A Cowardice of Crows Read online

  I shook my head. “No. She’s clever but she’s not that clever. No one is.”

  Gold laughed but I didn’t pursue the reason for the laughter.

  “No. I’m here for something else, Mr Wachsmann, or should that be Gold too? You did refer to Mr Gold as your brother. And there is a slight family resemblance around the eyes, similar mannerisms. Emily has them too but hers, of course, are learned.”

  “I like him, Mordy. He’ll do!” Wachsmann’s laugh was long and genuine. When it was over, I found myself lifted out of my chair, and swept into an embrace worthy of the pawnbroker himself.

  “I think it’s time you called me Joseph.” The other man ordered. “Wachsmann was my Sandek and I was named after him, Wachsmann becoming my middle name if you like.”

  Hug over, I sank back into my chair and made a careful check of my ribs. All intact, thank heavens.

  “When he died, I took over.” Wachsmann moved over to the table and rummaged in one of the drawers, pulling out a ring box. “But of course, you didn’t come here to discuss genealogy, did you?”

  Wachsmann shut the drawer firmly. “Just before she left with you last night, Emily asked me to make her this. She said there was no way she would... could... meet Cobarde for anything longer than a lunch, without having it in her possession.”

  He held the box out to Gold who frowned as he turned it over and over in his hand. “A ring? She wanted you to make her a ring!” He was incredulous “I could have made her a ring, if she wanted one. Why ask you? No offence Joseph.”

  “Open it. You’ll find out, why my talented brother, she needed my skill, not yours.” Wachsmann’s amused glance met mine, as doing as he was told Gold peered inside the box.

  His grin split his face. “Magnificent,” he intoned softly. “She has gone shopping and for something that will show this off to perfection. I would imagine a white or off cream dress.”

  I examined the ring carefully: a bird perched over a cat. “I think I can hazard a guess as to what this represents, but why?” I asked.

  Although open in his answer, I sensed Gold chose his words carefully. “When you first met Cobarde at the Commons, Emily had one line under her tattoo. She led him to believe it was a sale mark. If she shows him her tattoo now, he will see another mark. And we don’t want him realising what the lines really mean - that she’s lost two of her nine lives do we? We need him to believe she’s yours: permanently.”

  I eyed the ring dubiously. “And he will fall for it? I mean everyone knows she’s your apprentice. And this is very subtle.”

  Gold waved airily. “Tell him Wachsmann has sons. That I’ve been persuaded to return to tradition and have sealed the matter with a familial visit.”

  “Will he buy it?”

  Gold shrugged. “Most men will buy anything, if you sell it in the right way.”

  I rubbed a finger over my lips unsure whether I should believe his confidence. Cobarde may no longer work for Gold, but if he maintained communication with the mysteriously absent Oliver, he would recognise our tale for a lie.

  “It’s a beautiful piece,” I said, settling for honesty rather than truth. “I wish I’d the imagination to ask for such a thing.” I decided not to insult Joseph by asking the cost, knowing full well the bill would be taken care of by my man of affairs. I placed the ring back in its box and made small talk.

  Until Gold brought things back to the case by removing a letter from his pocket.

  “The real reason for my visit is this, from Sir Charles. I didn’t trust any of my men to hand it over immediately, so I brought it myself.” Handing me the missive, I read it as I sipped at another cognac.

  “I don’t like it,” I said when I’d read it three times.

  “That’s what Sir Charles said you would say. Want to tell me why?”

  “You haven’t read it?” There was an incredulous edge to my voice, which caused Gold to laugh and Joseph to nod his approval.

  “No, son. I have not. It wasn’t addressed to me.”

  From Reports. Saturday, 1st December.

  A little the worse for wear, and slightly jaded around the edges, Watkins gave the impression of being a stranger to sleep. His clothes were slightly crumpled, and he reeked of booze and tobacco. But in his present environment, Watkins was right at home.

  Sitting at the bar, with his back to the door, he waited until the barman finished serving the last of his customers and joined him.

  “Not seen you round here before?” The barman said affably.

