by Amanda Quick
“Everything depended on those four girls,” he muttered. “And now they’re gone, thanks to that damned teacher. Why in blazes did she do it?”
“We must assume that she developed some suspicions concerning the fate of her predecessor and concluded that her own life was in jeopardy,” Trimley responded calmly.
“That would explain why she fled the castle. But it doesn’t tell me why she took the girls with her. It makes no sense. She had to know that they would only slow her down. She must have realized that her odds of a successful escape would have been considerably improved without the added baggage of four young ladies.”
“Now that,” Trimley said softly, “is a very interesting question. I spent most of the journey back to London contemplating it.”
Larkin stopped and turned sharply. “You have some notion of what this is all about?”
“I agree with you that it seems less than rational for a woman who was in fear for her life to burden herself with four girls.” Trimley paused deliberately. “But I think that it is safe to say the teacher was not working alone.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I do not believe that Miss Glade, clever though she may be, was the one who arranged to remove the young ladies from the castle.”
“She had help? One of the guards? Well, it isn’t the first time that I’ve been betrayed by a member of my own organization, but such things don’t happen often and that’s a fact. Everyone knows the penalty.”
“Not one of your people,” Trimley said. “I was able to get a bit of a description of him from the proprietors of the inn where he put up for the night with the teacher and the girls.” An intrigued expression darkened his eyes. “They described him as well spoken and well mannered. In short, a gentleman.”
“They’re certain this man was a gentleman?” Larkin asked. “Not just acting the part?”
Trimley quirked a brow. “Forgive me for pointing out that the role of gentleman is not an easy one to play unless one has been born into the part. In any event, it has been my experience that innkeepers, like shopkeepers, are invariably correct when it comes to judging the class of their customers. They have that much in common with you, Larkin, in that their livelihoods depend upon a certain degree of skill in that regard.”
Larkin willed himself to ignore that. Trimley considered him good enough to associate with when it came to business affairs, but the bastard’s contempt for those he considered his social inferiors was never far below the surface.
“Did these innkeepers have any other useful information?”
“No. Only that the ladies and their escort were bound for London. I checked with the station master. He remembered the girls and their teacher quite well. They traveled first class.”
“What of this gentleman who accompanied them?” Larkin asked swiftly.
“Interestingly enough, the station master did not recall any male companion. He seems to have disappeared somewhere between the inn and the train.”
Larkin could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck. “Well, at least the man’s presence does explain a few things.”
“Most especially Rimpton’s crushed skull and Bonner’s concussion and broken arm,” Trimley said.
Larkin frowned. “What’s this? I thought you said that Rimpton died in the fire.”
“I said he died that night. But I was able to examine the body and I am quite certain that he was killed by human hand, not the flames.”
Larkin snorted. “No lady teacher could have done that. You’re right. She had help. The question is, what does the lady’s gentleman associate have in mind? Even if he is aware of the details of our plans, he can’t hope to duplicate them on his own. It took us months to make the arrangements for the auction.”
“There is no need for him to imitate us in order to achieve a profit,” Trimley said. “You have a head for business, Larkin. What would you do if you found yourself in possession of certain commodities that you knew to be of great value to someone else?”
Larkin started to relax for the first time since he had gotten word of the loss of the girls. “I’d offer the former owner a chance to repurchase his missing valuables.”
“Precisely. I expect that, sooner or later, whoever took the girls will put out the word that he is ready to negotiate. And then we’ll have him.”
“Bloody hell. We can’t just sit around and wait for them to contact us. I’m Alexander Larkin. I don’t wait on the convenience of others.”
“Calm yourself, Larkin.” Trimley got up from the bench and walked toward the door. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves. Sooner or later our gentleman thief will find a way to send word to you that he is prepared to do business.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Trimley.” He tightened one hand into a fist. “I’m going to turn the city upside down until I find those girls.”
“Suit yourself, but you will be wasting your time.”
“Why do you say that?”
Trimley paused at the door. “I would be the last to deny that you have excellent connections in certain quarters in London. But we both know that you do not go into respectable circles. And it appears that is where our man moves.”
Larkin went cold in spite of the heat.
Trimley smiled slightly. “Your crude approach has its uses, Larkin, but this situation requires a degree of finesse. Let me handle it. That was one of the reasons you agreed to our partnership, if you will recall. I have connections in places where you will never be allowed to set foot.”
Trimley went out into the cold plunge room and closed the door.
Larkin stared at the door for a long time. That finished it, he decided. Trimley had been useful during the past year but enough was enough. When this business involving the four girls was concluded, he would see to it that the partnership was permanently dissolved.
Larkin rearranged his drooping sheet and thought about how he would handle the matter. Getting rid of a gentleman who moved in social circles required some planning, after all. When men from Trimley’s class expired in suspicious circumstances, the police were inclined to conduct serious investigations. The press got excited. Inquiries were made.
