Jewel of the Thames (A Portia Adams Adventure)

by Misri, Angela

  I had never been inside this building before, but the signage was very helpful, directing me to the large library in the basement appropriately situated next to the teaching morgue. I pushed open the door marked ‘Library’, noting that the smell in here owed much to the antiseptic in the morgue opposite and borrowed equally from the temperature requirements — it being noticeably cooler down here than on the main floor.

  “May I help you, miss?” a high-pitched voice asked as I looked round at the many bookshelves and tables in the dimly lit room. The voice belonged to a tiny older woman who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but with commanding thick eyebrows over equally thick spectacles. I guessed her age at between fifty and sixty, and she wore a blue and orange tartan shawl around tiny shoulders, the pin holding it in place bearing the letters RMA.

  “Yes, thank you,” I replied, pulling off my gloves and extending my hand. “My name is Portia Adams, and I am a law student at Somerville College.”

  She tilted her graying head instead of shaking my hand, replacing one of the books in her arms on a shelf. “Is that so? Is that she-bear Mrs. Darbishire still stalking the halls of your college these days?”

  I fought down a grin at her characterization, visualizing my heavy-set headmistress with the unfortunate chin hairs. I knew that before taking on the top position at the college, Darbishire had worked in the library, perhaps explaining her relationship with this woman. The woman caught the quirk of my lips and gave a toothy grin. “Ay, I see that she is. M’name’s Cotter, and I’m the librarian here. What is it you couldn’t find at Somerville that brings you here? I worked those stacks many years ago. They boast some of the best collections this side of Oxford.”

  “True, though not as good as the ones at Sandhurst,” I commented, smiling when her eyes widened and her hand drifted up to touch the pin on her shawl emblazoned with the colors of the well-known military school. I nodded before saying, “Your son, I presume?”

  “Yes,” she replied, looking down at the pin and then back up at me, her shoulders rising as she spoke from a place of pride, “he’s head boy for the second year in a row.”

  My deduction concerning her ‘darling boy’ bought me a quiet corner in the library and the personal attention of the person who knew it best.

  Quickly I described what I was looking for and with her help was soon surrounded by thick medical textbooks, books on veterinary medicine, forensics and anatomical drawings. Mrs. Cotter offered a cushioned chair from behind her own desk for me to use at the large square table with a reading lamp before I dove into the books.

  I was most interested in the science of what happens to a body directly after it dies — its first moments, hours and days of being a corpse. I glanced up from my comfortable position toward the glass doors that led out of the library and to the only other rooms down here: the morgue. Once the body cooled and the blood coagulated, what happened next?

  I flipped through book after book, borrowing a pad of paper from Mrs. Cotter to scrawl notes, fascinated by the stages of decomposition and foment that every living thing underwent after death and how exact the schedule was. How soon rigor mortis set in. How quickly the body rotted.

  “Stepping out for a bite, luv, can I get you anything?” Mrs. Cotter asked, making me jump since I had not heard her step so close. Standing at my elbow, I could see that she already had her coat and gloves on as she looked at me expectantly, her eyes on a level with mine for the first time because she was standing and I was still seated.

  “Oh, no thank you, Mrs. Cotter, is it all right if I stay?” I replied, putting down my borrowed pencil and flexing my hand, only now realizing that it was aching. I glanced at the clock above the doorway, surprised to see it was already five o’clock in the evening.

  She shrugged. “Just don’t leave while I’m out, and you can stay as long as you want,” she replied with a wink. “I’ll be back within the hour.”

  I smiled as she tottered off, glancing down at my notes and then back up as I heard a voice that I thought I recognized through the open door. With a frown, I stood, groaning as I did so, feeling the effects of sitting for hours, and walked toward the door still swinging slowly shut.

  “No, I tell you, we nicked him square in the middle of his…”

  “Constable Dawes?” I said, my hand still on the library door so it did not lock behind me, but my eyes on the three uniformed gentlemen standing in the hallway.

  “Miss Adams?” he replied, turning my way with surprise stamped on his handsome face.

  I grinned and he grinned back as he and his two comrades removed their hats and said their hellos. Introductions were made all around and I learned that they were dropping off a body at the morgue.

  “Poor bugger froze, we think,” Constable Bonhomme, a young man in his twenties, explained. His sideburns were a touch longer than fashionable. “Brought ’im in for Beans t’take a look at, though.”

  “Beans?” I asked, looking quizzically at the three men, who all laughed, only Brian looking chagrined.

  “It’s our nickname for Dr. Beanstine, one of the Yard’s coroners, Miss Adams,” he said, elbowing his friend in the ribs to get him to stop smiling so broadly. “It’s all in good fun, I swear.”

  I was invited for a drink at the pub with the three of them but begged off, citing the work I was already neck-deep in, and shook hands with them each in turn, smiling at Brian as he turned back at the stairs leading to the main level.

  Feeling a good deal warmer than I had a few moments ago, I returned to my lonely work, pulling my chair up to the table and focusing on the dog-eared copy of Gray’s Anatomy.

