Sarah, the little scullery maid, answered before anyone else could, her face bright with curiosity. “A police constable! Come to talk to Mr. Kittering. I wonder if—”
“You shut your mouth,” Ann said, interrupting her. “It isn’t our place to be speculating about the master’s affairs.” But there was no conviction behind it, and she kept looking up.
The word police had made Eliza’s skin jump, as if she’d been splashed with cold water. “Scotland Yard sent a man here?”
“Nothing to fear,” Ned Sayers told her, sidling close. “If it’s burglars they’re worried about, we’ll deal with that right quick. But should you need comforting—”
Eliza tried to sidle away without being obvious, and was helped by Mr. Warren, the butler, who cuffed him sharply. “‘Comforting’ is not what Mr. Kittering pays you for, Sayers. Move along, everyone; Ann is right. This is none of our affair. What would people say, if they saw us hovering about here, like prying little mice? Back to work, the lot of you.”
Grumbling and speculating, the clump of people began to break up. Eliza moved away from the stairs without paying the slightest scrap of attention to where she was going. Her heart was beating double-quick. Scotland Yard, here at Cromwell Road. It might be nothing—burglars, or some difficulty with Mr. Kittering’s business, or a thousand other things that weren’t her concern.
Or it might be a Special Branch man, asking after an Irishwoman with black hair and hazel eyes, answering to Elizabeth O’Malley. Or even a young woman matching that description, without the name and the accent.
I must find out. Her mind began to work properly once more, like a cart getting traction in deep mud. She followed Cook and Sarah back to the kitchen, then stepped into the scullery, where she changed out her mop and bucket for a bottle of ox gall, a soft brush, and a rag. Then she hurried upstairs, to the billiards room.
It was, of course, empty. Eliza had already cleaned the grate that morning, and Ann had dusted the pictures and animal trophies; with the Kitterings’ three sons already married, and Mr. Kittering more often socializing at his club, the room saw only occasional use. Mrs. Kittering would never set foot in such a masculine domain—and besides, at present she was busy answering letters in her boudoir, enjoying her last few minutes of ignorance before someone came to tell her of the damage her family’s respectability was taking from the constable in the house. Louisa was still shut up in her room, and Eliza should have taken advantage of that… but first she had to know what the constable was doing here. Talking to Louisa would do her no good at all if she went to prison ten minutes later.
She dug a small fragment out of the coal scuttle, then went on silent feet to the room’s other door—the one adjoining Mr. Kittering’s library.
There Eliza dropped the coal onto the carpet and ground it in with a merciless heel. It left a gratifyingly black smear. She pocketed what remained of the fragment, then knelt and virtuously began to clean the stain away, every scrap of her attention bent upon the voices coming through the door.
“I fail to see what concern this is of mine,” Mr. Kittering said.
Muffled though it was by the door, the peeler’s reply made her spill too much ox gall over the stain. “’Tis a matter of general safety, sir. Sure ye all will rest better once we catch these fellows and get them locked away.”
Spoken in the clear accents of western Ireland, undiluted by a childhood in London. A great many constables came from Irish stock—and almost every last member of the Special Irish Branch.
She wanted to believe this man was the ordinary sort of constable, but couldn’t lie to herself that convincingly. Eliza bit her lip and forced herself to continue working. Mr. Kittering said, “We certainly would be pleased to see Scotland Yard do its job. But what I do not understand is why you’re sniffing around South Kensington. This is a respectable neighborhood; we have no Irish here.”
“Not even servants, sir?”
The vulgarity of Mr. Kittering’s reply would have given his wife the vapors. “Shiftless, filthy lot—kept an Irish bootboy, once, and he repaid us by stealing. Men like you, Sergeant Quinn, are a credit to your race, but regrettably rare. The rest are good enough for simple labor, nothing more.”
“I understand, sir.”
Eliza tasted blood, and realized her teeth were clenched hard on both her lips, as if nailing them shut to prevent any sound escaping. Aye, we’re good enough for my father to lose an arm digging your damned railways—good enough to make your clothes for pennies a day and pick through your sewers for lost rubbish to sell—but no more than that. And if we starve, or our children die of disease, then surely that’s God’s hand at work, keeping the vermin in check. Sometimes I wish the Fenians would blow the bloody lot of ye straight to Hell.
With thoughts like that possessing her mind, she heard little of what Quinn said next—until she was broken out of her distraction by the word “Whitechapel.”
“Most of the men involved are American Irish,” Quinn went on, while Eliza cursed herself and wondered what she’d missed. “’Tis fair certain we are they’re getting their dynamite from the United States—possibly routing it through France. But they have allies here in London, and we think one of them has come to South Kensington.”
“Well, you won’t find any such criminals in our household, I assure you.”
With the same neutral politeness he’d been using all conversation, the constable said, “I’ve been asked to check all the households, sir; it’s no reflection on you. If you do learn anything, though, don’t hesitate to say. You can write to me at the Special Branch offices in Scotland Yard, or to Chief Inspector Williamson, who’s overseeing these investigations. You may be sure we’ll be discreet.”
“I doubt I shall,” Mr. Kittering said, with monumental disdain, “but very well. Carry on with the good work, Sergeant Quinn.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The stain was only half dealt with. Eliza stared at it, trying to will herself to clean the rest away. Mr. Kittering’s words had left a bitter taste in her mouth. What did she care if these rich toffs had a smear on their expensive Turkish carpet? The entire room disgusted her: all this space, dedicated to billiards, when it was more than Mrs. Darragh and her daughter had for living in. And how many Whitechapel beggars could have been fed on the money that instead went for Chinese silk curtains and Moorish lamps?
Filled with that fury, Eliza snatched up her rag and left the stain where it was, soaked in gall. She almost stormed out the billiards room door, but caught herself at the last instant; although the constable was gone, she could hear Mr. Kittering on the landing, speaking quietly with the butler, Mr. Warren. She waited until the master went upstairs, and Mr. Warren down to the ground floor. Then she slipped through to the servants’ staircase. There would be no going up to talk to Louisa, not right now. Not with Mr. and Mrs. Kittering above, discussing the untrustworthy Irish.
She wondered if she should run. If Special Branch had followed her this far… they must have caught wind of her in Whitechapel, when she called in her favors there. But no, she couldn’t leave, not when she had such a perfect chance to make Louisa Kittering talk!
Eliza slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the tattered old photograph there. For Owen’s sake, she had to be brave. As soon as she learned what Miss Kittering knew, she could run again. Hide under a different name, hunt the faeries, get Owen back; once that was done, she could do anything. Even leave London, if she had to—though that would be like carving out her own heart, to abandon the only home she’d ever known.