Page 97 of An Artful Dodge
“You didn’t say a word,” I assured him, and his face eased. “And I’ll tell you everything.”
So I did, including what happened when I saw Maggie and that Mr. Fuller’s story would appear in the morning paper. “Then I’ll have Sarah back. Maggie said she had no reason to keep her,” I concluded, wanting to give him that assurance.
He nodded and his eyes closed. Exhaustion deepened the lines around his mouth and his fingers folded over my hand, which lay on his chest. I felt his breath, rising and falling like a tide. He could have died last night. We both could have.
And the dodge wasn’t over yet.
Suddenly overcome by feeling, I bent my forehead to his chest, a single jagged sob escaping, and his other hand came up to rest on my hair. “Oh, love,” he murmured. “Oh, love.” I turned my head to lay my cheek on his chest as sobs wracked me like some terrible sickness.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried, and it made me think of the day I’d found Sarah weeping over Little Nell’s death in that book by Dickens. Her tears weren’t just for Little Nell. I understood that now. They were for Ma’s death too. For Da’s leaving. For all the sadnesses she’d ever seen.
Perhaps all our sorrows are linked like this, a basted stitch of red thread, appearing and disappearing, on the right and wrong sides of the cloth. Losses and near losses, whether real or in novels—all part of the same strand, each new one sadder because of the previous ones. And it seemed to me that nearly losing James was one more stitch along that line of losses—only he wasn’t gone. He was right here, solid under my cheek, his hand in my hair, murmuring to me in as tender a voice as I’d ever heard.
Yes, grief and tragedy could change people down to their bones.
But so could loyalty and love.
Chapter 27
The next morning, having slept at James’s, Mary and I left early for Elephant and Castle. Mary went to her room to retrieve her things; I headed for the London and South Western Railway station near Elephant and Castle, where the papers always arrived first.
I had my coins ready and found a boy hawking theMirror—“Scandal! Scandal! Yard on the case!”—thrust a shilling at him as he took a breath, and opened the paper to find the headline in two-inch letters, followed by the article Mr. Fuller had written.
“What’s ’a matter?”
I looked up to find the newsboy staring and drew a full breath for what felt like the first time in days. “Nothing at all.”
Tucking the paper inside my coat, I cut east on Westminster Bridge Road, with Bedlam on my right and the Asylum for the Blind on my left. Straight to the Elephant and Castle and up the stairs to the goods room. To my relief, Maggie was there. Perhaps I’d made it clear I’d stand for no tricks this morning.
I dropped the folded newspaper onto her desk. “Now give me Sarah,” I said.
Her eyes lowered to the paper long enough to take in the headline, then they looked up, glinting as a serpent’s. I could see her thoughts as clearly as if they’d been headlines: She was wondering how far she could push me.
“I told you, I will go to the police and tell them the whole story if you don’t.” My fist closed again around the handle of Amelia’s pistol.
She didn’t miss the movement, and her mouth twitched. “No need to threaten me. I’ll do as I promised.”
The smirk that curved her mouth told me she had intended to give me Sarah all along. She just wanted to see me twist with uncertainty for those few extra seconds. It was her revenge for me having done the dodge my way instead of hers. The hate that blazed over me made sweat prickle across my shoulders.
“Come with me,” she said.
I kept my hand wrapped around the pistol inside my pocket and followed her down to the street, pulling the door of the inn shut. Maggie started west on St. George’s Road toward Bedlam, and, behind her, I glanced down Temple Street, where Mary appeared at the door of Mrs. Jonas’s bakery. She stood still, and our eyes met.
Hours spent thieving together had taught me to read her postures and her gestures, down to the very angle of her chin. It isn’t often people can say it truthfully, but I knew her expressions better than I knew my own. The look she gave me carried even more weight than the moment called for—more than merely,I promised I’d take care of this part of the dodge; I am ready; it will be done. It was something else. I sensed an apology—but I couldn’t pause to be sure.
Maggie led me past the synagogue, past Marshall Street and Garden Row, turning just before St. Jude’s Church into Richmond Street, where she stopped before one of the many cheap lodging houses. She opened the door and gestured for me to precede her upstairs. “No,” I said. I was not such a fool as to go upstairs in a strange house, even with a pistol. “Bring her down.”
Maggie shrugged and went up. Several minutes later she returned, with my sister in front of her. If anything solidified my desire to see Maggie hang, it was the look on Sarah’s face, the relief at seeing me in proportion to the fear she’d suffered for a whole week. Sarah’s eyes filled with tears and she hurtled herself down the stairs at me, tumbling the last two steps, throwing her arms around my neck.
The church bell tolled the hour, telling me that Maggie and I had only been away from the goods room less than fifteen minutes.
But that was enough time for Mary to do what I needed, to place the fourth diamond in the secret cupboard behind the paneling, wrapped in a bit of dark cloth, so no incidental glint off its facets could betray our final step.
With Sarah clinging to me, we made our way back toward the main road. At the corner, I pulled her into my arms, one arm around her back, my hand in her hair, as she gasped jagged, hiccupping sobs into my shoulder. We stood that way for several minutes until she subsided into silence. Finally, I asked, “Did they hurt you?”
She pulled back, her eyes searching my face.
“Sarah,” I said, gentling my voice, mindful of not looking angry like my mother. “Do you need a doctor?”
