The Cunning House by Richard Marggraf Turley

Author:Richard Marggraf Turley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2015-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

They sat in silence. Twice now, without any thought for her own safety, this delicate-looking woman had tried to protect him. Was he really going to discard her? She turned to him, exquisitely vulnerable, open to the city. Was this a taste of Leighton’s world?

“I should go, Mr Wyre. I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Wait,” he said. A pause. “I don’t trust those thugs. I’ll get my coat, accompany you home.”

She bowed her head in a manner he thought grateful. But he had less idea than ever what to make of her.

The air above the pavements was hot and sweet. They walked along marble crescents and shining terraces as street lamps were being lit. Miss Crawford’s pelisse brushed his sleeve. What Rose would call walking snug.

It wasn’t far, the dark woman assured him; but not far had to be reached via dubious districts where commodious new limestone residences ceded to older brick-and-timber buildings, to dark taverns and torch-lit theatres, and from there to zones of lickspit frippers, where punks and harridans yowled from alleyways, banshee lines of communication that always seemed to outpace them.

“Great Windmill Street,” said the lawyer, stopping with a frown. “It’s along there, isn’t it?” He glanced into a tight side street.

Miss Crawford clutched his sleeve. “The night Robert was arrested, he was forced to leave something in that awful house. I promised I’d recover it. It won’t take long.”

What? Tamper with evidence?

“It won’t take long,” she repeated. She turned and, going up on tip-toe, brushed her lips against his cheek.

He stared back mutely. Is this what Best meant by pretty eyes?

Vere Street was a narrowish lane running above Clare Market. Wide enough to admit a coach, but the overhanging galleries made it feel more constrained than it was. They stopped at a dark, three-storey façade. The first two levels were brick, the upper one half-timbered. Three different-sized bays protruded from the roof, rising to uneven peaks. The tavern’s sign arm was empty, but Wyre didn’t doubt they were standing outside London’s most notorious address. The White Swan’s lower windows were all broken, stopped with sheets of newspaper. Two slops of white paint above the lintel revoked the inn-keeper’s license. Crude slogans had been daubed across the tavern’s frontage – scrawled beneath a grotesquely distended yard that was half-buried in a coarse approximation of a rump was the name Ass-pinall. He winced. No woman should have to think of such things.

He looked at her. “Are you quite sure?”

“I promised I would.”

Wyre rapped on the oak door. He was about to knock again when they heard shootbolts being coaxed back. A freckled face appeared in the gap.

“Both of you together?” The tavern madam opened the door wider, revealing unlit depths; a waft of gin fumes escaped. “Or has one of you come to watch?”

“We’re not here for that,” Miss Crawford answered with surprising gentleness. “One of your guests left something here.”

“They all do, love.” The beginnings of a ribald smile, which must have come easily once, ghosted her lips.

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