A Spy in the House (10 page)

James’s expression darkened as he listened to Quigley’s report. “What do you suppose she intends doing with this rope and costume?”

“Seems like she wants to get into the warehouse, sir. Although it’s an unusual lady who can tie knots and things.”

“Indeed.”

He brooded for a few minutes longer. The silence was broken only by Quigley’s attempt to stifle a yawn.

“I’m keeping you,” James said abruptly. “You’d best get home and to sleep.”

“D’you need me to watch the lady tonight, sir?” It was a heroic offer: his eyes were nearly crossed with fatigue.

“No. I’ll go.” James paused. The boy was only ten. “Do you have far to go home?”

“No, sir. I live with my mother nearby, in Church Street.”

“Good. We’ll speak tomorrow.”

As Quigley disappeared, James’s conscience jabbed him again.

“Quigley!”

“Sir?”

“Have you eaten?” Good Lord, he was turning into a nursemaid.

A broad grin appeared on Quigley’s small, freckled face. It was the first truly boyish expression he’d displayed. “Eel pie and mash. They was beautiful, sir.”

It was a quarter to one when Mary arrived at the warehouses of Thorold & Company for the second time that day. The street seemed still and vacant except for a couple of vagrants she’d passed curled up in doorways for a fitful night’s sleep. Proper darkness never really fell on this part of London. The river reflected a great deal of light from the moon, domestic fires, and street lanterns, although this in turn was smothered by the dense fog. Tonight, Southwark was in the clutches of a pea-souper so thick it was like a physical presence. When, as an experiment, Mary held out her hand at arm’s length, her fingers looked ghostly and not quite solid.

It was more than five years since she’d worn boys’ clothing. She’d almost forgotten how comfortable and practical trousers were. And with her cap pulled low over her eyes, the cabman hadn’t betrayed a flicker of interest in her destination or her purpose. He’d been more worried about whether she could afford the fare. Once the investigation was finished, she would have to do this again just for fun — although she could do without the trespassing and the stinking river.

For now, though, she needed to stay focused on finding the evidence. Thus far, she’d spent exactly one week with the Thorolds and had absolutely nothing to show for it. With the case closing in six days’ time, she had to come up with something to help the Agency solve the case — didn’t she? She’d debated the point with herself all day. Her original orders were only to watch and listen. Technically. But Anne and Felicity had good reasons for posting her within the household. It wasn’t as though she was acting from personal nosiness or a desire to compete with the primary agent; she had the Agency’s interests in mind. And she couldn’t contribute if she didn’t act. After all, what good was an agent who knew nothing, heard nothing, did nothing, and failed to use her brains?

That, at least, was what she’d been telling her conscience all day. Now it was too late to dither.

Shrugging off a lingering sense of being watched, she sidled up to the iron fence and experimentally inserted her head between the bars. It was a tight fit, but just about possible. In her days as a housebreaker, one of her mottoes had been, “Where the head will go, the body will follow.” She dropped her bag of equipment through the bars and waited. If a guard dog was on the prowl, it would shortly make itself known.

A minute passed. Nothing . . . except that nagging suspicion that she was not quite alone. She spun round: still nothing, of course. Ninny. With a swipe at her perspiring forehead, Mary squeezed through the bars with a slight grunt of discomfort. “Where the head will go . . .” In those days, she’d been flat-chested.

The cobblestones in the courtyard were slick. She found her equipment and picked her way carefully through the yard, alert for voices and footsteps. At the main building, someone had left the door near the loading bay unlocked. Honestly! Thorold needed better security. Mary realized that her uneasiness had vanished; if anything, she was enjoying herself. Her senses were heightened. A surge of exhilaration sped through her veins that had nothing to do with the justice or value of her enterprise and everything to do with being on the prowl once more. She’d lost sight of the pure, concentrated thrill of danger until now.

She eased inside, into tarry blackness. Bereft of vision, other senses slowly took its place. The quality of the silence was cavernous — even without a sound to create an echo, she knew the room was vast. It smelled of sawdust and salt, of pitch and resin. The floorboards were rough planks, gritty with sand and grime.

In the dark, it was easier to crawl than to walk. On all fours, she crossed that enormous floor, moving slowly and cautiously from pallet to pallet, all stacked high with crates. The gargantuan proportions of the room were confusing: when she reached the standard-size door at the other end, it felt oddly miniaturized. This one was locked, but with a lock so simple Mary had to smile. Why bother?

She eased the door open a crack and listened again. A faint shuffling sound resolved itself into footsteps. Pressing the door closed again, Mary flattened herself against the wall, keeping her ear by the keyhole, her breathing slow and shallow.

A sentry, trudging.

Coming to a halt just outside her door. The bright glow of his lantern cast a little beam of yellow light through the keyhole.

A sigh.

A pause.

A fart.

And then the footsteps receded.

She waited an additional three minutes, then slowly opened the door a fraction. Pale illumination came from a series of skylights cut into the roof of the building, revealing a broad flight of stairs. The moon was asserting itself, even through the fog.

Mary stayed close to the walls, testing each tread for creaks before placing her full weight on it. It was slow going. When she finally reached the top floor, she glided past the smaller doors toward the end of the hall. The imposing mahogany door at the end was obviously what she wanted. The brass nameplate confirmed it: H. Thorold, Esq. With a smile, she gently touched the doorknob. Locked, of course.

As she fitted a skeleton key to the lock, a faint growling sound seemed to emerge from the door. She paused, peered into the corridor behind her. Nothing. But the growl began to rise, from a faint rumble to a distinctly animal sound.

A dog. She nearly fumbled the key. A guard dog.

“Shhh . . .” She began hesitantly.

