Dark Assassin Page 13

  Rose’s eyebrows shot up. “Good gracious! What on earth do you imagine I am going to do? Go down a sewer and accuse some engineer of carelessness? Or perhaps visit Mr. Argyll in his mourning and tell him I think he is a murderer? Really, Morgan, credit me with a little sense! Mrs. Monk is primarily concerned with the safety of navvies, and that is a very right and proper thing for a member of Parliament’s wife to care about as well—especially the wife of the member who is most involved with this work.” She rose to her feet and stood facing him very patiently. “I shall be sociable and charitable. Mrs. Monk does great work for the poor and has served with Miss Nightingale, nursing soldiers. Who more appropriate to take with me when considering the injured?”

  He looked bewildered. She had robbed him of argument, and yet he was obviously unhappy. Hester wondered why he was still quite clearly afraid for her.

  “I promise you we shall not behave inappropriately,” Hester said to him, wishing to make him feel less apprehensive, but also knowing that without Rose’s knowledge of Alan Argyll and of what Mary had already discussed, she had little chance of success.

  There was something Applegate wished to say, and yet obviously he felt restrained. He looked at Rose again. “Please be careful.”

  “Of course I shall be careful!” she said with the very slightest edge of irritation. “I am merely going to visit some of the men who have been injured in the past, and to whom Mary might have spoken.” She looked at Hester. “What could we take them that would be useful and not condescending?”

  “Honesty,” Hester replied. She took a deep breath. “And perhaps a less fashionable gown?”

  “Oh!” Rose blushed, glancing down at her beautiful dress. “Yes, of course. This is quite inappropriate, isn’t it! Will you excuse me for fifteen minutes? I’m sure I can find something better. Morgan, please don’t spend the time trying to persuade Mrs. Monk that I am not suitable for this task. It would be humiliating for me. I like her, and I wish to impress her as competent.” She gave him a dazzling smile and kissed his cheek.

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  Hester mastered her expression with difficulty, reaching very quickly for a handkerchief and coughing into it to hide her smile.

  Morgan Applegate blinked also, but he did not say anything.

  After Rose had changed, Hester suggested that although it would take a little longer and definitely be a great deal less comfortable, it would be wiser if they were to travel by public omnibus rather than in Rose’s carriage. The day was viciously cold, with intermittent sleet and snow piling in dirty drifts at the edges of gutters and walls and causing the drains to overflow, so everything was wet underfoot.

  “Of course,” Rose agreed, her face reflecting momentary distaste. “I shall appreciate my carriage more next time, I suppose.” Then she realized that Hester almost certainly did not have a carriage. “I’m sorry!” she said, a tide of color washing up her cheeks.

  Hester laughed. “I had a carriage before I went to the Crimea,” she told her. “Before the war my family had very comfortable means.”

  “You lost it in the war?” They were walking briskly down the street towards the omnibus stop.

  “My father did,” Hester replied as they passed two women going in the opposite direction. “He was cheated out of it by a man who made a fortune doing that. He was an ex-army officer invalided out. A hero, so people trusted him.”

  There was a quick sympathy in Rose’s face, but she did not interrupt.

  “My father took his own life.” Hester found it difficult to say, even so many years after. “But there was no question about it. He felt it was the only honorable way to act…in the circumstances. My mother died shortly afterwards.”

  “Oh!” Rose stopped still in the street, ignoring the spray of icy water from a passing carriage. “How unbearable for you!”

  “One has to bear it,” Hester replied, taking Rose’s arm and moving her away from the edge of the curb. “Doing something helps a great deal. The days pass, and it gets better. Do you think that was what Mary Havilland was doing?”

  They started to walk again.

  “No—no, I don’t think so,” Rose said gravely. “She was…too excited. She grieved terribly for her father, of course, but she really believed she was going to prove his innocence—I mean of…Oh!” It was a wail of horror at herself. She was aghast at her own clumsiness in piling one pain on top of another.

