Page 9 of Murder at the Seven Dials
But they had not, and so here she was.
No duchess should travel by hired hackney in the dead of night to the Seven Dials, and if she did, she should not be going alone—just as the awful Mr. Marsden had advised. However, had she suggested the trip, Michael would never agree to accompany her. Her place for the time being, Audrey had been told, was inside Violet House.Until all this blows over,Michael had said after downing the first of what would be three drams of single malt.
The magistrate had commanded that Philip was to be kept in a private room at the Brown Bear until he chose to cooperate. Mr. Potridge’s arrival, a quarter hour after Audrey had departed, had not roused her husband from his delirium. With no verbal acceptance or refusal of charges, with nothing to say for himself, and his behavior as it so oddly was, he was deemed unfit for release.
“Any other man in his state would have been thrown into Newgate, or an asylum,” Michael had declared on his third dram. Philip’s title was the only thing keeping him from such a fate. And at least he’d be out of that cold, rank cellar.
The driver of the hired hackney took his time unfolding the steps and opening the door for Audrey, though she could hardly chastise him for it. The old man was the furthest thing from her own robust driver, Carrigan. But Carrigan would not have taken her here, at least not first without informing Barton and the housekeeper, Mrs. Moore, to make sure he didn’t lose his position.
She descended onto Mercer Street. The cloak she’d worn as she’d slipped out the back door of Violet House was pulled high over her head, obscuring her face. The chances of being seen and recognized were slim, but Audrey saw no reason to risk it.
“Will you remain?” she asked the driver as her serviceable boots touched down onto the paving stones. The night was damp and chilled, the rain that had fallen glistening in puddles along the street. Her nostrils traced horse dung and coal smoke, refuse, old fish, and sweat.
“Aye, miss,” he answered. She slipped him partial payment of a shilling and hoped his word was honorable.
Audrey peered up at the building before her.
“This is Jewell House?”
The driver nodded and scrubbed his nose with the back of his hand. The carriage lantern threw shadows into the creases of his face. “Aye, miss. If ye don’t mind the cheek, miss, ‘tisn’t a place for a lady such as ye’self.”
Her plain dress, cloak, and footwear, as well as hailing a hack three blocks from Curzon Street, had apparently done little to mask her blue blood.
The dark exterior of the building showed few rooms lit with lantern and candlelight, and most windows were obscured with drapery. She didn’t know which rooms Philip had been renting and had no way of finding out without alerting someone, such as the building’s landlord, that she was there.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said to the driver, ignoring his warning that she didn’t belong. He was correct, of course, but she had come too far in her plan to be cowardly now. Philip needed her help.
The front door to Jewell House, being a common door used by many people throughout the day and night, was unlocked. Audrey clasped the cool metal knob and pushed the door open, stepping into the darkened entrance hall. Not one lamp or candle had been left burning for the building’s residents or visitors. But when Audrey shuttered her eyes and let out a long breath, the knob still clutched in her ungloved hand, an image gasped in Audrey’s mind: A pair of boys darted forward and bounded up the stairs, each one holding a small glass lantern. Their shoes slapped on the steps and their voices echoed as slight vibrations against her ear drums; voices only she could hear.
She knew it for what it was—the most recent energy the doorknob retained, passed on to her in a vision. But it was too recent. Philip had been here the previous night.
Audrey pushed back further, closing her fingers tighter around the cool metal. The light shifted and sunlight filled the hallway, more people churning into view as the daylight changed from burnished afternoon to dewy morning then faded once more to blue dawn. The images came to her in strokes, each one more jagged and grainy than the one before. They would soon disappear altogether; objects could never maintain deep wells of clear energy.
Audrey bit the inside of her cheek, giving another push with her mind. It was like turning pages in a book, flipping through them with eager impatience. The next gasp was dense, practically impenetrable. A man shuttled down the steps toward her, but it was so far in the past she could barely make out anything more than a head of dark curls, thick arched brows, and a small mole on his cheek as he floated past, thinner than smoke.
