Though it felt like she’d been at the agency for ages already, Marion was now forced to remind herself that she still had two years left of proving herself. Would she one day be up there on that stage, receiving her own badge? She knew that was what she wanted more than anything. Would Bill? Would David?
As Nancy announced that a quick dinner service would soon commence, and most of the apprentices dispersed throughout the room, Marion made her way to the drinks table and poured herself a glass of wine, observing the crowd before her.
Mostly people were gathered in groups chatting, some dancing, laughing. She spotted Maud and Jessica standing together near the buffet table talking to Dora Armstrong and a hulking young man with a rough face that Marion vaguely recognized as Roger from maintenance—Jessica’s “friend.” On the other end of the room, Edgar Swindlehurst was weaving aimlessly through the crowd, as if searching for someone. He paused near the stage. Aida Rakes emerged from a door that led into the staff bathroom. She approached Swindlehurst and immediately the two commenced an obviously heated conversation. Swindlehurst gesticulated madly. Rakes looked ready to knock his lights out. Marion was pretty certain their argument had to do with Amanda’s complaint form and the consequent case presentation Swindlehurst was expected to perform in front of Rakes.
She felt a twinge of compassion for Swindlehurst and the situation he’d found himself in the past year—with Rakes taking over his position as head of Intelligence. Rakes was sharp, efficient, confident—an obvious leader. But as far as Marion had heard, Swindlehurst had always been a dependable, untiring employee, and with his experience as an operations manager for the British Army, it seemed strange that Nancy had decided—after allowing Swindlehurst five years at the helm—that Rakes was suddenly more suited to the job. But then, Nancy had made many seemingly bizarre decisions at Miss Brickett’s that turned out to be well-considered, once you knew the full story—such as the reasoning behind David’s recruitment.
Marion leaned up against the ballroom wall, her eyes unfocused as her mind eventually wandered from the scene in front of her, her focus lost. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, it was as if she were standing on a shifting sheet of ice, everything unstable, breakable. She thought about David and Bill and about all the odd things that had happened since White had been murdered. For the first time since the week began, Marion thought of Frank and his unannounced visit to Number Sixteen Willow Street. Something she’d forgotten to ask him about during their last conversation.
She scanned the ballroom and there, seated at one of the only remaining tables, was Professor Bal and Frank. Their eyes met. Frank nodded in acknowledgment, whispered something to the professor and started toward her.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked as he arrived at her side and poured himself a whiskey from the drinks table.
Marion examined his soft features, his sallow complexion, and his pale gray eyes creased at the edges. “I’ve been trying to. Though it’s rather conflicting, a celebration like this less than a week after what happened to White.”
He smiled weakly. “Yes, I agree. Though the show must go on, as they say.”
Marion twisted the cuff of her blouse. “I heard the news, of course. About the murderer.”
Frank’s face remained unmoved. “Just a rumor.”
“So you don’t know who did it?”
“My dear, I don’t know a thing. Though I believe Nancy has her theories.”
Despite the disconcerting subject of their conversation, Marion found comfort in the familiar rhythm of Frank’s voice—slow and deliberate. He placed a hand on her forearm. She looked at his left hand and noticed—strangely for the first time—a gold ring on his fourth finger. She didn’t think he’d ever been married, but then again, Frank hardly ever talked about his private life.
“My father’s,” Frank said, glancing at his ring. “He died last year. Silly to wear it, I know, but I suppose it keeps him close.” He glanced at her watch. He’d been there when Alice had given it to her. Did he know she wore it for the same reason he claimed to wear his father’s wedding ring? “It’s odd to think everyone down here has another life up there, other people they interact with.” He pointed to the ceiling. “Away from the dark and unnatural. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, in a way I suppose it is.” She finished her wine and considered Frank’s words more closely. She thought of the people she knew aboveground: her grandmother, a few other distant relatives, Mr. Smithers? She wasn’t sure they constituted another life. At least not one she wished to associate with. “But there isn’t really anything else, not for me.”
Frank nodded. “I used to feel that way, too, when I started here.” He paused, his eyes drifting to the distance, slipping into an old memory or some lost part of himself. He shifted back into the present. “But I’ve come to see how unhealthy that can be.”
“How do you mean?”
“We all need a bit of normality now and then. Some sunlight, someone to talk to who doesn’t know what goes on down here.”
“Someone like Dolores?” Marion laughed, but it wasn’t with joy. More like pity. “Do you still have anyone on the outside? Or did you, other than your father?” She was coaxing him as usual, hoping he might speak of Alice, of what they’d meant to one another, or whether he missed her as much as Marion did. But, as always, he didn’t budge.
“Only my sister, Mae, and her family. They live in Amsterdam,” he said instead. “I visit every few months. It’s never enough, of course.”
Marion nodded. She rubbed the band of her watch as a familiar heaviness descended on her chest. She’d have to change the subject before the feeling overwhelmed her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something actually, about the day you visited Dolores—”
Something cool brushed the back of Marion’s neck. She turned around, only to see Mr. Nicholas just a few yards away.
Frank followed her gaze. “What about it?” he asked. He placed his glass on the drinks table. Mr. Nicholas was now staring directly at them.