  Hester was forced to smile. There was a ridiculous humor to it, in spite of the tragedy. “I never thought my father acted dishonorably,” she said truthfully. “In his mind he was paying the price for his error.”

  “What happened to the soldier who…?”

  “He was murdered, very violently, by someone else he had…robbed,” Hester answered, then changed the subject. “What was Mary like? Please tell me the truth, not what kindness dictates because she is dead.”

  Rose thought for a long time, in fact until they reached the omnibus stop and stood side by side waiting.

  “I liked her,” she began. “Which means that my opinion is probably not accurate. She was brave in her opinions, and in fighting for what she cared about. But she was afraid of certain kinds of failure.”

  “I think we all are,” Hester agreed. “There are things we can afford to lose, and things we know we can’t and still stay whole at heart.”

  Rose looked at her, then lowered her glance. “I think Mary was afraid of being alone, but also of marrying someone she did not love. And she did not love Toby. I am not certain if in the end she even liked him. She preferred the safety of being a good daughter. She did that superbly.”

  “And she thought there was no risk in it,” Hester added.

  “Exactly.” Rose met her eyes again. “But she never thought of her own danger in defending her father. I think her courage may have cost her her life.”

  “You think Toby meant her to go over the bridge?”

  “I know the Argyll brothers only socially. We’ve met maybe a dozen times in the last few months, but anyone could see they were very close. Toby was clever and ambitious. Alan was proud of him.”

  “But Alan was a success already?”

  “Very much. He is quite wealthy. And well regarded, so my husband says.” She frowned. “Actually, his company’s record of safety is excellent, better than that of many other companies. If Mary found anything untoward, then she must have been either very lucky or extraordinarily clever.”

  The omnibus arrived and they climbed onboard awkwardly, struggling to hold wet skirts out of the way. They did not continue talking until they had found seats and the horses moved off again.

  “Then it won’t be easy,” Hester observed. “I cannot help assuming that Mary was unusually intelligent and of a very practical turn of mind.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Rose agreed. “In fact, she was a little unfeminine in her grasp of logic, mathematics, and such things as engineering. At least she was told so, and I think she believed it.”

  “Did she care?”

  “Yes. She was a little self-conscious,” Rose admitted. “She was defensive about it, so I suppose that means she did. But that is the thing—the week or so before she died, she was more fully herself than ever before! She had realized that she had her father’s gift for engineering and was happy with it.” Her face was very earnest. “Mrs. Monk, she really was not going to kill herself!”

  “Even if she had discovered her father to be mistaken?” Hester hated having to say it, but it would be not only dishonest but destructive of all they hoped to do, for themselves and for others, to conceal it now.

  “I believe so,” Rose said without hesitation.

  The omnibus reached the end of the line. They dismounted and walked briskly around the corner to the stop for the next one, which would take them as far as the hospital where most injured men would have been taken after the collapse of the Fleet sewer. On this journey they discussed tactics and decided that Rose should begin the conversation
as the wife of a member of Parliament, but when it came to medical details, then she would ask questions as Hester prompted her.

  It was a long time since Hester had been inside such an institution, but it was exactly as she remembered. In the long hallway she smelled again the forced cleanliness masking the odors of sickness, alcohol, coal dust, and blood. Almost immediately she saw junior doctors, excited, self-conscious, walking with a mixture of arrogance and terror that betrayed the fact that they were on the verge of actually practicing surgery, cutting into human flesh to heal—or kill.

  She found herself smiling at her own innocence in the past, imagining she could change everything except for a few individual people here and there.

  It took them half an hour to gain access to the appropriate person. Rose was magnificent. Standing a little behind her, Hester could see her hands knotted with tension, and she already knew Rose well enough to be very aware of how much she cared, however much she might lie with candid and superb ease, at least on the surface.

  “How kind of you, Dr. Lamb,” she said charmingly when they were in the chief surveyor’s office. “My husband wished me to learn a few facts so that he will not be caught out if asked questions in the House.”

