Claire looked at the rather large young man who stood in her parlor with his hat in his hand and an earnest expression on his face and she suddenly felt very tired and very irritated and wanted nothing more than to have a salty snack of some sort and then go back to bed and sleep for at least a month and a half.
“Do you have a name?”
“Of course I do, ma’am.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Oh, it’s Rupert, ma’am. Constable Rupert Winthrop. At your service, ma’am.”
“I didn’t ask for any. Service, that is. And please stop calling me ma’am. My name is Mrs Day.”
“Yes, ma. . Yes, Mrs Day. But you didn’t have to ask, ma’am. Mrs Day, I mean. You didn’t have to ask for anything, Mrs Day. Sir Edward sent me to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Primrose Hill is a very safe area.”
“There’s been a prison break.”
“I know that. My husband is a detective inspector with the Murder Squad. He has just been called out to find those prisoners and catch them all over again.”
“Yes, Mrs Day. I know Inspector Day, ma’am. It’s just that one of those prisoners might mean to do you harm. Bodily harm, I mean. And with your being pregnant and all. . I mean, you’re going to have a baby.”
“Am I?” Claire realized she was being very cross with this dim young man, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “I hadn’t realized. Thank you very much for the news, Constable Winthrop.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.”
“I’ll put on some tea,” Fiona said. She was doing a poor job of hiding a smile, which only made Claire feel more cross. Fiona didn’t wait for her to answer, but bustled away down the hall and through the door to the kitchen. Claire frowned at the air where Fiona had just been.
“Why would any of the prisoners mean to do me harm?”
“He’s come to your house before, Mrs Day. He’s that fellow what killed two policemen last year and your husband arrested him.”
“What, the tailor?”
“Yes, Mrs Day. His name’s Ciderhead, or something of the sort.”
“His name was Cinderhouse.”
“Yes, that’s it.” The boy beamed as though Claire had accomplished something remarkable in remembering the murderer’s name.
“And he’s coming here?” Claire pulled the top of her robe tighter around her throat.
“No, ma’am. I don’t think so. Sir Edward just wanted to be sure you were looked after. That’s all. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with you now? Prop you in the corner?”
“That sounds uncomfortable, Mrs Day. But if you want me to. .”
“No. I apologize. I’m quite tired and not at all myself.”
“Well, it is early. The sun’ll be up soon enough. If it’s all the same, I’ll sit in the hall. From there, I ought to be able to see in both directions, straight through to the dining room. And the front door, too, of course.”
“I don’t have a comfortable chair there.”
“It’s all right. I’ll stand.”
“Not at all. Help me move this.” There was a heavy armchair in front of the fireplace and she tried to pick it up, but a sudden sharp pain in her belly made her gasp and double over. Rupert was immediately standing next to her and he hefted the chair in one hand, swinging it in a wide arc away from her.
“You shouldn’t lift heavy things, Mrs Day.”
She smiled. “No, I probably shouldn’t.”
The cramp subsided and she followed behind as Rupert carried the chair through the parlor door. He set it down in the hall, sat down on it, and nodded at her. “Now you just pretend I’m not here. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Nonsense. You’ll have tea, won’t you?”
“Well. .”
“Of course you will. I’ll be right back.”
She left him there and went down the hall, through the dining room, to the kitchen. Fiona was already putting on a pot, so Claire sat down at the little table and sighed. Cinderhouse was free and roaming about London and her husband was out there, once more in grave danger. She put a hand on her swollen belly and looked up at the ceiling. Tired as she was, she knew she wouldn’t sleep until Walter came safely home.
12
Did we learn anything useful?” Day said. They walked back out through the big door in the center of Bridewell’s hub, stepping into the narrow courtyard that represented the whole of the outside world to the unwilling residents of the prison. They stopped and Day looked up at the stars.
“Depends what you’d call useful,” Hammersmith said. He was looking down at his little tablet of brown paper, the pages dog-eared from being carried around in the pocket of his rumpled jacket, pulled out and shoved back in and pulled out again. “We still don’t really know how many prisoners escaped.”
“Who do you believe?” Day said. “The head warder or the clerk?”
“I leave that sort of question to you. You point, I fetch.”
“But surely you have an opinion.”
“We don’t have to believe that one of them’s lying in order to believe that he’s wrong.”
“Of course not. But I got the distinct feeling that the head warder actually was lying. Something in the way he moved his eyes about, never quite resting them on any one thing when he spoke.”
“You noticed that?”
“I did,” Day said.
“So you see why I leave the pointing to you, while I am content to do the fetching.”
“In your imagination, we are both hunting dogs then?”
“Is there anything more apt?”
“Perhaps not. Anyway, I think there are five missing men.”
“So do I,” Hammersmith said.
Day tore his eyes away from the stars above and looked at his sergeant. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“I wanted to know what you would say.”
“And what if I’d said there were four missing men?”
“I would have silently disagreed.”
“Silently? Why silently?”
“Because I would have assumed that my opinion was the wrong one.”
“Don’t do that,” Day said. “I want to know what you think.”
Hammersmith nodded, and Day let the matter drop. He was still tense and he didn’t want to take his worries out on the sergeant.
He led the way across the courtyard to the gate, where the same warder looked them over and worked the lock and swung the heavy bars outward so that they could leave. Day wondered whether a prisoner might be able to simply walk out of the place if he laid his hands on a cheap suit of clothes or a constable’s uniform. But he said nothing, only nodded at the warder as they passed. The warder tipped his cap and swung the gate closed after them, locking himself in with the remaining prisoners, his world as small as theirs for the majority of his waking day.
The strip of poorly maintained grass outside the gate was less crowded than it had been when Day and Hammersmith had entered Bridewell. But Blacker and Tiffany still waited there. When he saw them, Blacker tapped Tiffany on the shoulder and hurried over to them.
“You’re still here,” Day said.
“Decided our time was better spent checking in with you, rather than tramping around this place without a clue,” Blacker said. “Please tell me you’ve found us a clue.”
“I think we have,” Day said. He looked at Hammersmith, who flipped through the most recently filled pages in his little pad of paper.
“Best clue we’ve got,” he said, “is this fellow Hoffmann.”
“One of the missing men?”
“Yes. Seems he’s in love with a girl,” Day said. “It’s possible he’d seek her out again, now he’s free to go after her.”
“You don’t think he’d find himself a new girl somewhere?”
“Love knows no bounds.”
“Or logic,” Hammersmith said.
“Precisely.”