by Karen Odden
“I will.”
And as the door closed behind him, I felt the stillness of the house settle around me like a held breath.
Chapter 24
I went upstairs to don my men’s clothes. I had a feeling that within the next few hours I would have occasion to want not only the disguise but also the extra warmth of them, especially the woolen overcoat and hat.
It was well after four o’clock by the time I reached Mr. Bertault’s piano store, where a small crowd had gathered out front. As I drew near, I saw that most people were dressed for a formal event, the women in fur stoles and diamond necklaces, the men in black silk top hats, carrying gilt-topped canes. I touched one man’s sleeve, begged his pardon, and asked what was happening.
“It’s one of Mr. Bertault’s special concerts. Ignatio Rambusco tonight. He’s playing at five thirty.”
Rambusco?
I felt dumbfounded, but I must have merely looked ignorant, for the man said patiently, “He’s a pianist, from the conservatory in Paris. He’s a friend of the owner.”
“Yes,” I managed. “I—that is, I’ve heard of Rambusco.”
“I heard him years ago at St. James’s. He’s going to play a new piece by Liszt.” He looked around the crowd. “I’m not sure we’ll all be able to sit. We may have to stand near the back.”
“No . . . I . . . I don’t think I’ll stay. But do you think I could go in—just for a minute? I need to see Mr. Bertault. It’s quite urgent.”
Graciously, he gestured for me to step ahead of him, and bit by bit, explaining myself to the people ahead of me, I squirmed my way to the front door and went through. I paid no attention at all to the gray-haired man who was seated at the exquisite Pleyel in the center of the room. I only had eyes for Jack—and so far as I could see, he wasn’t here.
But Mr. Bertault was. He was dressed for the evening in a black coat with glittering studs in his shirtfront, and he held a glass of champagne in his hand. The moment he saw me, he excused himself to a slender, red-haired man and came toward me, with an expression of concern. “My dear Nell, why aren’t—?”
“Is Jack here?” My voice caught on the words.
He gave me a searching look then led me to his office, in which were crammed a desk and two tables, all stacked with papers and strewn with bits of pianos—keys, wires, and the dozens of tiny pieces that made up the action.
He shut the door behind us and set his champagne on the desk. “What’s happened? You’re supposed to be at your audition, and Jack missed two appointments this afternoon. I know he had a repair at the Octavian, but he said he’d be here by two.”
Maybe whatever it was had taken longer than expected. Maybe he’s still working at the music hall.
I shrank from the thought of going to find him there. By now, Stephen would certainly have informed Drummond of who I really was and what I knew. God only knew what else he’d tell him. But dressed as I was, maybe I could enter as a spectator and somehow get a message to Jack if he was backstage.
Mr. Bertault bent toward me, his expression kind. “Why do you need him so? Can I help you instead?”
I hesitated, not knowing how much he knew about the Fleet.
A shout broke out in the main room. I looked through the window at the crowd and sensed their anticipation.
“Take your time. They will wait.” He took a pile of sheet music off a chair and gently pushed me into it. Then he reached into his cabinet for a bottle of bourbon. He sloshed an inch into two glasses and passed one to me. “Here.” A dry smile. “If you were dressed as a lady, I’d offer you wine, but dressed as you are, it should be this.”
I took a sip. Both bitter and sweet, it burned all the way down. He sat in the chair behind the desk and drank his own silently. After a deep breath, I swallowed the rest, and passed the empty glass back to him. He finished his, poured himself another bit, and raised the bottle toward me questioningly. I shook my head.
“What’s frightening you, chérie?” he said gently.
It was the kindness in his voice, and maybe the drink, that undid my tongue. “Mr. Bertault, do you know what happens at the Octavian, besides the shows?”
His expression changed, and I felt a wave of relief. He knew. I hadn’t betrayed Jack, and I’d found an ally.
“Merde,” he swore. “I was afraid of this. Does Drummond know you know?”
I winced. “Probably. Jack and I were outside talking, in the yard behind the music hall, and Stephen Gagnon overheard us.”