“Well, what you were doing there.”
“I already told you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but... I...” Her skin prickled. She wanted to say she didn’t believe he’d come there for Dolores to sign some arbitrary next-of-kin forms, as he’d told her. But somehow, the idea of suggesting Frank was lying seemed wrong.
“Listen, Marion—” he spoke quickly now “—we can discuss that another time. But there is something I need to tell you. Something more urgent.”
“What?”
“Not here. Not now.” He gripped her wrist. Mr. Nicholas was striding toward them. “I’d like you to go home to Dolores as soon as possible tonight. Will you do that?”
She frowned.
“If you come back on Monday, meet me in my office at ten to eight that night. I will explain everything then.”
Marion took a minute to process what she’d heard. “What...what do you mean, if?” she stammered.
Frank was no longer paying attention to the conversation, but rather to Mr. Nicholas, who was now trailed by his vile clockwork serpent.
“Frank,” Marion said urgently, “I don’t understand—”
“Ten to eight,” Frank said. “Not a minute later.”
“Mr. Stone,” Mr. Nicholas said, reaching their side. He placed his right hand on Frank’s shoulder, then turned a dial on his pocket watch. Marion backed away as the snake slithered to Frank’s side. “Shall we?”
11
DOLORES’S ULTIMATUM
Saturday morning, Marion made her way down to the kitchen of Number Sixteen Willow Street. As Frank had insisted, she’d left the agency the evening before as soon as she’d been able, slipping away from the ceremony almost as quietly as Frank and Nicholas had done before her.
But she’d had a troubled sleep, unnerving dreams of shadows and faded memories that lingered even a
fter she woke. She wanted so desperately to do as Bill had suggested. To forget. But her journey into the corridors beyond the Border, her encounter with Mr. Nicholas’s snake, the ominous darkness and disorienting passageways from which it had slithered and everything she’d learned since then had triggered something she could now not seem to repel. And while she’d hoped that the lightness and festivities of the Induction Ceremony would finally extinguish this feeling, really it had done nothing but amplify it.
Whatever Frank needed to speak to her about on Monday, she hoped it would finally do something to settle her mind and allow her to focus on work instead.
“Marion darling,” called Dolores from inside the kitchen. “Come in and help me, will you?”
Marion made her way downstairs, noting that the cobwebs had been cleared from the hallway ceiling and the mirrors wiped spotless. Even the threadbare carpet at the base of the stairs looked on its way to being free of dust and the thousands of mites who called it home.
The kitchen, however, was another story.
Dolores stood over the stove, three pots steaming under her frizzy hair. The kitchen table was covered in crockery, clearly taken out from the cupboard to be washed. The sink was piled to the brim with dirty pans and pots and everywhere the air smelled of overcooked bread.
Dolores looked around, her right hand stirring one pot, her left the other. “Don’t just stand there! The bread! Quickly, take it out of the oven!”
Marion wandered over to the oven in something of a daze. Despite the six hours of sleep she’d just had, she was remarkably exhausted. Her only plan for the weekend was to do anything and everything other than think about the previous week.
She opened the oven; a wave of heat and cloud of smoke hit her in the face. “Think it’s a bit overdone.”
Dolores shrieked as she caught sight of the blackened loaf, waved Marion over to the stove and hurried to take her place at the oven.
“What’s all this, then?” Marion asked once Dolores had removed the bread from its tin and cut away the charcoal edges.
“Your cousins are coming over for tea.”
“Reginald and Erin? What’s the occasion?”
Dolores turned to the sink and busied herself with scrubbing the bread tin. No answer was given, which made Marion nervous. Dolores eventually scuttled back over to the stove. “I’ll do the rest while you go upstairs and change. You look awful.”
Marion looked down at the brown checkered slip dress she’d thrown on in a hurry, creased and ill-fitting. She took a calming breath and hauled herself upstairs. Her bedroom was a mess, clothes strewn across the bed, notes and files from the agency thrown onto the armchair by the window. She picked out a yellow cotton shirtwaist dress from her wardrobe that surely even Dolores would approve of.
The front door opened and slammed shut downstairs. Dolores’s anxious voice welcomed her guests inside. Marion wanted nothing more than to crawl under her duvet and fall asleep, to wake up on Monday morning feeling refreshed and finding that everything at the agency was back to normal. She had no idea why Dolores would have invited Reginald and Erin over for tea since, as far as she knew, Dolores didn’t like either of them. She also wondered why she’d gone to such great lengths to clean the house for the occasion. She didn’t care to find out the answers to such questions, although she knew she was about to.
“Oh, much better.” Dolores beamed as Marion sat down in the lounge, facing her third cousin twice removed, Reginald Grunstone, a well-cushioned man with an aristocratic face, and Erin Grunstone, who looked almost exactly like her husband, only slightly smaller and with more hair.
A tray of tea and biscuits had been laid out on the table. Erin and Reginald helped themselves.
Dolores smiled at Marion. “Some tea, darling?”
“I don’t drink tea, you know that.”
Dolores ignored her and handed over the tray of biscuits instead. Together, Dolores, Reginald and Erin picked up their cups and took a sip. The silence now disturbed only by their low, polite slurps.
