“What is going on?” asked a woman in front of them. The voices around began building again.
James held up his arms. “Please, I just require a moment of your time.”
“Two days ago, a five-year-old child disembarked with his ayah from a ship that had sailed from India. He’d been sent to England to live with his uncle. While on the wharf, he was stolen away from his ayah, and Bow Street has learned he has been sold into apprenticeship to a chimney sweep.”
“That is disturbing that this should happen, Sir James, but why have you disrupted our evening to tell us this? The wharf areas are full of crime. I’m surprised Bow Street would even get involved.”
“The child is Christopher Sedgewick, the son of Owen Sedgewick.”
“Naturalson, Sir James,” called out Lady Soothcoor from across the room.
“That remains to be determined and is immaterial,” Cecilia said repressively, staring frostily at Lady Soothcoor.
The guests looked from one woman to another, detecting juicy gossip fodder in a hidden story here.
“In my household, my housekeeper arranges for our chimneys to be swept. In yours, it may be the housekeeper or another upper servant. My staff have shared a flyer with an etching of the boy with their peers in the city, encouraging chimney sweeps to be hired and their climbing boys reviewed. Support your staff if they wish to get your chimney swept. That is all we ask.”
“Climbing boys are black with soot. Who can recognize one from another? Your intention is honorable, sir, however not practical,” said a man with a chin-strap beard.
“How many of you have noted the unusual downward slanting of the Earl of Soothcoor’s eyes?” James asked.
“Like a soulful puppy,” one matron close to him murmured.
“Exactly, Lady Fortner, like a soulful puppy. This child has unmistakable eyes like his uncle, the Earl.”
A woman in the center of the room gasped. “I think I might have seen him! Does he have brown eyes, not gray like his uncles? Remember, Iona, when I told you about the child that looked like a young Alastair?”
“I do,” said the older woman standing next to her.
The guests began talking. They gathered closer.
“I have a flyer with his picture,” Cecilia said. She negotiated her way through the crush of guests. They moved aside to let her pass, curiosity now high in the room. She dug through her reticule again to pull out the picture and thrust it into the woman’s hands.
The woman opened the folded parchment. Tears sprang into her eyes and slid down her cheeks. She raised a shaking hand to her lips as she stared down at the picture. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“This is the child you saw?” Cecilia asked.
The woman compressed her lips tightly and nodded.
The noise of the crowd grew louder, as word of what the woman said spread through the room.
James came to Cecilia’s side and placed his arm around her.
The woman sniffed, then laughed as she fumbled for her handkerchief. James handed her his.
“I’ve taken a house on Mount Street,” the woman explained, her voice redolent of a gentle Scottish accent. “We haven’t moved in and are currently staying with the Viscount and Viscountess Syford. I am still hiring staff. I was at the house conferring with my new butler when a chimney sweep and two climbing boys arrived to clean the chimneys,” she said, her eyes not leaving the paper she held.
Around them the room was quiet, the guests pressing close to hear what the woman said.
“The older boy was instructing the younger one on how to climb the chimney. The younger boy didn’t want to and was trying to get away. The older boy threatened to burn him with the torch if he didn’t start climbing. I protested, but the older boy said this always happens with the new ones, and not to worry. I didn’t know what to think, but at that moment Mr. Curlings, my new butler, told me a housekeeper candidate had arrived for an interview. I looked back at the climbing boys and the younger one that looked so like a young Alastair Sedgewick. The child was climbing the chimney, so I assumed what the older boy told me was true and I left the room.”
“Do you know the chimney sweep’s name?
“No, I do not, but my butler most likely will. The older boy did call the younger one something like Tristan.”
“Could he have said Krishan?” Cecilia asked.
“Yes, it could have been that.”
