A Spy in the House (29 page)

“Miss.” Cass’s voice was barely audible.

Mary waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. “We can’t talk here,” she said quietly. “I’ll meet you at the back of the stables.” She waited again. “All right?”

A mute bob of the head signaled Cass’s comprehension. As Mary retraced her steps though the house, she suddenly realized that she’d done the wrong thing. It was unlikely that Cass would go round to the stables. Not only were Brown and the footmen prone to hanging about there for a smoke and a gossip, but Cass was likely to have second thoughts about speaking to her and take flight.
Damn.
Her second chance to help the girl and she’d bumbled it again. The idea sent her scurrying through the kitchen and out the back door. On her way through the courtyard, she noted mechanically that the carriage was not in the carriage house. The significance of that was lost on her for the moment.

Luck was with her in a small way today. There was no sign of the male servants, but in the darkest corner of the mews she spotted the waiting figure of Cass Day. Mary moved toward her slowly, as though approaching a frightened animal, and waited for Cass to speak first.

“I’m sorry I ran away, miss,” she said eventually, in a rusty voice.

“Did I frighten you?”

Cass’s eyes darted nervously to one side. “Not you, miss. I mean — that is, nothing you did. I was just stupid.” After an anguished pause, she blurted out, “The other maids kept whispering about the white slave trade, miss, and reading picture-papers about it, and going on about how respectable-looking ladies are running it. They’re full of it, they are, and when you — I mean, when I — that is . . .”

Mary’s eyes widened. “You thought I was trying to kidnap you?”

Cass’s face was beet red. “I thought that was why you were kind to me. I couldn’t think why any lady’d be kind to me except for that.”

Mary felt a pulse of sympathy. Hadn’t she said much the same thing to Anne Treleaven all those years ago?

“I expect it shows I’m too stupid to go to school . . . doesn’t it?” The girl’s tone was hopeful, despite her words.

“Have you thought more about going to school?”

She nodded so vigorously that her hair flopped about. “I do want to go . . . if I still may. If you’re not too cross.”

“I’m not angry, and there is still a place at this school I mentioned.”

“I’ll work hard. I promise. I’m not clever, miss, but I’ll do my best, I swear. . . .”

Mary took her by the shoulders. “Don’t promise me, Cass. Promise yourself.”

Cass’s eyes widened as she absorbed that. Then she nodded. “You’re very good to me, Miss Quinn.”

“Are you sure I’m not a white slaver?” Mary smiled.

Cass blushed furiously. Then she laughed, falteringly, at herself. It was a thin, tentative squeak, a noise that suggested its maker was unfamiliar with the technique. All the same, it was the first time Mary had heard her laugh. “Yes, miss.”

They were in a hansom bound for St. John’s Wood when Cass produced the notebook. “I think I must be very thick, Miss Quinn, ’cause I know my numbers and some letters, but I can’t make any sense of this.”

Mary reluctantly accepted the object. Now that the assignment had ended, she was tired. Her brain was whirling with random bits of information, none of which she could assemble into a coherent whole. And she wanted to be left alone to think about her father.

However, Cass was watching her expectantly. Mary flipped open the notebook and scanned its pages of minutely printed columns of figures. “This is a balance sheet, Cass. It shows sums of money coming in and going out of a business.” She showed her a random page. “Look: there’s a date here, followed by various entries of credits and debits, for a total profit of four hundred and sixty-two pounds, eight shillings, and four pence. It only really makes sense if you know a bit of bookkeeping.”

Cass looked dismayed. “Will I have to learn that, too?”

“If you like,” she murmured absently, turning over a page.

“Do all ladies know it?”

“Most ladies don’t. It’s mainly a clerk’s job, and there still aren’t many female clerks.”

Cass still looked perplexed.

Mary flicked through several more pages, then looked at the first and last written pages of the book. The financial entries spanned more than two years, and were kept with meticulous care. Someone would be searching frantically for this item. “Cass, whose notebook is this?”

