‘Libby, just try and entertain the idea that they might be telling the truth.’
The middle of Sunday afternoon, with Mrs Martley out visiting, so Tom, the cat and I had the parlour to ourselves. We were well into our second pot of tea and a discussion that couldn’t, so far, be called an argument because we were both too confused to take sides. Tom’s plea followed a theory, proposed by me, that the Rani and McPherson were involved together in a plan to smuggle quantities of opium into Britain.
‘I’ve tried to,’ I said. ‘I simply can’t envisage Mr Griffiths and McPherson sitting down and plotting together.’
‘I’ve thought about it, and I can see it might have happened. Griffiths was open and honourable to the core. If he was convinced he’d done the man an injustice, he’d say so. I could imagine him walking back into Westminster Hall and telling the world he’d been wrong and McPherson hadn’t stolen the jewels.’
‘Only, by their account he did nothing so straightforward. He tells Mr Patwardhan to go away and come back secretly because something’s going to happen that the Rani shouldn’t know about. Then there’s that carriage he has waiting in a back alley. Does that all sound open and honourable?’
‘If Griffiths did that, then I’m sure there was nothing dishonourable about it,’ Tom said, the stubbornness coming back into his voice.
‘If he did. That’s the whole point. You can’t say it must have been honourable because he’s honourable, when it might not have happened at all.’ I could hear the annoyance coming back into mine.
For once, Tom was the peacemaker.
‘All right, it’s a circular argument. But let’s test their story as far as we can. Griffiths finds out they’re in London, in straitened circumstances. He immediately offers them his cottage. Is there anything incredible in that?’
‘If they have several hundred pounds worth of opium with them, they shouldn’t have been in straitened circumstances.’
‘It would take time and contacts to convert that to money in a city they don’t know.’
‘Very well, I withdraw that objection. But there is another one. Are we quite sure that the Rani is Griffiths’s princess?’
‘You were, as soon as you set eyes on her.’
‘I might have been wrong.’
‘You weren’t. You could see that just by looking at her . . .’ By the pitch of his voice, he’d intended to put another word after ‘her’ but he left it hanging. ‘In any case, would Griffiths have given his cottage and his servant to just anybody?’
‘So the Rani is his princess and he tells her that he’s doing everything in his power to right the injustice done to her. He’s too realistic to think he can get the princedom back and besides it wasn’t hers in the first place. So that means the jewels?’
‘Yes. So he’s naturally taken aback when the Rani tells him McPherson didn’t take them. It does make sense so far.’
‘I wonder how she can be so certain,’ I said. ‘That implies she knows who took them. As far as Griffiths was concerned, there were two suspects, The Merchant and The Soldier.’
Tom gave me a sideways look.
‘All right, Libby. I know what you’re going to say next. That dratted library. I simply haven’t had time.’
‘It would be useful to be able to rule The Soldier out, if we knew who he was and that he’d died.’
‘I’ll start tackling those old army lists tomorrow.’
‘So, how far have we got? Mr Griffiths knows now that he’s been barking up the wrong tree and makes a truce with McPherson. Then he actually sends McPherson off, in conditions of some secrecy, to spend the night in the Rani’s household at Richmond. How does that make sense?’
‘Part of righting the injustice perhaps, so that she could tell him in person that she knew he hadn’t stolen her jewels.’
I thought about it. ‘Possible, but why do it at the dead of night? Couldn’t it have waited till morning?’
‘That’s a problem,’ Tom admitted. ‘But there must have been some reason.’
‘We’re back with the if again. Of course, even if McPherson really did spend the Sunday night at Richmond he could still have sent an underling to kill Mr Griffiths.’
‘Except there’d have been no point. Mr Griffiths was no threat to him any more.’
‘Yes. And we don’t suppose he was so mortified at being wrong about McPherson that he killed himself after all?’
‘No.’
‘I agree. No.’
On that note of agreement, we agreed to shelve the discussion for the day. My brain felt squeezed out and Tom needed to get back to Mr Tillington, who’d had a bronchitic attack that morning. I walked with him part of the way along the mews.
