Death by Silver (23 page)

Mrs Vickers shook her head, looking as if she pitied his fictitious wife. “You might send Mrs Mathey down herself,” she said. “She might have a better idea what you’re looking for.”

“If I might just have a word with the girls…”

“None of them said they were a Doyle,” Mrs Vickers said. “If you want to have a talk with them, it’s five shillings, and ten if you hire one. Mind you, I’ll be watching to see that your propositions are decent.”

“Mrs Vickers. You wound me.”

“You’d be surprised,” she said. “It’s not easy finding a place in this city, Mr Mathey, and when gentlemen come around offering high wages for little work, it’s not always their parlors they’re thinking need dusting. Yes, take offense if you like, but it’s me who has to sit behind this desk and hear it day after day.”

“No offense taken,” Ned said. “If I might just look in and ask if any of them is Sarah Doyle, or knows of her? Surely that’s not five shillings of your time?”

“You’ve already taken up at least a shilling’s worth,” she said.

“So I have,” Ned said, and handed it over obligingly.

Mrs Vickers snorted. “Very well, one question, and then off with you. This is no place for gentlemen, as your wife ought to know.”

She opened the parlor door for him, and said in a brisk tone that suggested she was used to making under-servants step lively, “Mr Mathey here is looking for a Sarah Doyle. Do any of you know such a person? Speak up, now.”

There was a general chorus of denial, although a couple of the youngest girls only shook their heads. The girls were sitting in two rows on benches, and while one of them had a magazine open on her lap and one had a basket of mending, most looked as if they planned on no other occupation than sitting there until someone might hire them.

“There,” Mrs Vickers said, shutting the door firmly. “That’s done, then. If there’s anything else, Mr Mathey?”

“I don’t suppose you’ve anyone on the books who knows anything about metaphysics?” he asked.

Her eyebrows rose. “Not likely. What ever would you want that for?”

“It seemed as if it might be useful. There was an article in one of the papers the other day about household metaphysics.” There had been, too, although he’d only skimmed it long enough to note that nearly all the uses it proposed for metaphysics in the home were imaginative at best and hazardous at worst. If householders really took to attempting to clean their chimneys by enchantment, there would be considerably more work for the fire department.

“I’ve heard that some gentlemen who keep
extensive
staffs find it useful to have a butler or a housekeeper with some knowledge of household enchantments,” Mrs Vickers conceded, although her tone made it clear that she’d assessed his finances and stage in life and didn’t consider him possibly in the market for such a thing. “That’s above what we generally handle here, though.” She regarded him with considerable skepticism. “If that’s what you’re looking for, I might have the name of an agency…”

“That wouldn’t be the sort of thing a housemaid would know, though?”

Mrs Vickers shook her head. “Whatever good would it do them? Ladies and gentlemen don’t want their girls messing about with enchantments in their house, Mr Mathey. A girl who can sweep a floor properly doesn’t need hocus, and a girl who breaks things and tries to cover it up with magic would be found out and given the sack soon enough. I’ve had one or two through here that claimed some knowledge of that kind, but I told them soon enough it wouldn’t do them any good, any more than being able to play the piano, and I’ve heard them claim that, too, as if it were a useful skill. Ladies don’t want that sort of thing from a housemaid, Mr Mathey; they want a girl who knows her work and knows her place.”

“The girls who claimed they knew something of metaphysics. Did any of them come by recently?”

“No, the last was a year ago at least. I do recommend that you send Mrs Mathey to see us,” she said. “I think you’ll find she’ll be clearer in her mind about what’s needed, her being the one who’ll have the running of the house.”

He made his way back to the Commons feeling footsore and discouraged. It hadn’t helped to describe Sarah at any of the registry offices he’d visited, as the city was apparently full of slight fair girls seeking work as maidservants. He couldn’t find anyone who remembered Sarah Doyle, but if she’d presented herself under a false name, he might have just missed her anywhere he’d been.

He hadn’t had any better luck at MABYS, which had been full of bustling and rather intimidating young women. He’d told a slightly more truthful story there, saying that he’d seen the girl turned off unfairly for breaking a dish at dinner when he’d seen plainly that the accident wasn’t her fault, and that he wanted to offer her a position to make up for it.

That combined with introducing himself as a metaphysician had apparently persuaded the ladies of MABYS that he was a perfect target for their appeals, and he’d left with his case stuffed full of pamphlets on the scandalous condition of young women in domestic service, having promised to send them a donation as soon as he could consult his own ledgers to see what sum he could manage. They hadn’t heard any word of Sarah Doyle, though, although they did write down a list of local charities where she might have presented herself in search of a meal, a bed, or other humble necessities.

“You look like you’ve been through the wars,” Miss Frost said when he returned to his office.

“I’m afraid I’ve learned very little,” he said. “And I seem to have promised MABYS a contribution.”

“They’re very good at twisting arms for subscriptions. They can smell fear.”

He shook his head, dropping down heavily into a chair. “How does anyone ever hire household staff without some kind of disaster ensuing?”

“They know what they’re doing?”

“Point taken,” Ned said ruefully. “But it’s not as if there are instructional classes for men on how to keep up a house.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Miss Frost said. “I’m sure your future wife will take charge of all that.”

“Assuming I didn’t wait for one?”

“What would you need a house for, in that case? I’d be boarding somewhere myself, if it wouldn’t make my mother cry. Two rooms of your very own, and no cares in the world except the bill at the end of the month.” She looked wistful.

