Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) (12 page)

Poor Johnnie gasped. “You devil!”

Hades laughed. “Oh no, but close. I wouldn’t go there. She’s well known for giving men lice. Have you found yourself itching lately?”

To the general amusement of the gaggle, Johnnie scratched his head and his arm. His friends moved away from him slightly.

“I think we should go,” another person in the group said.

“Yes,” Johnnie said sadly. “How am I going to get rid of these lice?”

Hades relented. Scribbling quickly on a piece of paper, he gave it to Johnnie. “Visit this address. The apothecary will help you out. It is said that she can cure almost anything.”

Without turning to see if Johnnie kept the paper, Hades strode back to the now closed salon door and pushed his way in. Edward sat ensconced in a corner set of tub chairs. He had collared a manservant to bring them coffee.

“Impressive,” Edward said as he took a sip of coffee.

“Hmm, it is rather nice,” Hades said, appreciatively grasping his own cup.

“No I didn’t mean the coffee, I meant your show of knowledge out there. Now the tide will turn on the bets in the book, I shouldn’t wonder. I took a look at them whilst you were busy having your discussion.”

The tips of Hades ears burned. He did not want to admit that his knowledge was not that of a spymaster, but that of an all-male household that liked to gossip. Carlos and Charles were the main protagonists and Carter liked to drop a few morsels into Hades’ ear of an evening. That had been when Melissa was with them, of course. Now Carter would barely speak to him.

“Tell me about your conversation with Mr. Trump.” He sipped some more of his coffee and then put it aside.

Edward scrunched his face up, trying to remember. “I was sitting, here in this room in fact, reading the morning papers.”

Hades nodded. He had done that on occasion too.

“A man came up that I had not seen before, and asked to sit opposite me,” Edward continued. “The salon was full at the time, and the chair opposite was the last one left.”

“Did you know him?”

“No.” Edward frowned. “I didn’t see him greet anyone else either.”

“What did he look like?”

Edward paused and scratched his ear. “That’s just it. I can’t remember. The harder I try, the less I can even picture him. He was just another gentleman in breeches etc. Not tall, not short, nondescript hair, features, moustache…” Edward shook his head. “He just blended into the background. I forgot he was even there until he asked me to pass him the sugar.”

Hades sighed. There was no way that Edward was going to be able to give a good description of the man. “How did he bring up the subject of the Viper?”

“I think he saw a picture of a snake on the front cover of the Times—it might even have been the coverage of the bodies being pulled out of the Thames. He said that you were fighting against the Viper and that he thought you wouldn’t win.”

“And what made you think that I would?”

Edward looked him straight in the eye, and proceeded to tick points off on his fingers. “One, you are a friend of Lord Anglethorpe. Celine, my mistress—” Edward coughed—“his ex-mistress, told me that Lord Anglethorpe collected information. Two—” He held up his middle finger—“you have a reputation for getting what you want.”

“With the ladies,” Hades said flatly.

Edward nodded, “Yes, but in my line of business of investing, if a man is good at one thing, he is normally good at another. Three,” he said hurriedly, seeing Hades shifting in his seat, “I saw you in action bidding for the son of Demondale at Newmarket.”

Hades had to revise his opinion of Edward. He seemed a good-natured but boring man. However, it seemed his reputation for business was founded on an acute mind, and even better observation skills. At Newmarket, Hades had been up against every man and his dog in bidding on the horse that was the son of a renowned race horse from the end of the last century. He had really
wanted
that horse.

So it made it even stranger that Edward could not remember what this man looked like.

“I do remember one thing,” Edward said slowly, “In conjunction with commenting on the picture of the snake on the front cover, he mentioned visiting the Royal Society earlier that morning. I’m sorry it’s not much.”

Hades nodded. “All of it is relevant.”

“I haven’t even asked you why you want to know,” Edward said, squinting sideways at Hades.

Honesty was the best policy. “Because no one is meant to know that I’m chasing the Viper. I was assured that it was to be done in the utmost secrecy.”

“Hmm.” Edward sat back in his seat. “That is a problem.”

