Gilded cage, p.5
Gilded Cage, page 5
“Was the window shut?”
He thought back. “Yes.”
“Had it been opened recently?”
Templeton opened his mouth to say, How the devil should I know?, caught her eye, and applied his mind. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t colder than it should have been. Or fresh either. The room stank of blood—that sweet rust smell. I could taste it.”
“You can, can’t you?” She wrinkled her nose. “What about the valet?”
“I don’t know. The connecting door was shut. I didn’t look. If I’d been thinking, I’d probably have wondered how he could have slept through someone clubbing his master to death, but I wasn’t. There was a corpse on the floor.”
Susan nodded. “Was anything disturbed in the safe-room?”
“Not obviously to me. There were stones out on the shelves but I understood that to be Montmorency’s habit.”
“He could leave them out because the safe-room door was enough protection. What was the lock on that like?”
“The door was open.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “Let’s go back to that. How long would it have taken you to open it otherwise?”
“Perhaps an hour at most. I intended to chloroform the old man in his sleep as a precaution.”
“As one would. Did the corpse have chloroform burns on his mouth?”
“Not that I noticed. No, I’m sure he didn’t.”
Susan nodded. “And then the housekeeper turned up. You didn’t hear her coming?”
This was embarrassing. “No. I wasn’t paying attention.” He glowered at Susan’s expression. “I suppose you’ve never been so absorbed in one thing that you’ve failed to do another. Of course you have always been sensible and logical.”
“Shut up, James. To recap: Montmorency was out of bed when he was killed. The valet was murdered in his own room, also out of bed, and both were killed bloodily, but whoever was the second to die didn’t raise the alarm at the other’s death. The killer committed two murders and opened the safe-room door, not necessarily in that order, and either escaped without you seeing him or hid so well that he wasn’t found in the subsequent search. And yet, for all that effortless competence, he didn’t steal a single one of jewels that lay behind the door he’d gone to all that trouble to open. Crozier is right. Your story is ridiculous.”
Templeton hadn’t hoped, exactly. The opposite, in fact: what had driven him to Susan was despair. He had become an outcast in London’s underworld, with all doors closed to him, and not even his closest friends on his side. Alone, hunted, accused, consumed by the injustice of being condemned for a crime he hadn’t committed after getting away with all the ones he had, he hadn’t been able to think of a single soul with a reason to help him, and of only one who might do it anyway.
Susan had a sense of justice that far outweighed trivia like personal feelings or the laws of the land. Susan would help him because he was being wronged. He’d told himself that again and again, as he’d huddled in filthy alleys to avoid policemen, formulating his poor excuse for a plan, and made himself act as if it was true because if she didn’t believe him, he was finished.
He had to clear his throat to speak. Plead. Christ, he didn’t want to plead to this woman. When Susan said no, a wise man accepted it the first time, but he had no choice.
“I know how stupid it sounds, but it’s true. I swear to you, Susan—”
“Well, obviously it’s true,” she interrupted irritably. “If you’d made it up you’d have worked out something better than this.”
“...what?”
“I believe you,” Susan said, with patronising clarity. “Not a sentence that I pictured myself saying to you ever again, but here we are.”
“But— You said—”
“I said that Crozier’s assessment was correct and your story makes no sense. It doesn’t, therefore we need to fit the facts into a different story. I can think of three alternative explanations that would make sense of all this, offhand.”
James stared. Susan looked as unconcerned as if she hadn’t just upended the world. “The question is which if any of those is correct, and of course how I can get myself into the investigation— Put your head between your knees.”
Templeton did so, because he had black spots in front of his eyes and a ringing in his ears. God knew what he must look like. If he swooned like a maiden on the stage, she’d never let him live it down.
“For goodness’ sake,” Susan muttered. “If you pass out, you can stay where you fall. I’m not rupturing myself heaving you around the place. Here.” That was a tumbler shoved into his hand, half full of whisky. He lifted his head when he was sure he could do so safely, knocked the drink back in two swallows, and spent the next few moments getting his breath back from the burn in his throat.
