‘Not without breaking the glass, miss.’
Miss Temple cupped both hands around her face and pressed her forehead to the cold surface. The gallery walls were bare. She sighed. From her previous visit she knew there was no room for a very large canvas in any case.
She whispered for Brine to look as well. When his face was nearer she spoke evenly and low. ‘Behind the gallery agent’s desk is a mirror. In that mirror – do not turn, Mr Brine – is a figure crouching in the shadow of that dray-cart. Would that be your brown-coated man?’
Brine sucked breath through his teeth in a hiss.
‘Excellent,’ said Miss Temple. ‘We will walk away without a care. I doubt the man’s alone, and until we locate his confederates, we cannot act.’
They kept to well-lit avenues. At the next intersection Mr Brine leant close to whisper: ‘If he’s got fellows, they haven’t shown. If you’ll allow me, miss, perhaps we can trap him.’
Brine took her elbow in his massive hand and guided her to a smaller lane of darkened markets, the cobbles strewn with broken boxes, paper and straw. Once around the corner, Brine skilfully folded his own bulk behind three empty barrels. She walked ahead, pulling the pistol from her bag and then making a show of waving into the glass door of a shop, hoping it would appear as if Mr Brine had gone inside and left her waiting.
Silhouetted against the brighter avenue, a figure crept into view … head darting to either side like a snake. Miss Temple continued her performance with impatience. The shadow came closer, straight past the barrels …
Mr Brine rose, but the brown-coated man was warned by his shadow and avoided the swinging cudgel, fleeing back into the crowds. Miss Temple dashed towards them both, pistol raised, but it was no use. Their quarry had been flushed, and they would not trap him so easily again.
Mr Brine blamed himself bitterly, well past Miss Temple’s patience, and she was driven to change the subject, making conversation when she would have preferred to think. They had engaged a carriage and every time the man peered out of the window he was reminded of his failure and began to mutter.
‘I say
Brine kept looking out, his large head mocked by the lace curtains bunched against each ear. Miss Temple cleared her throat. ‘Our true business, Mr Brine. Do attend.’
‘Beg pardon, miss.’
‘There will be ample opportunity to demonstrate your skills. Albermap Crescent, No. 32. As its occupant has died, I shall rely on you to make our entry – preferably nothing to attract the neighbours.’
They left the coach and waited for the sound of hoof beats to fade. No. 32 lay in the centre of the Crescent’s arch, and entirely dark.
‘I expect there is a servant’s entrance,’ Miss Temple whispered. ‘Less on
Mr Brine clutched her arm. The topmost windows had been covered with bare planks, but from one of No. 32’s three brick chimneys rose a wisp of curling smoke.
They hurried to the side door. The stones around it were smeared with a grainy paste, like mortar, and Miss Temple looked to see if the house next door was being repaired.
Mr Brine squared one shoulder near the lock and drove the whole of his weight against the door with a resounding crack. Miss Temple shut her eyes and sighed. She followed Mr Brine in and shoved the broken door shut. In the silence of Andrew Rawsbarthe’s pantry they waited … but no answer came.
She slipped the wax stub from her bag, struck a match and led them to the kitchen proper, the grit on her shoes rasping against the floorboards.
‘Do you smell … cabbage?’ she whispered.
Brine shook his head. Perhaps the ghostly trace lingered from Rawsbarthe’s final meal. She motioned Brine on with a nod. They must find the third chimney.
The hearth in the main room was cold, and Mr Brine’s index finger drew a line of dust across the sideboard. The front door was locked and barred. The staircase was steep, the wood reflecting the candle like a dark mirror. The old steps creaked, thin complaints at their intrusion. When Miss Temple reached the empty landing, she pointed to the ceiling with her revolver. Brine nodded, his cudgel ready. But the staircase did not continue up. If Mr Phelps was using the house to hide, it must be in an attic …
Far below them, quite unmistakably, came the creak of the pantry door. Miss Temple blew out the candle. At once her heart sank. Behind them shone a double line of smeared footprints, glowing palely with the moon. She looked down at her boots and saw them rimed with the mortar from the doorstep – some phosphorescent paste? It had been a snare. Their location would be plotted for the man downstairs as neatly as a map. She desperately scuffed her boots across Rawsbarthe’s carpet, then pulled Brine’s head to her ear.
‘Guard the stairs,’ she hissed. ‘Surprise him. I will find the way up!’
In Rawsbarthe’s wardrobe she pawed through hanging clothes, hoping a ladder might be tucked behind them. Her foot caught on an open trunk and she stumbled full upon it, wrinkling her nose at the iron tang of blood. The trunk held jumbled clothing – impossible to see more without light – but her fingers confirmed, by the amount of stiffened fabric, how very much blood there had been.
She groped across the bedchamber. Her luminous footprints muddled the floor. Between the basin and the bookcase lay three feet of open wall. Miss Temple felt along it until one blind finger found a hole ringed with painted iron. She hooked the ring and pulled. The wall panel popped free on newly oiled hinges.
She dashed back, skidding to a stop in the doorway. Mr Brine lay flat on his face, a pistol barrel hard against the base of his skull. Glaring at Miss Temple was a man whose brown coat was buttoned tight up to his neck.
She heard a breath to her left, in the shadows. She dodged back, just ahead of hands attempting to seize her, and bolted through the opened panel, fumbling for a latch to hold it shut. The first kicks were already cracking the wood as she flung herself up a ladder, climbing with both hands and feet. At the top she bulled through a hanging flap of canvas and sprawled into the sudden brightness of an attic room. By its iron stove stood a tall, thin figure in his stockinged feet, wearing steel-blue uniform trousers and a seaman’s woollen jumper. He had not shaved. His right hand gripped a long-barrelled Navy pistol and his left – fingers shaking and skeletal – held an unlit cigarette. Miss Temple screamed.
Doctor Svenson sank to his knees, setting the pistol to the floor and extending both pale hands, speaking gently.
‘Celeste … my goodness – O my dear girl –’
At the final splintering of the panel below Svenson sharply pitched his voice to her pursuers: ‘Stay where you are! It is Celeste Temple! There is no concern, I say – wait there!’ He nodded to her, his blue eyes bright. ‘Celeste, how have you come here?’
Miss Temple’s voice was harsh, her throat choked equally with surprise and rage.
‘How have
Mr Phelps had given her cocoa in a metal mug, but Miss Temple did not intend to drink it. She sat on a wooden chair next to the stove, Svenson – having put on his boots – near her with his own mug. The abashed Mr Brine perched on what was obviously the Doctor’s bed, the frame sagging with his weight. On either side of Brine stood Mr Phelps – balding, his watery eyes haunted, yet no longer so openly ill-looking – and a sallow-eyed man introduced as Mr Cunsher, whose voluminous brown coat had been hung on a hook. Without it Cunsher looked like a trim woodland creature, with a woollen waistcoat and patched trousers, all – in contrast to the Doctor – scrupulously clean.
‘Celeste,’ offered Svenson, after yet another full minute of silence, ‘you must believe I wanted nothing more than to speak with you.’
‘The Doctor’s wounds should have killed him,’ explained Phelps. ‘He was confined to bed for weeks –’
‘I was fortunate in that the sabre cut across the ribs without passing beneath,’ said Svenson. ‘A prodigious amount of blood lost, but what is blood? Mr Phelps saved my life. He has seen the error of his ways, and we have thrown in together.’
‘So I see.’
