Текст книги "The Thames River Murders"

Автор книги: Ashley Gardner

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I had misread her character as well. “I am honored.”

Donata sent me a little smile. “I remember you being repulsed, not honored. I am pleased you gave me another chance.”

“When you ceased trying to be shocking and allowed me to see your true self, I was happy you gave me another chance.”

Donata’s smile faded, and something entered her eyes I couldn’t read. “Is that what we will do now?”

“You flitting about London in the middle of the night, worrying the hell out of me, is just cause for anger,” I said, an edge returning to my voice. “When no one knew where you were …” I cleared my throat. “I never want to feel like that again.”

Donata’s lips parted. Whatever guardedness was in her fled, and she came swiftly to her feet.

I started to rise, polite as ever, but her hand on my chest sent me back down. My wife landed on my lap, her arms going around my neck.

“I’m used to no one caring what I do,” she said. “I had no idea you’d even notice.”

“How could you think I’d not notice?” I cupped her face. “You are my wife. You carry my child. You are like the rarest porcelain, only much more treasured.”

Her voice went soft. “Good Lord, Gabriel, you know how to melt a woman’s heart.”

“Promise me you’ll take care. Please.”

Her fingers on my face were cool. “Promise me you’ll not shout at me as though I’m a boot boy. You are kind to them, I have observed.”

“I promise … that I will try.” I could never quite tame the beast inside me.

Donata pressed a light kiss to the mouth that had raged at her. “Your bed is not very comfortable, as you have observed to me. But I think it will do.”

I agreed that it would do very well for now. I carried her there, where we tested its comfort for much of the morning. I left my walking stick behind in the sitting room when I carried her to bed and never even noticed.

***

Brewster and Hagen were enjoying a companionable smoke when Donata and I at last made our way to the carriage waiting at the end of Grimpen Lane.

They passed a corncob pipe back and forth, discussing, with grunts, the merits of different tobaccos. It was the first time I’d seen Brewster have any sort of camaraderie with Donata’s servants.

Jacinthe, the maid, had risen while Donata and I reconciled, and had taken a meal herself in the bakeshop. Jacinthe marched behind us, the disapproval on her middle-aged face showing she agreed with me about Donata’s nocturnal adventure.

My wife and I were subdued on the way home. I had a warmth in my breastbone that seared when I thought of our hour or so in my bedroom, but also a worry. Donata was not a meek, obedient wife. She would do as she pleased, when she pleased, whether I liked it or not. I saw more storms in our future.

As the carriage moved past the tall houses of Piccadilly, I asked, “Shall we adjourn to Grenville’s so that you might look at my grisly treasure?” It was after ten in the morning, and the road teemed with carts, horses, people, dogs—the metropolis going about its business.

“An excellent idea,” Donata answered. “He dislikes rising early.”

“I will never become used to the idea that any hour before one in the afternoon is early.”

“That is because you are country bred,” she said decidedly. “Rising and retiring as the sun does. We in Town draw the curtains and light the lamps, making time as we like.”

“And yet, to arrive before or after a certain hour in some places is not done,” I remarked. “So you follow the clock to some degree.”

“Only when we please. Call to Hagen and tell him to take us to Grosvenor Street. If Grenville is not awake, it shall be his own fault for missing my speculations on the corpse.”

I complied. When we arrived at Grenville’s plain front door, we found that he was indeed out of bed, and that Marianne Simmons was with him.

Chapter Nine

“Of course, Lacey, you would interrupt,” Marianne said to me as Matthias ushered us into the dining room.

Matthias had told us, upon answering the door, that Mr. Grenville was not at home, then leaned closer and whispered he knew that Grenville would be incensed if Matthias turned us away. And so we were admitted.

Marianne and Grenville sat very close together at one end of the table, a lavish breakfast spread before them. Their heads bent to each other’s as they made quiet comments, their words punctuated with soft laughter.

 Marianne wore a flowing peignoir of gray shimmering material, its placket lined with lace. Grenville was, for him, in dishabille, in a long dressing gown called a banyan, with no waistcoat, the neck of his shirt loose.

When Marianne heard my step, her amiable look fled, her frown set in, and she voiced her admonishment.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, bowing. “We did not know we would disturb you.”

Marianne spied Donata behind me, and her expression changed to one of neutrality and some caution. Marianne still did not know quite what to make of Donata.

