with it as I see best. For your sake. For my sake. For the sake of others still involved.”

  I blinked and tried to absorb this new information.

  “There is something they want, incriminating information of some kind, and they’re not going to stop till they find it or believe it does not exist.” Roberts looked terribly distressed for an experienced police officer. “I’ve been questioned,” he continued, pacing now. “Repeatedly.”

  “Questioned by whom? And who are ‘they’?”

  He hesitated. I could tell he did not trust me. “The criminals.”

  “Members of the elite, ransacking my home? The only one ransacking my home, Sergeant Roberts, is a police officer.”

  He nodded knowingly and stared meaningfully into my eyes at those last words. “Yes. A police officer.” His face flushed now, and his eyes grew brittle. “Your father was involved with some of them and they’ll be as interested, or more, as I am, in acquiring any notes or evidence they may feel could expose them.”

  For all I knew, he himself was involved with the very evil men he spoke of—and sought to gather any evidence my father may have kept that mentioned him!

  “Do you realize what sort of people we’re dealing with here? They’ll stop at nothing. Little people like us—you and me, Miss Young—are nothing for them to push aside . . . or push in front of a cart.”

  I gasped. “Are you saying Papa was murdered? That the runaway cart was no accident?”

  Roberts looked down, his hands now in his pockets, his voice cool. “I said nothing, miss; in fact, if anyone asks me, I was only here to offer my condolences and see if you might need anything. If anyone asks you, I suggest you respond likewise. I’m likely to be followed from now on.”

  Mrs. W cleared her throat and we both turned to look at her. “I must speak up. What Sergeant Roberts is not telling you is that he came by yesterday evening, and I asked him to return for his search after the interment. He agreed to my request.” She looked sharply at Roberts.

  I turned back to the man and tilted my head.

  “I couldn’t take the risk that anything important would be hidden or destroyed,” he answered simply.

  “You’ve already committed a lie of omission. Why should I believe anything you say? Did you come earlier in the week? My man said the lock had been scratched during the funeral.”

  “I was among the few at your father’s funeral, as you well know.”

  “I shall speak to Inspector Collingsworth of your irregular visit. He will see me immediately, I know.” The house contracted in the cold, moaning and creaking as it did.

  Roberts looked distinctly uncomfortable, as well he might. “Be very careful.”

  “Of Collingsworth?”

  He shrugged. My head tingled. “You may leave, now, Sergeant Roberts.”

  “I have said I have not finished searching.”

  “I beg to differ.” I walked toward the door, indicating that he should walk in that direction, too.

  “I’ll send for a locksmith to visit you this very night. I had no trouble with the lock,” he said. “Nor will anyone else.”

  I looked at my dark hallway, door wide open, the cold wind gobbling up the warmth of the house. “Who else would want to break in?” My voice hushe
d to a whisper.

  “There are evil people in this world,” Roberts answered. “They don’t always present themselves as such.”

  Maybe that was an unintended confession.

  I kept my cares from my face, showed him the door, and true to his word, within an hour a locksmith came by to replace the broken lock. He handed two keys to me.

  “Are these the only keys?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” came the reply. As he left, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to deliver an additional key to Roberts. I would have it replaced again, and soon.

  After sending Louisa to bed for the evening I sat in the drawing room with a late-night cup of tea, now gone cold, and Mrs. W.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t mention his request,” she said. “I did not want to further upset you before the burial and had meant to tell you this evening, once home, so you might prepare.”

  “You don’t believe him, do you?” I heard the plea for reassurance in my voice and hated it, but truth outs nonetheless.

  She smiled gently. “Perhaps you should have a look around?”

  I held my breath for a moment before exhaling. My head hurt from clenching my jaw. “I might find something that will clear him. That would be for the best.”

  She nodded, but her expression was dubious.

  I sighed. “I suppose there is the possibility that he truly was working with bad people, that I did not know him as I thought I did.”

  That must be wrong. I desperately wished it to be.

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. W replied. Her lack of reassurance and terse replies breathed new life into the ashes of the night’s anxieties.

  She drained her cup and, with a creak of her knees, stood up. “If you should discover anything upsetting, do you think you can withstand it?”

  The darkness deepened and settled round me. “I can. Mamma always said the truth would set us free.”

  She looked at me meaningfully. “Indeed. Good night, my dear.” Mrs. W headed toward the stairs and to the third floor and her bedroom. She turned and looked at me. “Will you begin your search tonight?”

  I nodded. “I must.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Perhaps my search would turn up nothing at all. I knew, though, that there must be a strong possibility. Roberts was young, but he surely understood that breaking into my house without cause would have severe repercussions if I decided to mention it to Inspector Collingsworth. Roberts had decided it was worth the risk.

  I stood, knees wobbling, drew a shawl around me, and gave thought to where I should begin.

  Like most policemen, my father had been cautious, maybe overly so. There were several secret cubbyholes in our home—the ones I knew of, anyway.

  I turned on the gas lamp in the library. It flickered and I grew faint with the lamp’s vapor or with the fear of what I might find, which of the two I knew not. I sat down on Papa’s chair; it groaned as I reached my hand under the desk, feeling for the drawer. Once I located its cold brass catch I opened it and ran my hands along the rough-hewn drawer. Empty. Either Papa had not placed anything in it, or someone—Roberts or whoever had been here, if anyone had, during the funeral—had already found whatever was there and stolen it away. As I withdrew my hand I smelt the scent of the peculiar and costly spruce oil Papa had used on this desk and this desk alone. It mingled with the scent of his pipe tobacco, the one indulgence he’d allowed himself.

