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The chief business of the day must be the O’Co
Inquiries into the Stokes family had revealed them to be a polyglot crew descended from a Greek sailor who had jumped ship in London some forty years earlier, whereupon he had promptly met and married a girl from Cheapside, taken her name—very sensibly, as his own was Aristopolous Xenokratides—and settled down to produce a numerous family, most of whom had promptly returned to the sea like spawning efts. Iphigenia, stranded on shore by the accident of her gender, ostensibly earned her living by the needle, with occasional financial augmentations offered by assorted gentlemen with whom she had lived, Sergeant O’Co
Grey had set Malcolm Stubbs to explore the family’s further co
As for Finbar Scanlon and his wife—
“Have you ever been in love, John?”
He looked up, startled, to see Olivia looking earnestly at him over the teapot. Evidently she had not abandoned her inquiries, after all, but had merely been occupied with the consumption of breakfast.
“Well . . . yes,” he said slowly, unsure whether this was mere familial curiosity or something more.
“But you did not marry. Why was that?”
Why was that, indeed. He took a deep breath.
“It wasn’t possible,” he said simply. “My lover died.”
Her face clouded, full lip trembling with sympathy.
“Oh,” she murmured, looking down at her empty plate. “That’s awfullysad, Joh
He shrugged with a slight smile, acknowledging her sympathy but not encouraging further questions.
“Any interesting letters?” he asked, raising his chin toward the small sheaf of papers by her plate.
“Oh! Yes, I almost forgot—here are yours.” Burrowing through the stack, she unearthed two missives addressed to him and handed them across.
The first note, from Magruder, was brief but riveting. Sergeant O’Co
I went myself to inquire, Magruder wrote, but the man was unable to be sure of the rank or regiment of this Irishman—and I were loath to press him, for fear of his recollection transforming the man into a Welsh lance-corporal or a Cornish grenadier, under the pressure of forced recollection. For what the observation be worth, he believed the man to be selling an old coat of his own.
Impatient as he was for more detail, Grey was forced to admit the soundness and delicacy of Magruder’s instinct. Press questions too far, and a man would tell you what he thought you wanted to hear. It was much better to ask questions briefly, in a number of short sessions, rather than to bombard a witness with interrogation—but time was short.
Still, Magruder had got what he could be sure of. While all insignia and buttons had naturally been stripped from the coat, it was identifiable as having belonged to a sergeant of the 47th. While the government dictated certain specifics of army dress, those gentlemen who raised and financed their own regiments held the privilege of designing the uniforms for said regiments. In the case of the 47th, it was Hal’s wife who had patterned the officers’ coats, with a narrow buff stripe up the outside of the sleeve, which helped to draw the eye when an arm was waved in command. A sergeant’s coat, poorer in material and less stylish in cut, still bore that stripe.
Grey made a mental note to have someone check the other regimental sergeants, to be sure that none had sold an old coat—but this was merely for the sake of thoroughness. Magruder had not only described the coat and included a brief sketch of the garment, but noted also that the lining of the coat had been unstitched at one side, the stitches appearing to have been cut, rather than torn.
Well, that explained where O’Co
Meet me at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, tomorrow at six o’clock,it read, the signature rendered merely as a large, slapdash “Q . . .” P.S. wear old uniform.
He was still frowning at this terse communication when Tom Byrd’s round head poked into the room, looking apologetic.
“Me lord? Sorry, sir, but you did say as how if a big Scotchman was to come—”
Grey was already on his feet, leaving Olivia open-mouthed behind him.
Rab the chairman was tall and solid, with a stupid, sullen face that barely brightened into dourness at Grey’s greeting.
“Agnes said ye’d pay for a word,” he muttered, not quite able to keep from staring at the bronze orrery that stood upon the table by the library window, its graceful arms and swooping orbs catching the morning sun.
“I will,” Grey said promptly, wanting to dispose of the man before his mother should come downstairs and start asking questions. “What is the word?”
Rab’s bloodshot eyes met his, displaying a bit more intelligence than did the rest of his countenance.
“Ye di
“Very well. How much do you want?” He could hear the Countess’s voice upstairs, raised in song.
The man’s thick tongue poked out, touching his upper lip in contemplation.
“Two pound?” he said, trying to sound indifferently truculent, but unable to conceal the tentative note in his voice. Obviously, two pounds was a nearly unthinkable fortune; he had no faith that it might actually be forthcoming, but was willing to hazard the chance.
“How much of that does Agnes get?” Grey asked pointedly. “I shall see her again, mind, and I’ll ask to make certain that she’s had her share.”
“Oh. Ah . . .” Rab struggled with the problem of division for a moment, then he shrugged. “Half, then.”
Grey was surprised at this generosity—and surprised further that Rab was able to discern his response.
“I mean to marry her,” the chairman said gruffly, fixing him with a stare and narrowing one eye as though daring him to make something of this statement. “When she’s bought free of her contract, aye?”
Grey bit his tongue to forestall an incautious response to this startling revelation, merely nodding as he dug into his pocketbook. He laid the silver on the desk, but kept his hand over it.
“What are you to tell me, then?”
“A house called ‘Lavender,’ in Barbican Street. Near to Lincoln’s I
Grey felt a sudden cold weight in the pit of his stomach, as though he had swallowed lead shot.
“You have been inside?”
Rab moved one burly shoulder, shaking his head.
“Nah, then. Only to the door. But I could see as there were carpets like that”—he nodded at the silk Kermanshah on the floor by the desk—“and pictures on the wall.” He lifted a chin like a battering ram, indicating the painting over the mantelpiece, of Grey’s paternal grandfather seated on horseback. The chairman frowned with the effort of recall.
“I could see a bit into one of the rooms. There was a . . . thing. No quite like that thing”—he nodded at the orrery—“but along the same lines, ken? Bits o’ clockwork, like.”
The sensation of cold heaviness was worse. Not that there could have been any doubt about it from the begi
“The . . . woman you fetched from this place,” Grey forced himself to ask. “Do you know her name? Did you deliver her there, as well?”
Rab shook his head, indifferent. There was no sign on his oxlike face that he knew that the person he had transported was not indeed a woman, nor that Lavender House was not merely another wealthy London house.