Once, when Tabby was ten years old or so, she’d stood in the crowds on Westminster Bridge with what seemed like most of the rest of London and watched the Houses of Parliament burn down. At that time, she didn’t know they were the Houses of Parliament, they were just some of the big buildings of London that were as remote from her life as the man on the moon. She’d gone there on business, because where there were crowds there were pockets to be picked, but became as interested as anybody in the sheer size of the fire that filled the sky and lit up the river so that the flames in the air and the flames on the water seemed to merge into one, with flakes of ash snowing down on the crowds and a crackling like the Devil’s laughter. That had been thirteen years ago, and Parliament was still only half rebuilt. As Tabby walked past it to the Maynards’ house, with a small bundle of clothes under her arm, she craned her head to see up to the top of a new tower, with small stick figures of stone masons working on what looked like precarious scaffolding. It was quite a lot higher than the last time she’d been there, but that had been a while ago. Westminster was not one of her usual haunts, but it had one building that had a far deeper place in her mind than Parliament or the abbey: Millbank Penitentiary. Just upriver from Parliament on the bank of the Thames, six huge brick cliffs met in a central watchtower and housed the criminals who were to be transported to Australia. She’d grown up with the idea that being sent to Millbank was only a small step better than being hanged, and perhaps not even that. A man from her old gang was in there at present – Drubbin, a fairly successful pickpocket who’d tried to graduate to burglary and failed miserably. He’d been sentenced to seven years in Van Diemen’s Land – though some of those who were meant to be away seven years never made it back again – and due to sail any day. She hadn’t been particularly fond of Drubbin, but yesterday she’d stood staring at the prison, thinking of him inside. That had been a diversion from the job she’d set herself – getting to know the Maynards’ house. Convinced from the start that somebody in there knew what had caused Liberty’s disappearance, and not trusting the police to investigate the quality, she knew that if she waited and watched, she’d find something. Nobody was better at waiting and watching than Tabby, and no one could melt into the background like she could. She was wearing her grey dress, so at first glance she might be taken for a not-very-satisfactory servant from a not-very-particular household. Nobody gave her a second glance.
She stepped aside to avoid being crushed by a four-horse vehicle carrying great planks of wood, and walked on with Westminster Abbey on her right. The Maynards lived in a three-storey house close to St John’s Church in Smith Square, off Millbank but not as far along as the prison. Its closeness to the abbey and Parliament had once been an advantage, but for the past ten years it had been on the edge of the largest building site in the world, with no sign of an end to the work. She’d been watching the house for the first day from the front, then from the side entrance by the coach house and, in the late evening, from the large back garden. Now she’d decided to move in – or, rather, to set up a camp for herself nearby so she could watch it day and night. It shouldn’t be too difficult. It was one of those rich, busy houses with visitors, servants and tradespeople coming and going all the time. The white stone church with its four towers in the middle of the square attracted its own share of visitors. Tabby walked into the church, fairly confident of finding it empty in mid-morning. A woman was polishing a candlestick up at the far end but she had her back turned and didn’t notice as Tabby entered, soft-footed, and made her way to a small side room near the entrance that she’d reconnoitred the day before. It was more a large cupboard than a room, piled with dozens of dog-eared books, musty folded curtains and some of those square things people knelt on that the moths had been at. By the smell of it, nobody had been inside for months. She stowed her bundle behind some of the books and partly unfolded one of the curtains, just for the pleasure of seeing what a good bed it would make. Luxury, this was, compared to the alleys and doorways where she usually found herself keeping watch. The woman was still polishing the candlestick, or perhaps another one, so Tabby strolled out unobserved into the sunlight of the square and to the front entrance of the Maynards’ house, with its white marble steps and columns with ferns carved on top on either side of the door. She turned down the side of the white-painted garden wall into the wide cul-de-sac that ran alongside the coach house. The large doors over the arched coach entrance were closed. On the far side of the coach house was the small door into the garden. She’d used it the day before when she’d done her evening watch on the house. Now she lifted the latch, pushed back the door and walked inside. The garden was quite a large one for a town dwelling, around an acre, with the house closing off one side and high walls the rest. A glasshouse stood against the south wall and a miniature orchard of half-a-dozen apples and pears took up one corner, closed in by wooden rails so that the small Jersey cow could graze inside. The cow had her own little shelter in the corner that looked more like a summerhouse, freshly painted with fretted woodwork round the eaves. Near the glasshouse, a gardener and a boy were picking gooseberries. At first, all Tabby could see of the gardener was the tightly stretched seat of his corduroy trousers as he bent over the bush. The boy, standing beside him and holding a trug, was the first to see Tabby. He caught her eye and grinned. Grinning back, she sketched a kick towards the gardener’s backside, though too far away to connect. The boy snorted with laughter and the trug tilted, scattering gooseberries. The gardener straightened up and cuffed the boy round the head, not particularly hard and almost automatically, as if he’d done it many times. He was an old man, grey-bearded, with thin strands of grey hair escaping from under a low-crowned hat.
