A fearsome crash of silver and china thundered across the kitchens. Everyone, including the annoyed cook, turned to look at the hapless footman who had just dropped his tray.
“Look what you’ve done, you bloody fool,” the pastry cook shouted. “It took hours to prepare those lobster pies. Madam will be furious when she finds out how much food you wasted tonight. You’ll be turned off without a reference, I’ll wager.”
“Come along,” Ambrose whispered, pulling Concordia toward the door.
They escaped out into the gardens. Ambrose paused long enough to toss his white wig, hat and elaborately trimmed footman’s jacket behind a hedge.
“Give me the coat,” he said. “Put on your cloak. I do not want anyone observing a footman and a maid getting into a hansom near this house.” He surveyed her briefly and then reached out to pluck the white cap from her head. “Servants do not ride in hansom cabs.”
“Respectable ladies do not ride in them, either,” she reminded him. “At least not with men who are not their husbands. They are supposed to go about in carriages or omnibuses. The driver will no doubt assume I am very fast if I get into a hansom with you.”
“Can’t be helped.” He turned and led the way through a maze of
hedges. “Keep the hood of your cloak pulled up to shield your face. Stay close to me.”
They went back through the gardens to the place along the back wall where they had entered two hours earlier. Concordia did not see the ladder lying on the ground until she tripped over it.
“Careful,” Ambrose said, catching her easily. He leaned down, picked up the ladder and propped it against the brick wall. “I’ll go up first this time.”
She followed him, struggling with the folds of her cloak and skirts, intensely aware of his impatience.
A moment later they were both on the ground on the other side of the wall.
“This way.” Ambrose caught her wrist and started toward the street. “Quickly. I don’t want to lose Trimley.”
“What about the ladder?”
“Leave it. We won’t be needing it again.”
The street in front of the Gresham mansion was thronged with private carriages. A short distance away, lined up in a neat row alongside the park in the center of the square, Concordia could see the lights of several cabs.
She heard a familiar whistle. One of the footmen was summoning a hansom. In response, the first cab in the line started toward the front of the big house.
“That will be Trimley’s,” Ambrose said. “He is going down the steps now.”
He led her quickly through the shadows to the row of waiting cabs
and selected the hansom at the end of the line. The driver, seated on the box up behind the covered section where the passengers rode, gave Concordia a cursory glance. But he showed no great interest when she and Ambrose climbed the narrow steps and sat down in the open-fronted cab.
Once seated, Concordia understood why Society frowned upon women riding in hansoms. There was a very dashing air about the small, two-wheeled vehicle. The single seat provided barely enough space for two people sitting quite close together. The close quarters felt extremely intimate.
Ambrose spoke to the driver through the trapdoor. “Follow the cab that is just now leaving the house but do not let the driver notice you.”
He shoved some notes through the opening.
“Aye, sir.” The driver pocketed the money. “That will be no trouble at all at this hour of the night.”
The cab rumbled forward.
Concordia was astonished by the speed and maneuverability of the hansom. “What a wonderful way to travel. One can see everything from this vantage point. And just look at how swiftly we are moving. Very efficient. There is no reason in the world why properly bred ladies should not go about in a hansom.”
Ambrose did not take his eyes off the cab in which Trimley was traveling. “Will you teach that notion to the young ladies in your girls’ school?”
“Yes, I believe I will.”
They passed a gas lamp at that moment. In the dim light Concordia
could just make out the slight smile that curved the corners of Ambrose’s face.
“Do you find my plans for a girls’ school amusing?” she asked quietly.
“No, Concordia. I find them wonderfully bold and admirable in every respect.”
“Oh.” She did not know what to say to that. No one had ever encouraged her in her dreams since her parents had died. It was very gratifying.
They followed Trimley’s cab through a maze of crowded streets. Eventually the other vehicle turned another corner.
“Damn,” Ambrose whispered. “So that is where he is going.”
Concordia sensed the dangerous energy that was coursing through him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“He is headed toward Doncaster Baths,” he said.