Susan was crouched just a couple of feet away, one hand half-extended. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine. I’m just tired.”
“You used to be strong as an ox.”
I’ve been in hiding for days. I had to swim across the Thames and trudge through the freezing night city in sodden clothes, so cold I might have died. My friends have turned their backs on me. I dodged police all the way to Harwich, and back again when I couldn’t get on a boat, and emptied my pockets in shorter order than I could have thought possible because every man’s hand is against me. And now one woman, the last one in the world with a reason to help me, has offered to help, and I’m thirty-three years old and I think I might weep.
He didn’t say any of that. He didn’t reach for her hand either, because he didn’t want to see her pull it away. He just shrugged, and saw her mouth twist.
“Where are you staying?”
“I’ve been moving around.”
“The street, in other words. That explains your frankly disgraceful state. Have you other clothes with you?”
“I had to leave my bag behind at my last lodging.”
Susan rolled her eyes. “So you’re entirely destitute, on your uppers, and without a single resource on which to rely?”
“I still have my wits,” Templeton offered, with the best stab he could make at joviality.
“As I said, destitute. God’s sake.”
“You don’t need to tell me I’ve made a damned mess of things. I’m aware of that.”
“It’s about time you were. Have you yet taken the logical step?”
“What would that be?”
“Changing your behaviour,” Susan said with something of a snap. “Ceasing to make a mess, instead of sitting in it like a puppy that couldn’t possibly have predicted any of this and expecting other people to clear it up for you.”
Templeton had to exhale. “You really don’t get any easier, do you?”
“If by ‘easier’ you mean ‘more inclined to pander to self-indulgence’, no. You’re a burglar, a thief, and a disgrace, and none of that is improved by your not being a murderer. I’ll help prove your innocence of this particular crime, but if you want sympathy, go elsewhere.”
In other circumstances he would have taken her up on that. Unfortunately, sympathy was the least of his current requirements. Susan was like lye soap: caustic to the point of pain, but very effective.
“I would prefer aid to sympathy,” he made himself agree, as though this were a discussion rather than a pummelling. “As to changing my behaviour, I’ll be delighted to consider it when my future doesn’t involve a noose.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Susan said. “Do you have anywhere to sleep?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Don’t be stupid. If you get picked up by the police you don’t stand a chance. Oh, for God’s sake. You can have the floor.”
It wasn’t gracious; it was openly grudging. It was still more kindness than Templeton had imagined possible.
“Are you—” He bit off ‘sure’. She’d said it. “You know that I can’t guarantee I wasn’t seen coming here, though I did my utmost.”
“I bet you did. You can sleep in here. I don’t need to remind you I have a gun.”
It took a second for the words to sink in to his brain, and then he rose, steadying himself on the chair-back as blood rushed around his head. He’d swallowed most of his pride by now, but he couldn’t swallow this. “If you think you have to tell me that, if you actually believe you need a weapon, I’ll leave now and take my chances. That was unwarranted.”
“What was? Considering my safety, rather than your self-esteem?” She let that hang for a moment then added, “Oh, don’t look so offended. If I really considered you a danger, I’d have shot you. You can have the floor and a blanket, and tomorrow we’ll discuss next steps. Now sit down while I get some supplies. You look worn out.”
He sat with relief. His head swam with exhaustion and the weakness that came in the wake of a lifted burden. Not that it was actually lifted. He was no better off than he had been, except that Susan had said she would help, and he couldn’t even be completely positive about that. She might intend to lull him into a sense of security, slip out as he slept, and summon a policeman. It was what any sensible woman would do in the circumstances, with a large and dangerous man in her room and a big reward on the table. He had no problem imagining that Susan would take that route; she’d always been a ruthless liar and frighteningly amoral when it suited her needs.