The growling continued, ending in a snarl. It couldn’t be long before the beast exploded into full-fledged barking.

“Be quiet,” she said with as much authority as she could muster. “I need you to be silent, dog.”

There was a momentary lull in the rumbling.

“That’s a good boy,” Mary continued, wiping her perspiring palms on her trousers. “Very nice,” she murmured encouragingly as the growling slowly subsided.

When all she could hear was its steady panting, she began to turn the key in the lock, speaking quietly and soothingly the whole time to the animal inside. The lock opened with a distinct clicking noise. As Mary tentatively pushed the door ajar, she continued to croon nonsense to the dog.

A pair of eyes gleamed at her from the darkness. Wolf eyes.

Her breath hitched in her throat. “Good evening, my dear,” she managed to croak. “You’ve been a very good dog so far.”

The eyes seemed to glow eerily. They didn’t blink.

“I’d like to come into your office,” Mary murmured, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. “I’ll begin very slowly, all right?” Crouching low to the floor, she inched across the threshold.

The animal actually seemed to pause and consider what to do.

A sudden recollection flashed through Mary’s mind. With slow, careful movements, she groped in her satchel. When her fingers closed round the cloth-wrapped object, she heard the animal snuffle with curiosity. She unwrapped the item under its shining gaze: a chunk of cold boiled mutton. She’d taken it from the larder earlier this evening, anticipating just such a moment. She simply hadn’t expected to meet the guard dog
inside
Thorold’s office.

The animal sniffed once, then lunged at her. She felt a blast of hot, doggy breath, a cool paw. And then the dog retreated with its prize, gnawing at it with eager greed.

Mary slithered into the office, closed the door, and went limp with relief. Her back was damp with perspiration again, and when the dog came back to inspect her prone figure, sniffing at her with open curiosity, it was all she could do not to laugh aloud.

She struck a match and lit her candle. Girl and dog surveyed each other curiously. It — no, he — was a massive black mongrel. Short-haired, with big, floppy ears and an alert expression. Not at all the usual sort of guard dog, but she liked his ungainly looks.

“What’s a man like Thorold doing with a lovely dog like you?” she murmured.

The dog seemed to shrug in reply.

They spent a few minutes getting to know each other before Mary reluctantly pushed her new friend aside. The clock on Thorold’s mantel showed twenty-five minutes past one o’clock. “I must ask you to excuse me,” she said apologetically, locking the office door. “I have a great deal of work to do.”

Thorold’s office at work was much like his study at home — no stray papers lying about, plenty of massive filing cabinets. Probably no obscene pictures, although one could never be certain. The procedure was simple enough: skim through the files, check randomly to ensure that they were correctly labeled, and replace as found. It was also quick work.

As quarter hours and then half hours slipped away, however, Mary grew frustrated. Once again, she hadn’t expected to find stacks of incriminating information in the first file. Yet all these files were neatly numbered and docketed, and they correlated with other documents she’d noticed. There was no sign of the scrappy, informal type of documentation she associated with illegal trade. Then again, what did she know? Perhaps there wasn’t any written evidence whatsoever. What then?

“What am I doing here, dog?” she asked ruefully. “It could take me weeks of nights to sift through all this.”

The clock on the desk made a clicking sound, drawing her attention to it. Four o’clock! At Cheyne Walk, the servants would soon rise. She replaced the furniture as she’d found it and said a regretful good-bye to the dog. Any worries she had about his creating a fuss vanished when she unlocked the door. He seemed to understand the need for silence. After licking her hand affectionately, he crept back under the desk and lay there quietly.

Retracing her steps, Mary nearly ran into one of the night watchmen in the stairwell. Fortunately, he was so sleepy that he failed to notice the slight bulge in the shadows on the third floor landing. In fact, she’d had uncommon good luck all night, apart from the matter of the files themselves. As she slid through the bars of the iron fence, once again mashing her breasts in the process, it was still grayish dark outside. She would make it, she thought happily. She hadn’t yet found what she was looking for, but she would —

Damn.

Absorbed in self-congratulation, she had forgotten the cardinal rule of housebreaking: stay alert and don’t let your mind wander.

“Hail, fellow, well met,” drawled a voice from the fog.

Large hands clamped around her upper arms. She sucked in a breath so sharp it hurt. She could discern only the general outline of her captor: tall, lean, male.

Instinct took over when fear might have paralyzed.

Mary struck out, stamping on the man’s instep, using her elbows as weapons, twisting hard and fast out of his grasp. His face loomed indistinctly in the gray mist, and she attacked again, landing a hard punch on his nose.

He grunted, cursed, and stumbled back a step.

She took that as her cue to run. Sprinting toward the nearest bridge, she could hear his footsteps pounding after her. He had a significant size advantage; unless he was quite injured, he would catch her. She dropped her satchel in favor of speed.

Even as she fled, wisps of fog brushing her face like so many cobwebs, something tugged at her memory. Her assailant seemed vaguely familiar. Not that she was tempted to turn round to check.

The voice?

The shape of his head?

Something tugged hard at the back of her jacket — his hand, perhaps. She let the jacket slide off her shoulders without breaking stride.

Just before he caught her, she had a moment of sick premonition. It had been the same way the first time — the last time — she’d been caught. A flash of dread, of knowing. And then it happened.

A hand seized the back of her shirt, hauling her up short with a ripping sound. The seams cut into her underarms, and she went flying backward, landing with a thud against a hard, angular body.

“You damned fool!” snarled a familiar voice. “Stop fighting and I won’t hurt you.”

Mary froze, elbow poised in mid-jab. She couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or appalled. “Let me guess,” she said weakly. “You’d like to waltz?”