Undertow (Whyborne & Griffin #8.5)(9)

*

I was still undecided when I returned to the boarding house that evening. Mr. Quinn no doubt meant well with his suggestion, but how could Persephone possibly help when it came to Irene’s disappearance? She lived in the ocean, after all. She might be the chieftess of the ketoi, but that didn’t make her a detective. It only meant her time was far too valuable to waste on my problems.

Oliver awaited me in the parlor; when he heard what had happened, he was full of concern. Perhaps sensing I wasn’t in the mood for company, he kept his visit short, though he did ask me to dinner the next day.

Mrs. Yagoda served dinner soon after he left. Once we’d all helped ourselves from the sideboard, Mrs. Yagoda said grace. As we tucked in, she cleared her throat.

“The mystery of Miss Vale’s so-called disappearance has been solved,” she said in a tone of decided disapproval.

I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. “You’ve heard from the police?”

“Yes.” Her mouth pressed into a harsh line amidst a network of wrinkles. “It seems Miss Vale had a…friend. One Mr. Burton.”

My pulse quickened. “Yes—she spoke to him at the theater last night.”

“Apparently, they were laying plans to elope together. Mr. Burton has vanished as well.”

My hand tightened on the fork. “He’s gone? Are the police looking for him?”

“Why would they?”

“Because Irene wouldn’t elope dressed only in her nightgown!” I exclaimed.

Mrs. Yagoda’s eyes widened in affront. “Miss Parkhurst, control yourself.”

My hand shook. I wanted to shout at her, to make her see it was all nonsense. Instead, I lowered my gaze to my plate. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“As you should be.” She settled back in her chair. “Older, wiser, minds than yours have considered the matter. You must accept our judgment.”

“Of course,” I said to the plate.

“I am as shocked as anyone to think a woman of such morals could have lived beneath my roof,” she went on, apparently mollified by my surrender. “I will discard her things tomorrow and find a more suitable boarder.”

I glanced up in time to see the other ladies cast speculative looks amongst themselves. We were all surviving on the salaries of female clerks and secretaries; I suspected few of Irene’s possessions would remain for Mrs. Yagoda to cast out tomorrow.

Which meant I had to get to her room first.

With a muffled sob, I clutched my napkin to my eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry,” I burbled from behind the linen. “It’s just such a…such a shock! To think I believed Irene a friend…”

I let out an inconsolable wail and fled the table. “Let her go, the poor thing,” Mrs. Yagoda said, her words nearly drowned out by the clatter of my shoes on the stairs.

Once I was safely on the third floor, I lowered the napkin. My stomach complained of its emptiness, and I silently cursed Irene for costing me dinner. But if I’d waited, the other boarders would strip the room, and any chance at finding a clue to her disappearance would be lost.

Mrs. Yagoda had locked the door, no doubt in hopes of preventing us from stealing anything. Fortunately, Mr. Flaherty had once shown me how to pick the lock to Dr. Whyborne’s office with a hair pin, after Dr. Whyborne had wandered off to some distant storeroom with the key in his pocket and left me no way to retrieve his correspondence to mail. A quick application of his lesson, and I was inside.

I paused a moment, wondering where to start. The bed had been tidied, no doubt by the maid on Mrs. Yagoda’s orders, but otherwise nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The desk seemed a likely place, so I began with it.

Nothing, save for letters from Irene’s family. Only dust gathered beneath the bed. It seemed doubtful she’d hide anything under the mattress, since the maid would find it the next time she aired the bed. Irene’s pocketbook sat atop the dresser, but a quick look through it revealed only the things I’d expect any woman to have. I took it anyway; if Irene was found safe, I could return it to her. And if not, I still needed a replacement for the one ruined by the dead squid.

The only place remaining to look was the dresser. I began opening its drawers, running my hands underneath the frocks and underthings. My search disarranged them from their neat folds, but hopefully anyone else would assume the police had gone through the drawers.

My fingers encountered something hard at the very back of one drawer, buried beneath Irene’s stockings. I pulled it out, and discovered it to be an object just large enough to fit comfortably into the palm of my hand, wrapped in silk.

It couldn’t be.

There came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. I hastily shoved it into my pocket and shut the drawer. Moving as quickly as I could, I relocked her door behind me and let myself into my room.

As soft voices sounded from the room across the hall, speculating how to get past the locked door, I put the silk-wrapped object on my desk. Hands trembling, I pulled back the cloth, revealing the carved stone inside.

A summoning stone. Just like the one Persephone had given me.

Bile coated the back of my throat. The summoning stone had made me feel special. Set apart. It meant Persephone and I were friends. That she wanted to see me, even if she was a chieftess and I was just a secretary.

But it seemed I wasn’t so special after all.