Maggie MacKeever (9 page)

Melly was not unfamiliar with the newcomer’s bizarre behavior, a frequent affliction which smote young men on first sight of herself. “Hallo!” she said, and smiled. “That’s a nacky rig you’re wearing, sir. It looks like a uniform. I have a partiality for the military, you know!”

In response to these confidences, the newcomer made a supreme effort to recollect his scattered wits. Alas for good intentions; he could not reclaim what he never possessed. However, he did manage to sweep off his leather hat without decapitating himself with the saber. “S-Samson!” he responded. “Samson Puddiphat!”

“What a pretty name!” Melly fluttered her eyelashes.

Her companion looked blank.
“Puddiphat?”
he inquired.

A less determined lass might have faltered at this moment. Melly merely grasped hold of the sleeve of his blue greatcoat and urged him to enter the showroom. “No: Samson!” she replied. “Samson is a very pretty name.
Are
you a military man, Samson?”

This question was one which had never before been presented to Puddiphat; it set him at a loss.
Could
a chap in the hire of Bow Street be considered a military man? It was a pretty puzzle, decided Puddiphat, after prolonged attempts at cogitation. He would have to remember to ask the opinion of Mr. Crump.

It then occurred to Puddiphat that the young lady was observing him with a degree of impatience. This was not an unusual reaction from people engaged in conversation with Puddiphat.
Why
people became impatient with him, Puddiphat was not certain; he tried hard to please. With an idea of explaining this to the young lady, he opened his mouth. To encourage him, Melly smiled. By the impact of that gesture, Puddiphat was once more deprived of speech.

Madame le Best was not unaware of the newcomer, as she was not unaware that her scapegrace niece was once more casting out lures. Recognizing in Puddiphat’s besabered person an emissary of officialdom, Madame left her seamstresses to their own devices, and her customers to a heated discussion of Hungarian and Polish frogged decorations, Greek and Egyptian motifs. “Oh,
la vache!”
she muttered, recalling her niece’s weakness for a uniform. “And what do
you
want?”

Inarticulate at the best of times, Puddiphat made no attempt to explain that what he wanted was the mischievous-looking damsel who still held fast to the sleeve of his greatcoat. With a monumental application of willpower, he wrenched his gaze away from the damsel’s elfin face and stared instead at the sharp-featured female. She was looking unfriendly. This reaction to his presence did not surprise Puddiphat; in his recently gleaned experience, emissaries of officialdom were not especially welcome in milliners’ shops. Since meeting with Mr. Crump in the tavern located near the Bow Street Public Office, Puddiphat had seen the interior of a great many such shops. He had also amassed a great deal of unwanted information about such devices as Armenian Divorce Corsets and Bosom Shields and Invisible Petticoats.

This particular milliner was observing him in a very hostile manner, and even the mischievous-looking damsel seemed disappointed. Puddiphat concentrated very hard. “Looking for a milliner!” he announced.

“Enfin,
we progress!” Madame adjusted her embroidered muslin cornette. “You have found a milliner,
n’est çe pas?”

A milliner? After lengthy pondering, during which he sought desperately to ignore the provocative damsel who stood so close to him, Puddiphat grasped the import of this remark. Certainly he had found a milliner. “Bonnets!” he said, in proof of that fact.

“Bonnets?” Madame’s voice was ironic.
“Voilà!
What would you prefer: a capote with a crown of puffs, a toque of eyelet embroiders—or perhaps a yellow straw hat tied with an organdie fichu?”

In an attempt to visualize himself thus decked out, Puddiphat wrinkled his brow. “A fichu!” giggled Melly. “My aunt is bamboozling you, Samson, although it ain’t exactly kind. She don’t mean
you
should be wishful of wearing a bonnet—but perhaps you have a friend?”

Why the young lady was staring at him in that wide-eyed manner, Puddiphat could not imagine, and he wished she would not, because it made his head spin. He clutched at his chin, as if thereby he might anchor down his whirling thoughts. “Of course I have a friend! Any number of ‘em! A fine figure they’d cut with fichus tied around their heads.”

“No, no, Samson,” soothed Melly, as Madame silently marveled at the rapidity with which her niece had arrived on a first-name basis. Casting out lures was as natural for the minx as drawing breath, decided Madame; and scolding had no more effect on Melly than it would have had on Madame’s japanned chairs. “A
lady
friend?”

