Death by Silver

by Melissa Scott

  Her eyebrows rose. “Not likely. What ever would you want that for?”

  “It seemed as if it might be useful. There was an article in one of the papers the other day about household metaphysics.” There had been, too, although he’d only skimmed it long enough to note that nearly all the uses it proposed for metaphysics in the home were imaginative at best and hazardous at worst. If householders really took to attempting to clean their chimneys by enchantment, there would be considerably more work for the fire department.

  “I’ve heard that some gentlemen who keep extensive staffs find it useful to have a butler or a housekeeper with some knowledge of household enchantments,” Mrs Vickers conceded, although her tone made it clear that she’d assessed his finances and stage in life and didn’t consider him possibly in the market for such a thing. “That’s above what we generally handle here, though.” She regarded him with considerable skepticism. “If that’s what you’re looking for, I might have the name of an agency…”

  “That wouldn’t be the sort of thing a housemaid would know, though?”

  Mrs Vickers shook her head. “Whatever good would it do them? Ladies and gentlemen don’t want their girls messing about with enchantments in their house, Mr Mathey. A girl who can sweep a floor properly doesn’t need hocus, and a girl who breaks things and tries to cover it up with magic would be found out and given the sack soon enough. I’ve had one or two through here that claimed some knowledge of that kind, but I told them soon enough it wouldn’t do them any good, any more than being able to play the piano, and I’ve heard them claim that, too, as if it were a useful skill. Ladies don’t want that sort of thing from a housemaid, Mr Mathey; they want a girl who knows her work and knows her place.”

  “The girls who claimed they knew something of metaphysics. Did any of them come by recently?”

  “No, the last was a year ago at least. I do recommend that you send Mrs Mathey to see us,” she said. “I think you’ll find she’ll be clearer in her mind about what’s needed, her being the one who’ll have the running of the house.”

  He made his way back to the Commons feeling footsore and discouraged. It hadn’t helped to describe Sarah at any of the registry offices he’d visited, as the city was apparently full of slight fair girls seeking work as maidservants. He couldn’t find anyone who remembered Sarah Doyle, but if she’d presented herself under a false name, he might have just missed her anywhere he’d been.

  He hadn’t had any better luck at MABYS, which had been full of bustling and rather intimidating young women. He’d told a slightly more truthful story there, saying that he’d seen the girl turned off unfairly for breaking a dish at dinner when he’d seen plainly that the accident wasn’t her fault, and that he wanted to offer her a position to make up for it.

  That combined with introducing himself as a metaphysician had apparently persuaded the ladies of MABYS that he was a perfect target for their appeals, and he’d left with his case stuffed full of pamphlets on the scandalous condition of young women in domestic service, having promised to send them a donation as soon as he could consult his own ledgers to see what sum he could manage. They hadn’t heard any word of Sarah Doyle, though, although they did write down a list of local charities where she might have presented herself in search of a meal, a bed, or other humble necessities.

  “You look like you’ve been through the wars,” Miss Frost said when he returned to his office.

  “I’m afraid I’ve learned very little,” he said. “And I seem to have promised MABYS a contribution.”

  “They’re very good at twisting arms for subscriptions. They can smell fear.”

  He shook his head, dropping down heavily into a chair. “How does anyone ever hire household staff without some kind of disaster ensuing?”

  “They know what they’re doing?”

  “Point taken,” Ned said ruefully. “But it’s not as if there are instructional classes for men on how to keep up a house.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Miss Frost said. “I’m sure your future wife will take charge of all that.”

  “Assuming I didn’t wait for one?”

  “What would you need a house for, in that case? I’d be boarding somewhere myself, if it wouldn’t make my mother cry. Two rooms of your very own, and no cares in the world except the bill at the end of the month.” She looked wistful.

  It was true that he didn’t need a house of his own, and couldn’t afford one at the moment anyway, but he didn’t actually look forward to spending his life in lodgings. If he were to share a house, though, with someone congenial, surely managing the servants wouldn’t be an insurmountable obstacle.