‘Of course, there’d be one way of disposing of some of the ifs,’ I said.
‘Talking to McPherson you mean? I was thinking that too.’
‘I can’t see why not. After all, if he really came to a truce with Mr Griffiths, that should apply to you as Mr Griffiths’s friend.’
‘I don’t suppose he cares about me either way.’
‘Is it worth trying? You could probably get in touch with him through the East India Office.’
‘Yes. I’ll think it over. I might try.’
‘Let me know if you do.’
I resolved that if the meeting took place I’d somehow contrive to be there, but didn’t say that to Tom. In the last few steps before we parted, he surprised me with something different altogether.
‘Libby, you have a memory for poetry. What was that bit of Byron about walking and the night?’
I quoted: ‘“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”’
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
He didn’t turn back to wave to me from the corner. Probably too busy trying to memorize it.
Overnight, a whole new aspect occurred to me. If we allowed the hypothesis that the Rani’s story were true, there had to be another way of accounting for the destruction of Mr Griffiths’s pamphlet. McPherson would have nothing to fear from it, even if knowledgeable readers guessed the identity of The Merchant. Even with Mr Griffiths gone, he could appeal to the Rani herself to prove his innocence of jewel robbery. Which meant that whoever had stolen a carriage-load of pamphlets from the printer, searched Tom’s lodgings and attacked Mr Tillington to try to prevent the story being aired was another person altogether. In that case, the one thing I knew about him was that he’d used Eckington-Smith as his cat’s paw. I even toyed with the idea that Eckington-Smith himself might be the Soldier, but that didn’t survive the light of day. There was nothing military about him and I knew enough about his career from earlier investigations to be sure that he’d never served in India. The man was in financial trouble, willing to work for anybody who would pay him. Following him might be the way to discovering who had wanted so very much to have the pamphlet suppressed. But I knew there was another reason, which might be distorting my judgement: following Eckington-Smith might lead me to Tabby. Or vice versa. If Tabby had been following him, then she’d know more than I did about whom he’d been meeting and when. So I set about finding her.
I worked at it over the next three days and discovered many things. That the financial heart of the country that is the City of London may cover no more than a square mile, but is so crammed with small streets and alleyways that you can walk round it for hours on end and not tread on the same stretch of wood, stone or cobble paving twice over. That the smell of coffee from the doors of the dozens of coffee houses is almost unbearably enticing when you know you can’t walk into one without affronted male eyes turning towards you. That businessmen, in their uniform dark suits, tall black hats and general air of being responsible for keeping the world revolving, look so much like each other from a distance that sighting one in particular is like trying to pick out one rook in a rookery. That it’s even worse when it rains, because they vanish under identical black umbrellas and become turtles. That if you happen to have come out without your own umbrella there comes a point where you don’t care about getting wet any more, because you’re soaked through to the corset and petticoats. That doormen at the Bank of England and various other banks and exchange houses are mostly retired soldiers and observant, particularly of women on their own, and not inclined for casual conversations. (No question, of course, of going near the one at Capel Court. The doorman there would have recognized me in an instant.) Above all, I discovered how greatly I was lacking in the virtue of patience. Of course I’d watched and waited before, but never so long and with so little prospect of anything happening. It made me realize that Tabby was much my superior in that respect. Time had never seemed to fret her in the way it does most of us.
I never found her. I looked carefully at every group of urchins or draggle-skirted girl and gave away a small fortune in pennies. I even recognized some of the lads who’d witnessed Tabby’s attack on the doorman’s hat. They hadn’t seen her for days, they said. I wondered if my failure to find her or Eckington-Smith meant that he’d moved elsewhere and she’d followed him. It didn’t seem likely. The little I knew about men of business suggested that they needed to keep with their kind. If I hadn’t spotted him so far, that was because I’d underestimated the difficulty. Sometimes, particularly on the rainy day, I would have a sudden feeling that Tabby was somewhere close at hand, tracking me, but then I’d turn and find nothing but more umbrellas.
