The Sleeping Partner Page 17

  Miss Tolerance proceeded to explain the circumstances of the attack.

  “You are certain the boy knew nothing more than he said?”

  “I think he was honest—he seemed too frightened to be elsewise. And he was not the sort of poor child who might have been sold to a cutpurse for lookout or climbing jobs. He was well-dressed and well-spoken, neither of which are proof of virtue, I know, but my instinct is—”

  “For the moment let us trust your instinct,” Sir Walter said. “More tea?”

  Miss Tolerance was later to look back upon that evening as remarkable. She had come to rely upon Sir Walter Mandif’s friendship, but these were extraordinary circumstances, and Sir Walter, in his unassuming attentiveness, behaved like an intimate of much longer—and closer—standing. He dispatched Michael to Mrs. Brereton’s house with a note for Marianne Touchwell—she did not think it wise to tell her aunt what had befallen her at this chancy time. Then, when Sir Walter had assured himself that his guest was as comfortable as her injuries would permit, he brought a book and read to her from Mrs. Edgeworth for an hour. Miss Tolerance was surprised he had such a work in his library, but his voice was soothing. She dozed for a while and woke to find Sir Walter watching her. Had she been well, this sudden intimacy would have oppressed her, but on this evening it was a comfort.

  “Have you no work to do? I am very sorry to keep you here if you had ought to be in court or—”

  “Do not trouble yourself. I have arranged to be my own master today. Now, I shall check the dressing on your wound and then we shall dine, if that is agreeable.”

  Miss Tolerance remembered in time not to nod her head. Sir Walter rose and came around the back of her chair. Again he pushed the heavy fall of her hair forward, off her neck. He pulled back the dressing, touched the swollen lump, and returned the dressing to its place.

  The sensation of his fingers grazing lightly across her neck was both pleasant and unsettling. She tensed for a moment, which brought the pain again. She flinched.

  “I beg your pardon—”

  “No, it is nothing. You have gentle hands,” she said lightly, and relaxed into their comfort.

  “I do not wish to hurt you.” Sir Walter came around the chair so that she could see him without turning her head. “There is no bleeding, the stitches Mr. O’Leary put in appear clean, and the lump on your skull seems a little smaller to my eye. How is your appetite?”

  “Not very sharp, but I suppose you will say I must eat something to keep my strength up. At least you have not yet required me to drink spirits for their curative powers.”

  “If I thought they had any—” he began.

  “Mrs. Harris dosed her grandson insensible with gin this morning,” Miss Tolerance said. Sir Walter frowned at the non sequitur. “No, I am not wandering in my wits! By all means, let us have dinner, and I shall explain about Mrs. Harris.”

  So they dined. It was bachelor fare, a loin of pork fragrant with apples, and roast potatoes, served to them in the parlor by a large, silent woman whom Miss Tolerance took to be Sir Walter’s cook. Miss Tolerance managed the broth that was placed before her first, and ate a little bread and, at Sir Walter’s urging, a few bites of the roast. But she was too queasy to eat more, and contented herself with describing her visit to Mrs. Harris’s rooms and what she had found there. She did not mention the woman’s occupation; Sir Walter might have been forced to take official action against her, and while Miss Tolerance disliked the woman she did not wish to see her transported.

  “So it was by her suggestion that you were in Threadneedle Street?”

  “By her suggestion that I was in Throgmorton Street. After that I walked about the neighborhood to think. But yes: if anyone would know I should be in that neighborhood it would have been she. My first order of business, when I can stand up without pitching onto my face, will be to call on Mrs. Harris, you may be sure.”

  “Perhaps I should do so—or have Hook and Penryn do so—”

  Miss Tolerance entertained briefly the notion of Sir Walter’s two Runners, the Bow Street investigators who worked with him, calling upon Mrs. Harris. Bow Street, while well intentioned, was rarely discreet, and Miss Tolerance had promised her sister-at-law discretion. “I beg you will not. I can just imagine those gentlemen muddying the waters of that particular stream—which is none so clear as it is. I thank you, but will manage the matter myself in a day or so.”

