Part 10 (2/2)

After a moment's hesitation, Tubby turned back to the stairs, and for a time the company sat in shocked silence. Alice noted that the rain had ceased, and she saw the halo of a gas-lamp outside along Fingal Street. Henrietta Billson had gone away, and Alice's weariness had completely disappeared, although her headache had not. She made up her mind that she would defend Miss Bracken if she must, if only in order to save Tubby the certain remorse of further abusing the woman whom his uncle had been fond of the uncle who at any moment might walk in through the door, in which case Tubby would despise himself until his dying day.

Tubby reappeared on the stairs, clutching something in his hand, although it was not apparently an ivory jewel case. He looked uncertain rather than angry, and when he was several feet away from Miss Bracken he stopped short and held out his open palm on which sat the three silver spoons.

”What's this, then?” Hillman asked, looking hard at Tubby.

”It's three silver spoons upon which you can see the Frobisher crest, sir. I'll forgive you for asking impertinent questions, but you'd best keep silent from this point hence. I'll say again, this is none of your business.”

”Impertinent? I'm impertinent? You accuse this poor woman of stealing valuable jewels and now you throw these three spoons into her face? Flash-plate spoons, if I'm any judge.”

”Solid silver, and you're no judge, sir. Come, what are these doing in your possession, ma'am?”

”I pinched them is what, you fat devil. I saw my Gilbert die today, and one thing I knew for certain was that his bleeding nephew would put me out onto the street, as you've already threatened to do, because you're a vile piece of dog waste with the heart of a dried pea. I loved Mr. Frobisher, you fat pig, and I took those three spoons to remember him by, that's all. But you've got them now. You won't starve after all, now that you've got something to spoon up your swill.”

”Indeed I do have them now. Your Gilbert indeed.”

”Then you'd best summon the police so that I can be hanged. By G.o.d, I long to be hanged after speaking with the likes of you.”

”What of the jewels?” asked Mr. Smythe.

”Still missing,” Tubby began, but just then there was the scuffing of footsteps on the stairs and William Billson appeared, holding his hand out in front of him. In it lay a jewelry box made of ivory and inlaid with gold.

”I found this beneath the bed, sir, when Hopeful and I were sweeping out. It fell from Mr. Gilbert Frobisher's bag, I don't doubt.”

Tubby stared at it for a long moment while Miss Bracken audibly wept. After a moment Tubby let the spoons fall to the carpet from his open hand, took the jewelry case from Billson, and moved wearily up the stairs once again, saying nothing and not looking back until Mr. Hillman said, ”Hah! And I'm impertinent!”

Tubby turned and looked hard at him now, and for a moment there was cold murder in his eye, but he commanded himself and walked on. When Tubby was out of view, Alice rose from her chair, picked up the three spoons, and looked meaningfully at Miss Bracken, who was very quick with a lie. She set the spoons on the table atop Allie Sloper's Half Holiday and went away toward the stairs herself the lamentable end of a too-long day.

”Your room is all atanto, gents,” she heard Billson say as she ascended the stairs, and then she heard Smythe call for a bottle of Champagne for the lady. In her room Alice pushed the dresser in front of the door connecting her room to that of Hillman and Smythe. She prepared herself for bed and then knelt at the bedside and prayed that Langdon was alive and well. She let the prayer rest in her mind as she fell asleep.

Some time later, Alice awoke in the moonlit room, unsure of the time and of what had awakened her. Then she heard a soft knock on the door, and she slipped from the bed and walked to it, seeing when she did that the key that had been in the lock earlier lay on the floor, where it had apparently fallen out of the keyhole a strange occurrence, but no less strange than this midnight visitor. There was another tentative knock. She picked up the key and unlocked the door, opening it a crack and peering out into the dim hallway, seeing a girl dressed in a long black skirt, with gla.s.s bangles on her wrist and an embroidered velvet cap. Recognizing her but confounded by her presence, Alice swung the door open, and the girl, holding a finger to her lips, slipped into the room.

”Theodosia Loftus!” Alice whispered. ”What on earth...?” But abruptly she knew what on earth, and her heart filled with gladness. ”Is he alive?”

”Yes, ma'am,” Theodosia said, a smile on her face to be the bearer of good tidings.

Alice sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed and wept. Theodosia put her hand on Alice's shoulder and said, ”The Professor found us on the Heath, ma'am, near Wood Pond, past suppertime. He'd come up through the cellar of the old manse and out through the well on the green that's hid by a copse. He was put through some difficulties underground, in the caves as he put it a bruised rib, like as not, and a piece torn half out of his scalp, but we patched him up straightaway, brandied and fed him, and he's put up at the Spaniards, which I believe you know. He said to say it's the very same room, ma'am, that you'd ken what he meant by saying so.”

