Page 18 of Corpse in the Canal

She opened her bleary eyes to daylight, and Solomon sitting on the edge of the bed in his shirt sleeves, holding a cup of coffee out to her. She struggled to sit up and the world tilted.

“Goodness, I’m tired,” she said lightly, to cover the dizzy moment and her roiling stomach. “When did you get home?”

“Around two. You were sleeping like a baby. I don’t think I could have wakened you if I’d tried.”

“I did wake,” she said with dignity. “Just not very much.” She regarded him with blessed steadiness and accepted the coffee with a murmur of thanks. “Did you learn anything?”

“He stayed all Wednesday night with a prostitute and left her about ten on Thursday morning. Also, he only paid her twopence for the whole night.”

Constance raised her eyebrows. “Then he is a stingy bugger. I think Tulip’s one-time client might be our Percy indeed. If he is, he was in the company of a friend who wasn’t a gentleman. I think we’d probably like to speak to him.”

“Indeed. But first, we have an appointment with Harvey senior. I would be surprised if he hasn’t run Percy to earth or heard from him that he’s home.”

“Neither would I. But if Percy is not back and safe, should we accept the case?”

Solomon hesitated, which was quite uncharacteristic of him at such a question. “I think Percy’s lifestyle puts him in danger, both from husbands and fathers and from ungentlemanly debtors. He plays in some wretchedly rough holes.”

“So he needs to be found and warned, if nothing else?”

“I think so.”

*

“She’s gone home?” Richard Harvey said, staring from Constance to Solomon.

He had turned up in the office punctually at half past eight, impatient to know what they had learned. But he had pounced almost with dismay on the news that Adelaide Jenkins had left London.

“With her son,” Constance repeated.

“But that’s…”

“We don’t think he met her in London at all, although he might have been looking for her, because someone asked for her at her hotel after she’d left.”

“However,” Solomon said, “there are a few inquiries still to pursue—a woman and an unsavory man seen in his company. Also—”

“No,” Harvey said abruptly.

Solomon closed his mouth.

“No?” Constance repeated. “Are we to understand our services are no longer required?” She did not like what she knew of Percy Harvey, and yet anxiety for him seemed to have settled in her stomach.

“Eh?” Harvey senior blinked at her. “No, no, of course I still need you. But we’re looking in the wrong place. You must come with me back to Channing.”

“Your home,” Solomon said cautiously.

“If she has gone there, so has Percy.”

“With respect, sir,” Solomon said, “our inquiries lead us to believe that Mrs. Jenkins is not the only female in his sights.”

“He’s followed her,” Harvey insisted.

“At least let us make inquiries as to where she went. How would she have traveled? Is there a railway station at Channing? Or would she have traveled by carriage the whole way?”

“There’s no railway, only the canal. And there’s no point in wasting time. We can make inquiries as we go. I’ll come back for you in one hour. Unless you are ending our association?”

They had not formally begun their association, but Solomon clearly felt the same unease as Constance, for he said only, “We will take our own carriage, sir, and follow yours.”

He had a dislike of being stuck somewhere with no independent means of escape. He even disliked using the railway if his destination was too far from a station.