Death by Silver (25 page)

“She saw your man coming. She thought you were here to arrest her.”

“Well, so we were,” Hatton said, pressing his sodden hat more firmly down over his sodden hair. “Or at least bring her in to assist with our inquiries, and I expect she’d have said it was the same thing. I’m not saying it’s your fault what just happened, but it’s a damn bad business, and you must see that.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“It’s going to be hard now to make a case that she didn’t do it.”

“I tell you, she didn’t,” Ned said, finding his voice. “She may have seen who killed Edgar Nevett, but she didn’t do it herself.”

“I don’t tend to think she did, but I’ve got little enough to go on. If you know something I don’t, I strongly suggest you speak up.”

“Not much,” Ned said. “Reggie’s hiding something, whatever he quarreled with his father about. A girl, maybe. Mr Ellis warned me off trying to find Sarah, and said he thinks I’m persecuting the servants.”

“That’s more than I knew five minutes ago,” Hatton said. He rubbed the back of his neck where rain was trickling down under his collar. “I know you’re trying to clear Victor Nevett, but you work with me, understand? Or I’ll have you down at the Yard for interfering with a police investigation.” He softened his tone a little. “Look, if you find out anything else, tell me, and I’ll tell you what I can that might bear. I can’t put much into the case, especially now that we’ve got a conveniently dead suspect. It’s not a bad thing to have another pair of hands working on it, but you can’t keep me in the dark.”

“That’s fair enough,” Ned said.

Hatton clapped him on the shoulder. “Get out of the rain and have a good stiff drink, then. We’ll clear up here.”

He looked around for Sarah, but someone had apparently carried her into one of the houses nearby; at least she was out of the rain.

Ned had to walk for a while to find a cab, and started to give the driver his address, but fishing in his pocket for cab fare revealed Julian’s letter, now very soggy but a reminder of Julian’s request. He couldn’t say he was enthusiastic about looking at another dead body that afternoon, but going back to his rooms alone didn’t sound much better. He gave the driver Julian’s address instead, and folded the soggy letter back into his pocket as neatly as he could.

Mrs Digby admitted him with visible skepticism at the state of his clothes, and knocked sharply on Julian’s door by way of announcing him.

Julian at least looked pleased to see him. “You did get my note,” he said. “It’s getting late, but if we go now we can probably still – what’s the matter?” His expression sharpened abruptly.

“Sarah Doyle is dead.”

“Come in and tell me about it,” Julian said, sounding for some reason like he felt the need to be carefully gentle. “Here, give me your hat.”

Ned let Julian take his hat out of his hands and sat down heavily on the sofa. The plant on the end-table extended curious tendrils toward him, and then apparently dismissed him as uninteresting.

“The police arrived just after I did,” he said. “She ran out into the road and was run over. Nothing unnatural about it.”

“Just gruesome, I imagine,” Julian said. He pressed a glass of brandy into Ned’s hand, and Ned downed it gratefully.

“It was, a bit,” Ned admitted as Julian refilled his glass. “The worst of it is, I think she did know something, but we’ll never know what now. Hatton says he’ll be pressured to close the case.”

“That’s idiotic. The girl didn’t do it.”

“I know,” Ned said. “None of it’s fair.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Julian said after a momentary pause. “I promise. Whether Hatton helps or not. And you don’t have to look at Makins for me, I’ll get someone else –”

“No, I want to,” Ned said firmly. “At least it’s something I can do for someone.”

“In the morning, though,” Julian said. “I’ll send out for some dinner, it’s not too early for that.”

“It is, rather.”

“Call it tea, then. Unless you’ve another engagement?” Ned wondered if he was imagining a note of uncertainty there.

“None at all,” Ned said.

“In fact, you’re welcome to stay. Although I suppose you ought to go home and change your wet clothes.”

“I can run home in the morning,” Ned said. He wished he had a better sense of whether Julian wanted him to stay or go, especially since at the moment he very much wanted to stay. He’d rarely felt as strong a desire not to go to bed alone. “But if you’ve early business to attend to…”

“Only the matter of Makins’s corpse.”

“That’s the first thing on my agenda as well,” Ned said.

“You may as well stay here, then,” Julian said, as if it were a matter of pure practicality.

“As long as I can have a bath later.”

“I’d highly recommend it. There’s a penny in there for the geyser. One’s all you’ll need, it’ll give it back afterwards.”

“Do I really want to use a bathtub with a gas boiler you’ve enchanted?”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Julian said. “It’s just more economical. Gas is supposed to be included in the rent anyway, so that really ought to include hot water.”

“If you don’t mind having Mrs Digby think you never bathe.”

“I leave enough pennies in that she doesn’t notice,” Julian said, which Ned wasn’t at all sure was true. He felt a sense of unreasonable fondness, despite knowing he really ought to disapprove of petty larceny, even if it was cleverly done. It still went some distance toward settling his nerves to have Julian being so typically himself. “What?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Ned said, and unfolded his handkerchief to begin trying to wring his sodden trouser cuffs dry.

Julian sprawled on his end of the sofa, regarding Ned with a wary eye. So far, he’d managed to get dinner into him, and half a pint of decent claret along with the brandy, and his color was looking better. That might be the bath, of course, and being warm, but at the moment, Ned looked almost normal, wrapped in Julian’s scarlet dressing gown over borrowed shirt and trousers. His own clothes were hung to dry over the backs of chairs, would probably be no more than damp in the morning, and Julian carefully stretched out one leg so that his foot was almost touching Ned’s thigh. Ned gave him a rather tired smile and Julian lifted his glass.

