by Karen Odden
Was Stephen here already? It was easy enough to imagine him sitting at the instrument, his elegant hands on the keys, his fine hair falling over his brow.
Then I realized that although the E was still flat, the B had been restored. Had Mr. Williams hired someone to tune the piano after all?
The scale stopped abruptly, and I heard a low grunt of annoyance. I shifted a black panel of curtain just enough to see that it was Jack Drummond’s head and shoulders under the propped-up piano lid.
I swallowed a groan. If Jack wasn’t careful, he could wreck the action or the pegs for good. I drew in my breath to stop him—
And then, with a wave of surprise—and something like shame—I saw that he knew exactly what he was doing. His left hand reached over the music rack to play the E again and again, while his right hand, which held some sort of instrument, moved inside the wooden cabinet.
He was completely engrossed in his work, and it altered his entire expression. Not that his face was ever hard, or cruel like his father’s; it was just shuttered, as if he’d learned early on to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. Now, his dark eyes were intent on the strings, and his black hair fell every which way. A smile quirked the side of his mouth when the note tuned true.
“There you go, you bugger,” he said under his breath, but in satisfaction rather than annoyance. He bent closer to the strings. Another minute of tuning, and he went back to the keyboard and played the octave. As he came back around the piano, I must have moved the curtain slightly, for he halted in midstep. “Who’s there?”
I stepped into the alcove, letting the curtains fall back in place, and spoke in my usual rasp: “It’s just me.”
“Oh, hullo.” He bent under the lid again, and his voice came out muffled: “You’re early.”
“And you’re tuning my piano.”
“As you said, it needed it.”
I watched as he made another minute adjustment to a peg. “I shouldn’t have assumed you didn’t know how to do it. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply.
“You should have corrected me,” I added, more sharply.
The rebuke made him look up, and our gazes caught and held. He rested an elbow on the rim, his expression thoughtful, even measuring. Then he gave a brief smile and a shrug. “Maybe. But ’twas no matter.” He turned back to what he was doing. “I didn’t take offense.”
I set my portfolio on the bench and began to unbutton my overcoat. He plucked one of the strings. “If you want me to finish, it’s going to be a while. The soundboard’s gone soft, and the rain’s made it worse.”
“That’s all right. There’s plenty of time. I came early to help the new violinist choose some music.”
“Mmm.” He went around to the keyboard and played the scale. The E was a little too high now, but I didn’t have to say so because he’d heard it, too. He frowned and ducked back under the lid.
We had our piano tuned regularly, but Mr. Kinsey was a fidgety man who had said he wouldn’t work with some chit hovering over his shoulder, so I’d never seen it done. Here was my chance. “Do you mind if I watch?” I asked tentatively.
“Course not.”
On the piano bench sat a dented wooden box of tools, open, so I could see inside. The device he was using was one of several he had that were about a foot long, with a pale wooden handle and a long metal piece, almost like a knitting needle, bent into an L at the top.
“Are those your tools?” I asked.
“My uncle’s.”
“And what’s that called?”
“Tightening wrench.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if tuning a piano required that he speak only two words at a time, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take being teased, so instead I asked, “Was it your uncle who taught you?”
“Yes.” He fished in the box for a tool that looked like a crochet hook. “He owns a shop over on Samson Lane.” He waved at the keyboard. “Play the C scale for me, would you?”
I went to the bench and ran my hand up the octave. The E was exactly right.
“Now the next octave.”
I did as he asked. The A seemed even flatter than before.
“Put down the damper pedal.” And then as an afterthought: “Please.”
I pushed it with my foot. “What for?”
He rummaged in the box and drew out some little spongelike wedges. “So I can place these. They separate the three strings. Makes it easier.”
I held down the pedal until he told me to let it up. Then I went round the side of the piano. He had tucked wedges in under two of the three strings. He picked up the tightening wrench and placed his left forefinger above the A key.
“I can do that,” I offered.
“All right. I’m going to keep turning, and you keep playing it, every few seconds.”
I went back to the keyboard.
It must have taken a dozen tiny movements of the wrench before he seemed satisfied.
I played it again. “But that’s too high.”
“I know. That’s how you set the pin. You turn it a little high and then release it. Remember I said the soundboard’s gone soft? So this is the best we can do. Now we have to do the other two.”
Bit by bit, I heard the A come to a true tone through all three strings.
Jack was remarkably patient. The whole process for that one note took nearly ten minutes. Eighty-eight keys on a piano. No wonder Mr. Kinsey charged a small fortune every time he came.
Finally, Jack nodded to me. “Try it now.”
I played a scale, then an arpeggio. “The upper notes are more responsive, too,” I remarked, surprised and pleased.
“I put some new felt in,” he said. “That won’t solve the sticking problem, but it’ll help.”
“Thank you.” I smiled up at him gratefully. “It’s much better.”
I played the opening measures of the prelude by Bach that I’d heard earlier. The right side of his mouth tipped into a smile as he settled the tuning instruments back in the box. I had a feeling he recognized the piece.