“He also knows?”
“Not only that. He told me he’s been providing Drummond with information about particular houses, including his father’s.”
He shook his head, his disgust clear.
“You know what he is,” I added quietly.
“You need to stay away,” he warned.
“I know.” I swallowed. “The problem is, my brother is an inspector at Scotland Yard, and—he is leading a raid on thirteen ships tonight.”
His glass paused at his lips, and his eyes met mine over the rim. Slowly he brought the glass down, set it on the desk, and looked a question at me.
“I only found out myself a few hours ago,” I added hurriedly.
“Ah.” He nodded and frowned, hard. “Jack can’t be found there.”
“Nor the records of stolen goods. They’re all in Jack’s hand.”
He took a breath that expanded his entire chest.
I stood up. “The only other place I could think of to look for him, besides here, was the Bear and Bull.”
His eyebrows went up. “Mais, oui! But first—try his rooms. He might be there, and it won’t take you much out of your way.”
“Where?”
“In Dawson Street, number seven. It’s north of here, off Everling Lane. Above a cobbler. Take the staircase on the left side of the building, and it’s the first you’ll come to. There’s a lantern hanging to the left of the door. The spare key is in the base. Just unscrew the bottom.” He looked toward the other room, where the noisy chatter was punctuated by laughter. “I wish I could come with you right now, but I cannot leave this crowd . . .” His voice trailed off.
“You have to stay here.” I managed a smile. “If it were any other day, I’d stay myself. I’m sorry to miss it.”
He waved a hand. “Ah, Ignatius comes to play every year. He’ll be back.”
“If I need to reach you—”
“I’ll be here. If I’m not, I won’t be away long. Send a message to me when you find him.” He stood and came toward me, put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me, once on each cheek. “Il va bien se passer,” he murmured. “Jack is no fool.”
“And will you send me a message, if he comes here before I find him?”
“Of course.” He reached for a piece of paper and a stub of pencil. “Write your address here.”
I did as he asked, and he put the slip in his pocket. Then he opened the door, and I threaded my way through the crowd. There were no empty seats and very little standing room. Champagne was being handed round in delicate glasses. People had wedged themselves in between pianos and benches, many of them smiling and talking excitedly. The famous pianist was sitting at the bench before the piano, his eyes closed, a contented smile visible between his mustache and his beard, his hands running soft arpeggios up the keyboard. Monsieur Rambusco might have been alone in the room for all the attention he paid to the audience.
I exited onto the street. I, too, felt alone, like Rambusco. But I wasn’t content. I was only afraid.
I HURRIED TO EVERLING LANE, and then turned into Dawson Street. It was too narrow for two carriages to pass, but the houses were better kept than many in Soho. I found the cobbler’s shop without difficulty and started up the side stairs. The next building was very close, so the falling evening light didn’t penetrate much below the roofline, but I could see well enough. The alley behind smelled rancid, as if the refuse had been left too long between visits from the dustman.
I reached th
e first landing, but the door had no handle, and three wide boards were nailed crosswise into the wood frame on either side. Another thirteen steps—unlucky—and I saw a rusty lantern, unlit, hanging to the left of the door. I knocked at the door, softly at first and then louder. When no one answered, I laid my ear to the wood and heard only silence.
I took down the lantern and gripped the bottom, twisting as hard as I could. A squeak, and it came off, the key falling at my feet—but not, thankfully, off the step. I snatched it up, fitted it in the keyhole, and entered.
One look told me that Jack wasn’t here, and I saw no signs that he had been recently. The room was stuffy but cool; the morning fire had burned out long ago.
I stepped inside, uneasy with the thought that I was entering wholly uninvited.
The room was simple and uncluttered. A bed in one corner, neatly made. A stove in the other corner with two mismatched chairs in front of it. A large sturdy armoire of dark wood. A dresser, a few books on a shelf, a table, a sink for washing up.
As I closed the door and flipped the bolt, I heard a low growl from the corner. I whirled, my heart thumping with fear, bracing myself for an attack by whatever had made the sound. My eyes searched the semidarkness, but I could see nothing.