‘So who might you be?’ he said to Tabby.
‘Mary’s sister, come to help with the wash.’
Tabby knew it was hardly a risk at all. In any household of a dozen or so – and from the size of this house, there’d be at least a dozen servants – somebody would be called Mary and there was always some stage of washing.
‘Big Mary or little Mary?’
‘Little Mary.’
‘So why aren’t you helping?’
‘They don’t need me this minute.’
He grunted and went back to the gooseberries. The boy was taking his time picking up the spilt ones. He saw Tabby’s eyes on him and made a face. She made a face back. She strolled over to the rail round the fruit trees, looking at the back of the house. A window on the upper floor was open with an eiderdown spread over the sill to air. A woman in a black dress and long apron came out of a back door on the left with a bucket of peelings for the pig bin. Saucepans clashed inside. After some time, the gardener took the trug of gooseberries from the boy and walked stiffly towards the back door, not glancing towards Tabby. She went over to the boy, who was sitting on the grass eating gooseberries he’d probably squirreled away from the spill.
‘You’ll catch it,’ she said.
‘No, I won’t. ’E’ll stay there ’alf an ’our by the church clock. She gives ’im a glass of beer and cheese. Want one?’
She nodded and he handed her a gooseberry, big as a bantam’s egg and warm from the sun. She squatted down beside him.
‘You’re not little Mary’s sister, are you?’ he said.
‘Who says?’
‘I’ve seen her sister. She’s a long streak of misery. Are you a burglar?’
‘What if I was?’
‘You should let me in on it. I knows where they keeps the silver, everything.’
‘I bet you’ve never been inside the house.’
‘I ’ave so. I go in there sometimes when I walk the dogs.’
‘Just into the scullery?’
‘I went into the passage once, when one of the dogs got free.’
‘Do that a lot, do they?’
He pushed the last gooseberry into his mouth and shook his head. ‘So are you or ain’t you?’
‘That ’ud be telling, wouldn’t it? What I’m doing now is I’m looking for a friend.’
He looked disappointed. ‘Yer young man run off, ’as he?’
‘A lady. She came to dinner here three days ago.’
‘Quality, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not quality.’
‘Do you remember any talk about a lady gone missing?’
‘Jane said summat about a fuss over a lady that ’ad run off and left her ’usband, only I reckons they’re always doing that. I don’t pay much notice to what goes on inside.’
‘I thought you knew where the silver was. Who’s Jane?’
‘Scullery maid and she does some of the fires, downstairs mostly.’
‘How many servants are there here?’
He thought about it, then counted on his fingers. ‘Madam’s maid, bedroom maid who does the upstairs cleaning, parlour maid, Sukey does the downstairs rooms, Jane in the scullery and little Mary, who mostly does the washing. Then there’s the cook and the kitchen maid, big Mary and the boy that does the boots and brings in the coal. That’s nine if you count the boy.’
‘Don’t they have a housekeeper and butler?’
‘They don’t count as proper servants. Then outside there’s me and Dismal Joe for the garden, the coachman, Mr Daniel, and the stable boy. That’s about it.’
‘How often do you walk the dogs?’
‘When the stable boy’s out riding postilion on the coach early. Once every two weeks, maybe.’
‘Who brings them to you?’
‘Jane, usually. They know her because she’s the one who feeds ’em.’
‘A bitch got out, didn’t she, the night the lady disappeared?’
He looked at her, sideways on. ‘You know a lot more than you’re letting on, don’t you?’