“But it is well after midnight,” she said. “Surely the baths will be closed to the public at this hour.”
“Yes. Which makes Trimley’s destination all the more interesting.”
A short time later Ambrose spoke to the driver. “Halt here, please.”
“Aye, sir.”
The cab came to a stop. Concordia looked at Ambrose. “What are you planning to do?”
“It is obvious that Trimley is going into the baths.” Ambrose removed his hat and pulled up the collar of his coat. “I suspect that
someone, possibly Larkin, has arranged a meeting with him there. I am going to follow him and see what I can learn.”
She looked around at the darkened street. Fog was starting to shroud the gas lamps. A shivery sensation sifted through her.
“I think I should come with you,” she said.
“Impossible. You will remain here with the driver until I return.”
The response was flat, unequivocal. She knew him well enough by now to realize that argument was futile. There were times when she could reason with him and other times when she could not. This was one of those other times.
“I do not like this, Ambrose. Promise me that you will be very, very careful.”
He was already on his feet, preparing to step down to the pavement. But he paused to lean over and kiss her once, very briefly, very hard, on her mouth.
“If I am not back here within fifteen minutes or if you grow anxious for any reason, instruct the driver to take you to number seven, Ransomheath Square. Ask for Felix Denver. Do you understand?”
“Who is Felix Denver?”
“An old acquaintance,” he said. “Tell him what has happened. He will help you and the girls. Do you comprehend me, Concordia?”
“Yes. But, Ambrose—”
He was already on the pavement.
“Do not allow anyone to approach the lady while I am about my business,” he ordered the driver. “Is that clear? Leave immediately if
someone comes close. The lady will provide you with an address in the event that I am delayed.”
“Aye, sir.” The driver secured the reins. “Don’t worry about your lady. I’ll keep an eye on her. I know this neighborhood. It’s safe enough.”
“Thank you,” Ambrose said.
He moved away very swiftly.
Concordia watched until he vanished into the shadows and fog.
A
mbrose stood in the dark entranceway of a building across the street from Doncaster Baths and watched Trimley open the front door of the gentlemen’s entrance with a key.
A personal key to the establishment was an interesting development, Ambrose thought. Did Trimley own a share of the business? Was he on very good terms with the proprietor? It was possible that the key was stolen, of course, but the familiar manner in which Trimley used it argued for the likelihood that this was not the first time he had let himself into the building after hours.
A short time ago Trimley had abandoned his own cab around the corner in the next street. Evidently he had not wished the driver to see the precise address of his destination.
A very careful man, Ambrose concluded. But then, a gentleman who consorted with a crime lord had to be cautious.
In the few seconds that the door of the baths was open, Ambrose saw a small, weak beam of light. Either an attendant had left a lamp burning
inside or someone else had gone into the baths ahead of Trimley. Larkin, perhaps.
The door closed quickly behind Trimley.
Ambrose waited a few more minutes, allowing his quarry time to settle into whatever business he intended to conduct inside the baths. Then he crossed the street and discovered that Trimley had left the door unlocked. The implication was that he did not intend to stay long.
Ambrose slowly opened the door. The small lobby area was mostly in shadow. The dim glow he had noticed earlier came from a half-closed door that opened onto another room.
He moved into the lobby, closed the door very softly behind him and crossed the space to the other door.
He had come here once before in the guise of a customer at the beginning of his investigation into Nellie Taylor’s death. That visit had provided him with a good notion of the interior of the baths. The establishment had been designed by an architect who favored the dark, Gothic style. High, vaulted ceilings and deep doorways left a great deal of space for shadows.
He eased the door of the dressing room open a little wider and studied the row of curtained booths. A single wall sconce gave off enough light to reveal the large stack of white toweling sheets on a table.
There was no sign of Trimley, but he could hear rapid footsteps echoing on tiles somewhere deep inside the baths. A gentleman moving swiftly in evening dress shoes, he decided.
He went through the changing room and emerged in the first hot room. The heat had been lowered hours earlier when the baths had
been closed for the night, but a residual warmth persisted. A wall sconce with a frosted globe glowed dully on gleaming white tiles.
