An Unseen Attraction Read online

  “No,” said Nathaniel, with more force than necessary. “Don’t even ask about that damned fraud. Go on, Mark.”

  “Right, so suppose Spim kidnaps Lugtrout and cuts pieces off him until he tells him where the thing is. And suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lugtrout says, ‘It’s in the preserver’s shop.’ ”

  “Well,” Nathaniel said. Rowley sat forward.

  “The rest follows, doesn’t it? Lugtrout identifies Rowley’s shop. Spim searches it, finds nothing. He goes back to Lugtrout pretty narked, and lets him know it with a cosh.”

  “And dumps his body on Clem’s doorstep,” Nathaniel said. “Why?”

  “Dumps it on Rowley’s doorstep,” Mark said. “Because he thinks Rowley has the thing, and Lugtrout’s body is a message to hand it over.”

  Rowley’s face was an awful sallow colour. Clem grabbed for his hand, thankful beyond belief they were in the Jack, where he could do this. Rowley pulled away for a second, then his stiff muscles relaxed a fraction and his fingers curled around Clem’s.

  “Do I need to say I don’t have it?” he asked, voice shaking.

  “No use telling me, mate. So Lugtrout is dead, Spim hasn’t found the thing, and his next move is to burn the shop.”

  “Is that another threat?” Clem asked. “Or— You don’t mean he set out to, to, to kill Rowley?”

  “No, sweetheart,” Nathaniel said patiently. “If he’d meant that, he wouldn’t have chosen the middle of the night.”

  Rowley’s hand tensed. “But he did try to kill me!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Nathaniel said. “Tell me, Mark, why would one first search quite so desperately for something, and then burn the place where it might be?”

  “If he’s sure it’s not in the shop, maybe another threat,” Mark said. “Or could be Spim wants it destroyed, not found.”

  “Which makes it flammable,” Nathaniel said. “A document, a letter. A purloined letter.”

  Clem had read Edgar Allan Poe’s stories with interest and dismay, including the one of a stolen letter concealed among other documents. “You mean it’s hiding in plain sight?”

  Nathaniel gave him a weary smile. “Just an expression.”

  “The point is, Spim wants rid of it,” Mark said. “If he can’t find it, it’ll do to burn it. And on the off chance Rowley has it—or read it?—Spim might as well take the opportunity to silence him as it comes up.”

  There was a hush as they all thought that over.

  “It’s plausible,” Nathaniel said at last. “It holds together and explains the sequence of events better than anything I can come up with. That doesn’t make it true, but it’s a working hypothesis.”

  “It’s the stuff of nightmares!” Rowley almost shouted. “It’s not a bloody hypothesis when he’s burned my shop! Christ, what about the lodging house, isn’t the next step to fire that? Why not burn the lot of us?”

  “And why do it at all?” Nathaniel asked. “This is a brute from Golden Lane and a drunken parson. What could Lugtrout have that Spim wants enough to risk the gallows? Was he rich?”

  “No,” Clem said. “Or perhaps he was a miser with a lot of money in a strongbox, but I certainly wouldn’t have known it from the way he behaved. He spent plenty on drink.”

  “Perhaps he knew something about Spim,” Nathaniel suggested. “Might he have had evidence of some sort against him?”

  “It’d have to be a fair old case to make it worth adding arson and murder to the charge sheet if he got caught,” Mark said. “But you could be right. And that something might be on paper, I suppose.”

  Clem looked between his friends as they thrashed the idea out a bit further, with Rowley silent but attentive. He wished he had something useful to contribute. The purloined letter in the story had been hidden in plain sight in a letter tray, if he recalled correctly, unless he was mixing it up with the story where the killer was a trained ape, and he wondered if Rowley had searched his papers, assuming he kept any in the shop and they hadn’t been burned. But Clem had always thought a letter tray was a ridiculous place to hide a document, no matter how clever the story was, and Rowley’s papers certainly weren’t left out for passersby to see.

  “They’d be in his workroom,” he said aloud.

  “What?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Rowley’s papers.” Everyone looked blank. “I mean, if anyone wanted to hide a paper in Rowley’s shop, he doesn’t—didn’t—keep his records and letters out, did you? So how would Lugtrout have concealed a letter among them?”