Midphrase, I stopped. “It was good of you to do this.”
“I would’ve earlier, but I’ve been busy this month.” He folded some bits of felt into neat squares. “I heard what you said once, about how playing flat keys was like having splinters under your fingernails.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, surprised that he remembered. I watched him put the felt away in a leather pocket. “Sometimes I even change the notes, so I can avoid the bad keys.”
His eyes were on the wire he was coiling. “I know. I’ve heard you.”
If he’d noticed that, he must have a good ear. “Do you play yourself?” I asked.
He shrugged and tucked the wire into a small envelope.
“Do you?” I pressed.
“I used to.”
“Who taught you? Your uncle?”
I was sitting on the bench, looking up at him, and I saw his expression change before he turned away to close up the box. His answer came over his shoulder. “My mum. My uncle François is her older brother. She played even better than he did, till she died.”
So his mother had played the piano, like mine. And he’d lost her. As the similarities struck me, I felt quite suddenly that I understood his reticence and the shuttered expression he often wore. “I’m so sorry. When was this?”
He wiped his hands with a rag. “Eleven years ago. I was ten.”
I felt a pinch of envy. “I wasn’t even a year when I lost mine. She was a pianist, too.”
His eyes showed a flicker of sympathy. “That must be hard, to have lost her so young.”
I gave the easy answer: “My brother feels it more than I do. He remembers her.”
He folded the rag into a careful square. “Who taught you how to play?”
“I had a tutor named Johann Moehler. He died last year.”
“Sure. I knew him.”
I started. “You did? That’s rather a coincidence.”
I rubbed absently at a scratch on the F-sharp, remembering. Strict and exacting, Mr. Moehler had never been demonstrative, but we’d been alike in our profound commitment to music, and when he passed, I’d lost not only my instructor but also my plan; everything had changed afterward.
“He was a good teacher,” I said at last.
“Obviously. You play very well.”
I couldn’t help a wry smile at that. “Not that the audience here appreciates it, necessarily.”
He gave an answering grin.
Impulsively I said, “Jack?”
“Hmm?”
I wanted to ask if he knew where I might find Sebastian. I remembered, like a scene glimpsed in passing, Sebastian and Jack talking companionably together after a show. It wasn’t surprising that they’d be friends; they were nearly the same age, and, though they were both somewhat reticent, they carried themselves with the same air of confidence—a confidence that I sensed derived at least in part from being physically able to meet the challenges of their daily life. But as I thought of Marceline in the hospital, some instinct held me back.
Hurriedly, I groped for a different question. All I could come up with was the one I had tried to ask Mr. Williams the night before: “Who is Mr. Ace?”
Jack looked puzzled.
“Mr. Williams said he was the reason the crowd was so riled yesterday,” I added.
His face cleared. “Oh, you mean Jem Mace. He’s a bare-knuckles boxer. He beat Iron Hands Kelly yesterday.”
Even I’d heard of Iron Hands Kelly, one of the most famous fighters in the illegal sport.
“I didn’t see it myself,” he said, “but I heard it took twenty-two rounds. So it’s not surprising some of the blokes were riled, if they came straight from—”
The black curtain swung aside.
It was Stephen, and his eyes darted from me to Jack. “Well, hullo!”
I felt the interruption like the twang of a broken string.
“Hello, Stephen,” I said. There was a long moment when neither man said a word, so I added hastily, “Have you two met?”
Jack shook his head, his expression pleasant. “You must be the new violinist.”
“That’s right. And you’re Jack Drummond, the owner’s son.” Stephen’s voice was cool, even churlish, and I couldn’t help but stare.
Jack also looked surprised, and a bit mystified. “That’s right.”
“Jack has the piano almost working properly,” I said, trying to smooth away the awkwardness.
“Ah, yes. I’ve heard you’re good at fixing things up for people,” Stephen said, and though his expression was bland, there was a peculiar note in his voice. Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly, and for a brief moment, as the two of them studied each other, they reminded me of two stiff-backed dogs circling in the street. But then Jack turned away, and Stephen said to me, “Shall we begin?”
Jack picked up his box of tools. “Thank you,” I said to him.
With an oblique, inscrutable glance at the two of us, he pushed aside the curtain and was gone.
From behind me, I heard Stephen’s voice: “Careful around him.”
I felt myself bristle. “Why? He was perfectly pleasant.”
He cocked his head in a way that suggested I was being a fool. Nettled by his condescension, I persisted: “Why would you say that?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s a brawler from Seven Dials. He used to earn his living boxing in one of those illegal places on Monmouth Street, and he has a quick temper to go along with his fists.” He set down his violin on a chair. “For another, he sticks his nose in and tries to cause trouble for people, just for the fun of it.”
I drew back. “I thought you said you didn’t know him.”
For a moment, it seemed he stiffened, but it could just have been a pause as he thumbed the hairs on his bow and began to adjust the tension. “I don’t.” He glanced around my alcove. “You’re out here, so you don’t hear what people say. But everybody talks backstage.”