  Sir Walter’s eyebrows rose. “You expect to be up to managing matters in a day or so? No—” he held out a hand. “I will not argue with you. Not tonight. Mrs. Yarrow has made up a bedroom for you, if you are up to managing the stairs, and I will send her up to help you undress—”

  “I have been dressing myself for years, Sir Walter,” Miss Tolerance said mildly.

  “Indulge me.” His tone was dry. “I have sustained a considerable shock today.”

  Miss Tolerance smiled and winced. “You do not have injured women descend upon your doorstop every day? I shall defer to your injured sensibilities, of course.”

  In the middle of the night Miss Tolerance woke in an unfamiliar bed with a ferocious ache in her head. She could discern the outline of a figure slumped in a chair by the banked fire, but could not think who it might be. She sat up and regretted it, as the pain increased tenfold. She moaned, and the person in the chair stirred and unfolded himself, poured something from a jug on her bedside table, and supported her while she drank it.

  “It will help you sleep,” Sir Walter murmured. He lowered her back onto the pillows and Miss Tolerance closed her eyes. She felt his hand on her brow, smoothing her hair away from her face.

  A few minutes later, when she looked again, Sir Walter had returned to the chair and was, to all appearances, fast asleep.

  In the morning Miss Tolerance received a note from Marianne Touchwell which urged that she take care of herself, and added that Mrs. Touchwell had told a politic story to Mrs. Brereton, both to keep her wondering where her niece was and to keep Sir Walter’s name from the matter.

  “It is very kind of your friend, but I don’t think my reputation needs to be guarded.” Sir Walter handed the note to Miss Tolerance.

  They were sitting in the parlor again, where Miss Tolerance had been able to eat a little more than she had done the day before. The curtains were drawn, as she found that light made her head hurt; they muffled the peal of bells from a dozen churches, calling parishioners to worship. Sir Walter was looking through papers which he had neglected yesterday.

  “I do not think that was her chiefest concern. My aunt has been a little notional of late; she seems to resent the time I spend with you.”

  Sir Walter was amazed. “Really? We do not meet so frequently—this is, of course, a highly unusual circumstance.”

  Miss Tolerance sighed. “You know that my aunt was ill last winter? She has not been entirely herself since. Her jealousy, her betrothal—”

  One of Sir Walter’s sandy brows rose. “Her betrothal?”

  Miss Tolerance nodded—she could do so now without too much pain. “To a man named Tickenor.” Miss Tolerance strove to remember what Mr. Glebb had told her only yesterday, but it seemed to her that the blow to her skull had rattled a good number of memories loose. “He was helpful to my aunt some years ago in setting up her business.”

  “Do you know anything about the man?”

  “Only that, and—” the memory came back to her. “I am told he is not so deep in pocket as once he was. Which makes me fear that he may be taking advantage of my aunt.”

  “It does seem a curious about face for a woman who has been so independent for so long. I thought you had told me she had no use for marriage.”

  “She has said as much to me. This has taken us all aback, and I must say I am uneasy about the match. But I can say nothing to my aunt—”

  “Surely you would be the most suitable person to speak.”

  “I am afraid if I do so she will defend him by saying I am only interested in her busin
ess.”

  “Her business?” Sir Walter put his papers, tidily stacked, to one side. “And are you?”

  “No, Sir Walter, I am not. I have told my aunt often enough that I have no ambition to run her establishment.”

  “When you give up your present employment—”

  “Give it up? How should I?”

  Sir Walter set his jaw as one determined to face an unpleasant task. “You are young now, but surely you cannot continue to face the hazards of your work indefinitely.”

  “The hazard is no greater today than it was yesterday. When I am an old lady I shall very likely retire to a cottage in the suburbs and call myself Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones, as most retired Fallen do, and live upon my savings. All the more reason to work hard now. But that is not likely to happen for many years.”

  Sir Walter frowned. “You were hurt yesterday.”

  “I was, but not more gravely than I have been before. The risk of what I do is not new to me, Sir Walter. I go armed for a reason. My work carries some hazard, but I am well able to defend myself. Most of the time,” she added fairly, with a gesture to the lump on her head.