On the one hand, Donata did not censure Grenville, or Marianne for that matter, for their public affaire de coeur, but then again, Donata was an earl’s daughter, and although she was unconventional, Marianne was still a bit nervous around her.

Grenville looked slightly more embarrassed than Marianne to be caught in a private moment, but he surged to his feet and bowed to Donata.

“Never bestir yourself,” Donata said to him. “Gabriel has brought me to look at the bones, as promised.”

Marianne’s brows climbed as Donata added another unfathomable facet to her character.

“Matthias can take us down,” I offered quickly. “Anton would not be pleased if you rushed away from his breakfast.”

“Indeed,” Grenville agreed. He had recovered his aplomb and became his usual gallant self. “Are you certain, Donata? Please do not distress yourself with this bad business.”

“I shan’t.” Donata turned away, her large shawl sliding to bare the glittering gold net over silk of her evening gown.

The waistline of the gown rode high under her bosom, the fashions of this Season perfect for hiding her increasing figure. She’d removed the necklace of heavy stones she’d worn to the opera—they now reposed in my pocket—but it was quite obvious that Donata had been out all night, and equally obvious that I had not.

Grenville, who set the standards of politeness for the ton, said not a word. Marianne did not either, though I was certain that as soon as we were in the cellars, the two would speculate about us.

Matthias led us off to the back stairs, retracing the route he’d taken us last night. This time, the servants weren’t warned away—they moved aside and bowed or curtsied respectfully as we passed, but they did not let us slow them in their industry.

“I am pleased to see Grenville happy,” I remarked as we moved through the servants’ area.

Matthias shot me a look. “Miss Simmons, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, does take a bit of getting used to.”

“She is uncertain of her position,” I said. “Be patient with her.”

“She can be kindhearted, when the fit takes her,” Matthias conceded.

I feared that Donata would be sickened by the sight of the body. Her condition was already delicate, but when Matthias carefully lifted the sheet we’d draped over the pieced-together skeleton, Donata gave only one faint, sharp inhalation, and then went silent.

She touched her hand to her mouth, but not because she was ill. Tears glistened on her lashes.

“The poor thing,” Donata said, her voice low. “I am ashamed of my curiosity now.”

I looked down at what used to be a young woman, and shared Donata’s pity. Matthias too, was somber.

Donata went on. “She was left, alone under the water, and no one came for her.” She looked up at me, eyes full of compassion. “Please discover who did this, Gabriel, and unleash your temper on him. I will help you in the endeavor as much as I am able.”

***

When we returned to the dining room, there were two more places set at the table and several additional covered trays on the sideboard.

“No need,” I said. “We have breakfasted.”

“You have not,” Donata said. “Eat, please, or you will make yourself ill. I am already ravenous again, so I thank you for your kindness, Grenville.”

She seated herself, nodding graciously at the footman who brought her coffee. I filled two plates at the sideboard, my stomach growling now, reminding me that I’d taken in nothing since last night before we’d departed for the opera.

Marianne had moved to another chair. From her glance down the table, she wondered whether she should remain in the room at all, but Donata showed no concern that she shared a table with an actress who had been little better than a courtesan.

The two ladies had been companionable enough when we’d traveled to Bath, or whenever Marianne shared Grenville’s box at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, but this was his Mayfair home, a different venue. Grenville was defying convention for bringing her to his house—he ought to keep his ladybird in her separate lodging.

This told me first that Grenville cared very much for Marianne. He’d never have risked censure otherwise.

It also told me he was tiring of London and the close scrutiny of his fellow men. He was a traveller at heart, and I sensed him impatient to be away. I wondered if he’d take Marianne with him when he went.

“Gautier has already been a mine of information,” Grenville informed me as I began to eat. “He has given me a list of jewelers who might repair a necklace such as the one found on the young lady, and he has already begun making inquiries. I expect to have a shorter list before the day is very old.”

Donata clinked silver to porcelain, looking as at home eating in the elegant chamber as she had at the secondhand table in my rooms. “The Runners should employ valets in their number,” she suggested. “Gentlemen’s gentlemen certainly know more about trade in London than any foot patrollers.”

“Gautier would agree, dear lady. Lacey, once we are presentable, I propose a visit to the man your surgeon suggested—Coombs was his name?”

I knew Grenville remembered the man’s name precisely—Jonas Coombs—but it would hardly do for a dandy of the ton to betray he had much interest in anything beyond clothes, horses, and women.

