James Brinkley had spared no expense when it came to the construction of his Fifth Avenue mansion.
As Jasper waited at the front door, he stared up at the pair of gargoyles perched on the overhang. They stared back at him.
The house was a mishmash of Gothic, Florentine, and Grecian building styles—along with several other eras he was not equipped to identify. It looked like something a magpie would design.
The fifteen-foot door, complete with rose window, swung open.
“Detective Inspector Lightner, welcome. You are expected.” The cadaverous man wore the clothing of a butler and spoke with an English accent that lacked any regional inflection. “I am Bains, sir.” He ushered Jasper into a foyer large enough to house an entire block in the Five Points.
Jasper stripped off his gloves and tossed them into his hat before handing both to the servant, who—he saw with a twinge of alarm—was looking at him with an expression of near-adulation.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Bains said, his pale cheeks coloring when he was caught staring. “It’s only that I’ve seen you before—you were no more than a lad.”
“No—d-did you really?”
First Captain Davies—who’d grown up on Jasper’s father’s Welsh estate before moving to America—and now this man. Just how many people in this enormous bloody city knew Jasper or his family?
“I was walking out with a young nursery maid who worked at Kersey House.”
“Ah, I s-see. Well, I hope you treated the girl w-well, Bains,” Jasper teased.
The older man permitted himself a smile. “She is Mrs. Bains and has been these past nineteen years.”
If the butler’s missus had worked at Kersey House nineteen years ago it would have been Jasper’s younger sister Amelia that she’d nursed. Jasper would have been fourteen or fifteen, probably visiting the ancestral London pile in between school terms. Or coming home for Amelia’s funeral.
“I recall Kersey House as if it were yesterday,” Bains said, his air wistful. “It is a magnificent house.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you’d had to l-l-live in it,” Jasper assured him. “No amount of coal could keep the f-frost from the air.” He gave himself a quick examination in the large foyer mirror to make sure his hair wasn’t standing up like a rooster’s tail. His coiffure was a source of contention between him and Paisley. His valet barbered him and refused to cut it short enough, so that an annoying, foppish curl forever flopped on his forehead. Jasper suspected the man did it on purpose to punish him for remaining clean-shaven rather than following the fashion for facial hair.
He savagely shoved the curl back with the others before turning away from the mirror. “Lead on, B-Bains.”
Rather than take him up a grand staircase, the butler led him down a wide corridor that was lined with paintings. Jasper spotted a Gainsborough. “These are some m-magnificent p-portraits,” he said as he passed a Romney.
“Er, these are not Mr. Brinkley’s family, my lord. He purchased these at estate sales.”
Jasper heard the scorn in his voice.
“Have you w-worked here long?”
“Almost two years, sir.” He hesitated, and then added quickly, “I was underbutler for Mr. Vanderbilt prior to this position.” This time Jasper heard pride.
Bains stopped before a grand wooden door heavily accented with gilt—just like the wall panels, cornices, and picture frames. Indeed, Jasper hadn’t seen so much gilt outside of Versailles.
The butler flung open the door. “Detective Inspector Lightner.”
A towering figure rose from behind a massive desk. “Ah, Lord Jasper, I presume? What an honor to finally meet you.”
Brinkley’s smug tone went well with his smirk.
“A pleasure to m-meet you, sir.”
Brinkley’s nostrils flared, as if scenting an untruth. “Send in the tea cart in fifteen minutes, Bains. And tell Gracie to get down here.”
The butler cut Jasper a look of mortification at his master’s gauche manners.
Brinkley didn’t wait for the door to close before speaking, “I see Bains is thrilled to be waiting on a genuine aristocrat—just like back in the Old Country.” He made no effort to hide his amusement. “Met you at the door, did he? Wanted you all to himself, didn’t want a mere footman to get the pleasure of bear—leading you, even though that’s what I pay ’em for.”
“Y-Yes, it was k-kind of him.”
“Kind.” He snorted. “He’s a bloody snob. I only put up with him because I went to so much effort to poach him from Corny.”
Jasper had no idea what to say to that.
