Page 24 of Pandora

No 6. Russel Street

off Covent Garden Market

The words are set within a beautiful border of filigree patterns interspersed with finely drawn books. Once, Blake’s Emporium possessed cards such as this.

“If you do find something,” he is saying, “if you think you might be able to help, I beg of you to seek me out. I would find a way to repay you. There must be something I can do to assist you.”

“I doubt it, Mr. Lawrence.”

He sends her a small smile. “What is doubt, but a fact not yet confirmed?”

Dora cannot respond to that. She curls her hand around the card; the edges dig into her palm. Their eyes meet. Then he retrieves the cravat pin from the floor and disappears onto the bustling street, the bell ringing a tinny farewell.

***

Later that evening, with Hezekiah wearing new cufflinks that match perfectly those of Mr. Lawrence except that the stones in his are blue rather than green, Dora begins to lay her trap. Her plan requires only gin, and two people willing to fall folly to its madness.

At the dinner table she watches her uncle from beneath the fan of her lashes. He has not mentioned the crate, has even attempted to pretend nothing is amiss at all, tried to mollify her with ill-aimed compliments that served only to anger her.

“What pretty patterns,” he murmured into her ear earlier in the shop while Mr. Lawrence assessed the fakery of its shelves and she sketched laurels onto paper. “You truly have your mother’s talent for drawing.”

Hezekiah knows she is suspicious about the crate. She knows it from the way he studies her when he does not think she is looking. His eyes dart, his tongue wets his lips. It is clear from the way he steps tentatively around her that Hezekiah wonders why she does not enquire about it, but Dora has no patience for games. Too often over the years has she asked him questions only to receive a half-hearted response or obvious falsehoods. Why sell forgeries when her parents had not? How did he know how to make them? And why not spend the money from his sales on repairs for the shop instead of on fripperies for himself? Never has she received a straight answer. No, Dora must discover the truth another way.

The solution came to her easily.

One of her early jewelry designs for a brooch required a duplicate pattern. The first piece she had crudely carved from a small block of wood, but Dora had not the energy to carve a second and so instead she created a mold from wax. The same principle applies here. All she needs is the key that hangs from the chain round Hezekiah’s neck.

Getting to it, however, will not be so easy, even with gin...

Hezekiah shifts heavily in his seat, knocks his plate with his elbow. Dora watches him stretch his leg out from under the table, rub the fleshy pillow of his thigh.

“It pains you, Uncle?”

“Of course it does,” he snaps. His forehead shines. His wig slips. “The pain does not let up.”

“But it was only a scratch, surely?” she replies with mock patience. “Rest will help.”

Hezekiah gives a short laugh, like bellows exhaling air. “Rest! Dora, I cannot rest.”

His words carry with them the echo of desperation. There is a brief silence between them in which Dora makes a decision. She discards her unseasoned quail (another of Lottie’s attempts at fine dining gone awry), and rises from the table. With great effort she forces herself up to his end, sits down on the chair closest to him. He blinks at her in surprise. She rests her hand on the table close to his, an attempt to play the part of dutiful, caring niece.

“Of course you can,” Dora says softly, soothingly. “Rest, Uncle. Take to your bed a day or two. Are you not master here? I can oversee the shop. Do I not do so often enough?”

Hezekiah’s eyes are watery in the candlelight. He hesitates, seems about to say something of import, but then he shifts again in his seat, places a clammy hand on top of hers and awkwardly pats it. It takes all of Dora’s effort not to flinch.

“I think, perhaps,” she coaxes, “some gin would help. Do we have any?”

They do, of that she made sure when Lottie was fetching beans from the coffeehouse next door. Three bottles of the stuff, hidden behind a large bag of grain.

“What an excellent plan. Why don’t you ring the bell?”

Dora cannot cross the room fast enough.

***

It does not take Hezekiah long to succumb to the effects of juniper for Lottie, who he insisted join them, has made the exercise far too easy. The housekeeper’s continual refilling of his glass means that Dora need hardly do a thing except wait.

“Has the pain eased, Uncle?”

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