“I’ve got a livin’ to make, y’know. I left a message with yer brother.”
“I need to know exactly what the landlady said to you,” Ian said as they walked down the stairs and out of the building. Heading east, he turned south onto Stevenlaw’s Close.
“You mean Mrs. Sutherland?” Derek replied, scurrying to keep up.
“Yes.”
“She were real good to me—gave me soup an’ all.”
“She’s dead.”
Derek stopped walking. “Wha’ happened?”
“She was poisoned.”
“She were fit as a fiddle when I left ’er,” Derek said, his voice shaky. “What could . . . Wait—the soup! You don’t s’pose—why would anyone kill a nice lady like her?”
“I want you to repeat exactly what she said to you.”
“She said she foun’ somethin’.”
“Did she say what?”
“No.”
Ian resumed walking, the boy following. “Did you see anything while you were there?”
“Like what?” Derek replied, kicking at a stone in his path.
“Did you notice anyone or anything suspicious?”
“Not as I can remember. Like I says, she were fine when I left.”
“Anyone on the street, loitering about as you left?”
“No . . . wait, there was this one fella, looked like he were waitin’ fer someone.”
“Where did you see him?”
“On’t pavement, in front of ’er house.”
“What did he look like?”
“He were a handsome fella, with black hair and curious pale eyes, dressed like a gentleman.”
“How tall?”
“’Bout regular height. Not nearly so tall as you.”
“And you had the feeling he was waiting for someone?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he see you?” Ian said, turning onto Cowgate.
“He looked straight at me, like as to bore a hole right through me.”
Ian stopped walking. “You could be in danger.”
Derek snorted. “Who’d want ta go after a scrappy little street urchin like me?”
“He wouldn’t hesitate, if he thought you knew something.”
“Or,” Derek said, “maybe he were jes’ a nice gentleman waitin’ fer a lady to join ’im.”
“But you said he looked directly at you.”
Derek laughed. “Mister, if I’d half a crown fer every bloody person what gives me looks on the street, I’d be as rich as Solomon.”
“But hardly as wise.”
Derek shrugged. “Try livin’ as I do, an’ see how ye fare. There’s all kinds ’a wisdom.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ian replied, heading south on Guthrie Street.
“So where’re ye headed?”
“To interview a young lady.”
Derek whistled. “Sounds romantic.”
“It’s nothing of the kind.”
“Ha! I’ve heard that afore.”
“What do you know about women, at your age?”
“Not as much as I’d like. But when I’m old enough, I’ll give the ladies a run fer their money, I swear it.”
“Look,” Ian said, stopping in front of Eugene and Catherine Harley’s town house. “You need to have a care for your safety. Don’t involve yourself in this any further.”
“But I was enjoyin’ bein’ part of the law instead of runnin’ from it all the time.”
“Where’s your friend Freddie? It’s safer if you have someone else around.”
Derek scuffed his shoe on the curb and picked at his blackened nails. “Me an’ him’s had a fight.”
Ian fished four sovereigns from his pocket and handed them to Derek. The boy stared at them, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. “It’s all I have right now,” Ian explained. “But I’ll give you more if you’ll promise me you’ll have nothing further to do with this.”
“Kin I work on yer next case?”
“Right now I just want your word that you’ll mind your own business and be careful.”
“Seems like I get paid more fer not helpin’ than fer helpin’.”
“I must go inside now,” Ian said. “Why don’t you spend some of that getting a bath somewhere?”
“Oh, the nuns’ll give me a bath,” Derek said with contempt. “I jes’ don’ care for ’em.”
“The nuns or the bath?”
“Both.”
Ian laughed. “Go on with you, before you get into trouble.” He watched the boy swing jauntily around the corner before rapping on the front door of Eugene Harley’s elegant town house. His knock was answered by the redoubtable Bernadette, looking even more imposing than he remembered, in a dark blue dress with white cuffs and collar and a matching white apron.
“Good day to you again, Detective Inspector,” she said, her Irish accent thick as her considerable girth. “What can I do for you, now?” she asked, wiping her hands on a dish towel. They were covered in flour, which Ian thought was a promising sign. He had not forgotten her cream cakes—and his stomach was reminding him it was long past lunchtime.
“Is Miss Harley home?”
“I’ll just go and see, sir.”
“Much obliged, Bernadette.”
She gave the briefest of nods. “Please wait here.”
“Thank you,” he replied, stepping into the foyer with its paintings of bucolic English landscapes complete with huntsmen on galloping horses, baying hounds underfoot. Eugene Harley didn’t strike him as the horsey type—nor, in fact, a likely candidate for any sort of athletic endeavor, in spite of his alleged fondness for golf.
He listened to Bernadette’s heavy tread upon the stairs and the first-floor landing as she lumbered to Catherine Harley’s bedroom. The sound of her knocking was followed by low voices—strain as he might, Ian couldn’t make out the words. Shortly afterward, he heard the return of footsteps down the steps, and the maid reappeared at the foyer entrance.
“Miss Harley is indisposed at the moment,” she announced, avoiding his gaze. “Perhaps if you’d like to leave your card—”
Her speech was interrupted by the sound of a door opening upstairs, followed by a muffled cry.
“Excuse me, sir,” Bernadette said, alarm spreading over her broad face. “My mistress—”
At that moment Catherine Harley appeared on the staircase, clad as before all in white, but this time she wore an ivory nightgown. She stumbled down the steps, one pale hand clutching the banister, the other pulling at her unkempt hair. Bernadette bustled to her aid, clucking like a red-crested laying hen.
“My lady, what are you doing? You are not well. I implore you, go back to bed!”
Catherine Harley shook off Bernadette’s fumbling attempts to shepherd her back upstairs, staggering down the stairs in what appeared to be a drunken state. Seeing Ian, she stretched out a thin arm toward him.
“Ah, you’ve come back, Stephen—thank God! I thought you were dead. How I’ve missed you!”
Her vacant stare and halting gait shocked Ian into a sudden realization. He wondered how he had not recognized it earlier.
Catherine Harley was an opium addict.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE