The Sleeping Partner (30 page)

Miss Tolerance assured Bart that she did. “Did you see all this yourself?”

“‘Appen I did,” he said proudly. “Ted wrote it all down for you, miss.” Bart pulled a grubby twist of his paper from his pocket and offered it to her.

Miss Tolerance put it aside as, at that moment, Ted returned Keefe just behind. The porter carried a large tray with cheese, bread, several small pies, a pitcher of milk and, in state on a china plate, the requested beefsteak.

“Thought as how the young’uns might like something to eat after their exertions, miss.”

“Very well thought of, Keefe. I thank you.” It was clear that a bond of some sort had been forged between the porter and her spies. Miss Tolerance put aside the stained rag, having done as much for Bart as she could, and offered him the steak, which he clapped to his face at once.

“Please eat, boys,” Miss Tolerance urged.

It was not to be thought that any conversation might be had while the youngsters applied themselves to their meal. Bart’s wound began to bleed again as he ate, and it was all Miss Tolerance could do to keep the gore from mixing with his milk and meat pie. She took the food from his hands, bound his crown in a rakish bandage, then let him reunite with his meal.

“You may tell your fellows you were a hero today. And you as well,” she told Ted. “For fetching Mr. Keefe.”

Ted, crumbs of cheese adhering gummily to his teeth, grinned. “Best adventure I ever ‘ad, miss.”

Miss Tolerance poured him more milk.

When the boys had finished everything on the tray to the last crumb of pie crust, Miss Tolerance paid them their stipend with an additional vail for heroism. This new source of income impressed Bart despite the shaking he had sustained.

“P’raps you’d like to ‘ire us on full time, Miss. As—” he sought for the word. “Some’un to guard you, like?”

“You propose yourself as my bodyguard?”

“Done good for you just now, ain’t we?”

Miss Tolerance regarded Bart’s bloodied collar and the bandage on his crown and wondered what his mother would make of the idea. “I cannot waste your talents on brute force,” she said. You are more useful to me in your present assignment.”

Bart was determined. “There’s the other’ns for that, Miss.”

“But without your leadership—”

“Well, yeah. They’d be ‘opeless wivvout I tell ‘em what to do.”

Miss Tolerance smiled. “Just so. Bart, I must ask you to remain my secret weapon.”

“Secret weapon? Well, I might do, I s’pose.”

The boys left; Miss Tolerance sent Keefe to bespeak a hack at the stables and changed from her walking dress to the breeches, coat and boots that were better suited for travel on horseback through the city.

“What did you with Mr. Worke?”

The porter looked pleased. “Told him if he ever come round here again or thought to touch so much as a nail in your shoe, I’d break his crown for him.”

“I hope he was suitably chastened?”

Keefe nodded. “There’s them that remember me from my prize-fighting days, Miss Sarah. Happen that ‘un did. He won’t come round no more.”

Miss Tolerance thanked him. She did not doubt Worke would avoid Manchester Square. Thoughtfully she picked up the walking stick Worke had dropped and ran her thumb over the handle, a rough carving of an elephant’s head. It was proof that Worke had already attacked her once, and well away from Keefe’s observation. Striking at her on Threadneedle Street might have been the clerk’s own idea, but she did not believe Worke had approached her here on his own authority. It was time to confront Abner Huwe and insist that he call off his dog.

She took the cane and set out, not for Pitfield Street and Mr. John Thorpe, but for Fox Street and Amisley and Pound Drayage. She wore her small sword and carried her pistol, half-cocked and ready, in the pocket of her Gunnard greatcoat.

Miss Tolerance urged her hired mount through the busy streets, east past Gray’s Inn toward Shadwell, thinking of Worke’s attack upon her and the reason for it. He had demanded the coffer of cinchona bark, and spoken of it as his own. But when he learned the box had gone to Bow Street his reaction had been fear, and not, she thought, fear of the Runners. Miss Tolerance thought he was afraid of what Abner Huwe would do when he learned where the box had gone.

Was the box Huwe’s then? What had Joshua Glebb told her the day before? That the first two privateers to reach the Walcheren encampment had belonged to Huwe, and had providentially borne chests of cinchona bark. But Huwe made his business shipping goods that belonged to others; he was unlikely to trade in bark himself. Something tickled her, something elusive. How was it that Abner Huwe’s ships had arrived at Walcheren so soon and with bark in such quantity? These were interesting questions, and might be important to her later. For the moment, however, she wanted only to tell Huwe to call his dog to heel so that she might return her attention to the matter of Evadne Thorpe.

The greasy, rancid smell which rolled off the Thames had a moldy note today. The mist had become rain, the light was gloomy, and people darted from doorway to doorway, holding papers or rain shields above their heads. Water guttered off the brim of Miss Tolerance’s hat; she was very grateful she had decided to change costumes before coming to Fox Street.

She tied her mount to a post near Amisley and Pound; the fly-specked window was fogged with condensation, and from the street she could see nothing inside but the glow of lamps. Miss Tolerance gathered her courage, put Worke’s walking stick under her arm, and entered the office.

Only the elderly clerk she had noticed on her first visit was there. The old man, hunched miserably over the slanted top of his narrow desk, did not acknowledge her arrival. His nose was close to his work, and he dipped his pen in the inkwell and ignored her vigorously. The desk at which Tom Proctor had sat four days before was empty. So was Worke’s.

Miss Tolerance cleared her throat.

The clerk wrote to the end of the line before he looked up. “Aye, sir?” Either his eyesight of his powers of observation were lacking.

“I must speak with Mr. Abner Huwe,” she said firmly.

The old man shook his head. “Mr. Huwe is not avai—”

“My business is urgent.”

“That don’t put him here if he ain’t here,” the clerk said.

“When will he return?”
And will he be preceded by Worke?
Miss Tolerance had no ambition to encounter the big man until she had spoken to Huwe. “Truly, my business cannot wait.” She underlined the sentiment by making a show of reaching for her pocketbook. That caught the old man’s eye.

“Might happen he’ll be available shortly,” he admitted. “If ye’d like to wait for him?”

It was arranged, with the tactful exchange of half a crown, that she would wait in Mr. Huwe’s office for his return. The clerk kept calling her “sir.” Miss Tolerance did not enlighten him; she allowed herself to be seated in a chair in Huwe’s paper cluttered office. The moment the old man left, however, curiosity impelled her to inspect the room. There was little enough to tell from it; the paper stacked on the desk and shelves, spindled or gathered into folders, appeared to be in the main bills of lading, maps, and correspondence. Miss Tolerance kept half an eye on the door to the outer office lest she be discovered in her investigation. She stepped to the rear of the office and tried the latch of the door. It was not locked.

The room beyond the door was windowless and unlit; what she could see was in shadow. By the light from the office she could tell that the room beyond was small. There was a table, a stool, and beyond that a cot. Perhaps Abner Huwe slept here when his business kept him late. Miss Tolerance turned away, then turned back. Something was wrong.

There was a pair of shoes under the table: ladies’ slippers of kid or calfskin, pale cream or yellow, the sort of shoes a young woman might wear in her home but not robust enough for London streets. They were as out of place as a daffodil in a midden.

Miss Tolerance looked back at the door to the outer office, saw nothing, and decided the risk was worth the possibility of confirming a sudden, horrid idea. She stepped into the small room and picked up a shoe. It was neatly made, for a foot smaller than her own, embroidered on the toe with a wreath of white laurel leaves. It was meant for the foot of a young lady of quality.

Now she heard voices from the rooms beyond, the wheeze of the elderly clerk: “a gennelmun’s waitin’ for Mr. Huwe.” She dropped the slipper into the pocket of her Gunnard coat and stepped back into the office, closing the door behind her. She had imagined before that the door led to an alley, an exit from the office. Now she knew it did not, and that the old man, and whoever it was he spoke to—stood between her and escape to the street.

The door to the outer office opened and the elderly man peered in as if he expected the visitor somehow to have vanished. Watching from behind him, as implacable as a wall, was Worke.

Chapter Sixteen

For several loud beats of her heart Miss Tolerance stood silent. Perhaps Worke, like the other clerk, would take her at her seeming and believe her to be a man. If he saw through the imposture perhaps he would not immediately know her for the woman he had twice attacked. But the big man was more observant than that; she saw as if it were drawn on his face his apprehension of who stood before him. Miss Tolerance put her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Worke licked his lips. “Look what we’ve here.” His voice was soft. “Go on back to the books, Abel. I’ll see to the guest.”