  Lamb was a middle-aged man with a quiff of sandy-gray hair and rimless eyeglasses, and not quite as tall as Rose, so he was obliged to look up at her. “Of course, Miss…Mrs. Applegate. What is it the honorable gentleman wishes to know?”

  “It’s really fairly simple,” Rose replied, still standing in front of his desk, thus obliging him to remain on his feet also. “It is a matter of the nature and frequency of serious injuries to men involved in the work on the new sewer system.”

  “Absolutely vital!” Lamb said earnestly. “The state of public hygiene in the city of London is a disgrace to the Empire! Anyone would think we were the edge of the world, not the center of it!”

  Rose drew in her breath, then let it out again. “You are quite right,” she agreed diplomatically. “Quite right. It is so very important that we must be absolutely certain that we are correct in all we say. To mislead the House is an unpardonable sin, you know?”

  “Yes, yes.” He nodded, pushing his eyeglasses up to the bridge of his nose. “What is it you wish from me, Mrs. Applegate? I am sure figures are already known from the companies concerned.”

  Rose and Hester had already decided on the answer to that. “Naturally, but they have a powerful interest in the number of injuries being as low as possible. And there is the world of difference between an engineer’s estimate of an injury and a surgeon’s.”

  “Of course. Please be seated, Mrs. Applegate. And Miss…Mrs….?” He waved at Hester without looking at her.

  “We would like specifics,” Rose continued, sitting upright with a ramrod-stiff back and smiling at him. “Descriptions of actual injuries, and the names of the men concerned, so that it is apparent that we have investigated the matter more than superficially.”

  Lamb looked uncomfortable.

  Rose waited with an air of expectancy, eyes wide, her mouth in a half smile, ready to beam upon him if he should do as she wished. “As full a list as possible,” she added. “So we do not seem to be singling out any particular company. That would not do.”

  Reluctantly Lamb reached into his waistcoat pocket and took out a small key. He rose, opened a file cabinet, and from one of the drawers took out a folder of papers. He returned to the desk and read from them selectively. “I cannot see what use this will be in the House of Commons,” he said finally.

  He had described accidents and injuries in the blandest terms, using laymen’s words, making them seem slighter than they were. Rose might not know that he was being evasive, but Hester did. She spoke for the first time.

  “There was an Albert Vincent. His right leg was crushed when a load overturned on him, breaking his femur, I think you said in two places.”

  “That is correct,” he agreed, frowning at her, puzzled as to why she had spoken at all. He had assumed her to be there merely as chaperone, or perhaps a maid of some sort.

  “You did not mention the treatment given him. Was that because he died?”

  “Died?” He looked appalled. “Why ever should you think that, Mrs….?”

  “Mrs. Monk,” she supplied. “Because from the description, the load have torn the femoral artery, which would have meant he bled to death in a matter of minutes. If there had been anyone there on the scene to amputate the limb and rescue him, surely it would have been mentioned?”

  He was clearly flustered. “The details are not there, young lady, and I hardly think it is something about which you would have any knowledge, even if you can read a little and bandy words around as if you understood them.”

  “Oh, she does!” Rose said with a sweet smile. “Mrs. Monk was in the Crimea with Miss Nightingale. She is acquainted with battlefield surgery, in the most distressing circumstances.”

  “You didn’t say so!” he accused, the color now hot in his face. “That is, if I may be candid, most deceiving of you!”

  “Is it?” Rose said ingenuously. “I’m so sorry. I had imagined you would say exactly the same to whomever you spoke to. Had she been of a delicate disposition and likely to faint, I would not have brought her, of course. But that is quite different. I cannot imagine what you would have said differently had you known Mrs. Monk is very practiced in such tragic and terrible things.”

  He glared at her but apparently could think of nothing to escape from the pit he had unwittingly dug for himself.

  “I shall just make a few notes so that we cannot find ourselves mistaken. It would be dreadful to quote figures that are not true. And embarrassing,” Rose continued, keeping her smile fixed. She looked straight at him; his face was tight-lipped, but he did not argue.