  “From the Smoke. The toff I work for’s up on business.”

  Soft of face and sharp of body, the barman lowered his voice to what he considered a confidential level. “If you’re looking for a bit of fun, you’ve come t’right place. Cater for all sorts here.”

  Watkins licked his lips, and pretended this was the first time he’d asked the question. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any London stout?”

  The barman laughed. “Not what I thought you’d ask for but actually, I do! Two of my best clients like it, so it’s worth getting a barrel in.” He poured Watkins a pint. “Good int it?” he said as Watkins took a hefty sip.

  Watkins nodded. “Better than I get in London. You know how to look after your stock, mister?”

  “Saul.”

  One drink became two as the pair discussed the war, the weather, and the election result. Which – Watkins thought – brought them on nicely to the MP.

  “He’s not a baddun. Bit of a prude – but hell aren’t they all? And of course, he’s got an eye for the main chance; but he leaves us alone and we return the favour.”

  “Sounds like you know him, Saul.”

  “Na, not him; but one of his staff comes here. Not regular. But enough to be known ... Excuse me a minute.” Saul went off to serve a heavily moustached man with a pigeon chest.

  On his return, he continued, picking up where he left off, as though the interruption never occurred. “He meets one of your pals, here. They have a drink, sometimes use one of the back rooms.”

  “Pals?”

  “The men who drink the London stout, I should say.”

  “He’s not one of the stout drinkers?”

  “No.” Saul stroked his chin and thought for a minute. “It’s strange, I’ve not seen any of them around for a while. Not since September, truth be told.”

  “Must be really busy.” Watkins rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a couple of dog-eared photographs. “Any of these guys?”

  The barman squinted at them, then moved over to one of the gas lights to look closer. When he returned. “Sorry no. One of the blokes I’m talking about’s got a full head of brown hair and a nasty way about him. Handy with his fists.”

  Watkins had one – maybe two – drinks more then, lighting a cigarette as warmth against the night, headed into the street.

  Afterwards, Watkins said he didn’t hear the door shut behind him because of the fog.

  He didn’t hear the footsteps either. Well, you don’t when the air is thick and cold, and your brain is mussed with too much booze.

  Nor the sound of metal on skull.

  Crumpling immediately, his body hit the floor with such force that bones jarred, his nose broke, and blood matted his hair.

  From the Casebook of Symington, Earl Byrd.

  Saturday, 1st December, 11:15am.

  “Well, I can’t hang around waiting for Watkins to turn up. Leave a note for him at reception, and a message with the boy – Jake – and he can meet us at Woodlands.” I picked up my coat and shouted through to the other bedroom where Emily remained ensconced with Nanny.

  “Very well, Major.” Sampson glanced at the door, then at me, and shrugged. I felt his pain.

  Emily and Nanny had words as my old tutor at Oxford used to say.

  I didn’t need to know what words exactly but the gist was obvious. Nanny was not impressed with the move. Nor the fact that she would not be sharing a room with her charge. In vain, I explained the etiquette of coun
try houses, only for her eyes to roll and her condemnation of the morals of my class to become derogatory in the extreme.

  “Hurry up, Emily!” I repeated.

  Resplendent in a lavender day dress, sans glove; the ring Wachsmann had made for her sitting in pride of place on her middle finger: bird pointing inwards – an intriguing statement, and one I hoped Cobarde would understand – Emily was everything regal and divine. The perfect consort for any man.

  “Is Nanny any happier?”

  Emily shook her head. “Where’s Watkins?”

  “Not back yet.”

  “Telephone Uncle Joseph,” Emily advised as Sampson helped her into her outdoor coat. “He’ll have more luck finding your driver than the authorities.”

  “He’s probably drunk and sleeping it off in the bed of some doxy.”

  “Sym!” Emily’s squeaked protest showed shock. “Watkins might be not be as parson-like as Sampson but he was on your business. He’s not going to anything to let you down, by picking up a girl and making hay. Unless he had to.”

  She was correct. Watkins, for all his protestations that he was a slave to imperialist oppression, had a keen sense of duty. “Very well. Sampson, when you get to the house, please phone Wachsmann and get him to find my errant driver.”

