Death Below Stairs Read online

  I recalled Mr. Davis reading from his newspaper the day after Sinead’s death, telling me about the Fenians, dynamite, and railways. The papers had been full of such things for months—I had stopped reading the accounts altogether, as journalists are bound to wallow in the things that are the most upsetting.

  “Good heavens, Mrs. Bowen,” I said impatiently. “If you knew Sinead was mixed up with Fenians, why did you not tell the police? You might have prevented her death.” I remembered her adamance that all Irishmen should be expelled from England—I’d wondered at her statement at the time, since Sinead and her mum had been Irish, but Mrs. Bowen must have been thinking of this young man and his cohorts.

  Lady Cynthia answered for her. “And tell the world Sinead was a Fenian? Smear her reputation? Wasn’t her fault she fell for a bad ’un. Least said, the better, I say.”

  “But this might be why she died,” I argued. “One of her young man’s friends might have feared she knew too much, crept in here, and killed her. Why is that piece of paper so important? It does have to do with railways, doesn’t it? The next target? Good Lord, we ought to warn someone.”

  I started forward, but Lady Cynthia’s outstretched hand stopped me. This time she actually touched me, her palm on my chest. “We don’t know what the paper is about,” she said. “Or even who Sinead was supposed to pass it to.”

  “How do you know about it at all? You seem to know much about Fenian plots.” My accusing gaze took in the pair of them.

  Mrs. Bowen shook her head. “We have no idea what it means. I found the paper when I went to the larder to pray by Sinead’s body, just before the police came—it was in the pocket of her pinafore. I put it in my own pocket and took it away with me, in case it was something from her young man. When I examined the paper later, I realized a piece had been torn off, and the other piece might have been lost when she struggled, or when the killer dragged her body into the corner. I was at my boardinghouse by that time, and so I sent Mr. Greer—my beau, as you call him—here to look for it.” Color flushed her face. “I gave him my key to the back door, and he waited until he thought you’d gone to bed. When you and that man McAdam nearly caught him, I rescinded my notice and returned. Lady Cynthia and I were going to turn the house upside down to search for the paper and destroy it. If you give it to us, we will finish and say no more about it.”

  “What did you do with the other half?” I asked, ignoring her last demand.

  “I burned it.” Mrs. Bowen regarded me defiantly.

  “For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Bowen, there might have been information on that paper that could save people’s lives. You had no right to burn it.”

  Lady Cynthia looked shamefaced and lowered her hand from my chest. “We were trying to save Sinead, Mrs. H., if only her reputation. As Mrs. Bowen said, she wasn’t to blame for her young man’s villainy.”

  “You will be to blame if another railway station gets destroyed.” I started forward, but the two ladies continued to block the door.

  Much as I wished to, I couldn’t simply shove Lady Cynthia aside. A servant putting her hands on a highborn lady would only land herself in the dock. However, I’d gleefully send Mrs. Bowen tumbling if I had to.

  “Excuse me,” I said to them. “If you let me out of this room, I will speak to a person who is not the police but who can warn the right people. No one needs to know Sinead had anything to do with it at all.” At least, I believed Daniel could warn the right people. He seemed to know a good many persons of influence, which last year had freed me from Newgate and saved me the anguish of standing trial for murder.

  Lady Cynthia, after a moment’s hesitation, stood aside. Mrs. Bowen, on the other hand, refused to budge.

  “What person?” she asked, her eyes hard.

  “I’d rather keep that to myself. You will have to trust me.”

  Mrs. Bowen did not—I saw that in her fierce gaze and the fists that curled at her sides.

  “Mrs. Bowen,” I said, trying to remain calm. “I feel quite responsible for Sinead’s death. She was working for me at the time, and I ought to have stayed with her that night and looked after her better. I will not tarnish her memory now by allowing people to believe she was the sort who could hurt others, or even condone such things. Her name will not come into it at all. I promise you that.”

  Once I finished my resolute speech, Lady Cynthia, her blue eyes softening, gave Mrs. Bowen a nod. “I trust her, Mrs. B.”

