“Her clothes, her belongings—are they still in her room?”
Mrs. Stanley nodded. “Must have been some powerful urge to have her leave them, but”—she shrugged—“who’s to say?”
Deverell didn’t like the notion that was forming in his head. “I believe, Mrs. Stanley, that you or the butler should inform the watch of Lizette’s disappearance. Granted it’s unlikely that they’ll find her, but in the interests of justice, that should be done.”
Mrs. Stanley nodded glumly. “Aye—I thought perhaps we should, but sure as eggs are eggs, they’ll never find hide nor hair of poor Lizette—no more’n they did with Higgins’s Bertha.”
Deverell leaned forward. “Who?”
“Mrs. Higgins as is housekeeper for Major and Mrs. Wrigley on South Audley Street. Her parlor maid Bertha, handsome girl who’d been with her six years, suddenly up and vanished two weeks ago, just like Lizette.” Mrs. Stanley shook her head. “Higgins reported it to the watchhouse, like you said, but nothing came of it. And she hasn’t seen Bertha again.”
Deverell debated but decided he had to know. “This Bertha—you said she was a handsome girl. And I assume Lizette was, too?”
“Oh, aye. Right lookers, the pair of them. Well, have to be, don’t you, to be a parlor maid these days.”
Deverell made no reply; he stood as Mrs. Stanley got to her feet. Other than repeating his advice that she report Lizette’s disappearance, he said nothing more; a minute later, the bell tinkled and the front door shut behind the housekeeper.
Birtles, who had sat through the interview in the chair before the fire, looked at Deverell as he resumed his seat. “You think there’s something behind this—these maids who up and disappear after arranging to leave with us?”
Deverell glanced at Phoebe, saw the same question in her eyes, and in Emmeline’s as she came back from seeing Mrs. Stanley out.
“I think,” he said, choosing his words, “that these disappearances are becoming too frequent to overlook. Three, all in the space of two weeks, all attractive girls—the sort who work in the mansions of Mayfair.” He definitely didn’t like what he was thinking.
“The same area we mostly work in,” Birtles observed.
“Indeed.” Deverell kept his reaction from his face. “Be that as it may, I can’t see any way we can pursue this—other than via the watch.”
Not unless they had something more to work with. He turned that conclusion over and around in his mind, examining it from every angle, and couldn’t fault it. He knew too little to alert anyone—even those who would back his instinct that something nefarious was going on.
He glanced at Birtles, who was as sober as he. “Until we clear up this mystery of the missing maids, we’ll take every precaution.”
Phoebe grimaced. “Well, we won’t have to worry tonight—we no longer have anyone to rescue.”
Chapter 18
“Here she comes.” Phoebe pointed to a slight, cloaked figure creeping up the area steps at the rear of one of the town houses fronting Curzon Street.
Deverell spared the hesitant figure no more than a glance before returning his gaze to the dense shadows shrouding the narrow alley in which he and Phoebe stood waiting, partially concealed in the lee of their carriage.
This was the sixth rescue he’d helped organize, and the one he liked the least. Although only yards from the wide thoroughfares of Mayfair, they stood in a maze of alleys, lanes, and interconnecting mews; there were too many entrances onto the scene, all draped in darkness—too many approaches from which others could come at them largely unseen.
He kept telling himself that this wasn’t a battle, that Phoebe and her people weren’t troops he was positioning to repel an attack, yet that’s how his mind kept seeing the moment—how his instincts kept prodding him to react.
Phoebe shifted beside him, her attention on the maid creeping out into the alley, her gaze locked on the dark carriage. One hand on Phoebe’s arm, restraining her, Deverell gripped, then released his hold. “Go to her.”
He didn’t need to whisper twice; Phoebe swept forward, walking quickly, decisively. Cloaked and hooded, she was nevertheless clearly female; the frightened maid, also cloaked, drew herself up, clutching her bag to her chest defensively, but she didn’t bolt.
Deverell scanned the area again; his thumbs were pricking. Fergus was on the box; Grainger was further down the alley watching their escape route, while Birtles was keeping watch at the head of one of the alleys to their rear. Scatcher was about, too, hugging the shadows a little ahead of the carriage.
Every instinct Deverell possessed urged him to walk with Phoebe, to stick by her side, yet if the maid saw him there, large and menacing, she might panic and flee. Phoebe had a knack of reassuring with a few words, so that while they still eyed him, and to a lesser extent Birtles and Fergus, with wariness and suspicion, the girls would nevertheless trust Phoebe enough to leave with them.
Phoebe reached the girl and spoke with her. Deverell saw some of the brittle tension in the maid’s figure ease. She peered toward the carriage. Phoebe turned and beckoned.
He started forward—and a chill touched his nape.
In that same instant he saw a shadow between him and Scatcher move, sliding out of a narrow gap between two houses. Blinking, he shifted into a run—there were more of them pouring out of the narrow gap. Behind him came the sound of an oath and scuffles.
Followed by the unmistakable cacophony of a fight.