Then, from behind one of the chairs, came a shadow that assembled itself into the shape of a cat. “Oh, thank God,” I whispered as I dropped the key in my pocket.
A candlestick and matches were on the table. I fumbled with the box, scraped a light, and held it to the wick. At the edge of the light sat a thin tabby, her paws as delicately placed as a dancer’s, her eyes glowing like round, iridescent pools.
“Well, hello,” I said, bending down and putting out my hand to her. “So you’re Jack’s flatmate?” In my experience, most cats are leery of strangers, but she wasn’t. She walked right under my hand, so I stroked her ears and she began to purr. “Trusting thing, aren’t you,” I murmured. “Where’s Jack?”
Her purrs escalated. She rolled over onto her back as I’ve never seen a cat do. “You’re more like a dog than a cat.” I rubbed her soft belly. “I wish you could talk.”
On the table lay a copy of yesterday’s newspaper and a stub of a pencil. I flipped the pages but found nothing scribbled in the margin or marked in any way. Then why the pencil? Whatever he’d been writing, he must have taken it with him—unless—
I slid my fingers under the rim of the table and felt the crevice that marked a drawer. I bent down to find the ring or the pull, but there was none. I went around to the other side and found the same. This time I pushed at it, and the drawer slid away from me, emerging from the other side of the table. Yes, there was something in the drawer—a sensational yellowback novel, one of the cheap editions sold at the railway stations. I gave a wry smile. Not the sort of book I’d have expected—I doubted it was his—but I opened the book and held it spine up to fan the pages.
Nothing.
Then I flipped to the back, and my heartbeat quickened. The two last pages, not including the cover, had been left unprinted by the publisher but were covered in writing. The script was neat, and I brought the candle closer to read it. Columns of numbers, followed by what looked like dates and letters and amounts, written in a hand that had been taught by a Frenchwoman, not an Englishman, the ones written with an upstroke, and commas in the place of periods.
I quickly skimmed through the rest of the book, but only the last two pages were written on. Was this a cipher of some kind? A code for inventory? Or some sort of record of street addresses or locations in London? Whatever it was, clearly it was a second record, apart from the log Jack kept for his father.
The cat shoved her head against my leg, and I absently bent down to scratch her head. Her claws came up to my hand. “Ouch!” I stared. “What’s that for?” She tipped her head, looking at me in a way that made me recall the story of Baba Yaga’s talking cat.
I shook myself. I was in a strange situation, but this was a normal cat. She was probably hungry. With one hand, I slid the book back into its drawer; with the other, I picked up the candle to search around the floor for her bowl and found it empty. The cupboard held a parcel of cat meat and a jar of water, so I filled her bowls and watched as she bolted her meal.
How long had it been since Jack had been here?
I felt a vibration in the floor, and then heard the sound of boots coming up the stairs. My heart lifted in gratitude at my lucky timing. I took a step toward the door, not wanting to startle him—
The cat gave a vicious hiss.
I turned, flinching back instinctively. But she was at my left ankle, facing the door, her tail gone from a silky, serpentine thing to a rigid bristle. Her mouth wide enough to show her incisors, she hissed again. She might as well have spoken English: this wasn’t Jack.
Panicked, I retreated several steps before my mind started to work again. I needed to find a hiding place. I scanned the room. Under the bed? No, of course not, that’s the first place he’d look. The armoire would be better—it was fairly deep. In a flash I snatched the candle from the holder and blew it out. By the faint light coming in at the window, I opened the armoire door, felt my way over a wooden box on the floor, and crouched in a corner behind some long clothes. I thanked God I’d bothered to bolt the door and the cat had finished her food straightaway. There was no sign anyone had been there for hours, unless the visitor smelled the smoke from the candle that I still held in my hand.
The key scraped, and the door squeaked open. I wondered if the cat would try to escape, or if she’d lurk in the shadows and scare the intruder half to death, as she’d done with me.