  “I don’t —” Rowley began.

  “Clem,” Nathaniel said with tenuous patience, “I just meant a stolen paper. Forget the purloined-letter business. I don’t think Lugtrout hid anything in Rowley’s letter tray.”

  “Well, where would he put it, then?”

  Mark made a strangled noise. “How should we know?”

  “The drawer where I keep my accounts and papers hadn’t been disturbed,” Rowley said. “To be honest, I can’t see how Lugtrout could have hidden anything at all on my premises. I use everything in my workroom regularly, and there’s only mounts on the shop floors.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t lie,” Clem said. “Someone pulled out his teeth and cut off his fingers. He’d have said whatever he had to.”

  “Did he spend a great deal of time in the shop?” Nathaniel asked.

  “He visited a couple of times when it opened, and again recently,” Rowley said, considering. “Before the fuss about his room, I think. He had a good look around that time, and then he didn’t come back again.” He made a face. “If he did leave a paper or some such there, I don’t see why Spim wouldn’t have found it. I haven’t been moving things around.”

  “But, but—” Clem flailed a hand. Mark snatched his pint out of the way. “Rowley! What about the badger?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mark said, not quite under his breath. “Could we stick to arson and murder, please?”

  “No, the badger,” Clem said urgently. “You sold it. We went to the music hall, remember?”

  “Shit and derision,” Rowley said, sounding extremely South London.

  “What the devil does a badger have to do with anything?” Nathaniel demanded.

  “It’s a mount. A badger, dressed like Hermes. Rowley didn’t make it.”

  “It was holding a scroll. A paper,” Rowley said. “It was in my showroom, upstairs, where anyone might have tampered with it, and it’s been gathering dust there since I took the place. It must have looked like a permanent fixture. And yes, I sold it after Lugtrout came snouting around, because we went to the music hall on the proceeds, and it was that night he said his room had been burgled. Do you recall, Clem, he was shouting, but he wasn’t really looking for anything that had gone.”

  “Did he know you’d sold this badger?” Mark demanded.

  “I don’t see how he would have. He didn’t come into my shop again before he, uh, disappeared.” Rowley swallowed. “If he told Spim under torture that the paper was in the stuffed badger, and Spim came to look for it, and it had gone—”

  “That’s why the man was upstairs, wasn’t it?” Clem said.

  “Looking around the mounts. Clem, you’re a genius.”

  “It is the purloined letter. But with a badger.”

  Mark waved his hand for attention. “Who’s got the purloined badger now?”

  “Presumably the customer still. Good God, could it be?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Nathaniel pulled out his fob watch. “Half past nine. I suppose it’s too late to go and ask.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow,” Rowley said. “Although it seems damned unlikely. But so does everything else about this business, so we might as well try.”

  —

  They went home in silence.

  “Do you think Mark’s right?” Clem asked as they neared Wilderness Row.

  “About what?”

  “All of it.”

  Rowley huffed out a cloud of steam. “I don�
�t know. It makes a mad sort of sense. Murder, arson—God, Clem, I’m frightened.”

  “Will you come in with me tonight?”

  “It’s late.”

  “I know,” Clem said. “I thought maybe you might stay with me. We don’t have to do anything, but I’d rather you weren’t on your own. If you don’t wake up early enough tomorrow, we can say you fell asleep in the armchair. You look tired enough.”

  “Thanks,” Rowley said. “Uh…I don’t know if that’s wise. What if something happens in the night?”

  “You’d be on the ground floor.”

  “Still. I’ll be all right.”

  Clem took his arm, stopping him before they turned the corner off St. John Street. “Look, I know you like being on your own when you’re in trouble. You said. If that’s really what you want to do…” It hurt, though. He wanted to hold Rowley tight, not let him go up to a room where he’d lie alone on cold bedsheets that smelled of smoke. He wanted Rowley to want his comfort. “But if you need me or want me or would like a chat—or even just to be on your own in my room, we don’t have to talk—”

  “I know. Thank you.” Rowley gave a quick yawn. “Uh, maybe a cup of tea?”