Unlike Tabby, I went back to Abel Yard in the evenings. Quite early in the evening, because the streets of the City became almost deserted by five o’clock. Always I hoped to find my brother there. On the first evening there was no sign of him. On the second he sent a boy with a note saying he’d intended to call, but Mr Tillington had suffered another bad turn and shouldn’t be left. Frustratingly, not a word about researches in the library of East India House. After dark on the third evening he arrived at last, tired and hungry. I let Mrs Martley fuss over him with tea, cold pie and a glass of wine, then took him through the low doorway to my study.
‘Have you made any progress?’ I said.
‘I’m not sure if you’d call it progress. There were so many small battles going on around that time, it took me a long time to find the one that Griffiths was writing about.’
‘But you have?’
‘Yes, an engagement almost exactly as he describes it, with few casualties. And it does correspond with the civilian records of when he was serving in the territory.’
‘And the captains?’
‘Four of them. Octavus St Clair, Peter Morris, Horace Smith and Angus McWhitty.’
‘And was any of them invalided home soon afterwards?’
He looked pained. ‘Give me a chance, Libby. Medical discharge certificates are another set of records altogether.’
‘I wonder about McWhitty. Could it be a case of Scots keeping together? You might try him first.’
‘When I get time. They do expect me to do some occasional work, you know. Then there’s poor Tillington to look after.’ A small hesitation. ‘And I did go out to Richmond this afternoon.’
He didn’t meet my eyes, pretending a sudden interest in an engraving of the Parthenon on the wall.
‘To see the Rani?’
‘It seemed only polite to call, after their hospitality.’
A cup of tea in a tent hardly seemed to merit a coach ride to Richmond and back, but I didn’t say so.
‘Did she tell you any more about the jewels?’
‘For goodness’ sake, it was a social call. I didn’t go to cross-examine her.’
‘Was Mr Patwardhan there?’
‘Yes, and before you ask, I didn’t pelt him with questions either.’
‘And the daughter?’
‘If you expect me to question her about this miserable business you must be—’
‘I only asked if she were there.’
‘Yes.’ Another hesitation, then a stream of words. ‘She’s amazing, Libby. She’s spent most of her life in a castle – more of a fort, really – in the middle of nowhere but she has more poise and intelligence than any woman in society. She knows as much Shakespeare as you do, probably more, sketches and plays the sitar, speaks four languages . . .’
And had eyes that a man could wander in forever, particularly a man who’d never been in love before. I didn’t say that, of course, only remarked that she sounded very accomplished and registered that my brother, as a source of sensible information on the Rani’s household, was a lost cause.
I tried to bring him back to business by asking if he’d found time to ask for a meeting with McPherson.
‘I wrote yesterday and had a note back this morning. No go there, I’m afraid.’
His mind was still with the cloudless climes and starry skies.
‘What exactly did you write and what exactly did he reply?’ I said.
He wrenched it back reluctantly. ‘Pretty much as we agreed. I said I understood that Griffiths had retracted some injurious implications, and if my small services could help in repairing any damage done, I’d appreciate a chance to talk to him.’
‘Good. And his reply?’
He took a piece of folded paper from his pocket and passed it to me.
Mr McPherson thanks Mr Lane for his communication, but sees no need for a meeting. If Mr Lane wishes to do him a service, it will be by not gossiping about this business and strongly discouraging anyone else from doing so.
‘Curt,’ I said.
‘You can’t blame him. He must be sick of the whole affair.’
‘You’d think he’d be glad to have his name cleared.’
But something was beginning to stir in my mind that I couldn’t understand myself yet, let alone discuss with Tom. I expected him to be anxious to get back to Mr Tillington’s sickbed, and indeed he was on edge, but there was something else on his mind.
‘The parliamentary committee’s almost finished taking evidence.’
‘I suppose it will be months before it produces a report,’ I said.
‘Yes, but according to the men that know, they’ve pretty well reached a decision.’
‘On whether Griffiths had McPherson’s assistant killed? Surely that’s out of the question now. They’d have never made their truce otherwise.’
‘I don’t think they even know about the truce. They’ll let the whole business lie as something on which they can’t reach an agreement. I meant they’ve already decided on what matters most to McPherson and his friends – the compensation.’