  “Well, I do not.” Mrs. Bowen spoke only to Lady Cynthia, as though I no longer stood at her side. “I will let her go, my lady, if you accompany her. You, I trust. You are a good person, and you have the power to sack Mrs. Holloway straightaway if she puts a foot wrong.”

  “Really, Mrs. Bowen . . .” I began.

  “Take Lady Cynthia with you,” Mrs. Bowen said, switching her focus to me. “Or I promise that I will tie you up and drag you to the outskirts of London myself—after I destroy the paper you have—to prevent you speaking to anyone about this. I wish to stop the Fenians as much as you, but I will not have that poor girl or her mother paraded through the newspapers. God rest them both.”

  Lady Cynthia sent me a look of sympathy and resignation. “There you have it, Mrs. H. Take me to this person of yours.” She patted Mrs. Bowen’s arm. “Don’t worry, Mrs. B. I’ll make sure she does right by Sinead. You can depend upon it.”

  • • •

  Lady Cynthia was somewhat puzzled when, after I fetched both my notebook and my coat, I took her through the darkness only as far as the mews, to Lord Rankin’s own stables. The lad I startled upon hastening inside straightened up from tumbling grooming brushes into a wooden box, then went ramrod stiff when he saw Lady Cynthia. I bade him fetch Daniel, and the lad ran upstairs, relieved to be gone from us.

  Daniel came unhurriedly down from above, putting on a genial expression when he saw Lady Cynthia with me. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, pulled off his cap, and mashed it in his hands, evading Lady Cynthia’s gaze even as he spoke to her.

  “Somefink I do for you, me lady?” he asked.

  “Never mind all that,” I cut in. “This is important. Is there somewhere we can speak? Alone?”

  Daniel’s gaze sharpened as he took in my agitated state, but he did not drop his persona. “If you want a bit of a chin-wag, missus,” he said to me in his South London voice, “house is best for it, I’d say.”

  Lady Cynthia shook her head. “Bugger that. Nowhere’s private in that pile. Come on, you. I’ll take you somewhere we can have that chin-wag. It’s not far.”

  16

  Lady Cynthia led us from the mews at a brisk pace and waved for a hansom cab, letting out a whistle as loud as any I’d heard Daniel produce. A hansom stopped quickly, the driver no doubt recognizing the eccentric Lady Cynthia, and we squashed into the hansom’s seat.

  Cynthia told the cabbie to take us north of Oxford Street, near the lavish Langham Hotel, and the cabbie set off, the horse moving at a smart trot.

  We said little as we traveled through the dark but crowded streets, I crushed between Lady Cynthia on my right and Daniel on my left. Cynthia sent Daniel curious glances around me, but he studiously looked out to the lighted houses as we went, behaving as though he rarely had the luxury of riding in a conveyance. He was keeping determinedly to his man-of-all-work guise, I saw.

  The hansom stopped at the door of a tall house in Duchess Street, and Lady Cynthia was on the ground before Daniel could descend and move around to assist her. He helped me down instead, while Cynthia marched to the door and pounded on it.

  Cynthia’s enthusiastic knock was answered by a maid in a starched apron and cap who pulled open the door, letting a square of light spill to the pavement, and peered at us in bewilderment.

  “Only me,” Lady Cynthia told her. “I know she’s not here, but she won’t mind.” Cynthia waved for us to follow as she strode i
nside, the maid stepping hastily aside for her.

  The maid gave a most disapproving look as first I then Daniel followed Lady Cynthia in and to the staircase at the rear of the hall. Daniel sent the maid a warm smile and a shrug as he went by.

  The smile seemed to mollify the maid, though her face softened only for Daniel, not me. She must have been used to Lady Cynthia, because she only shook her head once Cynthia was running up the stairs, and disappeared into the back of the house.

  I wasn’t certain what to expect when Cynthia unlocked and opened the door to a high-ceilinged, well-furnished room on the first floor. Lady Cynthia quickly closed the thick velvet curtains over all the windows and then opened a squat stove whose pipe dove back into what used to be the fireplace. She crouched down and poked the glowing coals inside, encouraging the fire to flare high.