‘You heard about it?’
‘I saw it. I sleeps in there.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the greenhouse. ‘Under the staging. Don’t tell Dismal Joe. I’m supposed to live out and they’d dock it off my pay if they thought I was living in. But it’s more comfortable than at home. I got some sacks and an old pillow they threw out.’
‘So what exactly did you see?’
‘First thing was ’earing it. Yelping, yapping, barking – sounded as if all the dogs in Westminster had got in the garden. And Jane at the scullery door yelling for the bitch to come in, only she might as well have shouted for the river to run backwards and you could ’ardly ’ear her over the noise. So I went out. It was after ten, dark. I fell over a couple of dogs, barked my shin – look, it’s still sore. Stable boy fell over me and Mr Daniel swore at both of us. They’d come out from the coach house. Then the cook and big Mary were at the scullery door, throwing out great panfuls of water, only I reckons they missed most of the dogs and got Mr Daniel, so ’e started swearing again. In the end, me and the stable boy grabbed the bitch, more by luck than anything, and threw ’er to Jane inside the scullery. I ’ad to make myself scarce before anybody started asking ’ow come I was so ’andy on the scene.’
‘And Mr and Mrs Maynard didn’t come out?’
‘Well, they couldn’t, could they? Not if they was entertaining.’
‘Whose fault was it the bitch got out?’
A pause. ‘Well, Jane’s, I suppose, if she hadn’t done up the door properly after she took her supper into her.’
‘What does Jane say about it?’
‘Dunno. I ’aven’t spoken to her since. I reckons she’s in disgrace.’
‘I’d like to speak to Jane. Could you get her to come out?’
‘Why? About the burglary?’
‘I’m not planning on burgling just at the moment. Would this help?’ Tabby held out a half-crown coin on her gloveless palm.
The boy looked at it hungrily.
‘And the other half after I’ve spoken to her.’
He scooped up the coin, bit it and put it in his pocket. ‘She might, she might not.’
‘Try.’
He stood up. ‘It’ll ’ave to wait till tomorrow, if she does. You’d better go. Dismal Joe will be back any minute.’
‘While you were all chasing the dogs around, you didn’t know what was happening at the front of the house?’
‘Not a chance. The lady ’asn’t come back then?’
‘No.’ Tabby stood up and looked back at the house. A low terrace ran along it, three-quarters of it obviously for the family’s use, screened from the kitchen door on the left by a trellis covered with passion flowers. Beside the trellis, a lean-to summerhouse, made of picturesque gnarled and twisted boughs, looked designed for taking tea on a summer afternoon. The church clock was whirring and the boy was fidgeting. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Toby.’
‘This time tomorrow, then.’
She went through the door to the side street just as the clock was striking. She’d been tempted for a moment to go into the house and talk to the scullery maid then and there, but she’d learned to be patient and wait.
When ‘The Union’ got back to the White Bear in Piccadilly at half past five the day after it had set out, Amos was in the yard, waiting for it. He’d delivered Robert’s letter without letting on that he’d read it, but Miles had shown it to him anyway, every bit as worried and puzzled as he was. When Amos left him, he was on the verge of going round to show it to Stephen, without much hope that he’d learn any more from it. Even before all the passengers were off, the coachman had swung down from the box and was on his way into the public house. Amos followed him and watched as he downed in one gulp the pint that the publican had drawn for him as soon as he heard the coach arrive. Amos’s offer of a second one was accepted with a nod, and before he was halfway down it they’d discovered they had coaching friends in common. The man’s assistant joined them, thirsty from dealing with the passengers and their luggage, and Amos bought him a pint too. After a while, he turned the conversation to their journey down to Dover. Did they remember a gentleman on his own, travelling outside, only a satchel for luggage, tall and brown-haired, fortyish? They both remembered him well because he’d tipped generously, though hurriedly.
‘The steamer was just going out and he was in a hurry to get on it. Yes, it will have been going to Calais, as most of them do, but we’ve got no notion where he was going on afterwards. He didn’t say much beyond thank you.’
Amos drank another pint with them but got no further. As he walked back to the stables, a line from Robert’s letter kept running around in his mind: She may yet be found by methods other than the one I have had to adopt. He hoped so, but he didn’t see how.