I laid my hands restlessly on the keys, played a few chords. “Well, it was nice of him to tune my piano.”
“It’s his job to mend things around here.”
“Yes, but a piano is different.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then maybe his industriousness has to do with fancying you.”
I looked up in astonishment. “You think he fancies men? Don’t be daft.”
He snorted. “I knew you were a girl the minute you cried out last night on the stairs. You think he doesn’t know, too?”
“I thought you realized it when you shook my hand,” I said slowly.
“If we’re splitting hairs, I had a hunch when you cried out and was only certain afterward. But I’m guessing he knows.”
“Well, he’s never hinted at it—and if he fancied me, as you say, wouldn’t he give me some sort of wink?” It was true I didn’t know much about men, but it seemed likely.
“Maybe he has.”
I sighed. This conversation was absurd, and I was ready to be done with it.
I took up my portfolio and set it on the music rack. “I brought three pieces. What do you want to play first?”
He came to my side then, close enough that I could smell him—the scent of smoked tobacco, the slightly musty wool of his coat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pick a quarrel. I just don’t want you taken in after you’ve been so good about helping me. And you look pretty tonight, like an English rose.” Then he grinned and touched my hat. “Even in this old thing.”
His teasing made me laugh a bit, and the moment of annoyance was past. He nodded approvingly toward the music for “The Gambling Gents”: “It’s just the song for this crowd.” He bent to take his violin out of its case, speaking lightly over his shoulder. “Three blokes cheating another out of his winnings.”
We practiced together until it was time for the show to begin, and he was thoroughly pleasant, even playful. But what he had said about Jack nagged at me and reinforced my sense that I was right not to have asked about Sebastian. At least not yet.
But who else was there to ask?
I was still mulling this over when the blue curtains swooped up, and as I struck the opening chords, I thought: What about Mrs. Wregge? She was as kind and chatty a soul as there ever was. She might know who Sebastian’s friends were, or where he and Marceline had lived.
And so, after the final act, I went upstairs to the costumes room, where I found her sorting through a pile of spangled bodices.
“Mrs. Wregge?”
“Yes, dear?” She looked up with a bright smile.
“Have you heard anything about what happened to the Tourneaus?”
“’Fraid not.” She peered at me. “You were friendly with Marceline, weren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Well, I daresay they’ll be back at some point,” she said. “They usually are.”
“Did they ever mention where they lived, or—or maybe where they worked before here?”
She tipped her head. “Weston’s, I think it was. By St. Vincent’s. But if they’ve moved on, they could be anywhere in London, or even Manchester by now. There’s halls up there, too.”
I heard a noise behind me, and from behind a wardrobe stepped Stephen, shrugging into a formal black coat. “Oh, hullo, Ed.” He stepped in front of Mrs. Wregge’s foggy mirror and turned to her. “Is this better?”
She began twitching the shoulders this way and that, barely acknowledging my thanks as I left.
Tomorrow evening, maybe I’d visit Weston’s and see if I could find someone who knew where I might find Sebastian.
Chapter 5
As I entered the dining room the next morning, Matthew didn’t glance up from the newspaper, and there was a rigid set to his shoulders that I recognized.
I leaned beside him to find the headline. Halfway down the
page, there it was: “Man Murdered, Scotland Yard Close to Apprehending the Killer.” Quickly, I scanned the article. Matthew’s name was in the third paragraph as the detective inspector.
“They gave your name,” I said. He hated that.
“I know. That’s one of the few facts they managed to get right.”
The rancor in his voice made me study him more closely. Matthew, usually imperturbable, was both angry and worried. His face was drawn, and the grooves around his mouth were deeper than usual.
“I’m sorry.” I sat down and poured us both tea, as his cup was empty. “Does this concern the man who was killed by the river?”
“Yes, in a way. Although he’s only a part of it.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he looked at me again, his gaze was full of uncertainty. “I don’t know, Nell. I think I may be making a colossal mess of things.”
I stared. I had never seen him like this—not even when he first joined the police in Lambeth.
“The worst of it,” he added, “is I’m at odds with everyone at the Yard.”
“Everyone?”
“Well, not William.”
He and William Crewe had come over to the Yard from Lambeth together. They’d each saved each other’s lives at least once, and Matthew considered him his closest friend. I liked him as well; he was a forthright young man, friendly and clever.
“I’m glad to hear you’ve one ally, at least,” I said. “But what’s happened? Why are you at odds with the rest?”
“I think I’ve discovered something peculiar. But no one else seems to agree, and when I brought it up to Barrow, I was all but given a pat on the shoulder and told to toddle back to my desk.”
Barrow was his superintendent, a man who had been hailed ten years ago for having rooted out bribery at the customs houses and who had subsequently been reassigned to Scotland Yard. He was greatly admired, although Matthew found him humorless and somewhat aloof.
“And now they think I’m the bright-eyed new detective, bent on making my cases appear more momentous and complicated than they are so that I might gain a promotion for solving them,” he added with a groan.
“Oh, Matthew.” I touched his arm. “Anyone who knows you wouldn’t think so.”