But if she didn’t help him he was doomed anyway, so he might as well spend his last night of freedom in a warm room by the fire, rather than huddled on the cold, wet streets.
Susan returned with a pair of blankets, plus a lidded chamber pot, all of which she set down. “Don’t leave this room,” she told him. “I’m not supposed to have gentleman friends in here, let alone wanted murderers. There’s nobody else on this floor, but the girl sleeps above, in the attic. I’ll tell her not to do the fires tomorrow.”
She whisked out again. Templeton spent a few moments in the chair thinking of nothing, until he realised he was almost asleep, and got to his feet to shake off the sickening tiredness. He added a few shovels of coal to the fire, folded one blanket over the rug in the hope it might ameliorate the floorboards, and then drifted around the room, telling himself he was merely trying to stay awake until she returned.
It wasn’t what you might call a feminine room. Back when he’d known her, Susan had never grasped the idea of making a house a home, with frills and pleasant details to delight the eye, or mementos and treasures proudly displayed. He’d bought her things once or twice—he recalled a little china statuette of a crinolined shepherdess whose painted hair and face had borne a peculiar resemblance to hers. She’d gone quite pink when he’d given it to her, and put it on a shelf that remained otherwise bare.
You can’t have stuff that matters, she’d told him once. That just slows you down when you need to run.
She would be thirty-four now, with an established business as an enquiry agent and a fearsome reputation among evildoers, but apparently she still thought about running, or at least didn’t want to be slowed down. There was almost nothing here except books, piles of papers, and haphazard boxes of bits and pieces. A single pencil drawing adorned one wall, of a rather lovely woman with large, thoughtful eyes who looked vaguely familiar. Actress? Artist’s model? He couldn’t place her. There was also a framed photograph on a shelf; naturally he went to have a look.
It was slightly blurry in the way of older photographs. Two young women, seated, two men behind them. One was Susan herself, aged fifteen or sixteen, eyes huge in her small pinched face. That was her as he’d first known her: sly, aggressive, afraid. He’d been belligerent, loud, and painfully lonely. A match made in heaven.
In the photograph she was seated next to her not-quite-sister Emma, the slow-witted girl who did the housework. Behind them were Justin Lazarus, her adoptive father, wearing a faint smile that made him look like the vicious shit he was, and the big, dark, imposing Nathaniel Roy.
Templeton hadn’t thought twice about that pair at the time. Lazarus was good friends with Roy who was in turn a friend of Aunt Harriet, and they’d all been similarly interfering, dictatorial adults. Susan had referred to Roy as “Uncle Nathaniel” occasionally but not consistently. It had been many years later, when the Braglewicz & Lazarus agency had become a thorn in the Lilywhite Boys’ sides, that he’d looked into the enemy and back at his memories, and realised what was going on there.
It must have required a damned lot of nerve to have what was in effect a family photograph taken, and to display it as such. He doubted Susan invited many people up here, of course, and even if she did, a photograph of two men could scarcely be considered incriminating even in the febrile climate of which Jerry had complained since Oscar Wilde had made a fool of himself. But if one knew that Lazarus and Roy were lovers, would one not be cautious of displaying the fact?
Then again, Lazarus liked to show the world how much cleverer he was than the rest of them, and Roy was rich and well-connected. Probably neither of them particularly feared exposure, any more than the nerveless Jerry had until he met Alec. Alec, the duke’s son, whose family scandal of murder and suicide had been spread over the newspapers for months and who would be newspaper fodder for the rest of his life. Jerry scaled walls, impersonated nobility, and robbed castles, but Templeton wasn’t sure he would have a photograph taken with Alec.
He was lost in thought when the door opened, and jumped about a foot in shock.
“Only me.” Susan kicked the door shut and locked it. “I borrowed another blanket, and here. Probably a bit stale but needs must.” Here referred to a plate of scones, precariously balanced on top of a thick folded blanket. “I assume you’re still hungry, based on years of experience. What are you—” She broke off as she saw what he was looking at.