  “Yes, Major. The bags are already in the taxi. In light of Watkins’ disappearance, I have arranged the use of the hotel’s Mercedes. Their driver is going to take you the scenic route.”

  I grinned. Emily grinned.

  Sampson growled and continued with his itinerary. “You’re having lunch in Harrogate, which will give Nanny and me time to get to the party before you and settle you into your rooms.”

  “I hope there are rooms for the pair of you. Not room,” Nanny muttered darkly. She had dispensed with her shawls and looked exceptionally efficient and forbidding in a grey dress. “From what you’ve all said about Lady Agatha, her husband, and young Vincent, you could be entering a French bordello for all your protestations to the contrary. I’m no fool. I’ve heard what the staff in the other flats in the building say about you. Men like you, only after one thing!”

  “Chance, Nanny, would be a fine thing,” I joked.

  Judging by the glower Nanny sent in my direction, I was lucky to be breathing.

  “Gold trusts me,” I reminded her.

  She snorted. “He was always soft in the head.”

  I glared at Sampson, who having found an ally in Emily’s companion, was enjoying every last moment of my discomfort. “Come on Nanny. I will see you two later.”

  We arrived at Woodlands a little after two-thirty in the afternoon and were met by a patrician-nosed butler who informed us that tea would be served on the terrace at four. I didn’t have to ask whose house it was, it was clear from the non-stop history lesson delivered in a monotone by said patrician-nosed butler, that the house came to Fairbrass as a result of his marriage to Lady Eleanor, his first wife: God rest her soul though all the staff were extremely fond of Lady Agatha.

  At the mezzanine floor – where the staircase split to the left and right – it became clear that Nanny’s fears were groundless. Accosted by Lady Agatha, Emily found herself whisked away to the left, while the butler took me to the right and what he called the state apartments.

  Sampson waited with a gin and tonic. As I bathed and changed for the afternoon festivities, he told me that Nanny was in a happier frame of mind having been assigned a truckle bed in the dressing room of Emily’s bedroom. Emily was ensconced one floor up.

  “And Watkins? Any sign?”

  “Wachsmann’s men and those of Mr Gold are on the lookout. They’ll find him, Major,” he reassured me.

  Having little choice, I had to believe him.

  “I didn’t like to say while Emily was in hearing, but I get the feeling CC and her uncle have struck up an uneasy alliance,” I said as I shut the bathroom on the sound of water escaping down the drains.

  “Indeed, Major. Necessity makes strange bedfellows of us all.”

  I slipped into my dressing gown and took up residence on the sofa. “Pour me a whisky Sampson, I think I’m going to need it!”

  He pottered to the side and poured two glasses and after handing me mine downed his in one as if fortifying himself before imparting unpleasant news. “By the way, two other guests are joining the party later this afternoon.”

  “Have you found out whom?” I asked. Sampson rarely drank spirits on duty. To do so now, indicated great disquiet.

  He poured himself and me another, and again downed his quickly. “Yes, Major: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, and his daughter Gwendolyn.”

  I closed my eyes and swore. “It’s going to be a fun-packed party.” I opened one eye cautiously and decided to down my drink before my scorpions danced me into a headache.

  “Indeed, Major. Let’s just hope we find what we’re here for, before your grandfather hears that you’ve introduced Miss Emily to his god-daughter and the prime minister.”

  Emily’s arrival sans chaperone was pleasant and unexpected.

  “Well, that was interesting,” she said once she’d closed the door behind her.

  “Go on.” I was reading a telegram from CC and did not look up. Sampson sat at the window sketching the view as was his wont when we visited new places.

  “In the theatre, I thought, because she was in shadows, that Lady Agatha was about fifteen years younger than Fairbrass; but she’s not. She’s maybe five years older than me. Maybe that’s why she confided in me.” Emily laughed harshly before sobering. “She’s wife number two. They’ve been married five years. No children though.”

  “It happens.”

  “She was actually quite candid. I think she saw me as a kindred spirit and not just because we are of a similar age.”

