Unhappily, at the moment, I could not rush to Scotland Yard and demand answers. I was a cook, and cook I must.
I brought out my newly bought apples and turned my mind to the task at hand.
“I need a pint of cream from the larder,” I instructed Tess. “There should also be some preserved lemons leftover from Christmas—grate the rinds into the cream and also add a cinnamon stick. Put that to simmer at the back of the stove, and meanwhile, we’ll peel and chop the apples.”
Tess wiped her hands from the sweet peppers she’d been slicing and obediently trotted to the larder. When she returned, she uncomplainingly began to peel the apples and cut them as I instructed.
“Me mouth is watering already,” she said. “Can we have any of this?”
I did not look up from the apple I was paring. “We’ll have to taste a good portion to make certain it is fit to serve at table, of course.”
Tess winked at me. “Right you are, Mrs.H.”
I’d ceased bothering trying to prevent my friends from addressing me asMrs.H.,which hardly painted the respectability I wanted to portray.I now took it as a sign of affection and said no more.
After the cream had simmered a bit, I moved it to a hotterburner and added a smidgen of flour to thicken it, stirring it well. Next went in a few eggs Tess had broken into a small bowl for me. Once the mixture was custardy, I set it aside to cool.
The dish I meant to prepare was called apples à la frangipane, from a recipe a cook in Brook Street had shared with me, though that name could not be accurate.Frangipanereferred to an almond paste or cream, and this had no almonds at all in it. But the cook had inherited the recipe from her mother, who’d sworn it had been made in the court of Queen Caroline, wife of the second King George, long ago.
As Tess and I sliced apples to place in a ceramic dish I’d buttered, one of my errand boys came to find me.
The lad would not say a word until I put fivepence in his hand. We stood near the railings outside, while a warming May breeze wafted over us. I did not try to be secretive, as a cook paying a boy who’d taken a message or brought her some greens was not an unusual sight in Mayfair.
“Found the mister and missus you was looking for,” the little chap, who had very blue eyes, said.
“Well done, Albie,” I told him. “Are you certain you had the correct people?”
“The Lofthouses, yeah.” He gave me a confident nod. “Funny name, that. They lease a house on Portman Square. North side, close to Upper Berkeley Street. Blue drapes in the ground-floor windows, black door. Gent has a coach with matched bays and a coachman who let me help him brush the beasts. The lady and gent go out all the time, and came out when I was there. When the coachman drove them away, another groom said they spend money like water except to their own staff, where they’re mean as anything. Never drop a tip in your hand, the misers, says he.”
I had the feeling they also hadn’t given Albie a coin today, even though he’d helped curry their horses. “Do you know where they were going?” I asked.
“Museum in Bloomsbury. The big one.”
“The British Museum?” I asked in surprise.
“That’s the place. Groom says they meet their highbrow friends there and talk about all sorts.”
The museum had a reading room only scholars were allowed into, but I supposed they had other areas where people of like minds could speak to each other. Or perhaps they met in a nearby pub, as Lady Cynthia and Mr.Thanos did with their acquaintances. In the upstairs rooms of that pub, bluestockings and other intellectuals discussed everything from suffrage for women to the properties of electricity.
“Do the Lofthouses have many friends visit?” I asked.
Albie nodded. “House can be lively, groom says. Mostly toffs from around Mayfair, but sometimes Americans come to stay.” Albie wrinkled his nose at the dubious social position of Americans.
“Anything else unusual?”
“Not really.” Albie sounded disappointed. “They sometimes send for the carriage in the middle of the night and rush off, but that’s not strange for a toff, is it? They run around to other fancy houses, some so close anybody else would walk to them.”
“Perhaps they worry about thieves,” I suggested, though I didn’t really believe that. “Even in Mayfair, wandering along in the dark can be dangerous, can’t it?” I pulled another penny from my pocket. “You’ve done excellently well, Albie. Thank you.”
Albie studied the copper coin as though hoping it would morph into a shilling, but I resisted his silent wish. I’d alreadygiven him fivepence, which would buy a small boy much sustenance if he was frugal.
“If you discover anything else, come directly to me,” I instructed him. “Of course I will reward you.”
Albie grew abruptly more cheerful. He tipped his cap, grinned, and rushed off down the street, earning a curse from a coachman he darted in front of.
I recognized the carriage that had to swerve to miss Albie, having ridden inside it myself. It belonged to Miss Townsend, and the annoyed coachman was called Dunstan.
One of our footmen rushed from the front door to let down the step of the coach and open its door, his sturdy hand out to help Miss Townsend alight. Unlike the apparently stingy Mr.and Mrs.Lofthouse, Miss Townsend pressed a glittering silver coin into the footman’s gloved palm.