It was true that he didn’t need a house of his own, and couldn’t afford one at the moment anyway, but he didn’t actually look forward to spending his life in lodgings. If he were to share a house, though, with someone congenial, surely managing the servants wouldn’t be an insurmountable obstacle.

The vision of domestic tranquility threatened to resolve into a more particular improbable fantasy, one involving banning patent egg-cookers from the breakfast table, at least unless he was certain they wouldn’t decorate the ceiling with eggshell. He cut off any further thoughts in that direction as unwise to even consider.

There was a knock at the door, and Bob opened it, his face flushed and his manner visibly excited. “I got an address, Mr Mathey. The cook at the mission said she thought Bill Doyle had gone into service as a footman, but one of the kitchen-maids said he’d left his place and was working as a waiter at Harley’s oyster-house, and that she knew because he’d come round and told her. And then the cook was going to have a row with her because she thought that…well, that the kitchen-maid was sweet on him, you know, and doing what she shouldn’t be, but I asked where Harley’s was, and she told me the street before the cook threw me out.” It was nearly all in one breath.

“Well done,” Ned said sincerely, and pressed a shilling into the boy’s hand. “I’ll go round and see if I can speak to him.”

“I already went, Mr Mathey, and asked where Bill the waiter lived, and said I had a letter for him from his dying grandmother as had to be put into his own hands,” the boy said. “And they told me where he lived, and I went there and knocked on the door of the room – there’s no one at the door there, not even a boy – and a girl answered, and I asked her if Bill Doyle lived there, and she said yes, and I said did he want his scissors repaired, and she said they didn’t have any scissors, so I went away again.”

It took Ned a moment to take that all in. “A fair girl, not tall, maybe sixteen?”

“She was,” the boy said, sounding immensely pleased with himself.

“Why scissors?”

“There was a story in the paper about men who come around asking to fix your scissors, only if you let them, they’ll put a curse on them so that they won’t open, and then charge you to take it off. And I couldn’t be selling matches or something, could I, without any matches to sell.”

“Well done, again,” Ned said, and handed over another sixpence.

“I’m not at all sure Miss Doyle is going to be very glad to see you,” Miss Frost said as Bob went out.

“I’m certain that she won’t be,” Ned said, and hoped that he could persuade her that he had her best interests at heart.

There was not enough coffee in the world to erase the taste of the previous night’s dreams. Julian barricaded himself behind the newspapers while Mrs Digby cleared the breakfast dishes, trying to ignore her complaints, and wished he’d had the sense to indulge in an enchantment instead of the second brandy. His sleep still wouldn’t have brought real rest, cancelled out by the energy expended to write the enchantment, but at least there wouldn’t have been dreams of school. And Ned.

“And I do not expect to be nipped at by a plant – a plant that is growing in the sofa cushions, mind you! That’s exactly why I don’t allow dogs in my house, and if my girl gives notice because of it, I’ll put the blame entirely on you, Mr Lynes.”

Julian lowered the paper at that. Ned would simply smile and apologize and somehow all would be forgiven, but Julian had never had the knack of that. He said, “I’ve dealt with the plant, Mrs Digby. It’s
Urtica mordax
, biting nettle, and if you and Mina stay out of its reach, it won’t bother you.”

She set the plates down with a clatter, put her hands on her hips “Mr Lynes. I do not permit pets in my house, particularly biting ones. I believe I made that very clear.”

“It’s not a pet,” Julian said. “And it’s essentially harmless. The bite may sting a bit, but it can’t do you any real damage.”

“I’ll not have it,” Mrs Digby said.

Julian scowled. “It is a plant, Mrs Digby. It is a largely immobile species, and I have confined it to a glass, where I intend for it to stay. It eats flies and other vermin.”

“Are you saying that my house is dirty?” Mrs Digby’s voice rose again.

“Every house in London has flies,” Julian said. He paused, remembering Ned’s suggestion to compliment her now and then. “Yours is better than most.”

Her eyebrows rose at that, though he couldn’t be entirely sure of her reaction.

“In fact, when it’s larger, you might find a cutting useful in the kitchen,” he added, and to his surprise, she laughed.

“And risk being bitten every time I walk past it? If I wanted that, Mr Lynes, I’d keep a cat.” She picked up the plates again. “Do you give me your word it isn’t going to go wandering around the house?”

“I do, Mrs Digby.”

“Very well. But if it bites anyone, out it goes.” With that parting shot, she sailed from the room. Embarrassingly, Julian felt better for the quarrel, and turned his attention to the agony column.

He had no appointments scheduled for the day, and it was probably time he spent the day at home where potential clients could find him. He should also work out Albert’s bill and send that on its way, a necessary but vaguely unpleasant part of the business. In the meantime, there were the papers to finish.

The knock at the door startled him out of his working-out of a slightly more complex cipher, and he looked up with a frown.

“A person to see you, Mr Lynes,” Mrs Digby said.

That meant a client, albeit a disreputable one, and Julian folded the paper hastily away. “Come in.”

The door opened to admit a woman in rusty black, the bodice hastily dip-dyed to match the plain black skirt. Her gloves were black as well, and her black bonnet trailed a handful of equally black ribbons. Loss of a husband or parent, Julian thought, automatically, and realized that her face was familiar. She was the woman he’d seen at Murtaugh’s workshop, and he couldn’t help frowning in surprise.