  Outside on the steps, with the wind tugging at their skirts, victory seemed already fading. Rose turned to Hester. “Now what do we do?”

  “We have addresses,” Hester replied. “We find a cup of tea, or better, chocolate, if we can. Then we go and see some of these people and find out which of them, if any, Mary Havilland asked also.”

  Fortified by a cup each of thick, rich cocoa and a ham sandwich bought from a peddler, then hot chestnuts a hundred yards farther on, they set out to the nearest of the addresses. The early afternoon turned colder. The sleet changed into intermittent snow, but still the street was too wet for it to stick except on the windowsills and lower eaves. Of course the roofs were white except for around the chimneys, where the heat melted the snow and sent it in dribbles down the slates. Cab horses looked miserable. Peddlers shivered. The wind flurried, scattering newspapers, and gray smoke hung in the air like shadows of the night to come.

  At the first house the woman refused to allow them in. At the second there was no answer. At the third, the woman was busy with three children, the oldest of whom looked barely five.

  Hester glanced at Rose and saw the pity in her eyes. However, Rose masked it before the woman could recognize its nature.

  “I in’t got time ter talk to yer,” the woman said bitterly. “Wot d’yer think I am? I got washin’ ter do wot in’t never gonna dry in this weather, an’ summink ter find fer tea. Wot’s a member o’ Parliament ter me? I in’t got no vote, nor’s any o’ me fam’ly. We in’t never ’ad an ’ouse wot’s ours, let alone big enough ter let us vote. Anyway, me man’s crippled.” She started to push the door closed, pushing the small girl behind her and moving her skirts awkwardly.

  “We don’t want your vote,” Hester said quickly. “We just want to talk to you. I’ll help. I’m good at laundry.”

  The woman looked her up and down, disbelief growing into anger at being mocked. “I ’ear yer, misses. Ladies ’oo talk like you, all proper, don’ know a scrubbin’ brush from an ’airbrush.” She pushed the door again.

  Hester pushed it back. “I’m a nurse and I keep a clinic for street women in Portpool Lane.” She remembered too late that it was no longer true. “I’
ll wager you a good dinner I’ve done more dirty washing than you have!” she added.

  The woman’s hand went slack with surprise, allowing the door to swing open, and Rose took full advantage of it.

  Inside, the house was bare and cold with the sort of poverty that teeters on the edge of starvation. Hester heard Rose draw in her breath, then very carefully let it out silently while she tried to compose her face as if she saw such things every day.

  It was like the Collards again, only worse. This man was sickly pale, his eyes hollow and defeated. He had been crushed from the waist but his legs were still there, deformed and—from the way he lay and the pinching around his mouth—a constant agony.

  Patiently and with trembling gentleness Rose tried to elicit facts from him, and he refused. No one was to blame. It was an accident. Could have happened to anyone. No, there was nothing wrong with the machines. What was the matter with them that they could not understand that? He had told the others the same.

  Hester half listened as she started on the laundry with lye soap and water that was almost cold. The physical misery of it did nothing to assuage her sense of guilt. Even as she did it she knew that was ridiculous. Her hour or two of discomfort would be pointless. But the biting cold on her skin pleased her, and the drag on her shoulders when she heaved the wet sheets out and tried to wring them by hand. At the clinic at least they had a mangle.

  It was the fourth house after that before they learned anything further. Mary Havilland had been there also.

  “You are certain?” Hester said to the handsome, weary woman busy sewing shirts. All the time she was talking to them her fingers never stopped. She barely needed to look at what she was doing.

  “Course I am. Don’ forget summink like a young lady, an’ she were a lady, comin’ an’ askin’ about sewers an’ drains an’ water wot runs under the ground. Knowed about it, too, she did—engines, too. Knew one from another.”

  Rose stiffened, glancing at Hester, then back at the woman.

  “She knew about underground streams?” Hester asked, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice.