CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Comings and Goings
“How little do all these people know of the matter they are fighting about!”
Bury, Charlotte, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting
“She’s late,” said Alice.
Rosalind and Alice lingered in front of the draper’s shop next to the post office. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, leaving behind only scudding clouds and puddles in the street.
Alice had insisted on coming with Rosalind to her planned meeting with Amelia, and Rosalind had had no reason to refuse. Even had such a reason existed, she wouldn’t have had the heart. Of course Alice would want to see Amelia and know that all was well.
“She may have had difficulty getting away,” replied Rosalind calmly. “Do you see Mr. Ranking?” Mr. Ranking had left the house, but that was no guarantee that he had left the vicinity or that he had not managed to follow their hired cab. Newspapermen could be frustratingly resourceful.
Alice turned her head casually this way and that, as if examining the bolt of woolen cloth displayed in the shop window. “I don’t see him,” she said. “That doesn’t mean he’s not here.” She sighed and shifted her weight. “Where on earth is Amelia?”
Rosalind gave her hand a squeeze. “What was it you were saying to me about borrowing trouble?”
“Oh, I’m not worried, not really. I’m . . .” Alice rolled her eyes. “Good Lord, listen to me. I sound like I expect her to be snatched off the street.”
“Do you?”
Alice considered this. “I don’t think so. But this situation. . .”
“It’s different,” said Rosalind.
Alice nodded.
“For what it might be worth, I spent half the night worrying that Adam could be attacked in the dark,” Rosalind confessed.
“Oh, poor Rosalind! I wish you’d come to find me. We could have been sleepless together.”
Rosalind smiled. She had no time to make a reply, however. At that exact moment, Amelia came bustling around the corner. Alice saw her in the same instant Rosalind did. Alice shot her arm up and began to wave vigorously, all the while jumping up and down on her toes. Rosalind turned away to hide her smile at her friend’s exuberance.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” cried Amelia as she reached them. She and Alice hugged warmly, and if they held on a little too long and looked into each other’s eyes a little too deeply, it was a busy street and young women’s gentle displays of affection were an entirely unremarkable sight.
“Now!” Alice looped her arm through Amelia’s. “Have you something to tell us?”
“I should say so! But I’ll have to be quick. The housekeeper’s a strict one, and I don’t want her to think I’m lazing about somewhere.”
“There’s a park around the corner,” said Rosalind. “We can walk there while you tell us all your news.”
The park was little more than a small lawn with bright flower beds surrounding an Italian marble fountain. The break in the rain had brought out the neighborhood. Nurses watched their charges playing with balls and hoops on the cramped lawn. Matrons and young women in maids’ uniforms walked together, enjoying the summer sun. It was a perfect place for their rendezvous. Rosalind, Alice, and Amelia fit in smoothly with the general company. However, any man lingering in the same square would be quite easy to spot.
Rosalind walked up to the fountain and stood there, as if contemplating the lively cascade. “Now,” she said softly, “what have you learned?”
Amelia leaned close. Quickly, she told them about the footman, Thomas Faller, and how he’d begun watching her almost from the moment she’d entered the house. She described how she’d found a hidden note in Minney Seymore’s dressing table; how Miss Seymore had feigned a headache to get away from her mother and her dinner guests; how she, Amelia, had been discovered by Faller in the conservatory; and how they’d watched Miss Seymore meet her beau and witnessed the apparent argument that followed.
“So,” said Alice, “Miss Seymore did have a reason for coming back to town, beyond being worried about her mother.”
“Yes,” agreed Rosalind. “She and her beau must have had the meeting arranged before she left her father’s house.”
“Faller could have carried the message,” said Amelia. “He as much as said she’s paying him extra on the side to keep her secrets.”
“But you don’t know what that argument you saw between Miss Seymore and her beau was about?” asked Rosalind.
Amelia shook her head. “I’d no way to ask. I’m hoping to find out more today.”
“Did you see her this morning at all?”
“I checked on her before I left,” Amelia said. “She and Miss Mary Ann were both still sound asleep. But there was something else.”
“What is it?” Rosalind began walking again, angling her path to follow the street. Alice and Amelia fell into step beside her.
“Well,” said Amelia, “last night Faller said something odd. He said Miss Seymore would be needing a new friend soon. Then this morning, as I was leaving the house, I all but banged right into him on the area stairs. He was coming back from somewhere, only he’s out of uniform and he’s got a box on his shoulder, like a man might use to pack his belongings in if he had planned on leaving his place.”
“Did you ask him about it?” asked Alice. “What did he say?”
“First, he told me to mind my own business,” said Amelia. “Then he apologized and said he’d gotten some bad news, but he wouldn’t say what, but I swear it looked like he might have been crying.” She paused, clearly seeing the sharp glance that passed between Rosalind and Alice. “What?”
“We’ve learned that there was an attorney, Josiah Poole, who may have been involved in the robbery,” said Rosalind. “His specialty was debt, and he was in the habit of forging connections inside important houses and prominent families to gain information and also to get hold of compromising papers.”
“ ‘Was?’ ” Amelia’s eyes narrowed. “You said ‘was.’ ”
“He was murdered,” Alice said.
“Never!”
Alice nodded and pressed Amelia’s hand. The other woman had gone a little green around the gills.
“I’m afraid it gets worse,” said Rosalind. “Mr. Poole was seen going into Mrs. Fitzherbert’s garden and coming out again quickly about the time the certificate was stolen. We think somebody in the house passed him the certificate to carry away.”
“Do you think this Tom Faller could have done it?” asked Alice. “Could he have stolen the certificate?”
Amelia considered. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “He’s got plenty of nerve and cheek. He’s taking extra from Miss Seymore, and from any houseguest who wants something special, but that’s a different thing from out-and-out thieving.”