  Rowley had got the tea made by the time Clem had locked up, which he did without checking who was in. If Mr. Power was late tonight he could stay out, and move out, too, if he took offence. He checked every window and door, double-checked the fires, and finally returned to his room to see Rowley sipping his tea with Cat on his lap.

  “Oh, for— I forgot to put him out.” Clem hesitated, but Rowley looked so domestic and comfortable. He took up his own cup. “I’ll do it before bed.”

  Rowley nodded. “Clem?”

  “Mmm?”

  “How is your father an earl?”

  Clem sighed. “The usual way. No, I know what you meant. Uh…”

  “I’d like to know. And I’d like to know why you never told me. That’s how you have those clothes, isn’t it? I thought they looked as though they were made for you. They were, weren’t they? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  A hundred reasons. Because it’s humiliating. Because you’d look at me differently. Because Edmund doesn’t like me to talk about it; because I want to be Mr. Talleyfer of Talleyfer’s, not the Earl of Moreton’s bastard. Because I hate it.

  None of which was an excuse. He’d lied by omission, and he knew it, and Rowley deserved better. He’d spoken about his father the murderer; surely Clem could admit to his being an aristocrat.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s a bit complicated, though. Well. My father was the Earl of Moreton. He had two younger brothers, and the youngest one, Timothy, went to India to make his fortune. Then my father had his son, Edmund. And when Edmund was about twenty, my uncle Timothy came back from India, bankrupt and with malaria, to stay at Crowmarsh, and that was when my father’s wife, Edmund’s mother, died.” Clem peered at Rowley to check he was following. “I don’t know if my father had been a very good husband. I think probably not. She was always sickly, he’d had mistresses. She was very ill when Timothy arrived with his wife and their little girl, my cousin Lily, and an ayah. That’s an Indian nursemaid.”

  “Ah.”

  “And one thing was, although Timothy was very ill too, um, he obviously felt better sometimes, and his wife found out she was expecting another child not long after they arrived. And then Edmund’s mother died, and by then the ayah was expecting as well. Her name was Parveen. My mother.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t…” Clem wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this. “She wasn’t my father’s mistress. I don’t remember much of anything, but Lily said she didn’t like him, not at all.” He concentrated on the leaping flames of the fire. “Edmund was furious, of course. His father doing that while his mother lay dying. So Timothy died, and then his wife died too, of childbed fever or grief or both, after giving birth to a son, my cousin Tim. And not long after that, with Lily and baby Tim needing to be looked after, I was born early. Eight months. So there we were. Three funerals within a year, and two babies, one a posthumous orphan and one a bastard and sickly with it, and Mammee looking after everyone, and Edmund knowing what Father had been up to while his mother died.” He glanced up. Rowley was gaping. “You can see why Edmund doesn’t like it discussed. He went away then, and he didn’t really speak to Father for years. I’m not sure he ever forgave him.”

  “And what about you?” Rowley asked.

  Clem shrugged. “I grew up at Crowmarsh. Mammee stayed until I was four, and then Father sent her home.”

  “What?”

  “She barely spoke English, you see, so Tim and I had both started talking in Hindi, and Father decided he didn’t want his son growing up as an Indian. So he sent her away. Lily said he told her he’d pay her passage back to Calcutta and give her some money if she went quietly, but if she made a fuss he’d have her thrown out of the house and whipped for vagrancy. I don’t know if that’s true, though. Lily loved Mammee, and she hated my father. Anyway, she went away and I stayed. Father acknowledged me, of course, and even sent me to the same school as Tim. That was…uh…Well, it was better than if Tim hadn’t been there.”

  Rowley was looking intent, the firelight flickering off his spectacles. “A gentleman’s school?”