“It’s a good photograph,” he said, for want of anything else.
“Yes,” she said. “It is. I believe I spoke to your shitty friend Crozier regarding what I’ll do if you so much as whisper a word about my guvnors.”
Templeton exhaled hard. “I don’t know why you think the worst of— Yes, all right, I do,” he went on over her splutter of contradiction. “I know exactly why you think the worst, but I’m not a blackmailer, and nor is Jerry, for obvious reasons.”
“You jest,” Susan said. “Honour among thieves?”
“I am not a blackmailer.”
“If you were in trouble—”
“If you were in trouble, you’d use any weapon to hand. You’d blackmail without a second thought, just as Mr. Lazarus would. We’re not all you.”
Susan’s face was a picture, of shock, outrage, and an undeniable spark of repressed laughter that hurt, because he’d always liked making her laugh. “Are you taking the moral high ground with me?”
“We accuse one another of the things we know to be true of ourselves,” Templeton said sententiously. “You told me that once.”
“I told you to fuck off all the time, but did you listen? Yes, I dare say I would use blackmail if the need arose. Try it with me and I’ll gut you like a fish.”
“I’m not going to. I was thinking of other things.”
Susan’s eyes flickered again to the photograph. “Of what?”
“Mistakes. Regrets. Things I could have done better. There’s a list.”
Susan watched him for a moment, then gave a little head-shake. “Go to sleep, James. You’re swaying.” She moved to put the second blanket on the floor as she spoke, checked the fire with a glance, and headed for her room. “Put out the light when you’re done.”
The bedroom door closed. Templeton stumbled over to the chair, filled his still-complaining belly with as many scones as he could fit, and set to removing his shoes and stockings. He felt exposed, even though he knew damned well Susan wouldn’t be peering through the keyhole at him. She was more likely to put a chair under the door handle.
He turned off the gaslight all the same, stripped to his drawers by firelight, lay down, and pulled the blanket over himself. It was scratchy, not very comfortable, and the floor was hard despite the thicknesses of cloth he lay on. He was used to mattresses and sheets, as he’d got used to a lot of pleasant things. That had been a mistake.
He was so tired he felt nauseous and his mind was fuzzed, but sleep didn’t take pity on him at once. His thoughts kept intruding with sharp images. The old dead man on the floor; the housekeeper’s distorted mouth. Jerry and Stan, furious and afraid because of what Templeton had brought on them. Susan telling him she had a gun and would use it. Susan’s feet, from seventeen years ago. Susan’s implacable eyes, and the feel of her when he’d wrapped his arms around her tense body and it had felt, for the few seconds before she’d hit him in the balls, as though no time had passed and none of it had ever happened.
Susan.
CHAPTER FOUR
Susan had trouble sleeping.
This was not normally the case, but normally there was nobody on the floor of her sitting room. Normally she would have been able to get up, pour herself a glass or whisky or make a cup of tea, read for half an hour, and go back to bed. The fact that she had never actually done this was irrelevant: she couldn’t do it now, and therefore the desire was overwhelming.
Beyond the door, James Vane snored thunderously. Typical.
He probably needed the sleep. He’d looked awful—grimy, unshaven, exhausted, and hungry—but that was his own fault. And he’d sounded like a man close to breaking, but again, that was a consequence to be expected. Justin had been assaulted and forced to run for his life back in in his mediumship days; their house had been smashed up and Susan had spent the best part of a week in hiding. These things happened when you were in the life, and there was no point whining about it. Don’t play the game if you don’t like the stakes.
In fairness, James hadn’t whined. He’d simply been defeated, which was unfamiliar and thus unsettling. She’d expected anger or resentment, the usual reactions of men who didn’t want to face the consequences of their actions. Self-pity was the other common option, and if he’d complained about being hard done-by she’d have been tempted to pull the trigger, admittedly in the knowledge that the gun was unloaded.