CHAPTER 14

It took some time to set the Bayswater house to rights again. Mrs. Hobbs recovered sufficiently to return to some part of her domineering self. Melissa was ordered to heat some water, and then go and have a lie down whilst Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs swept and cleaned the entirety of the house.

Instead Melissa spent the time again searching all the nooks and crannies that the house had to offer. She poked under the floorboards, stuck her hand up the chimney, and even peeped into the eaves above her attic bedroom, but it was to no avail. There was no book in the house.

Melissa withdrew her head from between the eaves of her room and roundly clunked herself against one of the supporting beams in the process. As she clutched at her head, she wondered. Could the book that the Viper was hunting for be among those that her mother had given away? It seemed doubtful. Melissa knew them almost by heart. She had pored over the plant journals from head to toe, learning as much as she could from her father’s memory after his death. The animal ones written by his colleagues she had used to weigh down her flower press.

Perhaps he had encoded something in them? Perhaps some of the knowledge in there was false, a clue as to why the Viper might seek the book so assiduously? Melissa rubbed the spot on her forehead where she had made contact with the beam. She had to admit that sometimes some of her remedies had not worked as well as she hoped. And there were any number of patients that did not seem to get better no matter how she treated them.

The only way she would find out was by getting the books back. And that meant a trip to the butchers.

“What are you going to bargain with, then?” Mrs. Hobbs asked when Melissa laid out her plans, back in the now cheerful kitchen. “That butcher is a sly one. He’s always trying to get the one over on me, even though I pay him with good coin.”

Melissa shuddered. She remembered her mother’s form of bargaining with the coal man.
All he wants is a kiss.
Luckily they had found a new man who wasn’t so intent on gathering ‘favors’, and with the money from the apothecary, had managed to keep the relationship firmly on a client basis.

“I think she should take the money, Mrs. Hobbs,” Mr. Hobbs said, drinking his tea. “We can all make more money after this, but we can’t go forward if the Viper is constantly troubling Miss Sumner.”

“But it’s more money than we’ve seen in our life, Albert!”

“I know, but it ain’t ours, it’s Miss Sumner’s! We live in her home, we used her recipes and know-how. If she hadn’t ‘taken a holiday’ she would have all the money herself instead of it lying under our bed.”

Mrs. Hobbs sighed. She looked at Melissa balefully but soon smiled. “Albert’s always right, dear. It
is
your money.” She got up from the kitchen table and clumped up the dark stairs to the Hobbs’ first floor bedroom that lay above the kitchen.

Mr. Hobbs and Melissa sat in silence as the floorboards creaked above them under the heavy weight of Mrs. Hobbs.

“She was a cook at the Grenadier, you know. A really good one,” Mr. Hobbs said wistfully. “It’s helped us with your recipes. Too bad that she got arthritis in her hands. Things would have gone better for us.”

The sound of Mrs. Hobbs on the stairs was followed by a large clunk with every step. She reappeared at the kitchen door with a very red face, and hair flying out in all directions from under her cap.

“Pooh!” she said, “It’s even heavier than I remembered. We just kept adding the day’s takings.”

“Hmm, we might have put up the prices a little,” Mr. Hobbs said thoughtfully, “but it seemed to increase the amount of people queuing against the wall.”

“Perhaps it was the quality effect,” Melissa murmured, absently gazing at the sack of coins that threatened to spill over on the floor. “The more you charge, the more people think it is worth it.”

“I think it was Albert’s humor,” Mrs. Hobbs said loyally. “He’s always been a good salesman.”

Melissa nodded. “How much is in there?”

Mrs. Hobbs mumbled something.

“Pardon?” Melissa said.

Mrs. Hobbs mumbled again.

“Go on spit it out dear,” Mr. Hobbs said tiredly.

“One thousand, one hundred and ninety one pounds and six shillings.” Mrs. Hobbs looked tragic. No wonder she had wanted to keep the money to herself. Even Melissa had not earned as much in all her time of doling out medicines.

“I should go away more often!” she said cheerfully. Just two hundred pounds would have been enough to buy her desk, chair, books and more besides.

She flicked a glance at the loyal couple in front of her. “May I take one hundred pounds worth of the money?” she asked seriously. “The rest is yours. I had no hand in running the business. I left you by yourselves. Really, by all rights, all of the money is for you. I just need to get those books back.”