There had already been too many risky disappearances in this affair, he thought. The last thing he wanted to do was draw the attention of Scotland Yard.
Nevertheless, such things could be managed provided they were handled with great care. Trimley was wrong. The wall that separated respectable society from the other sort was not as impenetrable as he appeared to believe. Death could reach across any class barrier.
19
The Winslow Charity School for Girls was housed in a vast mansion. It seemed to Concordia that the building somehow managed to absorb every trace of the spring sunlight and render the brightness and warmth into cold, unrelenting night.
The office of the headmistress was of a piece with the rest of the place. It was steeped in an atmosphere of unrelenting gloom. The surroundings were well suited to Edith Pratt, the woman who sat behind the large desk.
The formidable Miss Pratt was not nearly as ancient as Hannah, Phoebe, Edwina and Theodora had led her to believe. Pratt was, in fact, only a few years older than herself—thirty at most.
She was not unattractive. Edith was tall and well proportioned with a full bosom, fine features, light brown hair and hazel eyes.
But whatever physical beauty Edith had possessed had long since been submerged beneath a grim veneer. It was obvious that Pratt was a woman who had been bitterly disappointed by life. Concordia suspected that her chief ambition was to ensure that the students in her care learned to expect the same sad reality that Edith herself had discovered.
“My condolences on the loss of your husband, Mrs. Thompson,” Edith said.
She did not sound the least bit sympathetic, Concordia thought. If genuine compassion had ever flowed in Edith Pratt’s veins, it had been leached out of her years ago.
“Thank you, Miss Pratt.”
Concordia stole a quick look around the room from behind her black net veil. The walls were darkly paneled and quite bare of decoration, with the exception of two photographs and a framed plaque.
One of the photographs, predictably, showed the Queen. Victoria was dressed in the somber attire that she had adopted decades earlier following the death of her beloved Albert.
The second picture was of an expensively gowned, heavily bejeweled woman of some forty or forty-five years. Beneath the photograph the words Mrs. Hoxton, Our Beloved Benefactress were inscribed in elaborate gold script.
The plaque mounted behind the desk was headed “Golden Rules for Grateful Girls.” Beneath it was a daunting list of some twenty admonitions. Concordia read the first one. A grateful girl is obedient.
She did not read any further.
Edith folded her hands on top of the desk and regarded her with an expression of polite inquiry.
“How can I be of service?” she asked.
“I have come upon a matter of great delicacy, Miss Pratt. It involves some revelations that were made in my late husband’s will. I hope that I can depend upon your professional discretion?”
“I have been a headmistress for many years, Mrs. Thompson. I am quite accustomed to dealing with delicate matters.”
“Yes, of course.” Concordia affected a deeply troubled sigh. “Forgive me. I am still attempting to recover from the shock, you see.”
“What shock?”
“It appears that unbeknownst to anyone else in the family, my husband fathered an illegitimate child a number of years ago.”
Edith made a tut-tutting sound. “Unfortunately, an all too common story, I’m afraid.”
“I realize that in your position here at Winslow you often encounter the results of that sort of masculine irresponsibility.”
“Men will be men, Mrs. Thompson.” Edith gave a small snort of disgust. “I fear there is little prospect of changing their basic nature. No, in my opinion, the only hope of reducing the number of illegitimate children in this world lies with women. They must be taught to practice restraint and self-discipline in all aspects of their lives, most particularly when it comes to the darker passions.”
“The darker passions?”
“Those foolish women who allow themselves to be led astray by the blandishments of men will always pay the price and so will their unwanted offspring.”
The bitterness in the headmistress’s voice spoke volumes, Concordia thought. She would have been willing to wager a great deal of money that at some time in Edith’s past, she had fallen victim to some man’s faithless promises.
Concordia cleared her throat. “Yes, well, as I was saying—”
“Rest assured that here at the Winslow Charity School for Girls we strive with extreme diligence to instill the tenets of self-discipline, restraint and self-control in each and every student,” Edith said.
Concordia suppressed a shudder and reminded herself that she was there to study the interior of the mansion and this office and to observe Edith Pratt, not to engage in a philosophical argument regarding the proper method of educating young girls.
“An admirable goal, Miss Pratt,” she said neutrally.
“I assure you it is not an easy task. Young girls are prone to excessively high spirits and reckless enthusiasms. Here at Winslow we make every effort to suppress that sort of thing.”
“I’m sure you do an excellent job of crushing high spirits and reckless enthusiasms.” Concordia realized that she was clenching one hand into a fist on her lap. She forced herself to relax her fingers. “As I was saying, the result of my husband’s dalliance was an infant girl. She was named Rebecca. The mother evidently died a couple of years ago. My husband saw to it that the girl was sent to an orphanage. He never mentioned the matter to me. Indeed, I had no notion that he had a second family until after his death. It has all been extremely trying.”
“No doubt.” Edith’s severe features tightened into a genuinely baffled frown. “How does this concern you, Mrs. Thompson?”