  The vision of domestic tranquility threatened to resolve into a more particular improbable fantasy, one involving banning patent egg-cookers from the breakfast table, at least unless he was certain they wouldn’t decorate the ceiling with eggshell. He cut off any further thoughts in that direction as unwise to even consider.

  There was a knock at the door, and Bob opened it, his face flushed and his manner visibly excited. “I got an address, Mr Mathey. The cook at the mission said she thought Bill Doyle had gone into service as a footman, but one of the kitchen-maids said he’d left his place and was working as a waiter at Harley’s oyster-house, and that she knew because he’d come round and told her. And then the cook was going to have a row with her because she thought that…well, that the kitchen-maid was sweet on him, you know, and doing what she shouldn’t be, but I asked where Harley’s was, and she told me the street before the cook threw me out.” It was nearly all in one breath.

  “Well done,” Ned said sincerely, and pressed a shilling into the boy’s hand. “I’ll go round and see if I can speak to him.”

  “I already went, Mr Mathey, and asked where Bill the waiter lived, and said I had a letter for him from his dying grandmother as had to be put into his own hands,” the boy said. “And they told me where he lived, and I went there and knocked on the door of the room – there’s no one at the door there, not even a boy – and a girl answered, and I asked her if Bill Doyle lived there, and she said yes, and I said did he want his scissors repaired, and she said they didn’t have any scissors, so I went away again.”

  It took Ned a moment to take that all in. “A fair girl, not tall, maybe sixteen?”

  “She was,” the boy said, sounding immensely pleased with himself.

  “Why scissors?”

  “There was a story in the paper about men who come around asking to fix your scissors, only if you let them, they’ll put a curse on them so that they won’t open, and then charge you to take it off. And I couldn’t be selling matches or something, could I, without any matches to sell.”

  “Well done, again,” Ned said, and handed over another sixpence.

  “I’m not at all sure Miss Doyle is going to be very glad to see you,” Miss Frost said as Bob went out.

  “I’m certain that she won’t be,” Ned said, and hoped that he could persuade her that he had her best interests at heart.

  There was not enough coffee in the world to erase the taste of the previous night’s dreams. Julian barricaded himself behind the newspapers while Mrs Digby cleared the breakfast dishes, trying to ignore her complaints, and wished he’d had the sense to indulge in an enchantment instead of the second brandy. His sleep still wouldn’t have brought real rest, cancelled out by the energy expended to write the enchantment, but at least there wouldn’t have been dreams of school. And Ned.

  “And I do not expect to be nipped at by a plant – a plant that is growing in the sofa cushions, mind you! That’s exactly why I don’t allow dogs in my house, and if my girl gives notice because of it, I’ll put the blame entirely on you, Mr Lynes.”

  Julian lowered the paper at that. Ned would simply smile and apologize and somehow all would be forgiven, but Julian had never had the knack of that. He said, “I’ve dealt with the plant, Mrs Digby. It’s Urtica mordax, biting nettle, and if you and Mina stay out of its reach,
it won’t bother you.”

  She set the plates down with a clatter, put her hands on her hips “Mr Lynes. I do not permit pets in my house, particularly biting ones. I believe I made that very clear.”

  “It’s not a pet,” Julian said. “And it’s essentially harmless. The bite may sting a bit, but it can’t do you any real damage.”

  “I’ll not have it,” Mrs Digby said.

  Julian scowled. “It is a plant, Mrs Digby. It is a largely immobile species, and I have confined it to a glass, where I intend for it to stay. It eats flies and other vermin.”

  “Are you saying that my house is dirty?” Mrs Digby’s voice rose again.

  “Every house in London has flies,” Julian said. He paused, remembering Ned’s suggestion to compliment her now and then. “Yours is better than most.”

  Her eyebrows rose at that, though he couldn’t be entirely sure of her reaction.

  “In fact, when it’s larger, you might find a cutting useful in the kitchen,” he added, and to his surprise, she laughed.

