“Good-bye!” she said, then she led Olga—still stuffing her expensive jacket into the leather case—down the rickety steps into the cellar, just as the doorbell began to ring insistently.
“Come on,” she hissed. Glancing round she saw Olga shift the bag to her left hand. Shadows masked her right. “Come on, this way.”
She led Olga along a narrow tunnel walled with mildewed books, past a row of pigeonholes, and then an upright piano that had seen better days. She stopped, gestured Olga behind her, then levered the piano away from the wall. A dank hole a yard in diameter gaped in the exposed brickwork behind it, dimly lit from the other side. “Get in,” she ordered.
“But—”
“Do it!” She could already hear footsteps overhead.
Olga crawled into the hole. “Keep going,” Miriam told her, then knelt down and hurried after her. She paused to drag the piano back into position, grunting with effort, then stood up.
“Where are we?” Olga whispered.
“Not safe yet. Come on.” The room was freezing cold, and smelled of damp and old coal. She led Olga up the steps at the end and out through the gaping door into a larger cellar, then immediately doubled back. Next to the doorway there was another one, this time closed. Another two stood opposite. Miriam opened her chosen door and beckoned Olga inside, then shut it.
“Where—”
“Follow me.” The room was dark until Miriam pulled out a compact electric flashlight. It was half full of lumber, but there was an empty patch in the wall opposite, leading back parallel to Burgeson’s cellar. She ducked into it and found the next tunnel, set in the wall below the level of the stacked firewood. “You see where we’re going? Come on.”
The tunnel went on and on, twisting right at one point. Miriam held the flashlight in her mouth, proceeding on hands and knees and trying not to tear her clothes. She was going to look like a particularly grubby housemaid when she surfaced, she decided. She really hoped Olga was wrong about the visitor, but she had a nasty hunch that she wouldn’t be seeing Burgeson again for some time.
The tunnel opened up into another cellar, hidden behind a decaying rocking horse, a broken wardrobe, and a burned bed frame with bare metal springs like skeletal ribs. Miriam stood up and dusted herself off as best she could, then made room for Olga. Olga pulled a face. “Ugh! That was filthy. Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Miriam said quietly.
“It was the same man,” Olga added. “About six and a half feet tall, a big bull with a bushy moustache. And two more behind him dressed identically in blue. King’s men?”
“Probably. Sounds like Inspector Smith to me. Hmm. Hold this.” Miriam passed her the flashlight and continued to brush dirt and cobwebs out of the pinafore: It had started out white, and at best it would be gray by the time she surfaced. “Right, I think we’re just about ready to surface.”
“Where?”
“The next street over, in a backyard.” Miriam pulled the door open to reveal wooden steps leading up toward daylight. “Come on. Put the flashlight away and for God’s sake hide the gun.”
They surfaced between brick walls, a sky the color of a slate roof above them. Miriam unlatched the gate and they slipped out, two hard-faced women, one in a maid’s uniform and the other in a green much-patched suit that had seen better days. They were a far cry from the dignified widow and her young companion who had called on Burgeson’s emporium twenty minutes earlier.
“Quick.” Miriam guided Olga onto the first tram to pass. It would go sufficiently close to home to do. “Two fourpenny tickets, please.” She paid the conductor and sat down, feeling faint. She glanced round the tram, but nobody was within earshot. “That was too close for comfort,” she whispered.
“What was it?” Olga asked quietly, sitting next to her.
“We weren’t there. They can’t prove anything. There’s no bullion on Erasmus’s premises, and he’s a sick man. Unless we were followed from the works to his shop…” Miriam stopped. “He said some housebreakers were going to hit on us tonight,” she said slowly. “This is not good news.”
“Housebreakers.” Olga’s face was a mask of grim anticipation. “Do you mean what I think you intend to say? Blackguards with knives?”
“Not necessarily. He said two men were asking around a drinking house for bravos who’d like to take their coin. One of them looked Oriental.”
Olga tensed. “I see,” she said quietly.
“Indeed.” Miriam nodded. “I think tonight we’re going to see some questions answered. Oriental, huh?” She grinned angrily. “Time to play host for the long-lost relatives…”
The big stone house was set well back from the curving road, behind a thick hedge and a low stone wall. Its nearest neighbors were fifty yards away, also set back and sheltered behind stone walls and hedges. Smoke boiled from two chimneys, and the lights in the central hall burned bright in the darkness, but there were no servants. On arriving home Miriam had packed Jane and her husband Ronald the gardener off to a cheap hotel with a silver guinea in hand and the promise of a second to come against their silence. “I want no questions asked or answered,” Miriam said firmly. “D’you understand?”
“Yes’m,” said Jane, bobbing her head skeptically. It was clear that she harbored dark suspicions about Olga, and was wondering if her mistress was perhaps prone to unspeakable habits: a suspicion that Miriam was happy to encourage as a decoy from the truth.
“That’ll do,” Miriam said quietly, watching from the landing as they trudged down the road toward the tram stop and the six-fifteen service into town. “No servants, no witnesses. Right?”
“Right,” Olga echoed. “Are you sure you want me to go through with this?”
“Yes, I want you to do it. But do it fast, I don’t want to be alone longer than necessary. How are your temporary tattoos?”
“They’re fine. Look, what you told me about Matthias. If Brill’s working for—”
“She isn’t,” Miriam said firmly. “If she wanted me dead I’d be dead, okay? Get over it. If she’s hiding anything, it’s something else—Angbard, probably. Bring her over here and if the bad guys don’t show we’ll just dig out a bottle of wine and have a late-morning lie-in tomorrow, alright?”
“Right,” Olga said dubiously. Then she headed downstairs, for the kitchen door and the walk to the spot beside the greenhouse where Miriam had cleared the snow away.
Miriam watched her go, more apprehensive than she cared to admit. Alone in the house in winter, every creak and rustle seemed like a warning of a thief in the night. The heating gurgled ominously. Miriam retired to her bedroom and changed into an outfit she’d brought over on her last trip. The Velcro straps under her arms gave her some trouble, but the boots fitted well and she felt better for the bulletproof vest. With her ski mask on hand, revolver loaded and sitting on her hip, and night vision goggles strapped to her forehead, she felt even more like an imposter than she did when she was dressed up to the nines to meet the nobs. Just as long as they take me as seriously, she thought tensely. Then she picked up her dictaphone and checked the batteries and tape one last time—fully charged, fully rewound, ready for action. I hope this works.
The house felt dreadfully empty without either the servants or Olga about. I’ve gotten used to having other people around, Miriam realized. When did that happen?
She walked downstairs slowly, pausing on the landing to listen for signs of anything amiss. At the bottom she opened the door under the staircase and ducked inside. The silent alarm system was armed. Ronald the gardener had grumbled when she told him to bury the induction wire a foot underground, just inside the walls, but he’d done as she’d told him to when she reminded him who was paying. The control panel—utterly alien to this world—was concealed behind a false panel in the downstairs hall. She turned her walkie-talkie on, clipped the hands-free earphone into place, and continued her lonely patrol.