A Spy in the House (27 page)

Angelica turned to him. “Can I?”

“Of course you can! We’re man and wife now!”

She looked at Mary. “Are we?”

Mary was startled. “I was your witness.”

“I know. You signed your name in the register.” Angelica drained her brandy glass. “But you look very young for twenty, Mary.”

Mary’s cheeks and throat felt hot. “Do I?” Her voice sounded rusty.

“Are you sure you’re not younger? Quite a lot younger?”

Michael stared at them both in distress. “That’s ridiculous!”

Angelica was the calmest person in the room. “If I had to guess your age, Mary, I’d say sixteen. Seventeen, at most.”

Mary bowed her head. “It was wrong of me to deceive you. I was only trying to help.”

Michael attempted to speak, but Angelica’s cool voice sliced through his sputtering. “It was wrong,” she agreed, “but I’m rather glad of it. It provides grounds for an annulment.”

Both Mary and Michael swung about to stare at her.

“Anj? Darling? What are you saying?”

“Are you feeling well, Angelica?”

Angelica lifted a hand in a gesture reminiscent of her mother’s. “I’m perfectly well.” She took a deep breath. “After our conversation this morning, Mary, I spent a long time thinking about what I wanted. It was difficult. While I’d always known what I wanted in terms of dresses and jewelry and the most romantic marriage proposal in the world, I’d never thought about life beyond that point. You’ll think that shallow and foolish, Mary.”

“Darling!” said Michael. “That’s what all girls think of.”

Angelica smiled sadly. “So it seems. But this morning, I finally began to think again. And I have changed my mind about what I want.”

Mary sudden realized the delicacy of the situation. “I ought not be here. You two need to talk about this.”

As she stood, Michael’s arm shot out to restrain her. “You might as well stay. It’s your doing, after all.” He turned to his disputed wife. “Angelica — what is this all about?”

Angelica looked steadily at Michael. “Now that my mother has disowned me and our marriage is not legal, I’m free to do what I really want.”

Mary stared at her, fascinated. This Angelica was a new creature. She had the same round blue eyes, the same soft blond beauty, but there was a new kind of sharpness about her; a concentrated focus.

“My music teacher, Herr Schwartz, has long urged me to go for further training abroad. He has some professional connections in Vienna. I spoke to him this morning, asking if it was not too late to begin lessons with one of his associates.”

“If all you want is more pianoforte lessons —”

Angelica’s hand again stopped Michael’s words. “The music lessons are only a beginning. Herr Schwartz thinks I have potential, that I might have a future as a concert pianist.” She stopped and drew a shaky breath. “It’s a terrifying prospect, of course. I’ve never really wanted to go abroad, and now I shall have to support myself by giving music lessons in a foreign city! But if Herr Schwartz is able to arrange it, that is what I intend to do.”

There was a stunned silence.

When Michael spoke, his voice was gentle, cajoling — the sort of tone one might use with a sick animal or an irrational child. “Angelica, love, you never told me about all this. If you want more music lessons — even if they must be in Vienna — what has that to do with an annulment?”

Angelica blinked. “You wouldn’t want to go to Vienna.”

“For you, darling? Of course I would! After all, you can’t very well travel alone, let alone live in foreign parts without a protector. Why, you’d be an easy mark for every crook and unscrupulous so-called gentleman. . . . You must have your husband with you, sweetheart.”

“How could we live? You heard my mother disown me. Music lessons pay little. I couldn’t support two, let alone three.”

Michael flushed. “You wouldn’t have to work, of course,” he said stiffly. “I would provide for you — and our future family.”

Angelica shook her head. “We’ve wandered from the point. Michael, my decision is already made.”

There was a very long silence.

When Michael spoke again, his voice was hard. “Yesterday, you married me. You told me that you loved me and that you would be my wife. Today, you want nothing to do with me, and you’re willing to flee to a foreign city in order to get rid of me. I demand to know what has happened in the meantime!” He turned to Mary, his face twisted with anger. “What the
devil
did you say to her?”

