Not wanting another knock in the head, Squirrel stopped watching every shadow and sudden movement and kept his eyes looking straight ahead, mostly. He tried to pretend he was only enjoying the air, which he hated the smell of. Too much of it. Too many trees.
That was why, sometime later when they left the park and started back up the hill toward the village, he didn’t notice Toby Coppy coming out of a shop. He didn’t see Toby stop dead, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, and his face turning as white as his neckcloth.
Toby stood there for a good while, conspicuous in his new livery, but Squirrel saw nothing more than somebody’s fancy servant idling on the pavement. He didn’t know Toby was watching the gig as it moved up the street, and he missed Toby’s facial contortions as he thought as hard as he could until he finally reached a conclusion.
Later
Bridget and Toby Coppy stood before Clara in her study.
“Squirrel,” she said.
“That’s what they called him in the gang,” Bridget said. She did most of the talking for Toby because he was far from articulate. He’d come back from an errand, all in a quake, according to her, and she’d dragged him to report to Clara.
“On account his teeth and his cheeks, like he had ’em filled with nuts,” the sister explained. “And on account he fidgets like a squirrel and on account he’s fast, not only running but getting up into windows and out again. For, you know, housebreaking.”
“He must have been one of the boys who got out of the building so quickly on the day the police came,” Clara said to Toby.
He nodded.
Bridget elbowed her brother.
“Yes, your ladyship,” Toby mumbled.
That must have been where Radford had spotted him—running away down that narrow street. He’d seen the boy’s back and the way he ran. One boy among many fleeing the house. Yet Radford had remembered, enough for the boy to seem familiar. What was it like to own such a mind?
“He was in a curricle with a man,” Bridget said.
This roused Toby to eloquence. “I fought he were Jacob,” he said. “Cos why? Cos there weren’t none of ’em never drove in no carriage but him. But this one weren’t him. He had whiskers and clothes like the flash coves. And it weren’t no gig but a curricle ’n two horses. And Jacob’s dead, everybody says. But he made me fink of Jacob. T’other one were Squirrel. He were dressed proper fine, too, but I knowed him.” He puffed out his cheeks.
“What’s he here for, then?” Bridget said. “That’s what Toby asked himself. He was scared and wanted to run away, on account they hate him. But they hate Raven—I mean his lordship—worse than anybody, and Toby thought he oughter know.”
“Followed ’em,” Toby said. “But not close.”
“He followed them all the way to the Blue Goose Inn, where the carriage went into the yard,” his sister said. “He didn’t go into the yard, though. I told him he did right, because what if they saw him?”
Some might wonder how anybody could miss Toby. While his livery was not as fantastically glorious as Fenwick’s, it was splendid, green and gold with epaulettes and gleaming brass buttons.
But if the pair had spotted Toby, would they know him in his finery? Probably not. Had Squirrel possessed a less memorable face, Toby might not have recognized him in his new clothes. While he had something of his sister’s good looks, Toby’s face wasn’t nearly as attention-getting as his attire.
As to the man with him . . .
Clara had her suspicions.
She thanked them both. She told the boy he’d done very well, and she was proud of him.
All things considered, Toby had been brave, indeed.
He’d lived up to his livery.
After they left, Clara debated what to do. She had a long list of items needing her attention. Moreover, Radford would be back soon, and he’d take a fit if she pursued the question of Squirrel and his whiskered friend on her own.
You’re not to pursue the Case of the Stuffed-Cheeks Boy.
This was not unreasonable.
She had no experience dealing with cutthroats. She did not know how to organize a police raid, even if she had legal grounds to do so, which she did not. The odds of her getting into difficulties were high.
Her husband had his Radford relatives to contend with. He did not need his wife causing him worry and adding to his trials.
Very well, then. She wouldn’t pursue it . . . exactly.
The following day, she drove into the heart of Richmond with Davis and Colson.
Tuesday 8 December
Radford arrived at Ithaca House very late, with a barely functioning brain.
He had just about enough sense remaining to let his father know that, according to all physical evidence, Bernard had died when he cracked his skull on a rock.
Having settled his father’s mind with the postmortem, Radford adjourned with Clara to their apartments. He found a bath awaiting him. Of course she’d thought ahead and arranged for it. She’d been trained to be the perfect hostess.
Though a long soak would have done him good, he made quick work of it. He wanted to go to bed. With her. He’d missed her to an uncomfortable extent. Had she been with him at Glynnor Castle, they could have argued and laughe
d about his relatives. He would have had somebody to talk to who owned a brain. Who cared for him. He’d written to her and she to him but it wasn’t the same as talking to her and watching her face and the way she moved. A letter didn’t offer the small clues her ladylike exterior concealed so well from most people. One couldn’t have marital relations—as she called them—via letter.
When he returned to the bedroom, he found her sitting in bed, reading . . . Wade’s Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis?
She was studying in order to out-argue him, beyond a doubt.
He climbed into bed beside her.
She set aside the book. “Was it very bad?” she said.
“Which part?” he said.
“All and any of it,” she said. “But what am I saying? In your last letter you promised to be home by today. You kept your promise, though you had to have sacrificed meals and sleep to do it. You’re tired. You can tell me tomorrow.”
He was deeply weary, to the bone and to the soul. He sank back onto the pillows. She put out the candle and slid down, too, and snuggled against him. He drew her into his arms and touched his lips to her nightcap. That wasn’t satisfactory. He pulled off the nightcap and pressed his mouth to her hair. It felt like silk and it smelled like flowery soap and like her.
“It wasn’t nearly as much fun as being with you,” he said. “You’re vastly more entertaining. And prettier.”
“Entertaining?” she said. “Like a court jester?”
“No, like a tricky murder trial.”
She laughed softly. “High praise, indeed, my learned friend.”
“It’s true,” he said. “Dullards are everywhere. I always know what most people are going to say and do. The other Radfords, for instance, were exactly as demanding and quarrelsome as I expected them to be. The only surprise was the dead man.”
He paused, trying to marshal his thoughts. Reason was so much easier than emotion. “I found the funeral rather more distressing than I would have supposed.”
“You must have had some hopes for him or you wouldn’t have tried to help him or pestered him about changing his ways,” she said.