  I looked up and raised an eyebrow.

  “I think she told me more than she realised, because of it.”

  “She did? How?” I was intrigued.

  Emily flopped into the bed in an inelegant heap. The tut from my valet and the corresponding giggle told me it was a deliberate act.

  My lips twitched, but I suppressed my reaction and was gruff in my reply. “I think you need to begin at the beginning, my dearest one.” I put the paper down. “Look lively, Sergeant. You’ve work to do.”

  Sampson’s tut became a grunt but he swapped sketch pad for notebook readily enough. As he got ready to take notes, I examined Emily carefully. Her face was flushed. There was a kind of triumphant anger in her eyes.

  “You’ve discovered something, haven’t you?”

  “Patience, darling. You wanted the tale from the beginning, so from the beginning you’ll get.” Emily thumped my pillows until they made a decent back rest and, after accepting the drink I proffered, she began her tale.

  “While you were tarting yourself up, Sym, I thought I’d go on a bit of a wander. Looking for a book if anyone asked. Didn’t meet a soul until I entered the sitting room. Agatha was standing by the window; and I thought she was going to do that hoity-toity lah-di-dah thing, some posh ladies do, when they meet girls of my class. But, she didn’t. She ordered tea.” Emily grinned at me, so I grinned back.

  “We spoke about the usual pleasant things people do when they’re too embarrassed to get straight to the point. But, after the first cup, she dismissed her companion with some feeble excuse about needing a cardie. God, I hope she’s not at dinner, she’s a dry old stick. Anyway, then it got interesting.” Emily took a sip of her gin and tilted her head.

  “She’s a smooth operator. Started off by telling me to call her Agatha, asking about dear Victor, how long I’d known him and what it was like to grow up in Wimbledon. Then suddenly it was:

  ‘Tell me! Emily, what’s it like to be a fallen woman? Because you don’t look any different to any other girl, I’ve ever met.’”

  From Reports.

  Emily laughed and stared at the woman in disbelief at the bluntness. “What were you expecting? Horns?
”

  To her surprise, given her previous forthrightness, Agatha blushed. “I think I expected you to be hard around the eyes, and more knowing. Cynical about life. But you’re so ... normal. Carefree.”

  “I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter but I’m happy so ...” Quickly she told her hostess, their carefully spun lie and did her best to ignore the expression of incredulity, horror and utter fascination that danced across Agatha’s face as her eyes widened, contracted and widened again as the other woman processed her news.

  “And is he in love with you?” The other woman asked as Emily reached the end of her tale.

  Refusing to meet the woman’s stare, Emily hoped the gesture would be taken for embarrassment. “He must be, Agatha! He’s done the unthinkable and moved me into his Mayfair flat, not bought me a house, like toffs usually do. And he bought me this.” Emily flashed the unusual ring at her hostess.

  The sharp intake of breath and the wide eyes were enough to tell Emily Agatha picked up the implication of the design. “It’s beautiful,” her hostess was breathless in her admiration. “But aren’t you worried about what will happen to you when the affair ends?”

  “My solicitor’s good. Besides, the diamond cat – if not the bird – is mine to keep and I’m pretty certain ... Uncle will ... take me back ... especially if I’m ...” Emily gave a faint, nervous laugh and put her hand to her belly to emphasise her point, hoping she’d not overplayed her hand with that snippet of truth. “Uncle loves children.”

  Shame he wouldn’t get his heir on this outing with the earl, she thought as she watched the woman carefully for any sign her tale was too brown. Nanny was being too assiduous a chaperone for that to happen. Still, Uncle was into the earl for the long haul, and Emily was in no mood to be a quick tumble. Uncle wanted the earl caught hook, line, and sinker. With heirs – plural – to be the result. And he was right, that wily uncle of hers, Emily did enjoy the friendship of a man who really, nearly, was her equal.

  Like a proverbial butterfly, Agatha’s attention fluttered to what was, on the surface, a different topic. It wasn’t, of course, but it brought Emily’s attention to the here and now and that was by far the safest place to be.