“Or,” inserted Madame, “a wife!”

Relieved to have finally achieved enlightenment, Puddiphat released his chin and smiled. “Don’t mind admitting I was beginning to wonder if you weren’t both dicked in the nob—or a trifle bosky!” he confessed. “Dashed if
I
know any chaps wishful of decking themselves out in ladies’ bonnets.”

The great majority of Puddiphat’s inane utterances were offset, in Melly’s opinion, by his obvious wish to please. She was also aware that she was responsible for at least a portion of Puddiphat’s inanities. It was a relief to discover she hadn’t lost her touch

“What about your lady friends?” inquired Melly, fluttering her long lashes. “One of them would like a nacky bonnet, I’ll wager!”

“Lady friends?” Puddiphat had made the mistake of looking straight at Melly, with the result that his faculties were again arrested.

Though Madame’s customers could content themselves forever with heated discussions about rival decorations and motifs, they would not, without proper motivation, actually decide among those fashionable things. Madame was eager to supply that motivation and reap her consequent reward. However, she was even more eager to find some solution to the problem presented by her niece.
“Mon Dieu!”
she remarked. “Then it wasn’t to purchase a bonnet for your lady friend—or your wife—that you came to my shop.”

Here was a female who knew how to cut right to the heart of a matter, realized Puddiphat. He awarded her a grateful look. “No, it was not.”

Madame le Best strove for patience. “If not bonnets, then what? We can show you reticules and purses, tippets of far or eiderdown; slippers of satin or kid. Perhaps some long gloves or mitts? A scarf in violet or poppy-red?”

Puddiphat interrupted this catalogue with a sudden gesture that caused Melly, mindful of the saber, to move hastily aside. “I see what it is,” he concluded wisely. “You think I want to
buy
something! Well, I don’t.”

Madame contemplated the customers left unsuccored, the sales consequently unmade.
“Quel diable!
If you do not wish to buy, then why are you here?”

In Puddiphat’s makeup, a sparsity of wit was compensated by an abundance of such admirable virtues as dogged dedication to his duty, a keen sense of responsibility, and perseverance that frequently stood him in good stead when other people’s applications of brilliant logic went wide of the mark. These virtues did not always make him happy, as in this case, when Madame’s remarks reminded him of all the milliners he had yet to interrogate. So fruitless had his investigations thus far proven that a less charitable soul than Puddiphat might have wondered if he’d been deliberately sent to chase wild geese.

Aware that Puddiphat’s attention had wandered— one could hardly fail to achieve that awareness, since Puddiphat was currently frowning in a dreadful manner at the tip of his nose—Melly reached out and gave his arm a nip. Puddiphat started. Now it was Madame who moved hastily away from his saber. “My aunt wishes to know why you have come here, Samson,” Melly explained.

“Don’t blame her.” Puddiphat responded. “Like to know it myself. Crump didn’t give me the particulars of the business—if these
are
particulars, about which I have doubts! Thought Crump was the best of good fellows to give me the opportunity to better myself. Now I think it may’ve been a proper take-in.” He looked unhappy. “A fellow don’t
wish
to make a Jack-pudding of himself.”

“Bless my heart!” cried Melly, who was as tender-hearted as she was prone to larks. “I’m sure you ain’t such a thing.”

Puddiphat, who possessed grave reservations on that head, nonetheless recognized a good intention. He gazed upon the source of those good intentions, and was immediately entranced.

Madame le Best crossed her arms beneath her bosom, covered this day with green silk.
“Ah, ça!”
she murmured. “You expect to discover this opportunity here? Perhaps you would be so good as to explain.”

Puddiphat was eager to do so. His dreams of advancement were so potent as to distract him even from Melly, that inspiration of dreams of quite a different kind. “A Redbreast!” he said, by way of introduction, indicating his scarlet waistcoat. “First in the Metropolis to wear a uniform! Patrol the roads leading into London, calling out ‘Bow Street Patrol’ to such carriages as pass by. Carry a pistol and a truncheon and a pair of handcuffs.” He delved into the recesses of his blue greatcoat and brought forth these items, which he proudly displayed.

“Do put those things away!” snapped Madame, glancing quickly at her customers. “What will people think?”