“I believe Gabriel is avid to go immediately,” Donata said. “Once Bartholomew decides that he is fit to be seen, Gabriel will return and rush off with you.”

Grenville took a languid sip of coffee. “Lacey, I believe your wife is poking fun at us.”

“As ever,” I replied.

I reflected, as we continued to eat, and Donata and Grenville exchanged witticisms—many at my expense—how much my life had changed.

I’d returned to London in the throes of melancholia, some days barely able to leave my bed. I’d known no one, had very little to my name.

Less than four years later, I was seated at the dining table of the most famous man in London, married to a beautiful woman, all of us thoroughly casual.

Donata was breakfasting in finery from the previous night, I in whatever clothes I’d thrown upon my person before dashing out, Marianne with very little under her silken peignoir, Grenville in a state of undress he’d never in his wildest moments let anyone see him in.

Donata and I had celebrated marital bliss in rundown rooms in Covent Garden, and I suspected Marianne and Grenville had been engaged in similar activities before they’d emerged for their petite déjeuner.

Yet, here we all were, earlier in the day than anyone but me would rise, Grenville and Donata utterly comfortable, Marianne and I wondering how we’d landed there.

If I’d known four years ago that such a morning awaited me, I’d have been disbelieving.

But one never anticipates where life will lead. I knew that tragedy could follow hard upon happiness, and so I treasured the moment in that sunny dining room. I hugged it to me, and let it go only with the greatest reluctance.

***

Grenville and I paid our visit to Mr. Coombs of Tottenham Court Road after Matthias and Bartholomew had ascertained that the man, in fact, still dwelled there.

Mr. Coombs had retired a few years ago, but lived in his modest house, hiring out his front room to a younger surgeon he’d trained. Coombs’s rooms were upstairs and in the back, where he lived alone, having been widowed two decades before.

Coombs was nothing like the surgeon who’d sent us to him. He was a soft man with thinning hair combed across his bald head, and wide brown eyes. He looked like a gentle cow who might amble inquisitively up to one and lower its head to be scratched.

“Captain Lacey and … Mr. Grenville does this say?” Coombs asked in amazement, blinking at Grenville’s card. “Not the Mr. Grenville from all the newspapers?”

“I am afraid so,” Grenville said. He bowed, apologetic.

Grenville had dressed after his morning bath in subdued clothes—a somber coat, plain ivory waistcoat, straight trousers over ankle-high boots, a fashion he was bringing into style. Plain gloves and a high beaver hat completed his ensemble.

I’d considered leaving Grenville in the coach while I questioned Coombs, simply because having such a well-known man visit this corner of the city would be a sensation. Those who saw him would speculate.

On the other hand, Grenville had so much cordiality in him that he could put anyone, from princes to scullery maids, at their ease. He could charm and flatter, and every word would be sincere. I tended, in my impatience, to ask abrupt questions and put others’ noses out of joint.

“Come in, come in, gentlemen.” Coombs ushered us into a small sitting room that held two chairs near a fireplace, a table with another straight chair, and a bookshelf.

Only a few books reposed on the shelves, while the others were taken up by tools of his trade. A saw, a large knife, what looked like a long-handled chisel, forceps in several sizes, and other instruments I could not identify. Having watched army surgeons on the Peninsula cut off limbs, force bones straight, and hack open men to extract shot, seeing the instruments gave me a shudder.

A surgeon had picked rocks and pieces of bone out of my knee, talking to me cheerfully while he set my leg and sewed me up. I hated him at the time, cursing and swearing and vowing to kill him. He’d only grinned and kept working, and afterward, I’d apologized. The man had saved my life, saved my leg, and allowed me to continue walking about, if painfully. I’d been luckier than many. The surgeon had taken my apology with a breezy, “Happy to help, Captain.”

Coombs noted my look and my walking stick. “Ah, Captain, I see one of my brethren has practiced our trade upon you. Never fear, I am retired, and not apt to pick up my hacksaw and go at you, unless of course, in dire emergency, you turned to me. Hardly likely, is it?”

“And yet,” Grenville interjected smoothly, “I have been told there was none better at setting a bone than you, that it heals cleanly and seamlessly.”

Coombs looked surprised. “Then you’ve come for my services after all. I have taught my apprentice well—I can have him examine whomever’s broken limbs you need mended. You two gentlemen look whole, so I conclude you are petitioning me on another’s behalf?”