  “And risk being bitten every time I walk past it? If I wanted that, Mr Lynes, I’d keep a cat.” She picked up the plates again. “Do you give me your word it isn’t going to go wandering around the house?”

  “I do, Mrs Digby.”

  “Very well. But if it bites anyone, out it goes.” With that parting shot, she sailed from the room. Embarrassingly, Julian felt better for the quarrel, and turned his attention to the agony column.

  He had no appointments scheduled for the day, and it was probably time he spent the day at home where potential clients could find him. He should also work out Albert’s bill and send that on its way, a necessary but vaguely unpleasant part of the business. In the meantime, there were the papers to finish.

  The knock at the door startled him out of his working-out of a slightly more complex cipher, and he looked up with a frown.

  “A person to see you, Mr Lynes,” Mrs Digby said.

  That meant a client, albeit a disreputable one, and Julian folded the paper hastily away. “Come in.”

  The door opened to admit a woman in rusty black, the bodice hastily dip-dyed to match the plain black skirt. Her gloves were black as well, and her black bonnet trailed a handful of equally black ribbons. Loss of a husband or parent, Julian thought, automatically, and realized that her face was familiar. She was the woman he’d seen at Murtaugh’s workshop, and he couldn’t help frowning in surprise.

  She stiffened slightly, and reached into her battered purse. “My name is Makins, Mr Lynes, Mrs Annie Makins. I’ve a letter of introduction from Mr Bolster.”

  Julian took the crumpled slip of paper, and gestured with his free hand to the client’s chair. “Please, do sit down, Mrs Makins.”

  She settled herself, gathering her skirts carefully around her, and Julian unfolded the note. On a quarter sheet, probably torn from the bottom of a bill, with a badly mended pen, Bolster had scrawled, Mrs Makins is a friend, and her husband was a colleague. Please give her the benefit of your advice. It was signed with his familiar complex monogram, and Julian set the note aside. “How may I help you, Mrs Makins?”

  “It’s my husband,” she said. “Joe. He dropped dead Sunday night and the doctor called it apoplexy, but I know that’s not right.”

  Julian hesitated. Several questions hovered on the tip of his tongue; he settled for the most innocuous. “Why did you come to me? You work for Mr Murtaugh – I wouldn’t have thought that would be a recommendation.”

  She met his gaze squarely. “You have a reputation, Mr Lynes, even Mick Murtaugh knows you. And Bolster says I can trust you.”

  “And what makes you think that your husband’s death wasn’t apoplexy?” He couldn’t think of any way to phrase the question that wouldn’t cause pain; better to be clear.

  “Two things.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “First, he was a remarkably healthy man. Never sick a day in his life, and he didn’t drink more than his due or smoke more than a pipe a day, and he never touched any of those paper drugs. That’s not the sort of man who drops dead on his own back doorstep. Second, he – he was a cracksman, Mr Lynes, same as Bolster, and he’d done a job that went sour somehow, that he was worried about.”

  “And you think someone involved with this job might have killed him?” Julian asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs Makins said. “I found him, you see, crumpled up at our back door like he’d been knocked over the head. Cold he was by then, and stiff…” She shook herself. “But I know what a broken skull feels like, and his was whole. There wasn’t a mark on him, Mr Lynes. But I don’t believe it was an apoplexy.”

  “What did you say to the police?” Julian asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

  She gave a fleeting grin. “What do you think? I told them he’d gone out for a pint and a smoke, and I hadn’t expected him back until late. But when I went out to the yard, there he was.”

  “Was it the police surgeon who called it apoplexy?”

  Mrs Makins nodded. “And who am I to argue with him? I couldn’t exactly tell him why.”

  “No,” Julian agreed. “Tell me about this job.”

  “I don’t know much,” she said. “Just that he was hired to crack a gentleman’s crib – the man who hired him wanted one particular thing, said Joe could keep anything else he could carry. Joe thought it sounded like a fair enough deal, but…” She shrugged. “Something didn’t go right, that’s all I know. Oh, he got the stuff, and fenced it easy, but – he wasn’t happy about it. And he wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “Did he usually confide in you?” Julian asked.