“More brandy?”

Ned pondered for a moment, then shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m almost asleep already.”

Something plucked at Julian’s hair, and he brushed it away, only to receive a sharp nip from the
Urtica mordax
. He sat up, swearing, and stuck his finger in his mouth, sucking at the already reddening bite.

Ned laughed. “Sorry. But why did you keep it?”

Julian shrugged, examining the mark. “I’m not really sure. I suppose it seemed a shame to toss it out. Besides, who knows where it would have taken root? We don’t need another Highgate.”

Less than a decade ago, someone had discarded a cane of
Vepris durus
, sleeping-beauty thorn, inside the fence at Highgate Cemetery, and the fast-growing bramble had taken root, overrunning almost a quarter of the area before a team of gardeners and metaphysicians had been able to beat it back. Stands still cropped up now and then, threatening mausoleums and slow-moving pets. Ned nodded. “Though at least biting thistle isn’t that – aggressive.”

“Mercifully not,” Julian said. “Bed, then?”

“Yes,” Ned said. “But – I’m dead on my feet –”

“We can simply sleep,” Julian said, soothingly, and began turning down the gas.

Once they were in bed, however, with the lights out and the window open to the night air, Ned reached for him with unexpected determination. Julian was happy to oblige, and afterward lay half across him, listening to their hearts slow. He was sure Ned would sleep then, but, though his breathing steadied, it did not ease toward sleep. Julian settled himself more comfortably, one arm still flung across Ned’s chest, and waited.

“I should have stopped her,” Ned said at last, so softly that Julian almost didn’t hear.

“How?”

Ned shifted uneasily. “Grabbed her before she could run, I suppose. I don’t know.”

“You said yourself that wouldn’t have worked,” Julian pointed out. “Someone would have stopped you, and she’d still have been killed.”

“I should have tried.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Julian said. “If she hadn’t been killed, she’d have been arrested, and the best that could have happened then was that she’d spend weeks, months, maybe, in a cell. Even if she was released without being charged, she’d have the devil of a time finding a place. And you know and I know that she didn’t kill anyone, but we also know how simple it would make things if it was her.”

“Hatton’s not like that,” Ned said.

“No, but you know how much choice he’d have,” Julian answered.

Ned turned his head away. “She wouldn’t let me inside,” he said, after a moment. “For her reputation’s sake. I frightened her, and if I hadn’t, she might still be alive.”

Julian tightened his hold, but Ned said nothing more, his body taut and uneasy.
You didn’t frighten her,
Julian thought,
or at least no more than any man would have.
He propped himself on one elbow, wishing he could see more than Ned’s blurred shape in the darkness. “This is what’s wrong with respectability,” he said. “Sarah Doyle was willing to stand in a pelting rain rather let a strange gentleman into her room. It’s madness! What sensible person would rather die of pneumonia than be seen to be alone in a room with a man?”

“Most young women,” Ned said, sounding sleepy again.

“It’s foolish,” Julian said. “It’s utterly nonsensical. And how many of them suffer for it? That’s what killed poor Sarah, plain respectability, and I’ll wager it’s killed more women than her, and men, too. People who froze to death in a blizzard because they were too respectable to share body heat. Ladies who drowned because they wouldn’t shed their boots, never mind their petticoats and bustle. Or a coat and trousers, gentlemen aren’t blameless here, either. How many people have died of the heat, because they couldn’t bring themselves to work in their shirtsleeves, or to be seen in their shifts even in their own houses?”

“Do you have an actual example of any of these?” Ned asked, shifting again so that they were facing each other, and Julian smiled in the dark.

“It stands to reason,” he said, and Ned laughed softly.

“Same old Lynes,” he said, and edged closer.

Julian settled next to him, listening to Ned’s breathing lengthen, the wine and brandy and the events of the day finally overcoming him. They’d done this at school so many times, lain side by side in the dark when there was no other comfort to be had. At least now he had more than words to distract Ned, though in the end, the words still seemed to work best of all.

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The next morning they were up and gone early enough to forestall any complaints from Mrs Digby. Ned insisted on buying them a quick breakfast at a coffeehouse on Goodge Street since they’d missed the chance to get breakfast at his rooms as well, and Julian accepted cheerfully. On their arrival at Ned’s rooms, however, Mrs Clewett was loud in her expressions of sympathy for the work that had kept him out all night, and insisted on serving them a second breakfast. “Just a bite,” she said, which turned out to include passable coffee and toast and slices of excellent ham, and Julian wolfed down a second meal while Ned changed clothes. He emerged from the bedroom looking almost unnaturally tidy, his hair sleeked back and his chin freshly shaven, and Julian repressed the desire to run his hand across the smooth planes. Instead, he pushed the coffee pot toward Ned, saying, “I don’t know how you managed to get this sort of coddling.”

“Perhaps because I don’t scold?” Ned said, mildly, and picked up a piece of toast.

“I don’t scold,” Julian said.

“You do,” Ned answered. He poured cream into his coffee.

“I may occasionally offer a justified reproof,” Julian said, with dignity. “But I do not scold.”

Ned contented himself with a disbelieving grin, and ate another piece of toast.