  “Repton.” It was a minor but ancient establishment, very much for second sons and nouveaux riches. Edmund had gone to Eton. “There wasn’t anyone else like me there, and I wasn’t good at schoolwork or sport, so…” The first few years had been bewildering hell. Tim, equally lost and alone but far less obvious, had done his best to offer support and comfort, but Clem’s main memory of Repton was trying to cry as quietly as possible once the lights went out, so that nobody else in the dorm would hear. He’d learned, after a while, to be ever-cheerful, helpful, pliable, and uncomplaining, a good sport who could take a joke, or ten, or fifty, at his expense, because the alternative to humiliating misery had been humiliating misery with violence.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Father died when I was fifteen, so Edmund became the sixth earl.”

  “And he packed you off to run a lodging house?”

  “He didn’t pack me off.” Clem felt a little ruffled by that. “It was quite clear that I’d never do well at school, of course, but he kept me there until I was eighteen even so, and had me at home after that. At Crowmarsh. He didn’t have to.”

  “You’re his brother.”

  “His bastard Indian half brother,” Clem said. “He’s an earl, he married a marquess’s daughter. Of course I didn’t belong there. Anyway, I wanted to work. I didn’t want to be Edmund’s pensioner all my life, and you said yourself, I’m good at what I do.”

  “You are.”

  “Well then. Edmund gave me this place to run and I like it. He didn’t have to do anything at all. Father committed me to his care in his will, rather than leaving me a legacy—” Rowley made a strangled noise. Clem rather agreed, but he didn’t want to open that wound again. “Edmund could have cut me off without a penny. He doesn’t really like me very much, and you can’t blame him if you think about his mother.”

  “That wasn’t your fault!”

  “No, and it wasn’t Edmund’s. If I’d had to watch my father exercising his droit du seigneur over the nursemaid while my mother was on her deathbed, I probably wouldn’t have been happy about it either. But Edmund still did his duty by me, and I’ve a duty to him. And I’ve been happy these last years, here in this house. I don’t intend to let him down.”

  Rowley took his spectacles off and dropped them into his pocket, then massaged his nose and eye sockets. “I don’t know what to say. Do you have any contact with your mother?”

  “I don’t think she could write. If she could, she hasn’t. I used to imagine she did and Father hid the letters, but I, uh, I looked, after he died. It wasn’t her fault. I don’t know how much anyone could feel about a child in the position she was put in, but from what I remember and Lily said, she w
as always kind to us. I hope she’s happy.”

  “I hope I won’t offend you if I say your father sounds like a heap of shit,” Rowley said. “And I say that as a man whose father hanged for murder.”

  “He was an old-fashioned man.” Clem wasn’t sure if it was an excuse, an explanation, or an observation. “His father died very young—we really aren’t the most fortunate of families—so actually, he became earl in the last century, aged four, and he was nearly fifty when I was born. He was a young man during the Regency, and that’s how he behaved. He had no time for modern namby-pamby manners; he’d raise his whip or his cane if anyone disobeyed him. You know.”

  “Not really. My father got arrested when he behaved like that.” Rowley rubbed both hands over his face. “All right. I see what you mean about who your brother is, and I am glad he gave you this place, as far as that goes—”

  “I wouldn’t have met you if he hadn’t,” Clem pointed out.

  “Yes, that’s what I was thinking too. Why is it a secret that he’s your brother?”

  “It’s not a secret. Father acknowledged me, so Edmund does. But he made it a condition when I took this place on that I shouldn’t tell anyone. He said people would try to cheat me if they thought I was rich, or they’d be unkind just as everyone was at school, saying I was getting above myself. Though to be honest, I think he doesn’t want people to know he owns a lodging house in Clerkenwell. Anyway, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. I had to explain to Polly, and Nathaniel asked because he recognised my surname, but I’ve done my best. I would have told you if I’d thought it was important.”

  “Fair enough.” Rowley yawned abruptly. “I need to sleep. Did you mean it, that I could stay with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like that.” Rowley evicted Cat and stood. Clem stood too, stepping forward. Rowley’s arms went carefully around his waist, and he rested his head on Clem’s shoulder. “I’m not feeling very, uh, frisky. I’d just like you to hold me.”

  “I can hold you.” Clem’s throat was tight. “Whenever you want, I’ll hold you.”

  “Alone with you.” Rowley nuzzled Clem’s chest with his cheek. “That sounds perfect. I’m going to fall asleep on you in a minute, though.”