“The worst!” supplied Puddiphat, after giving the question serious thought. “Probably that you were being nicked as a result of pinching something. But it wouldn’t likely be me as would arrest you. That sort of thing doesn’t often come the way of the Foot Patrol, nor even the Inspectors. But if I was to prove myself I might be made a Runner, and then I might very well be the one to arrest you, and have a fair chance at the reward money myself.” He smiled, content in the belief that he had rendered an excellent account.

His smile was so lacking in guile, so full of generous bonhomie, Madame refrained from boxing his ears. “So you wish to become a Bow Street Runner,” she summarized, in the same breath as her niece expressed keen disapproval of Puddiphat’s intention to clap Madame in jail. “Perhaps you might explain, young man, how you think you may do so in
my
shop!”

“Not
your
shop, exactly!” For a fellow who craved acceptance, even affection, from his fellow creatures, Puddiphat was definitely in the wrong line of work. He harked back to his original explanation. “Looking for a milliner.”

“Oui!”
Madame tapped the fingers of one hand, hard, against the elbow of her other arm. “And you have found one. What do you suggest is our next step?”

“Next step?” Puddiphat privately thought this conversation was going a great deal too fast. What did one normally do with a milliner, he wondered, aside from entrusting her with details of wardrobe?

One answer presented itself. “Moonshine!” squealed Puddiphat, and fell back a pace. Alas, this act brought his saber into disastrous proximity with the table strewn with fashion issues. With a crash, the table toppled. Puddiphat swung around to discover the source of the commotion. His saber connected with Madame’s shins.

“Merde!”
winced Madame, clutching the afflicted extremity.
“Crétin! Imbécile!
Tell me instantly what has brought you here—or, even better, leave!”

Agonized though he was to have earned such severe disapproval, Puddiphat did not shirk his responsibilities. “Beg pardon, ma’am! No offense intended, I’m sure. Thing is, I’m looking for a
special
milliner! One who has in the past come afoul of Bow Street—or who knows someone who did.” He was painfully aware that this explanation was somewhat lacking in conciseness. “A gentleman acquaintance—maybe even a father or a husband—a rum customer, in short!”

Madame le Best was also victim of a pained awareness, centered in her shin. Distracted, she did not become aware of the reflective expression on Melly’s elfin features until it was too late to forbid that impulsive damsel to speak.

“Mercy on me!” Melly sank back on her heels amid the scattered periodicals which she’d been crawling about the floor in an effort to collect. “Can it be you are looking for my papa? I wish you luck! My mama could never find him, and she searched for him for years!”

“Your papa?” Puddiphat gaped at Melly.
“Your
papa was a rum customer, Miss?”

“The rummest!” Melly cheerfully admitted, as she restored the magazines to the table, after setting it upright. “He ran off and left Mama and me when I was just a little thing. Not that Bow Street would care about
that,
though it made my mama very sad.”

Certainly Bow Street was not interested in gentlemen who took French leave, the number of whom was no testimonial to the joys of the marital state; and Puddiphat’s dedication to duty extended only so far. “You still
are
just a little thing. Miss!” he besottedly observed.

Madame le Best regained the use of her vocal cords, briefly rendered impotent by mention of Melly’s reprehensible parent. “I will not have That Man’s name spoken beneath my roof!” she snapped. “Melly, show this person to the door.”

Chapter Nine

Davenant House was one of several late Stuart residences in Soho Square, once a center of gaiety, still a respectable address. Built of rose-colored brick with Portland stone parapets and window columns, the house consisted of three floors above a basement, and an attic beneath the steep tiled roof.

Through the plastered and pedimented doorway of Davenant House this evening passed the most sought-after lords and ladies in the land. Through the spacious stone-paved hallway they proceeded, up the stone staircase with its wonderfully scrolled handrail, along the upper hallway, into the drawing room. There they tussled politely with one another for possession of the straight-legged sofa, gilt settee and heart-backed chairs, whispered avidly behind fan and gloves about the scandalous history of the guest of honor, and tried very hard to appear utterly bored.

“Drum and concave threshing,” observed Lord Davenham, who disliked large gatherings of people almost as much as he disliked inquiries of a personal sort, “enables machines worked by four men to turn out a ton of threshed corn a day. A ton; imagine it. And when we learn to harness steam power to land implements, the output will be even more.”