Cass looked instantly guilty. “I — I don’t know, miss.

“But you just asked about ladies knowing bookkeeping. . . .”

“I mean that I f-found it, miss.”

“Where?”

“B-beside the front steps, miss. When I was whitening them.”

Mary forced herself to speak gently. “At the Thorolds’ house?”

“Yes, miss.”

“When?”

“I can’t remember exactly. A week ago? Perhaps less?”

“Did you mention finding the book to anybody? Cook, perhaps?”

Cass shook her head.

Mary considered the object in her hand. It was small and weathered, and some of the gilt had worn off the pages, but it originally had been an expensive item. “Did you see the person who dropped this, Cass?”

At this, Cass seemed to shrink back into her seat. “I — I don’t know, miss.”

Mary considered her carefully. “Are you quite certain?”

Cass’s gaze was fixed on the book. “It’s very important, isn’t it, miss?”

Mary nodded. “Much more than you’d expect.”

Cass stared for a second longer, then took a deep breath. “I didn’t see exactly, miss, but I think it was Mrs. Thorold. She came out of the house as I was whitening the steps, and so I had to do them over. When I started again at the bottom, it was lying on one side. It wasn’t there before.” She paused, then rattled on defensively, “But it can’t be hers, right, ’cause she’s a lady, and not a clerk or anything?”

Mary thought back. Yes, that too made sense. Mrs. Thorold had gone out in a rush on Wednesday morning — the day Mary had overheard Angelica and Michael talking in the drawing room — and she’d been in a foul mood on her return. But if this belonged to Mrs. Thorold, it put a whole new interpretation on the Pimlico affair. Was it even possible that instead of consulting physicians and instead of carrying on an adulterous liaison, Mrs. Thorold was clandestinely running a business of some sort? And what type of business, exactly?

Mary leafed through the pages once more, any scruples she might have had about reading someone else’s private affairs long evaporated. A fresh balance sheet was drawn up for this month, but lacking specific dates. There were often long gaps between transactions — sometimes of several months — but there were also clusters of entries. So it was a business that was seasonal or otherwise dependent on external pressures.

If only she had a little more information . . . She flicked through the blank pages, of which there were many; the notebook was only half full. And then, at the very end of the book, she saw a tiny pencil annotation, half erased: C: 7, G.V., Lh.

She sat back in the seat, stunned. Of course!

What a blind, obtuse, harebrained ninny she’d been. And the carriage was gone now! Mrs. Thorold had
said
she’d be in her room, but in all the turmoil no one had checked.

Mary leaned out of the hansom and gave the driver a rapid series of instructions. Reseating herself, she said, “Listen, Cass. You’ve just told me something very important, and I must attend to it immediately. The driver is going to take me to east London. Then he will take you to the school in Acacia Road, which is called Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls.

“You will ask to see Miss Treleaven. Tell her that I have sent you as a new pupil, and then give her this notebook. Tell her I am meeting Mrs. Thorold at 7 George Villas, Limehouse, and to start immediately for that address. Do you understand me?”

Cass looked troubled. “Yes.”

Mary laid a hand on her shoulder. She pretended not to notice that, once again, the girl had flinched in anticipation of a blow. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Cass; nothing at all. And you’ve helped me immeasurably. I’m sorry I can’t introduce you to Miss Treleaven myself, but please understand that I have something very important to do now.”

Cass nodded cautiously. “I understand.”

“Good.”

Even as she paid the driver to see Cass safely to the Academy, Mary began to second-guess what she was doing in Limehouse. She’d been wrong so many times in the past few days, and her sense of conviction began to evaporate as her boots touched the squelchy, rotting roadway near George Villas. Mrs. Thorold’s notebook — if it could be proven to be hers — was only a record of business transactions. It was devoid of specific references, and there was nothing to tie her to the Lascars’ refuge except that scrawled pencil address. Yet elsewhere — in the back of her mind — things clicked together. Even now, she couldn’t say why she was so certain that the answer lay here. But here she was, heeding instinct above conscious logic, gut over instruction.