Measured footsteps—the screech of a drawer—and then, after a moment, the sound of pages being ripped and a man’s short laugh. I closed my eyes and bit my lip at my utter stupidity, leaving the book instead of bringing it with me.
“That was easy,” muttered the voice. Was it Stephen? The utterance was so brief I couldn’t be sure. A silent apology to Jack formed on my lips—but at least now the intruder would leave.
But he didn’t. He stayed to keep looking, and I tracked him by the sounds. The squeals of wood on wood. Those must be the dresser drawers. A scuffle as he got down on all fours to look under the bed. Another scrape as he moved a table, or maybe a chair, forward and back.
Still nothing from the cat. We were a pair, we two, still and silent. But my legs were falling asleep.
The sounds of cupboards opening and closing. What else was he looking for?
Another minute and I began to feel the desperate need to scratch my nose, so sharp that my eyes began to water. I closed them, held my breath, and began to count the four-four time of my Mozart sonata, over and over again. One, two, three, four; two, two, three, four; three, two, three, four; four . . .
The boots scraped across the floor, and the armoire door opened.
People talk of their heart stopping, and I think mine did. Out of sheer self-preservation, that organ went silent, along with my breath—everything down to the ends of the hair under my hat. He pulled out the box on the floor, rummaged through whatever was inside, and replaced it. Then the door closed, and I heard something sweep across the top of the armoire. He uttered a snort, strode across the floor, and closed and locked the door behind him.
Painfully, I unfolded my cramped legs, climbed out of the armoire, and limped to the window to peer through. The landing was empty, but in the street below, by the fading light, I could see Stephen’s shining hair, uncovered. I watched until he rounded the corner. Behind me, the cat made a noise. When I unwound my fingers from the candle, the tallow bore the mark of my nails.
I set it on the table and took the key from my pocket. Where had Stephen obtained the one he used? From Drummond? But would Drummond even have a key to Jack’s room? Or had Stephen taken the key from Jack’s coat?
That would be easy enough—Jack hung his coat where all the performers did, upstairs in the instrument room. The fact that Stephen came in without knocking
suggested he knew for certain that Jack wasn’t here, which led me to think he knew where Jack was. It must be nearing seven o’clock. Yes, Jack could be at the music hall. And those pages of figures? I could see it clearly: Stephen taking them to show Drummond, Jack being dragged to his father—good God, what would Drummond do to Jack if he thought he was betraying him by keeping a separate set of records, maybe to save his own skin?
Fear rose up from my chest, and I swallowed it down. The cat gave another yowl and paced around the legs of a chair, her tail curling around each in turn and letting go.
But what if Jack wasn’t at the Octavian? Or if I missed him, and he came home? I longed to leave some sign I’d been here—but I couldn’t think of anything I could do or leave or write that wouldn’t tell someone else I’d been here, too. And what if Stephen came back again?
I went out to the landing, locked the door, turned the bottom of the lantern to put the key in—and had an idea. I pushed my fingers in under my hat and pulled out a hairpin. Carefully, I clipped it around the end of the key. That might be enough to tell Jack that I’d been here, that I was looking for him, maybe even that his uncle had sent me here and told me how to get in.
Then I was down the stairs and hurrying to the end of the street. I had planned to go to the Bear and Bull after Jack’s rooms. But really, although it was the last place I wanted to go, the music hall was the center of everything. Jack might be there and Stephen as well. If his overcoat was hanging in the instrument room, maybe I could retrieve those pages before they did any harm.
I REACHED THE FAR END OF HAWLEY MEWS just as the clock struck a quarter to eight. By the time I reached the back yard, the door was closed and locked. By this time, Jack should be either at the front, keeping away pickpockets, or tending the bar. But if he wasn’t, I could blend in with the audience and eventually go backstage to find someone who might know where he was.
It was Sid, not Jack, at the front door. I kept my hat pulled low and had my shilling ready. Sid didn’t even look up at my face as he took it. A quick glance at the bar told me what I’d expected: Jack wasn’t there. My pulse thrumming, I found a place at the back where I could observe the hall and wait for my chance.