”The Spaniards? Indeed I do know it. I'll go there now. Just you wait for me, if you will, Theodosia.” She rose from the bed, but Theodosia shook her head and took her arm.

”You mustn't, ma'am. He fears you'll be followed, and he wants to remain hid until he finds out what's what. Only you and his friends must know he's alive for the moment. No one else, for there's a danger in it, he says. You're to have patience, he says, for he'll come to this very inn at two o'clock this very afternoon, if you'll wait upon him then.”

Alice nearly collapsed from the news. She sat down on the bed again. ”Today, you tell me? Is it tomorrow, then? Thank G.o.d. I'll see him this very day!”

”Yes, ma'am,” she said smiling. ”It's well past midnight.”

”Tell me, Theodosia the older man, Mr. Frobisher, he was with the Professor?”

”No, ma'am. The Professor was alone. He mentioned the man you speak of, but they were separated and the Professor came on alone. He wants to tell you that if they were to search for Mr. Frobisher they could go down below in the same manner that he came up. And he said that he half believes that there was no accident that it was done a-purpose and that he means to discover who if he can. They're to think him dead, do you see?”

”Yes,” Alice said, ”quite right.”

”And one last thing I have to say, ma'am, is that the Professor wonders can you ask the police whether the man Harry was murdered.”

”Perhaps it was Harrow?”

”Indeed it must have been. That's all...”

But just then there was a low voice in the hallway Tubby's voice.

”Peeping at keyholes, are we, Mr. Hillman?” Tubby said, clear but low, as if he was averse to awakening anyone.

Alice and Theodosia sat stock-still. Alice realized abruptly that the door key was in her hand now, and she remembered that it had been lying mysteriously on the floor. Someone Hillman must have pushed it from the keyhole in order to peer into the room.

”I suggest that you and I step out into the byway for a brief const.i.tutional,” Tubby said. ”I admonish you not to call out. I have a proposition for you, in fact, which one man might make more use of than two, if you catch my meaning.”

”I do not,” Mr. Hillman said, ”but I'm a man of business, and I'll listen to you. Mind your manners, however. And you catch my meaning, cully, or else catch my knife.”

Footfalls dwindled away. Alice stood up and walked to the door, where she put the key back into the keyhole. They spoke for several minutes more, and then Alice asked, ”Where is your father, Theodosia?”

”With Mr. Billson, in the kitchen.”

”Do they know each other, then, Mr. Loftus and Mr. Billson?”

”No, ma'am. The Professor gave my old dad a note, you see so that Mr. Billson would know us. We were in luck that he was still up and about, and it was easy for us to slip in quiet like. He knows some of what you know, ma'am, does Mr. Billson.”

”I see. Go then, Theodosia. You and your father have a long trudge back to the Heath. I thank you with all my heart. If you see my husband give him my love ten times over, and tell him that we'll carry on at our end as best we can, including looking into Mr. Harrow's death. Tell him that I feared that something was afoot and that I saw an explosion that collapsed the embankment before he was trapped underground. He must be on his guard.”

”Yes, ma'am. I'll tell him those things if I can.”

”Be off now, and come visit us in Aylesford. I've framed the picture you painted and hung it in the parlor. I treasure it.”

Theodosia nodded and shook Alice's hand as if they had just made a bargain. Alice unlocked the door to let her out. The hallway was empty, and she watched until Theodosia had disappeared down the stairs before she shut and re-locked the door, wound a woolen scarf tightly around the doork.n.o.b and the key, and then wedged a chair under the k.n.o.b. She returned to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, her fears swept away. She said a quick prayer of thanksgiving, shut her eyes, and found that her mind was turning on the Spaniards and on the lovely time that she and Langdon had spent there a time of great happiness, and not the last such time, by Heaven.

When she was halfway between sleeping and waking she heard what might have been a drawn-out shriek. Now the night was silent, however. She listened to that silence until she heard footfalls pa.s.sing by in the hall. A door opened and shut Tubby's door, it seemed to her. Alice considered that he had been in a deadly mood this evening, quite at the end of his rope. She had seen him in a deadly mood before, and she wondered whether Mr. Hillman was lying incoherent in the alley. Then she discovered that she was indifferent to the fate of Mr. Hillman, and she fell asleep.

TWENTY.

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