Marion leaned back in her chair and watched as Reginald and Erin turned to Dolores as if expecting her to get started with whatever it was they’d been invited for.
Eventually Dolores realized this and began. “I invited your family here tonight,” she said, addressing Marion, “as I thought it would be easier—” she paused, turning from Reginald to Erin and back to Marion “—if we told you together, all of us who love you most in the world.”
Marion surveyed the three faces in front of her: a grandmother whom she’d hardly known before Alice had died, a third cousin twice removed who had once thought Marion’s name was Mary, and his wife, a woman who had never said a word in Marion’s presence. If these were the people who loved her most in the world, she felt very sorry for herself. “Tell me what?” Marion asked, picking her nails under the pillow she’d placed on her lap.
Dolores and the others, in perfect unison, smiled at Marion. A pitiful smile, one you might give to someone who looks not altogether well. Dolores cleared her throat and brought together her veiny hands, resting them on her lap. “I am moving to Ohio,” she said, holding her smile.
“America?”
“Yes, of course America.” Dolores’s face was so stiffly stuck in the act of smiling that it was starting to make Marion uneasy. Was she having a stroke?
A spark of panic ignited in Marion’s chest. “Do you mean you’ve sold the house?”
“Yes.”
“When?” Marion’s voice was rising, quickening. The house had been for sale for so long—nearly eighteen months now—that she’d almost forgotten it still was.
“Recently.”
“I don’t understand what—” She breathed and tried again. “You’re moving to America because you sold the house. What am I supposed to do?”
Dolores was doing something odd with her lips, turning them in as if sipping from a straw. “Well, I was hoping you’d consider joining me. Reginald and Erin moved there last year and have a lovely setup.” She gestured to Reginald. “Reginald has opened a small motor repairs company there and they’re looking for a reception girl, rather similar to the work you did with Felix at the garage. Clerical and all that.”
Marion clenched her jaw and inhaled through her nose as she held back from correcting her grandmother. The work she’d done at Felix’s garage had been anything but clerical. “Well, I’m not just going to pack up and move, if that’s actually what you’re suggesting.”
“It is all quite simple, really,” Dolores went on. “You can come with me, we’ll find a lovely place to live close to Reginald and the motor store and everything will be just perfect.”
Marion’s mouth was dry, her cheeks burned with shock. “Who did you sell it to?”
Dolores placed her teacup on the table beside her. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does matter. It’s my house, too. Whoever it is, you’ll just have to tell them you’ve made a mistake.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, that’s impossible. The papers are already signed.” She picked up her teacup again. There was a low clink as the cup and saucer rattled against each other. “I’m afraid the facts of the matter are simple and plain. You must come with me to America or you’ll have to find another place to live here in London, which I know you can’t do. Rent is far too high these days, most certainly with that pittance of a salary you earn at the bookshop.”
Marion almost didn’t want to ask the next question on her mind. She braced herself. “And the money from the sale?”
Dolores’s eyes flashed swiftly to Reginald. “No.”
“No what?”
“There isn’t any,” Dolores said. “The house sold for very little and I’ve had to use every last penny for the move. But as I’ve already explained, you may live with me in America. Free of charge until you find your feet.”
Mari
on was trying her very best to keep her voice from trembling, and her fingers from wrapping around Dolores’s scrawny neck. “You can’t actually think I’m just going to leave everything in London and relocate to America at the drop of a hat?”
“Everything? What exactly is this everything you will be leaving?” Dolores made some horrible snorting sound. “Oh, dear darling...”
“Stop calling me darling!”
Dolores’s face twitched. “The movers are arriving this evening. Everything will be sorted by Monday. That’s all there is to it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me quite well. We must be all packed and ready to leave by Monday.”
“You can’t be—” Marion tried to calm herself down. “How could you do this without even asking me? Mother said the house was to be put in my name.”
“Your mother had no clue what she was saying, or to whom. Which is why, as you well know, I was left in charge of her estate.”
Marion felt as if she would either explode, or do some permanent damage to Dolores’s face. Fortunately, Reginald picked up on this and grabbed Marion’s hand, gently patting it as he spoke.
“Marion, your grandmother and I are only looking out for you, please understand,” he said. “This will be a good thing, in the long run. You will get a chance at a nice career and—”
“And,” said Erin, whom Marion had forgotten was even there, “you just wait until you see the men in that motor store!” Her face was red with excitement. She turned to Reginald, perhaps to check whether she had gone too far, before continuing. Reginald didn’t seem bothered. “Oh my! Just you wait and see.”
“There you go,” Dolores said, opening her hands to the good news. “It will all be wonderful. So, what do you say?”
After taking a while to filter through the very many things she would have liked to say and boil them down to the bare essentials, Marion spoke. “No, is what I say.”
Dolores tried to smile again but this time, even for her, it seemed impossible. Her face hardened into a carving of stone. It was a frightful sight, all taut and cold as if it belonged to a corpse. “You are the most ungrateful girl I have ever known,” she snapped. “All we are trying to do is help and you just toss it away. It’s no wonder your mother—” She stopped herself, almost too late.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder Page 12