“In his will my husband expressed regret for having allowed Rebecca to be put into a charity home. He evidently felt that the girl should have been brought up in her father’s house.”
“Nonsense. Your husband could hardly have expected you to raise his illegitimate daughter. That would have been asking far too much from a decent, well-bred lady endowed with any delicacy of feeling whatsoever.”
But what of the feelings of the innocent child? Concordia wanted to scream. Doesn’t the little girl’s pain and suffering matter? It was the duty of the adults involved to take care of that poor little girl. It wasn’t Rebecca’s fault that she was born on the wrong side of the blanket.
Concordia could feel her pulse pounding with the force of her emotion. Get ahold of yourself, she thought, or you will ruin everything. This isn’t a real-life tragedy. You are acting a part in a play.
But she knew all too well that the tale rang true because there were, indeed, many real-life Rebeccas in the world.
“Perhaps,” she said through her teeth. “But the fact remains that my husband deeply regretted the decision to put the child in an orphanage. In his will he requested that I make every effort to locate Rebecca so that I could provide her with a small inheritance and a photograph of her father.”
“I see. You say there is an inheritance involved?”
Edith was suddenly showing a good deal more interest in the matter, Concordia thought.
“Yes. Not a large one, you understand.”
“Oh.” Edith’s brief spark of concern faded.
“The problem,” Concordia said, determined to stick to the script, “is that there is no record of which orphanage my husband chose for the girl. I am, therefore, attempting to call on as many of them as possible in hopes of identifying the one in which Rebecca was placed.”
“Well, if she was sent to a workhouse or one of the orphanages that takes in children who lack respectable connections, she will likely have gone into service by now.”
“Rebecca is only nine,” Concordia said, forgetting her role again.
“Old enough to be put to work in the kitchen of a respectable household, certainly,” Edith said. “Children who are destined to become servants must be taught early in life that they will be expected to work hard if they wish to obtain good posts and keep themselves off the streets.”
“Do you send your girls into service, Miss Pratt?”
“I should say not.” Edith appeared deeply offended. “Winslow accepts only orphans from the better classes. Our young ladies are educated to become governesses and teachers. They usually remain here until the age of seventeen.” She frowned. “They could certainly start to earn their keep at an earlier age, but it is difficult to convince a school or a family to employ a teacher who is younger than seventeen.”
“Indeed,” Concordia said stiffly. Her own age had been one of many things she had been forced to lie about when she sought her first post, she recalled. She had claimed to be eighteen. “Do all of your students eventually find suitable employment?”
“Those who learn to comport themselves in a modest, unassuming manner and who strive to live according to the Golden Rules for Grateful Girls generally find a post, yes.” Edith spread her hands. “Naturally, there is the occasional failure.”
“I see.” Concordia realized that she was clenching her hand again. “What happens to them?”
“Oh, they usually find themselves on the streets,” Edith said casually. “Now then, about your husband’s illegitimate daughter. We have thirty-seven girls here at Winslow. There are two Rebeccas, I believe. I will be happy to check the records to see if either of them has any connection to a family named Thompson.”
“That is very kind of you.”
Edith cast a considering look at the row of filing cabinets. “I am a very busy woman, Mrs. Thompson. It will require some time to conduct a proper search of the files.”
/>
The hint could not have been more obvious.
“Naturally, I insist upon compensating you for your trouble.” Ambrose had been right, Concordia thought. Edith expected a bribe. She reached into her muff and withdrew the banknote that Ambrose had provided for just this purpose. She placed it on the desk.
“Very well, I shall see if there is a file for a Rebecca with a father named Thompson.” Edith made the banknote disappear into the pocket of her gown. “Do you happen to know the mother’s name?”
“No, I do not.”
Edith rose and crossed the room to the filing cabinets. She opened the one labeled P–T. Concordia could see that it was crammed with folders and papers. She felt her insides clench. So many sad little histories trapped in that dark drawer, she thought.
A knock sounded on the office door.
“Come in, Miss Burke,” Edith said without looking around.
The door opened. Concordia saw the faded little wren of a woman who had opened the door for her a short time ago.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Pratt, but you did say that you wanted to be notified immediately when the men who deliver the coal arrived.”
“Quite right, Miss Burke.” Edith slammed the drawer closed and whirled around with an astonishing display of vigor. “You must excuse me for a few minutes, Mrs. Thompson. It is necessary that I have a word with these deliverymen. We are using far too much coal here at Winslow, considering that it is spring. I intend to reduce the standing order.”
“Of course,” Concordia murmured, thinking that it had been rather chilly to date this year.
Edith strode across the office and went out into the hall. With an apologetic nod at Concordia, Miss Burke shut the door.
Concordia found herself alone in the office.
She looked at the filing cabinets. Then she looked at the closed door. Edith Pratt’s forceful footsteps were receding rapidly.
The opportunity was simply too good to ignore.
She jumped to her feet, hurried to the filing cabinets and yanked open the A–C drawer.