  “Wish I could move in here with her,” Cynthia said as she wielded the poker. “Old Rankin won’t hear of it, of course. But this place is far cozier than that drafty mausoleum on Mount Street with open fires instead of stoves, don’t you think?”

  I had considered the Mount Street house to be up-to-date and plenty efficient, but I had to admit that this flat was warmer and more modern than the elegant house. The furniture was new, in the simpler style that had become the rage since the scandalous artists who called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had begun designing wallpaper and furniture and the like. A paper of leafy motif decorated the walls, and the chairs had clean, straight lines with no carving or fuss. The velvet drapes were light green, and potted ferns had been placed around the room to convey the idea that we sat in a lush conservatory rather than a sitting room in the middle of London.

  “Is this where Bobby lives?” I asked. “I beg your pardon, my lady; I know no other name for her.”

  “Bobby don’t mind,” Cynthia said breezily, unfolding to her feet. I had to admit that trousers let her move with far more ease than would a frock. “She thinks we should all be free of titles and classes. Good luck to her, I say. Her real name is Lady Roberta Perry—Earl of Lockwood’s her dad. She’s not here; she’s off visiting her brother in Surrey, who just brought another squalling aristocrat into the world. Well, his wife did, but he goes on as though he did all the hard work himself. The poor brat will be earl one day if he lives long enough. That’s why Bobby suggested a trip to Brighton, to recover her nerves afterward.” Cynthia moved to a table littered with notebooks and papers and swept them together into a haphazard pile. “We can talk here. The landlady ignores Bobby. And me.”

  Daniel still had no idea why I’d dragged him out of the stables and all the way to Marylebone, but he remained quiet, not saying a word until he understood what role he was to play. Now Cynthia plopped into a chair and put her elbows on the table.

  “What’s your game, Mrs. H.?” she asked. “And how can he help?”

  I took the Bradshaw and my notebook from my coat pockets, turned to the page in the notebook on which I’d copied down the numbers and letters, and opened the Bradshaw next to it. “There,” I said, pushing both toward Daniel.

  He stared at both books, mystified, before his attention was caught, and he leaned to study the numbers, hands coming to rest on the table. “Damnation,” he said softly.

  Cynthia’s brows rose. “What’s the matter?”

  Daniel slowly sat down, never taking his eyes off the pages. He ran his finger along the column of numbers I’d copied into my notebook. “You’re right, Kat. These figures could very well mean a train schedule, the train passing these stations at these specific times. Hmm.” He bent closer, frowning.

  I seated myself across from him. “It would help if we had the other half of the paper,” I said. “But Mrs. Bowen destroyed it.” I sent Lady Cynthia a disapproving look. “Did you see it?”

  “No,” Cynthia answered regretfully. “Mrs. B. only told me about it when she asked me to help her look for it, and to keep Sin—” She broke off and reddened, glancing at Daniel, whose attention was all for the notebook.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Daniel knows about Sinead. Or at least, most things. Am I correct?” I asked Daniel. “These are times for trains passing through stations? That Fenians are marking as potential for dynamiting?”

  “Possibly.” Daniel glanced up at me, his interest and worry evident. “Or that someone simply wishes to take to reach a destination. The trouble is, there’s no way to tell what these times mean—which stations? Which trains? Which lines?”

  “Well,” I said in my no-nonsense way, “there’s nothing for it but that we must look them up. Read over every single train schedule and find which ones the times correspond to.”

  Daniel nodded, undaunted. “If we each take a section and search for a match, it will go faster.” He flipped the worn timetable book closed, studied its cover, and heaved a resigned sigh. “We’ll need more Bradshaws.”

  Cynthia jumped to her feet. “I’ll go. I’ll pound on the door of every newsagents until they cough some up. Back in a tick.” She ran out, more animated than I’d seen her.

  Daniel gave me a doubtful look as the door banged behind her. “Why did you bring her into this?”

  “I hadn’t much choice.” I told him about my encounter with Lady Cynthia and Mrs. Bowen, and the information Mrs. Bowen had imparted about Sinead.

