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I was unable to continue pretending nonchalance, and I looked up sharply from the potatoes I was chopping. “He was taken? From the street?”
She nodded her head solemnly, and I exhaled to buy myself time. Jess was neither my ward nor my responsibility, and I certainly had no right or inclination to parent her in any way. I watched her thoughtfully, aware that even as she seemed wholly focused on the task of kneading the dough, she was attuned to everything from the sprawl of dogs by the kitchen fire to the tick of the clock on the wall. I knew she heard the footsteps coming down the hall, and from the lift in her shoulders I understood that she did not want to share any of this with the other members of this household.
“Tell me what you will before the inspector arrives this evening, and I’ll see you shielded as best I can,” I said quietly before Reesy rounded the corner.
“There you are!” he said to Jess. The boy’s exuberance fairly bounced into the room before he did. “What are you doing? Can I help?”
She chuckled in spite of her grim mood and nodded toward the sink. “Wash your ‘ands and you can take over. I ‘ave to go out for a bit.”
I shot her a concerned look, but she deliberately avoided my gaze. She handed off the kneading to young Reesy, whose enthusiasm for cooking the food was only rivaled by his interest in eating it, and bent to scratch the dogs’ ears before slipping out of the kitchen door.
I shoveled my worry for Jess into the pot along with the potatoes and helped Reesy fashion two loaves of bread. I’d never been good at lying to myself, however, and when I could stand it no longer, I hung up my apron, donned my walking coat, and whistled for the dogs. “Come, hounds, we’re off to find your young mistress.”
The two beasts were called Gryf and Huff for some unfathomable reason my employers had never explained, and they frolicked happily in the garden until I had unlocked the back gate and called them to heel. Mrs. Devereux had been training them with baked goods, and I’d seen Mr. Devereux slip them more than one bite of sausage, but they needed no inducements of that kind from me for their good behavior. Despite appearances to the contrary, they were quite intelligent, and they certainly knew who determined the fate of beef knuckles and ham bones from the kitchen.
Grayson House stood on the edge of the Regent’s Park, and on most days, at least two of the Devereux household children could be found playing tag or hide and seek among the trees.
My stride was long and customarily brisk, therefore the dogs and I made excellent time as we crossed the park to Jess’s preferred fountain. I overtook a group of nannies chattering gaily to each other, their young charges restless in their prams, and realized I might only have a few moments alone with Jess.
The dogs ran ahead as we approached her usual tree, and she dropped out of the branches into a happy tangle of swirling dogs. “The nannies are coming. Shall we walk?” I asked. Jess’s eyes darted behind me, and then she nodded quickly.
“Not too far,” she said. “One of the littles fell in last month, and I don’t trust the magpies to watch ‘em right when they get to chitterin’.”
We moved a little way off, to a bench near the meadow where the dogs could investigate vole nests to their hearts’ content.
“I expect the inspector after supper tonight. What shall I tell him?” I asked her when we were settled.
She sighed mightily, as though the subject had been plaguing her. “The problem,” she said in exasperation, “is that I think a copper might be the one who did the snatchin’.”
“Well, that would present a problem. What makes you think so?”
Jess hesitated one final moment before speaking. “He wasn’t in uniform – ‘e wore a fancy waistcoat with shiny brass buttons, but with scuffed boots.” She shook her head as if the man’s boots and waistcoat had made no sense in juxtaposition. “It was a way ‘e ‘ad of lookin’ to see if ‘e’d get caught. Good coppers just charge right in, knowin’ they’re doin’ right. And if ‘e was just a tough, ‘e’d have posted a lookout. The dirty coppers give themselves away because they don’t trust anyone else to do the lookin’ for them.”
“What did you see today?” I asked gently.
She exhaled, and I disliked the hunch in her shoulders, as if she were making herself small. “I’d taken my stand in the alley off King Street, and three of the lads were game to fight. The brown one, they call ‘im AJ, was stayin’ out of it, which was not surprising, since I kicked Big Bart in the teeth last week, and it was only the mean ones who came back for more.”
It sounded as though Jess’s “lessons” were just street fights that she was learning to survive, and while I applauded her ability to come home more or less unscathed, it wasn’t a sustainable solution to self-defense.
She continued, unaware of the train of my thoughts. “When I’d scouted the alley earlier, there was the copper at one end with that guilty ‘don’t catch me at it’ look on ‘is face, and when I lured the lads in past ‘im, I saw ‘im follow behind. Maxy ‘ad just thrown the first punch when we ‘eard a scream. I ducked and ran toward it and made it out of the alley just in time to see the copper shovin’ AJ into a black ‘ansom cab. Someone must’ve already been inside, ‘oldin’ on to the kid, because the copper jumped on the back as it drove away. I don’t know why I chased after the cab, but I did, and that’s when the flower seller saw me. She made a fuss, and the inspector took note.”
“And then he chased you through the market?” I asked.
Jess shrugged. “For all I know ‘e could be part of it all, tryin’ to get me too.”
“Do you really think that?” I asked.
She exhaled. “Nah, not really. If ‘e were a kid-snatcher, ‘e would’ve just grabbed me. There’s a ‘undred ways for a smart copper to justify takin’ a kid off the street. And the inspector stood down from ye. That’s showin’ ‘is intelligence.”
“I don’t disagree,” I said, hiding my smile at her matter-of-fact tone.
She shrugged. “If ye trust ‘im, tell ‘im what I said about the guy bein’ a copper.”
“And where will you be? Shall I make your excuses?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll listen at the door.”
I stood to go. “I’m off to finish dinner preparations.”