Grenville continued. “I’m afraid the poor soul we’ve come to ask you about is already deceased.”

Coombs’s brows climbed. “Dear me.” He turned from us, but only to open a door near the fireplace and call out to a person named Humphries to bring tea. He then removed a flask from his coat and took a quick drink. “Forgive me, gentlemen. I believe I will need some fortification.” He held the flask out to Grenville in offering. “An indifferent liquor, but it coats the palate.”

Grenville politely declined, but I accepted the flask, knowing that a shared drink of spirits could soften relations between men a long way.

The whisky was cheap and awful, and I kept myself from coughing when I handed the flask back to Coombs.

“Have another,” I said. “I imagine you will need more fortification when I explain that we brought the deceased with us.”

Chapter Ten

Coombs was more interested than shocked. He took another nip from the flask. “Indeed? And where is this deceased person? If you are not having a joke with me. I have heard that you young fellows of the ton make jests of odd things.”

Grenville shrugged. “There are those who might find such a thing amusing, but we are in earnest, I assure you. All that were found were the woman’s bones. If we show you the break, can you tell us if you mended it?”

Coombs scratched his head, disheveling his thin hair. “Perhaps. I’ve never been asked such a thing before, but I will make an attempt.”

“Thank you.” Grenville moved out to the hall and the stairs to signal Matthias and Bartholomew to bring up the crate.

I reflected that whoever the poor young woman was, she had been having more of an outing in the last few days than she’d had in the ten years she slept under the magistrate’s house in Wapping.

Matthias pried open the crate and gently and respectfully lifted out a piece of canvas which cradled the arm bone that had been broken and mended.

Coombs took another pull from his flask and directed Matthias to lay the limb on the table. He pulled back the canvas and peered at the bone with professional interest.

“The body had deteriorated this much?” he asked, directing the question at Grenville. “She might have died long before my time.”

Grenville gestured to me. “Lacey?”

I recalled what the surgeon had speculated as he’d examined her. “The guess is that she’d been underwater about three years before she was found. Possibly five. She was discovered ten years ago, which puts her death fifteen years back at most.”

Coombs touched the arm bone, turning it to look at the break. “She mended cleanly, that is certain. Very straight, well-done. If I did not set this bone, then someone quite skilled did. It is a trick, you see, to hold the limb steady so that the break lines up perfectly. Bones fuse together again, as this one has, but if the limb is set badly, a person might lose use of it altogether.” He glanced down at my knee, as though thinking that if he’d had charge of my leg, it would hang straighter.

“Did you set this one?” I asked. “She was a young woman, from a middle-class family, but likely one of decent means. That is all we know.”

Coombs went silent. He brushed the bone as it lay on the canvas, then turned to me abruptly. “I would like to see the rest of her.”

And so, once more, our lady was laid out upon a table, bare and friendless, pathetic and forgotten. Coombs helped Matthias and Bartholomew place her bones appropriately, his good-natured expression deserting him as he studied the wound on the skull.

“Terrible,” he said, shaking his head. “Diabolical. The blow killed her, did it not?”

“That is what Thompson of the Thames River Police believes.”

Coombs took a step back from the table, chewing on the knuckle of his forefinger. “The River Police? They found her?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Caught under a mooring in Wapping Docks. She might have gone in there, or from a ship, or been carried there by the current. We have no idea.”

More gnawing on his bent finger. Then he removed the digit from his mouth. “I might not be able to help you, gentlemen. The set of the bone looks like my work, but who the young lady is, I cannot tell you. It has been too long … my memory is not …” Coombs’s eyes narrowed, as though his thoughts had taken him another direction, but he shook his head. “My apologies. I cannot recall.”

He was lying. He’d remembered something, but was reluctant to tell us what.

Grenville must have drawn the same conclusion, because he said in a patient tone, “I assure you, Mr. Coombs, what you tell us will go no further. We only wish to discover who this lady was and help Mr. Thompson bring her killer to justice.”

Coombs glanced at me, taking me in from my thick hair that refused to lie flat, to my boots, and the walking stick that so firmly propped me up. After a time, he sighed.

“You are a military man, sir. I have more respect for an army captain than I do for the Runners or thief-takers. I have thought of a young lady I treated perhaps fifteen years ago—I set her left ulna, as this one has been. I remember her, because it is unusual for a wellborn lady to break an arm, unless she is mad for riding. But this lady was not one for horses. I asked her.”

