“All the bottles and jars are locked away,” the innkeeper said. “He had not taken anything to eat before the attack came on since his breakfast. Perhaps, though, you should take away the bottle that was opened from the Hall and lock it up in your medicine cabinet.”
Crowther looked up in surprise. “You think it unsafe here?”
Michaels shrugged and spread out his thick fingers in front of him.
“I’m not sure, Mr. Crowther. There are two bottles. One had been drunk from, the other not. Take the opened one away with you for my peace of mind. I’d rather not say what I think. Hardly know myself.”
Crowther turned back to his wine without commenting further. They remained in silence till the bottle was empty and the sky outside the kitchen window was beginning to thin from a summer dawn to its first full light. The door opened, and a young-looking woman came in with a firm step and a bundle of linens that she took out through the back door. She returned and laid her hand on Michaels’s shoulder. He grasped it and held it briefly to his cheek. She bent over to kiss the top of his head, and Crowther felt his heart reach out. He had not seen Michaels’s wife before, had not imagined so trim and young a woman, had not imagined they could portray such an allegory of domestic support. She seemed to feel his eyes, and looked up at him.
“Mr. Crowther, you and my husband should go home and rest now. Hannah and I will keep vigil.”
He nodded, but when he stood, his feet took him upstairs again to the sick room. There were herbs burning in a little brass dish on one side of the room, and candles had been set on either side of where Joshua lay. Hannah sat in the chair that Crowther had occupied most of the night, and she stood hurriedly when the door creaked open. Crowther waved her back into her seat, and looked at the face of the body on the bed. How strange it was, how dead the dead looked. Joshua could never be mistaken for a man at rest. The body was empty and senseless; whatever had been human had left him. He noticed Hannah wipe her eyes.
“You were fond of your master?”
She nodded, looking a little frightened. “Yes, sir. And …”
Perhaps tiredness was making him gentle, for his voice was softer than usual. “What, child?”
She sighed and laid her hand on the bed beside her master. “Squire Bridges was asking all sorts of things, about the poison for the mice. I’m afraid they’ll say it was my fault, sir.” Her hand patted the arm of the corpse like a woman settling a child. “As if I’d ever hurt him.”
Crowther was silent for a second, looking at her profile in the candlelight.
“I know you did not.” She smiled up at him, quick and grateful. “And if you have any problem finding another position, you will be welcome in my household.”
“I should like that, sir.” She looked back down at the body beside her. “But my place is here for now.”
Crowther bowed with no less respect than he would have shown to a duchess, left the room, and pausing only to receive a bundle from Michaels with a heavy nod, walked out of the front door and back to his own house.
2
Susan thought that having told her brother her news she would sleep, but she was more awake than ever. She stepped softly over to the shutter and pulled it open a way, flinching as the brightness of the morning hit her eyes. The room she and Jonathan were sharing was on the upper floor of the house, and she could see across the city strange plumes of smoke exhaling into the sky as if half a dozen giants about London were smoking their first pipes of the day. Something caught her eye and she looked down. The thin man who seemed to be interested in Mr. Graves was looking up at her. He caught her eye and swept off his hat with a flourish that made her smile. Then he looked either way along the road and lifted his hand to beckon her. She frowned. He beckoned again. She turned back into the room. Mr. Graves did not like this man, she had seen that. In fact, he did not seem comfortable when this man was around. Perhaps if she asked him, he would go away. She did not want Mr. Graves to be uncomfortable. She wanted him, she realized, to stay as near to her and Jonathan as it was possible to keep him.
Giving herself a firm little nod, she dressed quickly, padding through the sleeping house and turning the key to the street door as quietly as she could. One of the under-maids was cleaning out the grate in the front parlor, and she turned in surprise to look at her. Susan gave her a tight little smile and slipped out into the street while the maid, hardly older than Susan herself, was still looking about in confusion.
The street was quiet still, but Susan approached Molloy bravely enough.
“You are Miss Adams.”
His face was very lined, but not yellow. She found herself strangely reassured, and almost corrected him, before she remembered the dangers of her new name and replied with a nod.
“And you are Mr. Molloy. You make Mr. Graves uncomfortable.”
He let out a crack of laughter that made her jump back a step. He put one hand up to reassure her while producing a handkerchief with the other and dabbing his eyes.
“Oh, do I, miss? Do I indeed? Well, it is an uncomfortable thing to owe money, and a more uncomfortable thing still to be held to account for it. Uncomfortable or not, I must be paid today, or I shall see Mr. Graves taken up for debt by dinnertime. I have a wife and child to feed.”
“What do you mean, ‘taken up’?” She frowned up at him.
“Prison, missy,” he said, folding his handkerchief very carefully again and putting it in his waistcoat. “He must stay there if I cannot have my money.”
Susan put her head on one side. “Are your wife and child hungry?”
He looked rather surprised. “No, sunbeam, not yet. But they may come to be for the want of those twenty shillings, some day. The world has a way of spinning awful quick and sudden, you know that.” She nodded slowly, there was truth in that. “And so we must keep our friends about us, and money is the best friend I know.”
She opened her eyes at him. “Mr. Graves is the best friend my brother and I have. And you want to take him away.”
He stuck out his chin. “I do not. I just want the money.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked past her into the street. Susan continued to examine the end of his chin.
“I don’t have any,” she said. He still kept up his casual survey of the street over the top of her head and shrugged. She bit her lip, then breathed in sharply and began to pull on the gold chain about her neck. “But I do have this ring.”
He looked down quickly enough then. His eyes caught the gold gleam of the ring and the sparkle of the brilliants. His voice became low and lustful.
“That’d do it, girly. That’d do it! We’d be all square if you hand that over.”
“If I give it to you, you’ll leave us and not take Mr. Graves away?”
He bobbed his head. “He’ll be as safe as safe when I have that in my hand, sunbeam.”
“It was my mother’s.” She said it softly.
Molloy glanced up and down the street again. “Your mother would want you to keep your friends about you, don’t you think?”
She thought. She would always have the miniature, and she would rather have Mr. Graves than the ring. Susan felt tears behind her eyes. She blinked them away. Strange how these little things could help keep Graves safe. She wished the yellow-faced man had given her a chance to bargain.
“I must keep the chain so Miss Chase does not know it is gone.”
She reached behind her neck to unfasten the clasp. Molloy paused a moment, then shrugged.