‘Are they getting it?’
‘Not until after the war with China, then it will be exacted from Peking as part of the peace settlement.’
So Disraeli had been well informed as usual.
‘I suppose the Calcutta men aren’t pleased about that.’
‘Furious. From their point of view the war is only a means to an end. They want their compensation now. Without it, some of them will be ruined.’
‘McPherson included?’
‘Possibly, but the really worried ones are the smaller men who put more than they could afford into the Eastern trading companies. It looked like easy money, but now the shares are going down and down.’
Tom looked more gloomy about it than you’d expect for somebody with no capital.
‘You realize what that means, Libby?’
‘That our family fortunes are wrecked? Woe and alas.’
‘I mean if the game’s lost, the merchants will be going back to see what they can do in Calcutta and there’s no reason for Company men to stay either. We could all be sailing in two or three weeks.’
It really was woe and alas now. I’d known a parting must come, but had managed to push the thought away as something weeks or even months in the future. I’d hoped to be back on unclouded good terms with Tom before it happened. A smaller sorrow was that, with Tom and the rest of them gone, we might never know the truth about Griffiths’s death.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said, as if guessing my thoughts.
‘Not your fault. Shall you come back tomorrow?’
‘If I can, yes.’
I didn’t go back to the City next day. I’d failed entirely in Tabby’s craft, either in finding her or Eckington-Smith, so had to fall back on my own. I made myself neat for visiting and walked across the park to Kensington.
‘You must come and visit me, any time you like,’ Mrs Eckington-Smith had said to me when I’d finished my work for her.
She didn’t mean it: we’d both known that. It was when she was on the point of moving out of the house she’d lived in with her husband in St John’s Wood. She wanted to leave that and the memory of her marriage to him behind for ever. I was part of that. She was grateful to me for helping to free her, but I’d seen her at the darkest time of her life and she could never look at me without thinking of it. I was aware of that when I stood on the doorstep of her cottage – not far from where Mrs Glass lived – and gave my card to her maid. Still, she came to meet me bravely.
‘Miss Lane, such a pleasure. I’ve been hoping you’d find time to call.’
Her parlour was comfortable but not ostentatious, lilacs in a vase on the table and a child’s wooden horse and cart on the carpet. I think she and her small daughter had been playing with it when I arrived. When our coffee was served, the child and the horse and cart were sent to play with the maid in another room. We sipped our coffee and made conversation – about her son, away at school, the new piano she’d ordered. She was interesting herself in charity work and beginning to make new friends.
‘I’ve introduced myself to them by my maiden name,’ she said. ‘Not that it makes much difference.’
The wounds were raw, but healing. Still, she winced when I mentioned that I’d heard her husband had left the house in St John’s Wood.
‘He had to, I suppose. He has debts.’
‘Do you happen to know where he moved?’
She shook her head.
‘Somewhere cheaper, I suppose. I did hear he’d been travelling round the country a lot. Trying to get fools to lend him money.’
‘Does he have investments in the East India Company?’
‘He certainly did at one time. He was trying to build up enough shares to be a director. He said there were fortunes to be made from India.’
‘But he never went there, did he?’
‘No. He’s scared of any sea voyage longer than to the Isle of Wight.’
She changed the subject, wanting my valuable opinion of whether to plant geraniums or penstemons in her window box. After half an hour I left. She came to the doorstep with me and urged me to call again soon, managing to sound as if she meant it. Since that attempt had failed, I needed some other means of finding Eckington-Smith’s present address. I went home, folded a sheet of paper, wrote on it the address from which I knew he’d moved and marked it ‘Urgent’. Then I put on a plain grey dress and bonnet and walked to Westminster. It took some time to find the entrance used by MPs so I arrived there looking suitably confused, like a timid conscientious servant. I inquired of the official in tailcoat and breeches standing at the door if somebody could kindly give me the address of Mr Eckington-Smith MP.
‘You could leave it here if you want to, missy.’
‘Is he here today, sir?’ I hoped not.
‘No. Haven’t seen him for a while.’
The messengers had prodigious memories for the comings and goings of MPs.
‘It’s urgent.’ I showed him the address. ‘He used to live here, only they say he doesn’t any more. I don’t know what to do, sir.’
He liked being called ‘sir’ and maybe even the timid smile I gave him from under my bonnet rim. Perhaps he was bored, or even kindly by nature. At any rate, he decided to help. He told me to wait, beckoned up a younger messenger and asked him to cut along to the post room and inquire for Mr Eckington-Smith’s present address. I waited. A few members came and went. Luckily Mr Disraeli was not among them. After a quarter of an hour or more, the younger man came back with a slip of paper. My messenger read it out painstakingly.
‘You know where that is, missy?’ Then, mistaking my look of surprise for ignorance. ‘It’s in the City, not far from where the Bank of England is. You can get an omnibus from over there.’
I knew it well. Mr Eckington-Smith’s current address was two streets away from where Mr Griffiths had died. Probably not a coincidence.
I took the omnibus to the Bank and walked along Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, past the offices of the East India Company. A small detour took me to Mr Griffiths’s late lodgings. There was an alleyway beside it and a place at the back where a carriage might have waited. At least the Rani’s story did not fall down on that point. The address given to me was only a few minutes’ walk away. Eckington-Smith lived at number five: a plain terraced house of sooty brick and faded cream paintwork, respectable but not impressive. The basement area was deserted with nothing in it but a water tub and an old broom, no sign of servants. I walked round the corner to the back of the row of houses. A narrow alleyway ran along the row, just wide enough for handcarts delivering goods or clearing cesspits. From the smell, some attention was needed. A wall with a line of narrow wooden gates closed off the backyards of the houses. I counted along, opened the gate and walked into the backyard of number five.
They’d had a bonfire, fairly recently, but not since the downpour of two days ago. The ashes were heavy and sodden, pieces of unburnt paper glued to the trodden earth. I took off my glove and prised up a couple of them and read . . . profits for the City of London. It has been a process of gree . . . and . . . even the opium-dulled consc . . .
Judging from the ash pile, it had been a large bonfire, but then it would have needed to be to consume a carriage-full of Mr Griffiths’s pamphlets. I checked that nobody was watching me from the back windows and looked round the yard. Nothing much to see except brick walls on either side and a lean-to against the right-hand wall, probably for coals or logs. The door wasn’t locked. I lifted the latch, opened it and knew I was on the trail at last. I was looking at a nest of sacks. It could have been a refuge for almost anything: a large dog or an exceptionally badly housed kitchen maid. I knew, as surely as if she’d engraved her name over it on a brass plate, that the nest was Tabby’s. It was exactly the way she’d made her sleeping place in the shed near the cows in Abel Yard, before I had the cabin built for her. She had a way of rolling two sacks into a bolster. You could even see the imprint of her head in the middle of it. I picked up a long brown hair and flicked a flea off my wrist. Oh Tabby. There was nothing else of hers, but then I didn’t expect anything. She’d returned to her old life, where you kept your possessions on your person.
I went back to Abel Yard, guessing that Tabby wouldn’t be back in her lair till after dark. By eight o’clock I was back in the alley. I went into the yard of number five to make sure she wasn’t back. The shed was unoccupied. Inside the house, a dim light showed from a window on the first floor. I let the latch down softly and took up position in the alley, wrapped in my cloak, leaning against a wall. At this time of night, there was no reason for anybody else to be there, so I had it to myself apart from the occasional scavenging dog or mousing cat. Now and then hoofs and carriage wheels sounded faintly from the street. Darkness came down. A variety of clocks from banks and counting houses doled out nine strokes, then ten. Two fighting dogs rolled across my feet. A few houses down, a knife scraped across several plates then a bin lid clanged. Pig bin, I supposed. I walked up and down the alley several times to keep from getting stiff and cold. Eleven o’clock. Another walk up and down. The faint light was still showing in number five. It must have been near midnight when it happened. A dark figure turned off the street and into the alley. It was moving cautiously, but as if it knew where it was going. I drew back against the wall, not wanting to scare her off before I had a chance to say anything. From where I was standing, I’d be about ten yards away from her when she got to the back gate. The advancing figure was no more than a black shape against the dark. It was at the gate before I realized that it wasn’t Tabby.
Not very tall, but too tall for her. A man, breathing wheezily as if unaccustomed to walking. I could smell the fumes of strong tobacco from his greatcoat and cheap brandy as he fumbled at the latch, cursing under his breath. A rough voice, not Eckington-Smith’s rotund tones. So our man had a visitor who came by the back gate. He managed the latch, pushed the gate open and walked into the yard, leaving it open. He was carrying a bag that looked heavy in his left hand. I moved so that I could see into the yard. He went to the back door, knocked on it with his fist, but not loudly. The light on the first floor waned then the window went dark. Somebody had picked up a candle in its holder and was carrying it down to the door. I was wondering whether to risk moving into the yard to overhear anything that was said when somebody pushed me roughly aside and rushed past. Tabby, running. I don’t think she even knew who I was. I was simply an obstacle. Inside the gate, she hesitated for a moment. The visitor was still at the door. It opened, and there was Eckington-Smith standing inside it in a dark flannel dressing gown, his face with its broad forehead and narrow chin as pale as a peeled pear in the light of the candle he was holding. He started saying something to the man at the door. It sounded like a complaint of some kind but he didn’t finish it because Tabby bounded forward and something flashed in the candlelight.
She pushed the visitor aside, making for Eckington-Smith. The visitor stumbled. His arm swung out with the heavy bag he was carrying. Whether it was intentional or an accident, it hit Tabby, knocking her off balance. It gave me the two seconds I needed to catch up with her. I grabbed her by the shoulder. Cold air hit me as her knife ripped through my cloak. We were stumbling on something. Sovereigns, spilled from the visitor’s bag, hundreds of them glinting in the candlelight. The light was wavering because Eckington-Smith was swinging the candle around, shouting, ‘Police, police.’
‘Come away,’ I said to her. ‘For heaven’s sake, come away.’
It shook her, hearing my voice. Up to that point, she’d been straining away from me, still trying to get to Eckington-Smith. The visitor was on hands and knees, scrabbling sovereigns. Taking advantage of her moment of confusion, I dragged her back towards the gate. Eckington-Smith was still yelling. Distantly, the clack-clack of a police rattle sounded, like a startled pheasant.
‘Run. Just run,’ I said.
Running from the police was a natural instinct for Tabby. We ran back along the alley, in the opposite direction from the way we’d entered. I only hoped it wasn’t a dead end. For a bad moment it looked as if we were making straight for a blank brick wall but an opening to the side gave just enough space to squeeze through. Tabby found it first and turned a pale face to me to make sure I was behind her.
‘Yes, go on.’
We came out to a street, quite a wide one. Police rattles were clacking from two directions now, but still some distance away. Tabby dived up another alleyway. I followed. She knew the territory better than I did. It came out in Leadenhall Street. A few lamps burning outside buildings made it look alarmingly light after the alleyways. We were the only people in it.
‘Walk,’ I said to Tabby, and turned us westwards.
She’d have gone on running but I had a stitch in the side. In any case, respectability was now our best hope. As we walked, I slipped off my mistreated cloak and made Tabby wrap it round herself and put the hood up.
‘Don’t need it,’ she said.
But that wasn’t the point. If the police encountered us now, I’d do my best to pass for a lady out late with her maid. What we were doing on the streets of the City late at night should be no business of the constables. Luckily, we didn’t meet one. At Cornhill a cab came grinding towards us, probably on its way home. Two half-crowns in hand persuaded the driver to change direction and take us as far as Charing Cross. We walked back to Abel Yard from there, without attracting much attention. At Abel Yard I took her upstairs to the parlour, sat her down on a chair (trying hard not to think about fleas) and stirred up the fire to make tea. When I found some bread and cold meat for her she ate wolfishly, her slowly acquired table manners quite gone. I waited, drinking my tea, until she was finished. Then: ‘You’d better explain,’ I said.