Angelica stood. “You have every right to be angry, Michael, but you mustn’t shout at Mary. This is purely my decision.”

He crumpled suddenly: voice, face, posture. “Then
why
?”

Angelica reseated herself and waited for him to do the same. After a few moments, she said slowly, “Michael, you’re a fine man, but I married you primarily to defy my parents. They wanted me to marry a rich and powerful businessman, and I chose the poorest man I knew.” Michael flinched, but she continued as though she hadn’t noticed; perhaps she hadn’t. “I don’t love you enough to remain married to you, now that every other aspect of my life is changed. I’ve always been terribly selfish; you may think I don’t know it, but I do. And I shall continue to be so. I’m going to remain a spinster and study music in Vienna and disregard anyone who attempts to stop me.” She slipped the wedding band from her finger and offered it to him. “It’s a worthless thing to say, Michael, but I am sorry.”

His gaze remained fixed on the carpet for a long time.

Mary scarcely dared to breathe.

Angelica kept her hand outstretched, offering back the thin circlet of gold.

After some time, he carefully composed his face. “I’m sure you’ll manage in Vienna.”

“I — I’m frightfully sorry, Michael,” Angelica murmured.

“Yes, you said that before.”

“You’ll find someone better than me; someone who appreciates you,” said Angelica with forced brightness. It was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“No, I won’t. I’m going to prison.”

“The police investigation should clear you,” Mary said. “If you tell them what you told me yesterday . . . You could show them those documents you copied. . . .”

He shrugged and stood. “I very much doubt they’ll listen. If you’ll excuse me, ladies . . .” He left the room with his shoulders slumped, a far cry from his usual suave, elegant self.

Angelica looked at Mary, eyes wide. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

“Which part? Asking for the annulment?”

“All of it, I suppose.” Angelica rolled the wedding band between finger and thumb. “It’s terrifying to be on the verge of finally getting what you want.”

“Is it?”

“I keep wondering if I should take it all back. Of course, I don’t really want to.”

Mary grinned suddenly. “Well, if you change your mind, there’s always George Easton. . . .”

Numb.

That was the word for his hands and the curious, cold feel of his lips. Pity it didn’t apply to his emotions. James stared at the crumpled bit of paper he’d just fished from his pocket: half a sheet of writing paper folded neatly in thirds and addressed to J. Easton, Esq., in painstaking, rather wobbly printing. It was Alfred Quigley’s letter. James had forgotten all about it until he’d gone looking for his spare handkerchief.

It was irrelevant now, of course — along with James’s plans to employ the lad properly or to help him get a decent education or any of the good intentions he’d so resented this morning. Yet what the hell was he to do with the note? It seemed to vibrate between his fingers — in truth a tremor most likely caused by the mild breeze or James’s own nerves — and the movement made it seem alive. With a sigh, James unfolded the paper.

James felt an immediate cold queasiness that had nothing to do with the river’s stink. Last night, Alfred Quigley had been alive and well and making plans for the following day. This afternoon, he was dead and cold. Certainly, life was nasty, brutish, and short — particularly if one was poor — but this was surely too great a coincidence. Quigley knew something about Thorold and the Lascars’ refuge; Quigley reported it to James; Quigley turned up dead on James’s building site. The boy was killed not merely because he was in the way but because he’d uncovered something important. And this scrap of paper was the link between the discovery and the murder.

James ran several streets from the building site before finding a cab, and even then, the first two declined to drive him because of the state of his clothing. It was just over three miles to Limehouse, and the driver, spurred on by the promise of a tip, set a smart pace.

“Stop here,” said James at the entrance to George Villas.

“I ain’t waiting here,” the cabbie said sullenly. “Don’t wait for nobody in this part of town, not even the Prince of Wales.”

Wise man,
thought James, and emptied his pockets of coins large and small.