  Mrs. Cotter returned at some point, popping by my desk to take a pile of books I had already reviewed and delivering a few more as we refined my search more and more. The grisly images in the books were detailed with captions and surrounded by tables of real data from experiments, and I took careful note of everything I could.

  “You’re still here?” said Brian, surprising me for the second time that evening. I looked over my shoulder to find him standing right behind me, staring curiously down at my pad of paper.

  I rubbed my eyes wearily before answering, “Why? What time is it?”

  “It’s after nine, Miss Adams,” he replied, leaning over my shoulder to put his finger on my pad. “And what in the world is bloat?”

  “It’s a stage of decomposition,” I replied, smelling the beer on his breath and feeling it warm on the nape of my neck. I swallowed nervously. “I thought you were out with your mates?”

  “I thought I’d make sure you got home all right,” he replied with a dimpled smile, leaning in even closer to whisper into my ear. “Besides, I think your chaperone has been asleep for at least a half hour.”

  It took me a few seconds to pull my attention away from his lips at my ear over to the desk, where I could see Mrs. Cotter slumbering with her feet up on a patterned ottoman.

  He laughed softly, stepping away from me to start collecting up the books scattered on the desk, allowing me a moment to catch my breath.

  “This is rather specific research,” Brian commented, his smile turning to a frown as he read the titles of the books as he picked each up. “For something at college?”

  “No, actually — you did say that Fawkes was an assistant undertaker, did you not?” I replied, with a glance at my notes to make sure I had taken down the title of a book before adding it to the stack.

  He looked taken aback but nodded. “So these are helping you to connect Fawkes to the robberies somehow?”

  “He’s an expert in dead bodies,” I responded, “and now I think I have a better idea of just how much he understands, and how that relates to this case.”

  It took us about five minutes to finish stacking books, and then I stepped away to gently revive my very indulgent librarian. We waited for her to lock the library doors and then the two of us escorted her to a horse-drawn hackney. Brian was patient enough to wait until they cantered awa
y before extending his elbow with the words: “Now, Portia Adams, tell me your theories and why it matters that you understand dead bodies as well as our prime suspect does.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It wasn’t until almost two weeks later, though, that I could finally test my theory with the real perpetrator. Flowers that had been shivering buds in April had burst into colorful bloom in May, and everyone seemed happier for it despite the increase in rain.

  I waited and waited for another burglary, but the pattern seemed finally to be broken, as days went by without any new incidents reported. Perhaps the thief had finally sated his appetite, or perhaps he had moved on from London.

  Every evening I bothered Brian Dawes with the same question, and every day I repeated the process with my professors: had anything else been reported stolen?

  Finally, on a Friday in June, my prayers were answered, at the cost of someone else’s fortune — another robbery.

  Brian, good man that he was, came racing up my steps to deliver the news.

  I answered his knock with a question even before fully opening the door. “Has something been stolen?” I demanded.

  “Yes, miss. Trudy Bennett has reported a stolen necklace,” he answered with a laugh. “Now will you tell me why you have been waiting for another incident? We had been hoping this spree was over, but you had the opposite hope.”

  I blushed, because it did seem somehow immoral to wait for someone else’s bad fortune in order for me to prove a theory, but I honestly couldn’t contain my excitement. “I will, but only if you arrest Ben Fawkes on Sunday morning, very first thing,” I replied with a grin.

  “Sunday morning?” he replied, understandably confused. “We all believe him to be the man, so if you have new evidence, let us go and arrest him right now, before he has a chance to sell the spoils from his newest heist.”

  I shook my head determinedly as he came into the room, stepping carefully around the papers and plates. “I promise you, if I am right, the latest stolen goods are quite safe until Sunday morning. Will you be reprimanded for arresting him, though?”

  “This is about the theory you came up with at Guy’s Hospital, isn’t it Miss Adams?” he said, waggling a finger at me.

  I nodded as he crouched down beside me and we fleshed out a quick plan right then and there for how to best drop the net and avoid risking Brian’s career. I appreciated again how open he was to my opinion despite my untried hand in this field, looking up at him as he stroked his strong jaw, thinking hard about the details I was describing.

  “What?” he asked as I paused mid-explanation.

  “Why do you believe me, Mr. Dawes?” I asked, truly curious as to his answer. “Why do you take my opinion so seriously? It is one that is so amateur when compared to the insights around you every day.”

  He moved to a kneeling position, his elbows on his thighs, his brow furrowed, “Well, I suppose because you are so adamant in your beliefs at so young an age, and because I’ve seen how quickly your mind works. Also, you think … I don’t know, differently from anyone at the Yard these days, and I think we need more of that.”

  I blushed at his kind words.

  “And of course, there is your very heritage,” he said, looking round at the room. “I am willing to make a great leap for the granddaughter of such a prolific detective and man.”

  I lowered my eyes, unwilling to let him see the tears that threatened to appear at his final statement — it was so much the destiny I was hoping for.

  We had just settled the details when my guardian arrived. Brian made his polite goodbyes and winked at me on his way out — the plan was on!

