and wrapped it round me. There was a knock at the door, knuckle against wood; quite polite sounding, if I hadn’t guessed. The landlord, I thought, come to make sure of his money and, in addition, spying on me in my chemise and stockings.
‘You’ll have to wait,’ I said.
I moved to be out of sight of the keyhole and dressed, taking my time, then put back the money in my purse. No need to let the fellow spy out the nakedness of the land in every sense. Then I went to the door and opened it, expecting to be looking into boot-button eyes and a pudgy face above a stained apron. Instead there was the gentleman in black, as straight and severe as when I’d last seen him at the Calais burial ground, although this time he was vertical, not horizontal. You might have taken him for his own spectre, except that he spoke like a living man, though not a happy one.
‘Good evening, Miss Lane. I have a proposition to put to you …’
His high white cravat was the brightest thing in the shadowy passageway, the face above it grey as moonlight on slate. He held his hat in hand, as if making a social call.
‘I thought you might be dead,’ I said.
Admittedly it was hardly a cordial greeting, but when I’d last seen him he was barely breathing. In the half light, I could see no sign on his temple of the blow that had felled him, so perhaps there was not enough flesh and blood in him to bruise.
‘It might be best if you would permit me to come in,’ he said.
I came close to slamming the door in his face. My reputation was low enough with the landlord, without entertaining gentlemen in my room. But something told me that my virtue was in no danger, though everything else might be. The man had as much carnality as a frozen dish-clout. Even though he had been spying on me through the keyhole, it was for something colder than my charms en chemise. I opened the door wider. He walked in, looking round. I might have invited him to sit down, but with only one chair in the room, that meant I should have to perch on the bed. We stayed on our feet. He put his hat on the wash-stand.
‘Our last conversation was interrupted,’ I said. ‘I was asking you what you knew about my father’s death.’
‘And I believe I counselled you to have patience.’
As before, his voice was low and level.
‘An over-rated virtue. Were you present when he died?’
‘No.’
‘But you know what happened?’
He raised a narrow black-gloved hand in protest.
‘Miss Lane, that is not what I have come to speak to you about.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
He looked straight at me, as if he wanted to stare me down. Anybody with a brother has practice in that trick. I held his look. He sighed and walked towards the window, sliding a hand into his coat pocket.
‘Miss Lane, do you recognise this?’
He was holding something small in the palm of his hand. I walked over to him and picked it up. When I saw it close, I felt as if somebody had caught me a blow.
‘It’s his ring.’
A signet with a curious design of an eye and a pyramid. The one that should have been on his hand in the morgue.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You robbed it from his body.’
‘It was taken from his body. Not by me.’
‘Who, then?’
‘By persons at the morgue in Calais.’
‘The fat drunken woman and her husband?’
The slightest of nods from him.
‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘But what concern was it of yours?’
He must have been at the morgue before me, touched my father’s hands as I’d done, and he had no right.
‘I bought it from them,’ he said. ‘It should have stayed on his hand and been buried with him, but they’d only have stolen it again.’
‘So you’ve come to return it to me?’
I was trying to bring myself to thank him, but could have saved myself the effort.
‘No. I show it to you only to convince you that I knew your father. That in some measure I speak with your father’s authority.’
He pulled off his right glove and stretched out his hand to me. On his middle finger was a ring identical to my father’s, only the design was worn flat by time. Then he turned the hand over, palm up.
‘If you please.’
He expected me to give him my father’s ring back. Instead I dropped it down the front of my stays. It was cold against my hot and angry skin. The shock in his eyes was the first human reaction I’d had from him. We stared at each other and he drew another long sigh.
‘I had heard that you possess an excellent understanding, Miss Lane. I fear you are not using it rationally.’
‘The only understanding I care about is how my father died. Who is this woman he was trying to bring back to England?’
For a second, he couldn’t hide the surprise in his eyes.
‘Who told you about a woman?’
‘The man who kidnapped me in the graveyard and a fat man in the carriage. You know who they are, don’t you?’
‘You did well to escape from them.’
‘The fat man said my father had abducted a woman from Paris. They thought I’d know where she was. I don’t. I know nothing about her.’
‘That’s good. You must continue to know nothing.’
‘No! She’s the reason my father was killed, isn’t she? Don’t I at least have the right to know who she is?’
‘I’m not sure myself who she is.’
‘But there is a woman, you admit that?’
‘I have reason to believe that your father left Paris in company with a woman, yes.’
‘He wouldn’t have taken her away against her will.’
‘Very well. I accept that.’
‘So, whoever she is, she went with him of her own accord. But Trumper and the fat man found out about that and wanted her back.’
A reluctant nod from him.
‘So