  “Some,” she said. “Not everything, of course, and I didn’t want to know everything. But I’d’ve expected him to tell me this.”

  “Did he say why he wouldn’t tell you?”

  She looked away. “He said there wasn’t anything wrong, and I should mind my own business.”

  “I see.” Julian laced his fingers together. It was always possible that she was mistaken, that there had been nothing wrong, and this was just grief and guilt at the loss of her husband, and there was the absence of any obvious injury to support that theory. Not that he particularly trusted the police surgeon, but Mrs Makins wouldn’t have missed anything. But there was something about her stance, the bleak anger lurking in her voice, that made him think she was probably right. And if she was – it was awkward, having to stand up against the police when Ned needed him to be conciliatory over the Nevett case. Of course, if he really wanted to break things off, this would be the perfect excuse… Except he didn’t want to. It was an inconvenient realization, and he was sure something showed on his face, because Mrs Makins’s chin lifted.

  “If you don’t want to take the job, Mr Lynes –”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I’m sorry, I was thinking how best to proceed. Forgive my bluntness, but – has the funeral been held?”

  She shook her head. “Not till Friday week. I get paid Saturday, and my brother’s promised to help with the rest.”

  Burial never came cheap. Julian nodded. “Where is the body?”

  Her mouth tightened, but she answered steadily enough. “At the cemetery. There’s a house there where they can keep the coffin until the burial. It’s sixpence a day, but we save the cost of bringing him from home. And Joe wouldn’t care. I doubt he’s been inside a church in ten years.” She rubbed her cheek. “I can swear there was no mark on him, Mr Lynes.”

  “I believe you,” Julian said. “No, my thought was to find out what did kill him, and specifically if there was enchantment involved, and to that end, I’d like to consult a colleague of mine. With your permission, of course.”

  “I can’t afford to double your fee,” she said. “Not on top of the funeral.”

  “Of course not,” Julian said. “Here’s what I propose. Mr Mathey and I will examine Mr Makins’s body, and see if we can find an unnatural cause of death, then I’ll report to you and we can determine the best course of acti
on. I won’t expect to proceed unless we find something that we can act on.”

  “And your fee for that?” she asked.

  “Five shillings.” It would be a sizable piece of her week’s pay, Julian knew, but it would only make her suspicious of his motives to charge her any less.

  “Two now, and the rest when you tell me what you’ve found.”

  Julian nodded. “Agreed.”

  Mrs Makins reached into her purse again, and came out with the coins. Julian took them, wrote out a receipt, and she tucked it away. He wrote down her address as well, though she reminded him that she’d be easier to find at Murtaugh’s, and saw her to the door.

  He returned to his desk and pulled out a sheet of notepaper, wondering exactly how he’d managed to fall back into his old habits with Ned. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know better – Albert was right, Ned had always been popular with the ladies of the University, and as soon as he got on a better footing financially, he was bound to be in search of a wife. And if he did marry – there was no reason they couldn’t continue to work together, at the least, though Julian was fairly sure that Ned would end their relations as soon as he found a suitable young lady. Surely Julian could content himself with Platonic friendship – Platonic in the modern rather than the classical sense, and therein lay the problem. He wanted the entire banquet, not the crumbs of sexless friendship, especially when he would know all too well what he was missing. The entire thing was folly, and he should know better. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he dipped his pen and wrote. My dear Mathey, I have a new job for us…

  Another pageboy arrived with a handful of letters hard on the heels of Bob’s departure, damp from the first drops of what looked to become a steady rain. Miss Frost rifled through them quickly and handed over one of the letters as Ned gathered up his hat and case. “Here’s one from Mr Lynes,” she said.

  Ned ripped it open quickly and drew the letter out. “There’s a corpse Mr Lynes wants me to look at,” he said.

  “Another one?”

  “A Mr Makins, cause of death unknown.”