  Daniel listened with concern. “I will have to talk to Sinead’s young man, if they haven’t already strung him up for the railway incident. Mrs. Bowen is right—though he wasn’t in London, his confederates might have killed her. They might be connected to the men I’m trying to catch through Lord Rankin, or they may not.” He looked unhappy. “No matter what, I ought to have prevented her death.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I blame myself.” I let out a breath. “I suppose both of us will always feel remorse for not helping her. As for Lady Cynthia, she seemed fond of Sinead—she worked for Lady Cynthia’s family in Hertfordshire.” I shook my head. “And, I believe Lady Cynthia is lonely and in need of stimulation of the mind. She’s wasted in that house, and she knows it.”

  Daniel listened with half his attention, his gaze straying back to the numbers. “If she’s willing to help us unravel this mess, I’m happy to give her something to do.” He sat back and ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. “I need to stop these bloody men, Kat.”

  Daniel’s eyes held seriousness and a deep anger. The real Daniel was down there in that anger, the determination to find those who hurt others, punish them, rid the world of them. I remembered remarking upon the similar look in the eyes of Daniel’s colleague, Mr. Thanos, before the man had been caught up in his fascination with the balance sheets.

  “I met Mr. Thanos,” I said. “In your rooms earlier today, when I stopped there to rest.”

  “Did you?” Daniel seemed in no way put out that I’d gone to his lodgings uninvited, nor surprised I’d met his friend there. “Yes, I told Thanos to fetch papers from my rooms. What did you think of him?”

  “He has an odd name,” I said. “But he’s not foreign, I’d wager.”

  Daniel shook his head. “Elgin’s grandfather was Greek. A banker in Constantinople. Elgin’s grandfather fled that city during the Greek War of Independence, back in 1820-something, when the Ottomans started slaughtering anyone of Greek origin in Constantinople. When Britain sent troops to help Greece against the Ottomans, Elgin’s grandfather decided to try his luck in London, as there was nothing for him in Greece itself. He’d lived in Constantinople too long and lost everything there. Once he reached this shore, Elgin’s grandfather married an Englishwoman and settled down to raise his family as Britons.”

  I listened, intrigued. “Mr. Thanos seems a kindly sort.”

  Daniel gave a short laugh. “I will tell him you said so. He is unworldly, that is certain. Doesn’t notice what color the sky is, but with numbers, he’s a geni
us.”

  “How do you know him?” I’d observed from Mr. Thanos’s pallor that he stayed indoors much of the time, probably with his head bent over a ledger. Daniel, on the other hand, never ceased moving. I could not imagine how the two had crossed paths.

  “Met him at Cambridge,” Daniel answered. “He took a first degree so easily it put his professors to shame. He’d ask them plenty of questions they couldn’t answer. I wouldn’t wonder if he finds the mathematical answer to the entire universe before he’s forty.”

  “Cambridge.” I opened the Bradshaw to the first page of timetables, flattening the spine to make the book stay open. “You see? I knew you were a toff.”

  “Working-class men do go to university,” Daniel answered, unruffled. “If they’re extremely intelligent and have a benefactor, that is.” He rose and moved to a desk across the room, opening its drawer and extracting paper, pens, and ink. He sat down again and began sorting the blank paper into three piles. “And I don’t remember mentioning I actually studied there.”

  I sent him a severe look. “One day, Daniel McAdam, I will open up your head and find out all that is inside.”

  Daniel gave a mock shiver. “Shouldn’t joke like that, Mrs. H., the way you wave that cleaver about.” His voice softened. “I’ll tell you one day, Kat, I swear it. We’ll make an appointment.”

  “But not today,” I said.

  “Today—or tonight—we will find out what information Sinead was given by whom and why. Whether it is innocuous or the reason she was killed. Villains first, then we’ll sort ourselves out. Yes?” Daniel stuck out his hand across the table.

  I shook it. “Very well. Villains first. May God have mercy on them.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Daniel squeezed my hand, the warmth of it seeping into my bones.