Was there a flicker there? Constance thought she had sown a seed, but it wasn’t growing fast enough. They needed Kennynow. Yet Veronique continued to meet her gaze with contempt.
“You know your man’s listening to this,” she mocked.
“Her man is thinking exactly the same thing,” Solomon said. “So is the inspector here,andthe lady by the door. How many other poor fools do you imagine they’ve seen pass through here to the courts and the prisons and the scaffolds, loyal, stupid women who take the punishment for their faithless men? I suspect they pity you. I know I do.”
Veronique looked as if she’d spit at him. She was not ready to give Kenny up, though she might in the end—by which time it could be too late. Kenny could have fled and begun again elsewhere, perhaps with Veronique’s lists, perhaps just with her ideas. Either way, the trail of misery would go on.
And besides, they wanted Kenny for St. John’s murder. She hoped…
A brief knock, and Sergeant Flynn stuck his head in the door. Harris rose and went to him, while Veronique leaned back in her chair and regarded Constance and Solomon with yet more undisguised contempt.
“You think I didn’t know you,” she said unexpectedly. “I did, the moment you entered my shop. I thought of throwing you out, actually—Kenny was in the back. But I make it my business to know things, and I know you hooked a rich man, a foreigner who doesn’t know any better.”
Constance laughed. “Like you? Madame, do yourself—and womankind—a favor. Give us your faithless coward of a husband.”
Veronique started out of her chair, about to lunge across the table, but the warder’s hand was already on her shoulder, pushing her back down, while Inspector Harris loomed over her, smiling genially.
“Dear, dear, Mrs. Kenny. What have we here?” He dangled a medicine bottle in front of her. It was only half empty, so the liquid sloshed up its sides. The label was perfectly clear.
Laudanum.
“My sergeant found it beneath the floorboards of your fancy water closet.”
Now, at last, there was genuine fear in Veronique’s eyes. And a flicker of confusion, quickly hidden. “Why shouldn’t I have laudanum? I need it to help me sleep sometimes. The doctor recommended it.”
“Then why on earth keep it under the floorboards?” Harris asked.
“Kenny does not like me to take it,” Veronique said with dignity.
She was lying. Constance knew it with every instinct.
“Rubbish,” she said. “He didn’t care till he needed it himself. Half that bottle is more than enough to kill a man. Two men. And that’s exactly what he did, isn’t it? He met with St. John to discuss the halt in payments and found he would not budge. Probably St. John threatened to go to the police and end your entire operation. Somehow, Kenny managed to pour a lethalquantity of laudanum into his flask. And then he hid it under the floorboards, just in case. You couldn’t find it, could you?”
“Somehow?” Veronique mocked, though she was rattled. She was twisting her fingers together, gripping hard, and her face had lost all color. She understood the significance of the find. “I don’t see how. You’ll have to explain that to the judge.”
“It would be better coming from you,” Solomon said.
“Either way, Mrs. Kenny,” the inspector intervened, “your little blackmail venture is turning into very small beer beside a charge of murder. That’s the scaffold.”
“For you,” Constance murmured. “Or for Kenny.”
This time, Veronique did spit. Her fear emerged in a virulent stream of furious French and English obscenities, ending with, “Go to hell!” And after that, she refused to open her mouth.
*
“Shewilltalk,”Constance said as the carriage carried them from Scotland Yard to Silver and Grey’s offices. “I think she’ll even give him up once she’s adjusted to the fact that her great love isn’t so great, just a squalid little partnership in crime. But we can’t wait for that. We need to find Kenny.”
“It’s possible she doesn’t evenknowwhere he is,” Solomon said. “For more than ten years she’s kept a façade of respectability and hard work. She probably never wanted to know when he skulked back to his old haunts. She certainly couldn’t afford to be associated with them. Either way, you’re right. We have to find him.”
The police were looking, of course. They were not unfamiliar with Kenny and his regular haunts. Though he would be stupid to go near any of those.
“We need Janey and Lenny,” Constance said. “Even my mother. I’ve been away too long to know where the desperate goto hide from the law. I want to warn Mrs. St. John too, though I don’t see how…”
“I can warn her discreetly,” Solomon said, “while mentioning no details. The same with Cordell.”
“Then let’s make plans.”
A general council of war was held in the office. It helped that Lenny was present. Having completed his latest commission early, he had a free day before he needed to begin his next.
