As I was pinning on my cap, a knock sounded on the back door. I answered it, as I was the first one into the kitchen this morning.
The lad who’d delivered the note from Hannah last week stood on the threshold. He handed me a new note and stuck out his soot-streaked palm for a reward. When I gave him another ha’penny, he frowned his disappointment and stamped back up the stairs.
The missive was short, as Hannah’s last one had been.
It weren’t him.
That was all. I turned the paper over, but nothing was on the back. I even held it up to the gaslit sconce to see if she’d written something else faintly on it, but no.
I crumpled the paper into my pocket, wondering what on earth she meant.
It wasn’t who? Lord Peyton? Daniel? Lord Peyton’s giant manservant? And what hadn’t they done? If anything at all?
I puzzled over this as Tess and I made omelets, bread toasted on the rack and slathered with butter, sausages with a bit of cheese, and a chutney from part of the apples and pears I’d set out.
Mr.Davis came down after serving breakfast to sit at my table and relax, as he often did, before he took up his other duties. He spread out a newspaper, which contained the lurid headlineBody in the Thames.
Drownings, whether accidental or deliberate, sometimes tragically did happen. I usually took a moment to feel sorry for the man or woman and their families and then carried on with my drudging.
Today, I laid down my knife and walked around the table where I could better see the paper. “What is that about, Mr.Davis?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“A lurid murder,” Mr.Davis said easily, then he read:
A waterman was startled in the small hours of the morning to find in the nets he leaves out for flotsam the dead body of a man. His throat had been cut, and he had several bruises and other cuts along hisbody. He wore a tailored suit, and the one shoe that had remained on his foot was from a firm in Bond Street. By this, one can say that the man was a gentleman. His name was not revealed to us, but the police have put into their report that he was the secretary to a lordship in Belgravia. We have made inquiries—
Whatever else Mr.Davis said was lost to me. I found myself sitting on the floor at his feet with a worried Tess peering down at me.
10
“Mrs.Holloway?” Tess chafed my wrists, her voice full of fear, while Mr.Davis wafted a handkerchief in front of my face.
I was folded up so that my stays cut into my abdomen, preventing me from drawing a long breath, or so I supposed. There should be no other reason I was gasping.
Daniel had a nicely tailored suit and shoes from Bond Street, which he used when he portrayed an upper-class gent. He had new ensembles made each season so he’d always be in the height of fashion, no matter how subtle the changes in men’s dress were that year.
Had they found Daniel out? Taken him aside to kill him and heaved his body into the river?
“You’ve had a turn, Mrs.Holloway,” Mr.Davis was saying. “Was it the gruesome tale? Or was the chutney bad? Pears out of season can be unhealthy, I always say.”
“It was not the pears,” I wheezed. “Help me stand, please.”
Tess and Mr.Davis each gripped me under an arm and hauled me to my feet. My knees buckled as soon as they let me go, and I quickly found a chair to collapse into. My hands fell to my sides, black spots dancing before my eyes.
The memory rose of me sitting here in the dark of night only a week ago, with Daniel across from me as he shoveled down my meal and smiled at me.
Dear God, he could not be gone. Once before in my life, I’d thought Daniel dead, and only a visit to the morgue had confirmed he’d not been the victim. Would I have to repeat that awful journey, with a different result this time?
It weren’t him.
The words of Hannah’s note floated through my agitated thoughts.
Was this what she’d meant? Hannah would have been present when news of the death was brought to Viscount Peyton—if he was indeed the lordship referred to in the rather flippant newspaper story.
She’d realize that I’d hear the tale or read of the murder myself. Hence the hastily sent note with her messenger, which would mean nothing to anyone who intercepted it.
Had she been reassuring me that Daniel was alive and well? Or was I wildly misinterpreting Hannah’s purpose? I’d like to have both her and Daniel here before me, so I could shout at them and relieve my anxiousness.
Mr.Davis and Tess had drawn back in some relief, so my color must have returned to normal.