Brinkley leaned forward and turned a leather case—the sort to hold a daguerreotype—toward him.
“That’s Mister Waggers.”
“May I?” Jasper asked, reaching for the case.
“Yeah, yeah, sure—pick it up, take a good look. Hell, you can take it with you, I’ve got more. Have a seat,” he added as an afterthought.
Jasper lowered himself into one of the two oxblood leather armchairs across from Brinkley’s desk and looked at the photograph. The dog looked to be smallish—certainly no more than a stone. It appeared to be sitting on a cushion of some sort, staring directly into the camera, tongue lolling.
While the picture was amusing, since the dog appeared to be smiling, it was, quite frankly, the ugliest dog Jasper had ever seen. It had an exceptionally large head for its body, with enormous ears, one of which stood up straight, the other flopped over. The wiry coat was that of a terrier, but the dog’s heavy-featured face bore a striking resemblance to a mastiff, although, thankfully, far smaller.
He looked up and found Brinkley—whose large head and blunt features Jasper suddenly realized resembled his dog’s—perched on the edge of his chair, leaning forward with an expectant expression.
“Er, M-M-Mister Waggers is, um, quite unusual looking.”
Brinkley grinned, pleased rather than offended. “Isn’t he, though? You see that little white bit below his chin? Doesn’t it look like he’s wearing a bow tie?”
Jasper brought the picture closer, squinting. “Er—”
“It does, don’t it? He looked so much like a little gentleman when Gracie found him that she said he couldn’t be plain Waggers, he had to be Mister Waggers.” Brinkley gave a delighted laugh. “That’s my Grace. But Waggers isn’t just good lookin’, he’s smart. He saved my life.”
Jasper felt a bit dazed by Brinkley’s enthusiastic onslaught. “Oh, did he?”
Brinkley nodded vigorously. “Back in forty-nine when I was just outside Sacramento. I was drunk—celebrating my first big strike—and slid into a canyon, knocked my head and broke my leg. I was there all night—almost froze to death. My little Gracie came lookin’ for me and brought Waggers—he’s the one who found me.” He gave a rough laugh. “Woulda been plenty of men around those parts glad for me to die out there.” Brinkley flung himself back in his chair. “I wouldn’t be here but for Gracie and Waggers.”
Jasper nodded, at a loss. “And, er, G-Gracie is?”
“Oh, why Gracie’s my—” He broke off as the door opened, his homely, blunt features shifting into a glowing smile. “Here’s my little angel.”
“Oh, Papa, please!”
Jasper turned at the sound of the low female voice and soft, earthy guffaw.
“This is my Gracie—Grace, this is the duke’s son, Lord Lightner.”
Jasper barely heard the inaccurate honorific; all his senses were too busy taking in the vision in white.
She grinned as she marched toward him. And those were the correct words: grinning and marching. She resembled an angel but moved more like a pugilist.
“It’s a pleasure, Detective Lightner.” She held out her hand and Jasper prepared for the usual bone crushing.
Surprisingly, her touch was as soft as her behavior was brash.
“It’s a p-pleasure,” Jasper said, bowing over her small hand before releasing it.
“Lord Lightner is here to find Waggers, Gracie.”
“Papa, you know we’ll never find him.” She aimed her enormous blue eyes up at Jasper, shaking her head in frustration. “Papa thinks somebody kidnapped Waggers. But he’s been gone a whole week. If they took him, wouldn’t they have already sent a demand letter?”
“Well, that certainly seems, er, l-l-logical.” He smiled at her—because how could he not?—and then turned to her father. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have no experience with st-st-stolen pets. I’m afraid you would do better to engage a p-private enquiry agent.”
“Oh, I’ve done that too. Don’t you worry,” Brinkley said. “Nothing is too much for my Waggers. But when we read about you in the paper—and how you were here to teach scientific things. Well—”
His daughter cut in. “Papa always likes to have the best, Inspector.”
Jasper felt his face heat at her look of open admiration. “Er—”
“Just give it some thought, my lord, I wanted your superior mind and skills on this,” Brinkley urged. “I know you don’t need the money.” He gave Jasper a shrewd, approving look. “I read up about you—bang up to the mark when it comes to collecting brass.”
Jasper blinked at the assessment.
Brinkley turned to his daughter. “I thought it might help if Gracie showed you some of Waggers’s favorite places—where she last walked him, that sort of thing.”
Jasper’s gaze flickered to the enormous gilt longcase clock before he could stop himself.
“I know, I know—you’ve got that murderer to find—whoever chopped up that bastard Frumkin, aye?” Brinkley snickered. “I woulda liked him to try his tricks on me. Seems like whoever done him in did the city a favor, hey?”
“Oh, Papa,” his daughter chided.
Jasper felt a touch on his arm and found Miss Brinkley’s hand on his sleeve. “I won’t keep you more than a quarter of an hour.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said.
“Capital, capital!” Brinkley grinned—looking remarkably like his daughter in that moment—and rubbed together hands that were the size of serving platters.
Within moments, Jasper found himself hatted, gloved, and coated, Miss Brinkley walking beside him.
“Oh, I can carry that, Detective,” she reached for the parasol that Bains had handed him in the foyer. “You’ve got your cane.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling fetchingly at the corners. “Is that a naked lady on the handle, Detective?”
Jasper had quite forgotten he was carrying his Russian silver Venus di Milo.
She laughed at whatever she saw on his face—likely mortification—and slid her hand through the crook of his elbow, resting her pale-pink gloved hand on his sleeve. “Don’t worry about offending me. I grew up in mining camps, Lord Jasper, I have the sensibilities of a warthog.”
Her blunt words surprised a laugh out of him.
“Let’s take a walk to Madison Place. That’s where I usually took Waggers.”
“Why don’t you t-tell me about the day he disappeared?” he asked.
“Well, I took him for a walk, but he seemed more tired than usual, so we only spent about a quarter of an hour at Madison Place. After his walk, I took him home and brought him up to his chambers—”
“The d-dog has his own room?” Jasper rudely interrupted.
She gave the same appealing gurgle of laughter. “I know—isn’t Papa just mad? Waggers’s bedroom is the mistress quarters, but Waggers slept in Papa’s bed every night.” She shrugged. “So that was the last I saw him. I gave him one of the special biscuits Cook made for him, and he climbed onto his bed and went to sleep. I suppose that was sometime between three and five, but I can’t recall exactly. That night, around ten o’clock, Papa started shouting—looking for him all over. He sent servants out in all directions with lanterns.” She shook her head. “No Waggers. Papa lined up all the poor servants and interrogated them quite savagely, but of course none of them had anything to do with poor Waggers’s disappearance.”
“What do you think m-m-might have happened?”
She cocked her head, her expression thoughtful. “Well, he had free rein and could go just about anywhere he wanted in the house. He often went down to the kitchens to beg—Cook spoiled him horribly. If he was down there, it would have been easy for him to slip out during a delivery—of which we have many. That is what I think happened. He wandered outside and became lost.”
“I see.” And he did see. Finding this dog was about as likely as finding Frumkin’s murderer.
She patted Jasper’s arm. “Don’t worry, my lord, Papa didn’t really summon you to the house about Waggers.”
“Oh?” Jasper said, fairly certain that he didn’t want to know why Papa had really summoned him.
“Papa read about you in the paper and, well, I’m afraid he’s got a bee in his bonnet, so to speak.” She flashed her perfect white teeth at him. “He’s that way, you know—he gets an idea and then can’t do anything or think about anything until he’s got what he wanted. That’s how he was with gold. There was never a doubt in his mind that he would strike a lode. Ever. And he just kept persevering until he did. Not once has Papa not gotten what he went after.”
Something unpleasant uncoiled in Jasper’s stomach. “I see,” he said, feeling more than a twinge of alarm. “And what is the, er, b-bee in his bonnet this time?”
She stared up at him, her eyes a ridiculous turquoise blue, her full lips curved into an impish smile. “I’m afraid the bee is you, my lord.”
Jasper frowned but didn’t speak.
“You see, Papa is positive that you’re the perfect husband for me.”