She spotted it the moment she rounded the corner: a plume of smoke wafting from one of the tall, narrow houses toward the end of the row. A small crowd clustered round the front of the buildings, more intent on watching the spectacle than putting out the fire.

Mary broke into a run. “How long has it been burning?” she demanded of the stocky, middle-aged woman closest to her.

“Just got here myself.” The woman’s voice was placid, unhurried. She folded her arms over her stained apron and appeared to settle in for the show.

Mary pushed her way toward the front of the crowd. “Is anybody inside?” she shouted.

The faces around her merely looked blank.

“You.” Mary singled out a girl in a shawl and bare feet who looked as though she’d just tumbled from bed. “Has somebody gone to see if anyone’s still inside?”

The girl shook her head. “Too late for that.” She pointed. “See how fast it’s spreading?” Sure enough, smoke and flame were visible in the next window over.

“Who lives next door?” Mary asked desperately. “Surely they want the fire put out?”

The girl looked at her with sleepy, intelligent eyes. “In this hole? Why should anybody care?” As though to illustrate her meaning, someone heaved a brick through a ground-floor window and a ragged cheer broke from the crowd.

Mary looked at the building in despair. Surely nobody was still inside. The old sailors, at least, were turned out each morning, and Mr. Chen was competent and sensible. He wouldn’t risk his life trying to save mere possessions — not even the cigar box. Yet . . . despite this rational assessment, that sense of conviction prevailed. She turned one last searching look on the crowd — not a policeman in sight — and ran into the building.

Inside, it was not yet an inferno. The dank, gloomy entrance hall and corridors looked much as she remembered but for a light haze of smoke. The fire must have begun near the top of the building. She began with Mr. Chen’s office, noting its ransacked state quite mechanically. Swiftly, she scanned the wreckage for a glimpse of the cigar box but soon realized it was futile. She ought to have felt despair and outrage and frantically begun to search the room. But there wasn’t time for that. She had to check the rest of the building for people before she could worry about papers — even such important ones — and she was glad for the numb common sense that seemed to prevail within her.

Up on the second floor, the smoke thickened and she crouched low, holding her handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She would search here last. If the fire was at the top, she had to begin there while she had time. The third story was thickly shrouded with smoke, and she was forced to crawl now, cursing her crinoline as, with each movement, it scraped her knees. The front rooms were the ones with smoke pouring from the windows. Nothing in the first room. Nothing in the second. The smoke stung her eyes, her lungs. She’d lost her handkerchief somewhere, some time ago.

Working her way to the back of the building, she found a closed door from beneath which smoke billowed. The doorknob was warm, but possible to touch with her gloved hand. As she pushed the door open slowly, she braced herself for a blast of heat, a surge of flame. Instead, she was nearly knocked over by a stream of thick gray smoke. Coughing, crying, she waited for a minute, then turned back to the room. As the smoke flooded into the corridor, she could make out a prone form on the floor. Forgetting her running eyes and battered knees, she crawled over to the body.

James.

She wasn’t even surprised. At some level, her certainty had been focused on this. On him. He was bound, lying with his face turned toward the door. She stripped off a glove and felt his cheek: warm. A strong, steady pulse throbbed in his throat. Merely unconscious, then. But how would she ever drag him out? He easily outweighed her by fifty pounds.

She shook him vigorously. “James!”

Nothing.

Shook again, harder. “Get up! James!”

Still nothing.

She slapped his face once, twice.

Miraculously, his eyelashes fluttered slightly.

“James!” she rasped. Her throat was hoarse with smoke. “Wake up!”

His eyelids opened, and he smiled at her as sweetly as if he’d awakened from a nap. More sweetly than he’d ever looked at her before. “Mary.” His voice held mild surprise. “What are you doing here?”