The front of the Lascars’ home was like a blind face. He jerked sharply on the bellpull and waited. Nothing. He rang again. Still nothing. A vigorous rap on the door, however, pushed it ajar.

“Mr. Chen?” he called, stepping gingerly into the front hall. The smell of the place was thick in his nostrils and familiar from his last visit. Incense, he remembered. Mothballs. Chinese herbal medicines. Unfamiliar spices. And below all that, traditional English damp rot and mildew that caught him in the throat. His voice seemed to churn up the air in the foyer.

“Hello? Mr. Chen?” he called again, to be answered only by stillness.

The last time he’d been here, Mr. Chen had answered the door promptly. Perhaps he had Sundays off?

“Is anyone in?” he called, very loudly this time. There had to be
some
servant about. When the echo of his voice died out, James felt the first prickle of anxiety. First, Alfred Quigley. Then the arrest of Thorold. What else was wrong? Had they all cleared out? They couldn’t all be in it together — all those frail old men? But Chen could. Chen could have used the place as a center of operations, and Chen could have escaped by now. That made sense: banish the old men, give the servants the day off, and disappear.

Damn it.
The whole time that old man was filling him with nonsense about penniless Lascars, he’d been working with Thorold. It was a fine front, of course. Who would suspect a sweet-faced old Chinese man?

The door of the manager’s office stood ajar, and when he pushed it wide, even James was startled. The room had been ransacked — although the word implied a degree of method that didn’t seem quite right here. The carpet was littered with reams of paper, most of it trampled and shredded by heavy boots. All the drawers and cabinets were torn open, spilling their entrails onto the floor. The shelves were tipped over, along with their contents. He couldn’t be sorry that the hideous oil painting was kicked through or its gilded frame broken. But the curtains, too, were pulled down, one side of the brass rail slumped against the ground. This was more than simple robbery. There was rage here.

James thought back to his meeting with Mr. Chen and again revised his ideas. Mr. Chen had no need to ransack his own office. Whatever he needed, he could have found. So why destroy the room? To make it look like something else? Or was it someone else entirely? Head whirling, he bent to examine a dark, wet patch on the carpet. Coffee. Not blood, thank God. And it was cold, which only meant that the mayhem had occurred longer ago than ten minutes, say. And the other wet patch was oil — the smashed globe of the lamp ground into the carpet confirmed that.

A loud
klock
made him glance up — and then freeze.

“That’s right,” said the figure framed in the doorway. “Keep still.”

James couldn’t wrench his gaze from the source of the click: a sleek handgun. One of the newer revolving pistols if he wasn’t mistaken. It was the first he’d seen, but everyone knew they were more accurate than the old flintlocks.

“Now. Slowly. Stand up.”

James nodded, his eyes finally focusing on the person — a woman, he realized with a sense of shock — behind the gun. She was tall and athletic, her gaze cold and direct. And she seemed extremely familiar. . . .

“Come on.” She bobbed the gun at him. “It’s time to stop playing about, young James.”

Sudden recognition sliced through him. “Mrs. Thorold?”

She smiled grimly. “But of course.”

He stared at her stupidly. She wore her usual hairstyle and type of dress, but everything else — the way she moved and spoke, even the predatory way she looked at him — was utterly different. Even that day in Pimlico hadn’t shown the full scale of her transformation. “You did all this . . . ?”

She smiled. “Aren’t you a clever boy. Now turn round and hold your hands high.” Questions raced through his head, but before he could phrase one, she snapped, “Do it!”

One advantage to the rubbish strewn all over the floor was that it made it easier to track her approach. She took her time picking her way through the debris. “Now don’t move.” Something jabbed James’s spine — the muzzle of the gun, presumably. Hands delved into his pockets, explored his waistband, his waistcoat. She extracted his wallet from his breast pocket and tossed it aside. Experimentally, he turned his head an inch or two to the left but stopped when the gun dug deeper into his back. “None of that, young man.”