“But with one thousand pounds, we could buy ourselves a house, a garden…” Mrs. Hobbs crowed for joy and then exchanged a look with her husband. “But without, you we would not have been able to make the money.”

“Exactly. We stay with you, Miss Sumner, until you have sorted everything else out. And then we’ll see.” Mr. Hobbs finished tamping tobacco into a long pipe that he kept in his pocket. He lit the bowl, and put the pipe’s stem into his mouth and puffed slowly. “The way as I see it, you helped us, and now we help you. There ain’t two ways about it.”

Melissa could feel her glasses beginning to steam up. She took them off and turned away to clean them.

“Thank you,” she said simply. There wasn’t much more that she could say.

The following day dawned bright, with blue sky and barely any clouds. Melissa dressed carefully. She did not want to give the butcher any room to accuse her of using her feminine wiles on him. Buttoning her coat to the neck, she stepped out onto the street, and followed the road towards the main thoroughfare that led through Bayswater to Hyde Park.

The butcher’s shop lay in the middle of the High Street. Large pig’s heads and rabbits were laid out on trestles outside the shop, and strings of sausages garlanded the inside of the window. Melissa hesitated before stepping into the shop. She had never been inside; the butcher had always come directly to them.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped in, and stopped. The smell was the first thing that hit her; meat and spices and sawdust all vied for a space in her throat. She fumbled to bring a handkerchief to her mouth, but then she noticed the line of customers all staring at her curiously. They were clearly all servants and shopkeepers themselves. Melissa regretted putting her large cloak on, her only remnants of her time in the ton.

“What do we ’ave here then, one of the quality has graced us with her presence!” The man behind the counter laughed hard, slapping his knife down into the wooden block in front of him. “You don’t come to us, ma’am, we ’as to come to you.”

“Shhh, Roger!” The butcher who normally came to the house in Bayswater bustled in from the back of the room, and looked at Melissa open-mouthed. A strange expression passed over his face.

“You can’t speak to her like that!” One of the customers in the queue came to her defense. “She’s the lady that runs the apothecary down the back of Cutler’s Yard. She actually makes the medicines that do some work.”

Others in the queue nodded vigorously. Melissa blinked several times in disbelief.

“I don’t care,” the belligerent Roger continued. “Them gentry should know their place, just as we know ours.”

“Bet she could help your gout that you is always complaining about!” an older lady called, much to the amusement of the others.

“And that arthritis in your wrist that always makes you cut the meat smaller than expected.” Titters followed.

Roger grew red. His colleague whispered in his ear and motioned to Melissa. “Miss Sumner, please come through to the back.” He disappeared behind the curtain again.

The queue of customers made way for Melissa to pass, smiling broadly at her as she did so. Melissa cautiously pushed open the faded curtain, finding herself in a serviceable hall. The butcher beckoned her from a door further down the hall. She followed, and entered a small sitting room which contained an angular over-stuffed chair and windows that looked onto a grass covered garden beyond.

“Please sit down, Miss Sumner.”

Melissa sat, wincing as the horsehair in the seat stayed as firm as when it was first stuffed.

“What can I do for you?” The butcher was short and to the point. It was what Melissa needed.

“I would like my desk, my chair and my books back,” she said baldly. “I will pay you for them.”

“Impossible,” the butcher said flatly. He clasped his big pudgy hands together.

“I’ve said I will pay you for them!”

“I was given them in good faith.” The butcher warmed to his theme. “You can’t come here and demand them back.”

“They weren’t someone else’s to give away in the first place.” Melissa had to be firm. At each verbal exchange, the butcher loomed closer and she began to realize quite how large he was.

“It don’t matter. You shouldn’t be so careless about your belongings.”

Melissa choked. That was one way to look at it. She delved under her cloak and pulled out a small sack of coins that she had divided off from the larger bag. She tipped the coins onto a small table where they created a large heap.

“I’m willing to pay you one hundred pounds and…
don’t come any closer
!”

The butcher stopped as if walking into a wall of iron. His small eyes gazed, riveted on the coins. His florid face stretched and compressed as he thought. But it was no use.