Weaving a path between the benches and chairs that the patrons used during the day, he made his way to yet another door and eased it open.
The gas jet on the wall in this room had been turned down very low, but he could see the dark shape of the large, square pool in the center of the space.
Somewhere in the shadows water dripped.
He started toward the opening on the far side of the room.
Halfway to his goal, he saw the dark shape floating just beneath the surface of the water in the cold pool.
At first glance it appeared to be a gentleman’s overcoat that had been carelessly dropped into the water. Then he saw the pale, lifeless hands extending from the cuffs of the coat.
The dead man’s sightless eyes stared up at Ambrose from the depths, oddly accusing.
Alexander Larkin.
A door crashed open in the adjoining pool room. The sudden explosion of sound shattered the eerie silence. Frantic footsteps pounded on tiles.
Not the same footsteps he had heard earlier, Ambrose thought. But most certainly someone bent on escape.
He went through the doorway into the hot plunge room in time to see the figure of a man circle the wide pool and hurtle toward the high, vaulted entrance to a darkened hall.
Ambrose broke into a run. He was closing the distance when the
panicked man abruptly skidded to a halt in the opening and flung up his hands.
“Don’t shoot.” He started to dance backward. “Please, no, I won’t tell anyone, I swear it.”
Ambrose stopped and then drifted toward the shadows of the curtained booths to his right. He could see the man he had been chasing more clearly now. He was thin and stooped with age and a lifetime of hard work. His cap and heavy, waterproof apron marked him as a bath attendant.
Ambrose recognized him. The man was known in the baths as Old Henry.
“I’m afraid that it is your extraordinarily bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight,” Trimley said from the vaulted opening. “I really cannot allow you to tell the police that you saw me at the scene of Larkin’s murder, now can I?”
He took a few steps closer to Old Henry. The lamp that marked the entrance to the hall gleamed on the revolver in his hand.
He raised the gun.
“Please, don’t kill me, sir,” Henry begged.
Ambrose moved deliberately, making a small, soft sound.
Trimley stiffened and swung quickly around, searching the shadows.
“Who’s there?” he demanded. “Show yourself.”
“Let the attendant go, Trimley,” Ambrose said from a veil of darkness. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Trimley stared hard in the direction of the curtained booths. “You’re the one who took the girls away from the castle. Have you finally decided to do business with us? We’ll make you a
handsome offer for the girls. We’ll want the teacher, too, of course. Can’t let her live. She knows too much.”
“Let the attendant go and we can discuss that subject.”
“Why does the damned attendant matter so much to you?” Trimley asked. “Does he know something of importance?”
To a man like Trimley other people had value only if they could help further one’s own goals. Money and power were clearly the prime motivators for him.
“Rest assured,” Ambrose said meaningfully, “he is more important than you can even begin to guess.”
Trimley cast a quick, frowning glance at the trembling attendant. “I find that difficult to believe.”
Ambrose thought about the lamps that had been lit throughout the baths that evening and decided to gamble on the logic of the situation.
“Larkin never told you about the attendant, did he?” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Use your head, Trimley. Why do you think Larkin trusted him to come here tonight to turn up the lamps?”
“He’s just a servant. Turning up the lamps is one of his tasks.”
“You didn’t know Larkin very well, did you? There were very few people on the face of the earth whom he trusted completely. Evidently you were not one of them.”
“That’s not true.” Trimley seemed offended. “He considered me his partner. He trusted me.”
“Partner.” Ambrose laughed humorlessly. “Yet he never told you the reason why this attendant was here tonight.”
“What in blazes do you mean by that?”
“Larkin and the attendant were old acquaintances,” Ambrose said, spinning out the tale in the easy, effortless manner his father and grandfather had taught him.
Throw in a few ounces of detail, lad, and they’ll buy the whole pound of smoke.
“They came up out of the stews together. This man saved Larkin’s life once, a long time ago. Larkin did not forget that sort of service.”