  The thrill of this chase must have shown on my face as Mrs. Jones finished removing her shawl. As she gracefully pulled off her kid gloves I noticed that she had removed her beautiful new ring with the turquoise stones and replaced it with an older band.

  A prickle of unease ran down my spine, though at the time I wasn’t entirely sure of the cause.

  “You look better,” she remarked, settling into her favorite chair beside the fireplace where Brian and I had so recently been planning.

  “Yes, I am, thank you, and you?” I said, my excitement at the case fading, replaced by a new unease I could not explain.

  “Oh, age has its benefits to be sure, but I confess I am starting to feel its ill effects as well,” she said.

  Worriedly, I took a good look at her now and could not perceive any difference in complexion, and I said so.

  “Oh, sometimes, Portia, you will find as you get older that it is the restlessness of the soul that drives you, not the body. Quite the opposite of youth.” She sighed dramatically.

  I asked whether there was anything I could do to aid with such a problem and she laughed in response, a girlish, tinkling sound. “Oh heavens, no, my dear, and don’t worry yourself. This malaise is most easily solved.”

  She shifted in her chair, her eyes taking on a dreamy sheen. “I think it is time I took my ease at one of my more rural homes, away from the hustle and bustle of London.”

  Since the busy streets of a large city were one of her purported loves, I filed that statement away without comment and merely nodded. “Where?”

  “Perhaps Lyon, I have a lovely apartment there I haven’t been in for years. Or maybe even Cairo.”

  “You have a home in Cairo?” I burst out, unable to contain my surprise at so exciting a destination.

  “I have an arrangement with a friend there, yes,” she answered with a smile. “Would you like to join me?”

  “Very much so!” I said, eyes wide as she described the exotic foods and culture in detail.

  “The kofta, oh there is this little street of vendors in the east end of Cairo.” She shook her head with a smile, taking my hand. “It is indescribably good, my girl, and you would never know about it unless you were with someone who had found it before.

  “The very streets smell like cinnamon, and from the moment you arrive the smells of spice and sugar just seem to envelope you.” She closed her eyes in remembrance. “Even weeks after getting home, all I need to is pick up something I wore there and smell it, and it takes me right back. So too will your very being become infused with the aromas of the East.”

  We talked late into the night, planning a fantastic tour in the fall, when the heat would be less of an issue.

  By the time Mrs. Jones left, my mind was whirling with images of camels and pyramids and I fell asleep marveling at the tragic circumstances of losing my mother and my home that had brought me such an opportunity.

  Sleep, though, brought dreams of a very different nature, filled with jewels and Turkish silks and the splashing of water.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke late in the morning that Saturday, puzzling over the dream. Despite having a grand plan with Brian to execute the following day, I found myself instead distracted by the confusing elements of the dream.

  My morning walk was disturbed by this confusion as I made my way to my customary café. About halfway along my trek, I noticed someone was following me — which was also odd since I had been so absorbed in my thoughts.

  The man was obviously not really trying to disguise his pursuit, so I kept him in my sights as I turned corners and finally made it to the small café.

  I took a seat outside, facing in the direction I had come from, and the waiter came to take my usual Saturday order. I was therefore not in the least surprised when the gentleman who had been following me took the seat across from me.

  I felt no danger radiating from his large frame. I guessed his age at over seventy. He was obviously of African descent, over two hundred pounds, and revealed a shiny bald head when he removed his hat.

  “Good morning, young miss,” he said finally, enduring my silent scrutiny with an equally assessing eye. His accent was pure British, from Liverpool if I had to guess.

  “Good morning,” I replied respectfully, nodding once again at my waiter as he dropped off my coffee.


  “For you, sir?” the waiter asked, a hint of confusion in his voice.

  “Tea,” he replied, barely glancing up at the waiter but placing double the bill in notes on the table.

  The waiter fairly sprinted off to get the tea.

  I took a sip of my coffee before deciding to approach this conversation head on. “You have been following me, sir, for some distance, and I can see that exercise is something you do often with your physique at such an advanced age. So I would not keep you — what can I do for you?”

  He looked surprised by my observations, as most people did when they first met me. “Advanced age, eh? She was right, you are pert.”

  “Indeed? And who is she?” I demanded, putting down my cup to glare at the man.

  The waiter returned with a pot of tea and a cup, whisking it onto the table and scooping up his payment with a grin.

  The old man’s clothing consisted of a worn pair of knickerbockers and a loose sweater, and looking from the twists and turns of his nose and down at his knuckles, I quickly surmised why.

  I leaned forward as the older gentleman tipped the pot toward his cup. “Are you by chance the type of man who has an interest in accosting young women?” I said, hoping to shock him into the truth.

  “Ha!” he said with a laugh, shaking his large head as he took a sip of tea. “Not in the way you mean, though.” He leaned forward, forcing me to back up. “If I were that type of man, you didn’t make it hard to follow you at all.”

  “Who are you?” I demanded, my annoyance growing.

  “Also, if I were that type of man, you can’t tell me that’s how you would deal with me!” he said, shaking his head with a smile.