Rosalind nodded. Just because one was willing to commit one sort of transgression, that did not mean one was willing to commit all of them. In fact, when it came to accepting such tips and sweeteners for additional tasks—licit or not—many in service would not consider that they had done anything wrong.
“Could Faller have taken money from someone to just leave a door or a gate open?” she asked.
Amelia nodded. “Now, that he might have done. There’s plenty who don’t plan to spend their lives in service, but once they’re in, they find that it’s hard to get out. They start taking their extra to try to get a store together so they can afford to get away.”
“So, Faller could be the connection to Mr. Poole,” said Alice.
“It is certainly possible,” Rosalind agreed. “Unless . . .” She paused. “Unless the person who asked for the door to be left open was Miss Seymore.”
“There’s a thought,” murmured Alice. “And she had Faller running messages to Poole and to her beau . . .”
“That’s possible,” said Amelia. “Carrying messages would be all in a day’s work for him.”
“But he’d have to know that Poole is dead. It’s in all the—” But Alice caught sight of Amelia rolling her eyes and stopped. “Oh, yes, of course.”
Not only was there no time belowstairs for sitting about reading the papers, but Faller might not be able to read.
They came to the edge of the park and continued on up the street, strolling at a leisurely pace, as if simply enjoying the summer morning. Rosalind considered what should happen next. Her first instinct was to go directly to Mrs. Fitzherbert. But the truth of the matter was, Tom Faller might be guilty of nothing more than taking money to turn a blind eye to Miss Seymore’s romantic machinations, or what he thought were romantic machinations. If he was called forward, he would very likely be dismissed without a reference, which could sentence a person to destitution.
Her second thought was to speak with Tom Faller directly. Amelia could arrange the meeting, or she could ask Mrs. Fitzherbert to allow her to speak with him. But once that was done, there was no going back. Even if he was not involved in the theft, Faller would know Amelia was there to assist with inquiries among the staff, and he might or might not be inclined to keep the secret.
Rosalind resisted the urge to grind her teeth.
“We haven’t much time,” she murmured. “Amelia, what do you think we ought to do?”
Amelia looked startled at being so consulted. Alice grinned and gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.
“Well,” drawled Amelia. “If I wanted to find out what was what, I’d say I should go back and get Faller talking. He’s had bad news of some kind, so he’s going to want sympathy. And I can be his pal about Miss Seymore.”
Which was important. Because Tom Faller was not the only person in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s house who might be in need of money.
“I agree. Thank you, Amelia. This is all extremely helpful.”
“Good. I’m glad. And now I’ve got to dash—”
“Wait,” said Alice abruptly. “Ladies, we’ve got a visitor.”
Rosalind turned carefully so she could follow Alice’s gaze past the edge of her bonnet. A man in a battered low-crowned hat sat on the edge of the fountain, reading a newspaper. He lowered it just a little to turn the page, and Rosalind caught a glimpse of Mr. Ranking’s sharply angled profile.
“Who’s that?” murmured Amelia.
“Ron Ranking,” Alice told her. “He’s a newspaperman, one of the ones who’s been watching Mrs. Fitzherbert. Now he’s watching Rosalind.”
“You stay here, Amelia,” said Rosalind. “We’ll go away first and see if he follows us.”
“All right,” said Amelia. “But don’t worry if he doesn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time I maanged to lose a follower.” She grinned and hugged Alice again. “I’ll see you day after tomorrow!”
Alice gazed at her for a moment, misty eyed and clearly bursting with pride. Then she and Rosalind turned and hurried together up the street, dodging their fellow pedestrians and the occasional wheelbarrow.
At the first street corner, Rosalind turned to the right, caring less about where they were heading than about having a chance to glance behind them. Mr. Ranking strolled up the street casually and at a distance, but there could be no question that he was following them.
Rosalind murmured a rude word and strode ahead, leaving Alice to hurry to catch up.
“Where are we going?” asked Alice.
“I am thinking that we are going to need to pay a call on your Mrs. Dowding as soon as possible, Alice,” she said. “We need to know more about Minney Seymore’s dalliance with her unsuitable beau. Have you heard from her?”
“Heard from her?” cried Alice. “She all but shouted from the rooftops that I was to bring you around just as soon as ever you like. And she means it,” she said before Rosalind could ask. “But I thought you were going to call on Countess Lieven this morning.”
“I will go to the countess from Mrs. Dowding’s,” she said. “This is more important.”
“And you said you were to meet Adam at the Pooles’ at four o’clock,” said Alice. “Dowdy can talk until the sun goes down, but I think I can get you out of there in time.”
Rosalind smiled. “And when are we going to discuss your wages as my assistant?”
“Once I have proved fully satisfactory at the job, and you’ve agreed not to let your demands interfere with my brilliant future as one of England’s leading literary ladies.”
“So ten shillings the week, would you say?”
Alice made her eyes go wide in mock surprise. “Rosalind Thorne, did I just hear you mention money to another gently bred young lady?”
Rosalind sighed. “How far I have fallen. What shall we say?”
“Ten shillings the week and meals,” said Alice. “I’d do anything for Mrs. Singh’s cooking. Come along. I think I saw a cabstand up the way. What shall we do about Ranking?”
“At the moment, nothing,” said Rosalind. “If he’s following us, he’s not watching Amelia go back to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s.”
It was vital that Mr. Ranking not know that Rosalind had been talking to a member of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s household. If he began making inquiries there, Amelia’s disguise might fail, and that would be disastrous.
Because it was entirely possible that Tom Faller was not responsible for the theft of the marriage certificate, but Minney Seymore was.
And if Miss Seymore, or her beau, was involved in the theft, it meant they might also be involved in the murder.