Abel, looking from Worke to Miss Tolerance and back, withered visibly. He was clearly familiar with Worke in this humor and wanted no part of it. He circled Worke with a palsied shuffle and disappeared into the outer office, the door half closed behind him.

Keefe or Bart had done some damage to Worke earlier. The flesh below one eye was plummy and swollen, and a cut had scabbed over by his ear. Miss Tolerance judged it best to pretend the fight had never occurred. “Will Mr. Huwe return soon?” she asked. “I need a word with him.”

Worke grinned like a dog. “And you dressed like a camp follower? P’raps he won’t speak with
you.
”

“Perhaps he will not. I’m sure he would rather speak with me now than with the Runners later.”

“An’ why would Runners be comin’ here?” Worke moved into the room, his hands half-clenched and held away from his body as f he were prepared at any moment to seize her. “You thinkin’ to call them in?”

“Only if I cannot get satisfaction from Mr. Huwe.”

“What, with that hatpin? He thrust his chin in the direction of her still-sheathed sword. “Come to fight a duel, maybe?”

Miss Tolerance ignored that. “If Mr. Huwe is not going to return soon I will have to come back later. I have business to attend to.”

Worke drew a deep breath; he seemed to swell to fill the doorway. “You ain’t thinkin’ I’d let you leave?”

The pommel of her sword hilt was warm in Miss Tolerance’s palm. She drew the sword with a fluid motion and stood in a relaxed
garde.
“I am not thinking that you will have much choice.” She was pleased that her voice kept steady.

For a moment it appeared that the surprise of having a woman draw steel on him would win Miss Tolerance’s point. Worke stumbled back a step, straight into the door frame. The impact recalled him to himself. He stepped forward before Miss Tolerance could close with him, and reached about him until his hand found the curved head of an iron tool leaning against the wall. The thing was as long as his forearm and, by the look of it, meant for prising open crates. He held it at arm’s length in answer to Miss Tolerance’s own stance: even with one end of the bar bent backward the tool gave Worke, with his longer arms, the advantage of reach. Miss Tolerance knew that her sword would not withstand a direct hit from the bar. If Worke hit
her
with it he would break her bones—or her skull.

Miss Tolerance retreated half a step. The iron bar was heavy; wielding it would fatigue even so big a man as Worke. His stance made it plain that the sword was not his usual weapon, which might give her some advantage. Still, he was larger, his weapon heavier, and she was certain he would not scruple to kill her if he saw the chance. She must let him tire himself, or draw him away from the door or, failing that, distract him. “You killed Tom Proctor,” she said.

Worke licked his lips. “If I did? Tommy’d been stealing—”

“—Cinchona bark, I know.”

As he had on the street, Worke reacted to the mention of the box’s contents. He did not answer, but stepped toward her, moving his right hand, the hand that held the bar, from side to side, the forked tip at the height of her nose. Miss Tolerance extended her arm, her blade unwaveringly pointed at Worke’s heart, and the big man retreated again.

“Did Proctor mean to sell the bark? It would have made a nice supplement to his salary.”

“Nah, he was sick. Kep’ it for ‘imself.”

“Thus the scarf on an April day,” she murmured to herself.

“Too smart by half, Tommy was. Like you.” Worke leaned forward, poking at her with the bar’s tip. Heavy as it was, it was not a stabbing weapon, and while he was poking rather than swinging the bar Miss Tolerance could parry it on the forte of her blade. She was back
en garde
immediately. Worke swung the heavy bar back in line, but there was a tremble in his arm. The weight of the bar was taking its toll. “I’ve had
just
enough of you, you whore. I’ll break your crown proper this time.”

He raised the bar up and brought it down with crushing speed on the spot where, only a second before, Miss Tolerance had stood. His movement had telegraphed his intent. Instinctively she stepped to the side, let the bar glance off the guard of her sword, then caught the bar with her blade to bind it down as if it were a blade. When the point of the bar neared the floor she stepped on its length, pulling it from Worke’s hand. Worke, badly overbalanced, attempted to straighten up as Miss Tolerance cocked her wrist and brought the pommel of her small sword up to smash into his chin.