She’d pushed too far. The doorknob fell dormant, leeched of its energy. Frustrated, Audrey released it and searched for something else to touch. Her eyes landed on the newel post at the base of the stairs, and when she settled her hand atop the carved wooden sphere, she moved backward through the energy more slowly. Patiently. She was rewarded when swirls of bare flesh, shoulders, and mounded décolletage came into view. A crowd of murmuring women had gathered in the entrance hall by the light of many lanterns.
They parted in annoyance as a gangly boy pushed between them, followed by a man in a light brown suit.Mr. Marsden.The women cackled ashe kept on the boy’s heels. Audrey took a step forward, her vision hinged on the officer as he took the steps two at a time. At the top, he grasped the newel post and flung himself around the bend.
The image was lost, and Audrey was again in the darkened vestibule of Jewell House, alone. Her skirts hindered her ability to take the steps as quickly as Mr. Marsden had, but she rushed up them as quickly as possible. At the landing, she grabbed hold of the next newel post and dug into the energy until she found him again. The image was clearer this time; fewer people had touched this newel post during the day. She saw Mr. Marsden turn at the top of the steps and she hurried after the memory, nearly forgetting to be afraid of the darkened stairwell as she climbed.
At the top, she clutched the wooden newel and reached for the energy he’d left behind. It had taken years of taming her visions before she’d learned how to control them. To manage them and make them abide her. Before, when Audrey first realized she could see the memories of inanimate objects, confusion had lead her toward panic, and then eventually, overconfidence led to carelessness. A carelessness that had cost her greatly.
But now, she knew how to work through the barrage of images. How to slow them and make them behave. Most importantly, she knew to be discreet about what she could do.
On the third floor of Jewell House, Audrey watched Mr. Marsden’s lingering energy as he approached a door down the corridor. There, a crowd of people had gathered. Audrey released the image and found herself, once again, alone in the dark. The door was locked. She’d expected such an obstacle. Reaching into her upswept hair, she removed two of her pins. It had been years since she’d picked a lock. Five, at least, since she’d learned to free herself from her room at the Shadewell Sanatorium. Her midnight forays onto the roof to breathe freely, chart the stars, and dream of an escape had been the only things to carry her through those two years of torment.
She’d become quite good at it back then, but of course, had found little need to lockpick anything since. It took a minute for her to maneuver the pins just so but felt the lock give way as voices and shuffling feet sounded down the hallway. Audrey swept inside the room, closing the door behind her, her hands shaking. The voices traveled by the door in a jumble of slurred speech and cockney.
She exhaled and turned to face the room she’d just broken into. It was only slightly brighter in here with moonlight coming through a trio of windows along one wall. She reached into her cloak’s pocket for the stub of a candle and a palm-sized tinderbox. Her chambermaid, Mary, kept the tinderbox at the hearth. Anticipating the need to light a candle, Audrey had taken a wax candle and the small steel box of flint, steel, and char cloth.
The paltry moonlight guided her hand as she struck the chip of steel against the flint, which was settled within the packed bit of jute. The jute caught aflame, and she touched the candle’s wick to it. The glow cut through the gloom.
The room was modest, with few furnishings and decoration, though what was there—the plush chairs placed before the fire, the woodwork on the mantle clock, the numerous candlesticks, a table lamp—was of quality. None of these items were familiar, though they were all distinctly masculine. And completely out of place. The kinds of people who lived at Jewell House and the surrounding buildings would not live half so fine.
With sinking spirits, Audrey moved deeper into the room. The wax candle’s light didn’t reach far, so she was standing almost within arm’s reach of a tester bed by the time it materialized out of the darkness. The bed’s frame was all that was left, the mattress having been removed. A strange black spatter painted the wall behind it.
Her stomach turned, and with a jolt, she skittered backward. This was where the woman had been killed. Mr. Marsden had said she’d been found in a precarious position, and Audrey realized now that he’d meant upon the bed. The black spatters. They were her blood.