  Behind me was a window, and the curtains, which had been kept closed, were now open. Had Roberts opened them? Was he, even now, peering through them to see if I might lead him to hiding spots? I steeled myself not to look toward it nor dash from the room in order to complete my task.

  I opened all of the rest of the drawers in Papa’s desk and found them empty. He used to keep his case files in there. Roberts was right: Papa had been a meticulous note taker and a man of unbreakable habits. Mamma had teased him about that because he’d only written her a few love letters in his life.

  “Don’t need to prove my love in court,” he’d answer gruffly, and she’d laugh to let him know she was teasing, and he’d smile and laugh with her.

  There was a scratching noise on the glass. It might have been branches, but I was too unnerved to walk toward the window and shut the curtains. Now that I had finished looking, I hurried from the room and pulled the door fast behind me.

  Once in the drawing room, I lifted down the small portrait of Papa’s mother, long since dead, and snapped off the false frame. There was another canvas behind it, but nothing was sandwiched between. I stood still for a moment but heard nothing but the rhythmic splatters of a dripping tap deep in the bowels of the house.

  I then proceeded to make my way to Papa’s large suite. He’d shared it with my mother when she’d been alive. I had not entered it since he died.

  I pushed the door open and then closed it behind me. ’Twas unlikely any in the household would disturb me but I wanted to be alone. Alone with my memories, alone with my grief, alone with whatever I might discover.

  The room still smelt of his shaving soap. The boar bristle brush rested in a silver holder on his bureau and I ran my hands over it, lovingly.

  • • •

  “What’s that, Papa?” I ran into the room as he was preparing his toilette.

  “My shaving gear, Gilly Girl,” he replied. “Do you have whiskers that need taking care of?”

  I giggled. “No, Papa. Girls don’t have whiskers.”

  “Let me see, now.” He took my chin in his big hand and pretended to examine it. Then he dusted the bristle brush against me.

  “It tickles!”

  “It does,” he said. “No whiskers. I know one who has whiskers, though.”

  “You, Papa. You!”

  He grinned at me and whisked his brush against the soap, releasing a spicy scent into the air.

  “I do, it’s true. And a certain rabbit, too.”

  “Yes! Do you have time to read to me before you leave?”

  Mamma was performing, and Papa would soon release me to the care of Mrs. W. But he always made time for a story.

  “That I do,” he said. “But first, you recite a bit of it for me whilst I shave.”

  • • •

  I used the back of my hand to wipe away my tears. I should only ever hear his voice in my head, and in my heart, henceforth. I ran my hand over his bristle brush once more; it tickled my hand. It would never be used again.

  Next to the brush was a small stack of books: Alice’s Adventures, then Little Women, which Mamma and I had read numerous times. The book was still rare in England, but an American actress friend had delivered a copy to Mamma as a gift. On top of the stack rested a copy of a Dickens novel Papa had said he’d meant to read; he was well read, too. I took the book in hand, as he had, wanting to touch something he had recently held. I flipped the book open, and as I did, something fluttered out.

  A punched train ticket, used from Hampshire to London, not three weeks earlier, two weeks before his death. The ticket may have been a simple bookmark. Or Papa may have left it there to be found.

  I tried to recall the day the ticket indicated. I remembered it because I had been repairing a torn gown for Lady Tolfee and consulting with her on new gowns for the forthcoming Season. Papa had put on his uniform, as always, and kissed me good-bye. He had said nothing of leaving town. It may have been an omission, or simply just not sharing the confidential nature of his work. Hampshire, however, did not fall under his jurisdiction and he did not like Winton Park, no doubt because he had been made to feel unwelcome. He’d often referred to it as Fortress Winton or “the castle from which he’d rescued the damsel in distress.” Mamma. I smiled.

  Across the room, in the panel of the big canopied bed, was the false cabinet that Papa had named the Rabbit-Hole after the one in Alice’s Adventures. It blended in perfectly, and there were pillows propped against it. He’d said not even another policeman would know to look for one there. It was a family secret. />
  I recited once more from memory, softly. “She had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

  “In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”

  Down the hole I must go.

  I reached my hand behind the bed and opened the cabinet’s latch.

  Once the door was open, I could see that there were, indeed, items within. I held my lamp closer to the cubbyhole.

  A calling card. A stack of letters. A photograph. That was all.

  I set the lamp nearby and began to examine each piece by the amber lamplight.

  I quickly glanced at the photograph, feeling its draw, her eyes compelling me to connect with her though I did not recognize her. My heart quickened and, instead, I picked up the card. It had no calling name or address engraved upon it. It was of fine quality, much dearer than we could have afforded. There was an address scribbled on it, King Street, not very far from the theater district.

  Perhaps this had been personal. If it had been case material, Papa most probably would have kept it with his case files at the division. Unless he felt someone there could not be trusted, or that his files had been compromised.

  I put the card down because I could no longer avoid the eyes that followed me. I picked up her picture, drew it close in the waning light. I felt a curious sympathy for the young woman whose likeness had been dipped in sepia and now appeared before me.

  She was beautiful. She was perhaps just shy of twenty, or maybe even younger. It was hard to tell, as she was all dressed up. No one of substance smiled in photographs. But this young woman smiled. What, or who, had made her so happy that she did not mind overlooking convention? Her clothing was well fitted, but the fabric was not of highest quality, nor was the stitching. I was well educated in such matters. She wore a pretty brooch. Why had she had this image taken?