  “Until you grow eyes in the back of your head, your friends will continue to worry about you,” Sir Walter said quietly.

  “And I thank my friends for their concern—and their friendship! I am well aware how I put you out by arriving here, uninvited, to make a sickroom of your parlor.”

  Sir Walter shook his head. “I only wish I could do more.”

  Miss Tolerance looked at her friend’s narrow, foxy face and read a fleeting, and disquieting, tenderness. But the expression lasted only a moment before he asked, “Would you like me to make inquiries about this Tickenor?” She was able to smile with genuine appreciation.

  “I would like it very much. Now: as it is Sunday, perhaps you mean to go to church? I beg you will not permit my presence here to keep you from that. Frankly, the matter of dressing and eating breakfast has quite done me up.”

  Sir Walter left her to doze before the fire, where Mrs. Yarrow occasionally appeared with tea and delicacies intended to tempt an invalid’s appetite. Miss Tolerance found she could not read for more than a few minutes at a time before her headache returned. She had no other occupation: her concentration was too scattered to spend time in rumination upon Evadne Thorpe’s whereabouts. In consequence, by the time Sir Walter returned that afternoon Miss Tolerance was bored and impatient. It was a considerable effort to be cordial.

  Rather than take offense, Sir Walter appeared to understand without saying the effect of enforced idleness. “Mrs. Yarrow says you have not eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive, by which I think she means she has been plying you with cakes you did not want all day long. Let us dine—and let her go home—and perhaps we will have a hand of cards.” He set about amusing her with such easy kindness that Miss Tolerance was soon in a better frame of mind. They dined, and after dinner played piquet for paper stakes; Miss Tolerance was pleased to find that her thoughts were becoming orderly enough to permit her to beat Sir Walter.

  “Unless, of course, you permitted me to win.”

  Sir Walter shook his head. “I would do many things to preserve our friendship, Miss Tolerance, but to cheat at cards is not one of them. I believe this is my deal.”

  Miss Tolerance handed him the deck. “What new tales of Bow Street?”

  “The usual sorts: thievery in the main. A woman brought a complaint that the cook at a chop house had put broken glass into her dinner, but it was proved that she hoped to extort money from him.”

  Miss Tolerance declared tierce. “How does anyone think of such things? I never should.”

  “You have an honest soul. How high? I wish you might have been there—the woman brought her family, all ready to swear she was made of truth. Mrs. Bread—”

  “To ten. Bread was her name?” Miss Tolerance chuckled. It made her head ache, but only a little.

  “Good. And a half dozen little Breads, and an Aunt Bread and Uncle Bread and a dozen neighbors who might well have been Butters for all I could tell.”

  “I take it you are not always so amused by the people who come before you?”

  “Very rarely. But this has been a week for eccentrics. I had to sentence a man who broke into an apothecary’s shop to steal medicine to treat his son’s ague, and an old woman accused her neighbor of stealing her cat, and told me she knew it was her cat because she had given birth to it.”

  “To the cat?”

  “To the cat.” Sir Walter looked at her over his cards. “The animal was brought to court to testify for the plaintiff, but it stood mute, and I confess I could see no resemblance between the old woman and her putative child—”

  Miss Tolerance laughed hard enough to make her head hurt, and all at once she found herself near to tears. She pressed her lips together to contain an expression of her pain and fatigue.

  Sir Walter observed it at once. “You are tired.” He put his cards aside and got to his feet. “Please let me help you upstairs.”

  Miss Tolerance was certain she could climb the narrow stairs by herself, but permitted Sir Walter to take her elbow and assist her to her chamber. The hand supporting her was warm and solid; she was again conscious of an intimacy in Sir Walter’s gaze. When they reached the door of her room, however, Sir Walter released her elbow. “You will be all right without assistance?” he asked.

  She assured him that she would, and thanked him gravely. There they parted as chastely as could be imagined, and Miss Tolerance went in to lay her aching head on the cool pillow.

  Miss Tolerance woke in the morning determined upon returning to Manchester Square. “I have trespassed upon your kindness long enough. My aunt will be wondering if I am lying dead under London Bridge, and my client will wish some report of the inquiries I have not made while I have idled here.”

