Pride and Premeditation (Jane Austen Murder Mystery #1)(28)
“One and the same.” He removed a few coins from his top drawer. “Now, why don’t you go find Charlotte and take her to a coffeehouse for luncheon? Give you ladies a chance to catch up?”
Lizzie accepted the coins numbly, unable to bring herself to tell her father that she’d offended Charlotte, and what was worse was that she wasn’t sure how to apologize. “Thank you, Papa.”
“Keep out of trouble,” was his parting response. Lizzie made no promises.
Sidestepping Collins’s empty office, Lizzie went back to Charlotte’s desk, hoping for a reconciliation over scones and strawberry preserves. But Charlotte’s work area was abandoned. Lizzie stood by, waiting for her friend to come out of the records room, until a clerk asked, “Are you waiting for Miss Lucas, miss?”
Lizzie held in a sigh. Deductive reasoning was truly absent in these offices. “Yes.”
“She’s gone to luncheon with Mr. Collins,” the clerk said, then backed away apologetically at the darkening of Lizzie’s expression.
Disbelief blossomed into anger, but it withered quickly at the memory of Charlotte’s words. Was Lizzie really as oblivious as her friend had made her out to be? If she was, that did not bode well for her future as a barrister.
Nor for her friendship with Charlotte, who deserved so much better than bumbling, bragging, boisterous Collins.
Lizzie left the offices and stepped out onto the cobblestones. She swept her gaze up and down the street, looking for Charlotte and Collins. There was no trace of them.
“G’day, miss!”
Lizzie jumped at the sudden appearance of her short acquaintance. “Fred! You’re quite stealthy.”
“That’s what they pay me for,” he boasted, brown eyes sparkling with delight. Lizzie smiled, but she stared at Fred, her favorite of the street orphan bunch. Had she ever thoughtlessly said or done anything that was offensive to him? The idea of it made her half-sick with worry and shame.
“Miss?” Fred asked.
“I’m sorry, I’m a bit tired today,” Lizzie lied. “Fred, would you be interested in a couple of errands—within the letter of the law, of course?”
“Course, miss.” He smiled broadly. “But the illegal ones are more fun.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Lizzie remarked, withdrawing a sixpence her father had just given her. She flipped the coin to Fred, who caught it deftly and stashed it away so quickly, Lizzie wasn’t sure where it had gone.
“I need you to deliver two messages for me,” she said, making up her mind. She handed Fred the note she had written earlier. “This one to the Bingleys, and I need you to leave word at the Crooked Cat.”
Eight
In Which Lizzie Enlists Outside Help
THE NEXT DAY, LIZZIE made for Harley Street as soon as she could get away from Mrs. Bennet, insisting that she had made plans with Charlotte. She arrived after a longer walk than she had anticipated, out of breath and rather warm under the midday sun. The Bingleys lived in an elegant new town house on the north end of the street, and when Lizzie had called just days earlier, she hadn’t really lingered long enough to get a feel for the neighborhood.
It was much quieter than Cheapside. Cobblestones were carefully placed to keep the fine ladies’ feet from the mud, and pedestrians didn’t linger. Lizzie found a shaded bench on an adjacent corner that allowed her an unimpeded view of the Bingley residence, hoping to spot Caroline. It would make her job easy if she could observe some nefarious-looking fellows coming to collect payment for an illicit job, but Lizzie suspected that Caroline was sly and careful. Unfortunately, all she saw was an endless slew of society women coming to gossip under the guise of offering condolences.
Of course, if Caroline had really killed her brother-in-law, the wise thing to do would be to stay at home and receive callers, plan a funeral, and act exactly as the sister of a widow would be expected to behave. But according to her father and Lizzie’s experience with the Davis case, the perpetrators of crimes rarely acted in their own best interests. Thieves couldn’t abide sitting on their riches until the law had moved on—they had to spend that money on fine things, which was how Mrs. Davis had first aroused Lizzie’s suspicions. Or they talked, or they went back to their suspicious habits in no time. If Lizzie was right, then with Hurst dead and Bingley effectively under house arrest, Caroline wouldn’t resist exercising her freedom.
Every half hour Lizzie got up and took a stroll around the block to shake life into her limbs and try out a new observation position. She hoped that Wickham had received her message requesting he join her surveillance mission. If anything, his presence would break up the boredom of sitting around and avoiding curious glances—there were only so many positions Lizzie could take around the block without attracting the attention of the neighbors. Even the pigeons had grown weary of her presence.
The afternoon passed and the flow of callers slowed to a dribble. The lamplighters were coming down the street and Lizzie was calculating how much longer she ought to stay when a tall figure popped around the corner, looked about, and headed straight for her. Wickham’s smiling face appeared through the shadows. “Miss Bennet,” he said in greeting, “how is your investigation going?”
“Rather dull,” she said, stamping her feet awake. “And now rather chilly.”