I curbed my impatience. “The lady’s name?”

Coombs chewed on his second finger this time, again taking me in from head to toe. “I hesitate to tell you, Captain, only because the young lady I am thinking of isn’t dead. She is very much alive. Her father keeps a shop in the Strand. But other than her, any broken bone I’ve set has belonged to men young and old, or older women who are becoming brittle. I am very sorry that I cannot help you.”

I frowned. My nameless surgeon had been very certain that Coombs had been the man to treat the injury. I trusted his assessment—I recognized intelligent competence when I met it.

“If you did not help this young woman, can you guess who did?” I asked. “A surgeon who would mend her this cleanly?”

“I am not acquainted with every surgeon in London,” Coombs said. “Perhaps she sustained the break in the country and was attended there. Farriers often set bones when no one else is available. Whoever did it has great skill, I will admit.”

I did not answer. I’d hoped our search would be as quick and simple as Denis’s surgeon had made it sound, but I was back to uncertainty.

Coombs’s apprentice banged his way in just then bearing a large tray with cups and pots. The man, already in his thirties, I’d judge, but with the gracelessness of a youth not grown into his body, jolted so much as he strode in that I feared the tea would slide off the tray and be lost.

The tray tilted precariously, and I saw Grenville poised to catch it. But the apprentice managed to set it down on the table near the bones.

Coombs gave his apprentice a stern look. “I hope you do not mind an indifferent repast, gentlemen. The lad is better at surgery than brewing.”

The apprentice, far from looking offended, grinned, made us a bow, and retreated.

Grenville and I partook in a polite cup of tea—which was weak and bitter. Coombs dosed his with large dollops from his flask.

Coombs had nothing to add about the body that Denis’s surgeon hadn’t already surmised, and we took our leave. Bartholomew and Matthias carried the crate down the stairs, Grenville following. All three looked disappointed with our errand.

As the others climbed into Grenville’s coach, a thought struck me. I told the coachman, Jackson, to wait, while I ascended to Coombs’s chambers again.

When I returned to the carriage, the others had settled in. Coombs’s apprentice cheerfully pushed me up inside and shut the door for me. Jackson started the horses, and we rolled into the mass of conveyances trying to push their way down the busy road.

“What did you ask him?” Grenville inquired. He held on to a strap above him as the carriage lurched, and looked as though he regretted sipping the bad tea. Grenville was prone to motion sickness.

“I asked him the name of the family of the woman he’d treated,” I said. “There may be no connection at all, but I am curious. Odd that Coombs should set the arm of a similar young woman near the same time this woman’s would have been done. How many young ladies of good middle-class families break their left arms and have them set by surgeons of equal skill?”

“I have no idea.” Grenville’s eyes began to sparkle, the carriage’s jolting forgotten. “Did he tell you who she was?”

“Her father’s name is Hartman, and he owns a watch shop in the Strand.”

“Excellent,” Grenville said. “As you speculate, it may lead to nothing, but we have so bloody little to go on.”

“A broken bone and a necklace.” I shrugged. “I believe we have had as much or less before. Shall we repair to the Strand?”

“Indeed.” His motion sickness forgotten, Grenville tapped on the roof and ordered Jackson to head the coach toward the river.

***

Messers Hartman and Schweigler, watchmakers, had a shop at number 86. The building on the Strand Jackson stopped before was unassuming, with a plain door and a small window, a discreet sign announcing that this was indeed a watch shop.

The interior, when we ducked inside out of thin rain that began pattering down, was dim and workmanlike, befitting a craftsman’s place.

Mr. Hartman obviously recognized Grenville on sight. He came from the back himself before the assistant could fetch him, a smile on his face.

“Welcome, sir. How very kind of you to call upon us.”

“Quite.” Grenville flushed.

In his zeal of questioning Mr. Hartman Grenville had forgotten that any time he visited an establishment, it gave said establishment panache. Grenville’s patronage was as prized as a royal one—it could make or break the careers of hat-maker, glove-maker, tailor, watchmaker.

His arrival this morning, unannounced, would be remarked upon, and Mr. Hartman’s reputation made.

Grenville, who was very careful about from whom he purchased his wardrobe and accoutrements, turned an uncomfortable shade of red. He glanced at me, as though wishing for me to help him, but I only rested my hands on my walking stick and enjoyed myself. It wasn’t often I was able to see Grenville discomfited.

“I wish to make a gift,” Grenville began. “Something for my good friend the captain here. He is soon to be a father. Well, for the second time.”

“Ah.” Hartman brightened. “My felicitations, Captain. A large family is a boon to a man.”

I bowed. “Thank you. I am most fortunate.”

“A timepiece is a wonderful gift, Mr. Grenville. Mr. Schweigler is the watchmaker here, and truly a skilled gentleman. He is Swiss, you know.”

I supposed him being Swiss was significant, but I knew little about the watchmaking industry. I had a timepiece that had been my father’s, a heavy silver thing from the last century, with a plain dial and a small key for winding it. It wasn’t very valuable, as watches went—or my father would have sold it—but it ran well, though it easily tarnished, and I’d kept the thing out of habit.

I pulled out the watch in question and held it in my hand. I’d had it since I’d come home from the Peninsula, and my father’s man of business had given it to me. I’d inherited it, the house in Norfolk, and little else.

“A venerable thing,” Hartman said, his gaze going to it. “May I?”

I unhooked the watch from the chain Donata had given me for it and handed it over. Hartman slid an eyepiece from his pocket with the ease of long practice, opened the back, and peered through the lens to the watch’s viscera.

“Finely made,” he said, sounding impressed. “A Leroux perhaps?” He glanced at me hopefully.

I shook my head. “No idea. It was my father’s.”

“Well, it is exquisitely done. No hallmark—they didn’t often do them in silver fifty years ago, only in gold. Still, it is a fine piece. Perhaps Mr. Schweigler can make one still finer.”

“The finest,” Grenville said. “The captain has been through much, wounded in the war, you know, and being forced to retire.”

Now he was enjoying my discomfiture. I said, “Indeed. Mr. Grenville has been kind to befriend me.”

Mr. Hartman regarded me with more interest. “Waterloo, was it?”

“Afraid not. I was wounded in the Peninsula, too hurt to go back into the field for the last show. Apparently, the Iron Duke somehow managed without me.”

Hartman chuckled politely at my joke. “Please, gentlemen, be seated. My assistant will bring coffee, and we will discuss things.”

He hurried out of the main shop through a door, leaving us alone.

“Well,” Grenville said.

I couldn’t help a short laugh. “I suppose you are purchasing me a watch.”

“You must admit you need one. Your timepiece is not bad but it ought to be kept under glass, to be admired as a relic of a time long past. I should have given you one years ago.”

“Forced it upon me, you mean.”

“Do not get your back up,” Grenville said. He seated himself in an armless chair with sinuous legs that had also come from the last century. “Or your pride. This is all in the line of duty. We must put him at his ease.”

“Of course.” If nothing else, we’d have made a gentleman happy with an easy sale.

The front room of the shop was small and dim, the only light coming through the window that gave on to the street. The chamber was more like a sitting room, with the old-fashioned chairs and a round, gate-legged table, and a small case with a glass top resting on the table. The case was empty at the moment, but perhaps Hartman displayed watches in it—an easy thing to carry away to the back rooms and lock up when the shop closed.

Hartman returned with his assistant, who carried coffee. Hartman was a rather large man, somewhat stout, but more solid than fat. In his younger days, he might have gone in for pugilism. He was in middle-age now, approaching his elder years, his thin hair iron gray. He wore a beard on his round face, neatly trimmed nearly to his chin.

The assistant was clearly related to him—son, nephew, or grandson—with the same round face, brown eyes, and solid body that would someday become soft. The assistant was clean-shaven, showing a cleft in his chin that perhaps his father—or uncle, or grandfather—also sported under his beard.

The assistant poured coffee into rather elegant porcelain cups, left the silver pot on a tray, and silently retreated into the depths of the house.

“He is learning the business,” Hartman said with an apologetic glance at the door the assistant closed. “He is not entirely happy about it, but he is young. My brother’s boy. He wants to be a soldier, but the war is over, thank God. He wants to explore the world now, but my brother fears to let him out of his sight. I am trying to think of ways he can make journeys for me. I hate to break his spirit.”

“I understand,” I said. I sipped the coffee, which was remarkably good. Far better than the tea Coombs had offered us. “I have a daughter who is quite … spirited. She is about to make her come-out.”

Hartman laughed, his salesman’s demeanor relaxing slightly. “I have much sympathy for you, Captain. Daughters can be very worrying.” His laughter faded a bit. “Very worrying, indeed.”