  “I wish I could persuade you to idle a little longer.” Sir Walter looked disapproving but did not attempt to persuade Miss Tolerance against her plan. He only requested that she break her fast there, and that he be permitted to take her back to Manchester Square before he went to Bow Street. “I hope you will not exert yourself too greatly for the next several days,” he said mildly.

  Miss Tolerance’s stomach had finally settled, and she set to the food Mrs. Yarrow provided with an appetite. She was aware of a certain tension between Sir Walter and herself which she thought was inevitable, coming at the end of this period of enforced intimacy. She did not directly address it, but made a point of thanking Sir Walter again for his kindness, and of apologizing for the disruption of his household.

  “I hope you will always come to me when you need assistance.” Then, as if he too felt the awkwardness of their situation he joked, “Your arrival has inestimably improved Michael’s bragging rights among his friends.”

  “Has it? I am delighted to help Michael—”

  Miss Tolerance was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Penryn, the younger of Sir Walter’s investigators. He was a Cornishman, short and wiry, his coat loose on his frame, his dark hair falling untidily around his unshaven face; Miss Tolerance knew him to be clever.

  “Beg pardon, Zor Walter—” the Runner stopped short, took in Miss Tolerance’s presence at the table, bobbed his head in her direction and tactfully did not remark upon it. “Miss, Zor Walter, there’s been murder done in Primroose Street. Will ye come?” Penryn looked at Miss Tolerance; did he fear that she would keep Sir Walter from his duty?

  “You must go at once,” she said. “You must not wait for me.”

  Sir Walter was as composed as if murder at breakfast was quite a usual thing for him. “Penryn, please fetch a hackney carriage. Miss Tolerance, if you will go so far out of your way as to accompany us to Primrose Street, I will return you to Manchester Square afterward.”

  “There is no need—”

  “There is every need. I told you I would take you home, and I will not be forsworn. And you may be of help to me. I should value any opinions y
ou may form upon seeing the scene of the crime. You have a unique eye.”

  Miss Tolerance was a woman working in a man’s world, and her vanity was not immune to an such an appeal. She smiled, and Sir Walter sent Michael upstairs to fetch down their visitor’s few possessions.

  Primrose Street was little more than a dozen streets from Sir Walter’s house. The coach Penryn had hired was new and passably comfortable for a public conveyance, but it was small and crowded, the cobbled streets full of ruts, the ride a series of starts and stops, and the sunlight very bright in her eyes. By the time they arrived in Primrose Street Miss Tolerance was forced to acknowledge to herself that she was not completely recovered. She said nothing, and whatever Sir Walter suspected, he did not offer sympathy or coddling. They alit at the corner of Bishopsgate and pushed through the inevitable crowd, with Penryn to the fore bawling, “Make way! Clear way for Magiztrate! Oot the way there!”

  They won through the crowd and found Hook, Penryn’s partner, standing protectively over the body, which lay face-down in a puddle of blood and gutter-muck. Hook was a little taller than Penryn and very thick through the body. He stood with his chest puffed out as if the red waistcoat he wore—the uniform of the Bow Street runners—might itself hold the crowd at bay. The crowd seemed unimpressed and an elderly woman was screaming something at Hook as Sir Walter’s party arrived.

  “Took yer time,” Hook growled at Penryn. He turned to Sir Walter, but was stopped, apparently by the sight of Miss Tolerance beside him.

  “What report can you make?” Sir Walter asked.

  Miss Tolerance saw Penryn exchange a look with Hook that offered sympathy but no explanation, then he stepped in to push the crowd back. Hook turned to the magistrate. “Watch reported this man ‘ere found dead about an hour ago on ‘is rounds, sir.” Hook took out a small book and thumbed to a page where he had written some notes. “Being as the Watch is known to me personally, he come fetched me, and I been ‘ere wiv the body since—sent Penryn there to bring you. Nobody in this crowd knows ‘im—he gestured at the corpse. “‘E seems to ‘ave been right clawed-off, like someone ‘ated ‘im particular. I waited for you to turn out the pockets, sir.”