Page 91 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

The man’s mouth opened and closed.

“Hold it,” I said, gentler. “Set your type. Ready your presses. But let it stand until the committal is done and the challenge is laid. Then publish and publish loudly. Put Lydia’s words in every hand in London at the very moment we challenge Linnet’s committal, and they cannot help but see the thing for what it is—women buried alive for the crime of being inconvenient.”

For a long moment, Quennell said nothing, and I feared I had just asked more of him than a frightened man could give.

Turning to the editor, Peregrine broke the silence. “Lark is not in the habit of asking people to be patient for the pleasure of it. She has a reason to her request. I would rather not be the man who fired early and lost the girl, only to learn afterward what I might have done by simply trusting her.”

It was deftly done. He had granted them both a way to consent without requiring me to offer a further explanation.

Quennell drew himself up, as the flutter went out of him, and the steadier man beneath showed through. “I shall hold it then,” he said, “until you send word.” His chin rose. “The same day that it’s published, ‘The Mask of Virtue’ will be in every coffee house and reading room in London, under Miss Gray’s own pen name, with a black border, and the date of her death beneath the title. They burned my building to stop these words. I should very much like to make certain the whole of London reads them.” A small, fierce breath. “I can wait to do it properly."

A part of me wanted to stand up and cheer the man. But Quennell had to be warned. “Publishing Lydia’s poem does not bury the danger to you. One of the men who commit these women murdered Miss Gray to suppress it. The publication may put you in danger as well.”

“I know it,” Quennell said quietly. “But I owe it to Miss Gray that her poem sees the light of day.”

It was, I thought, the bravest cowardice I had ever witnessed. I told him so, and he almost smiled.

“We are agreed then,” Peregrine said, rising. “Horace will see Miss Gray’s poem set to print. He will stay with me until the thing is done.” He glanced at his friend. “And perhaps a while longer.” He took Quennell’s arm as the editor came to his feet. At the door Peregrine paused and looked back at me. “You will share the news with Everthorne?”

“Of course. I expect him later today.”

And then they were gone, leaving only silence behind.

But Miriam couldn’t help but speak up. “You see, Lark? Patience, along with cunning, suits this house far better than cunning alone.”

It did. I only hoped Mr. Quennell would not pay for his courage with his life.

Chapter

Thirty-Five

A Name at Last

My solicitors did not disappoint me. But then, they so rarely did.

Harkness had the affidavit drawn already—Martha Preston’s account, set down in the clean copperplate of a clerk. He also laid before me a second sheet I had not asked for but was glad to have—the register of certificates bearing Aubrey Strode’s signature, year upon year, against the establishment in Kent. Names of women. Dates of committal. Fees received. The whole tidy commerce of it accounted to the farthing.

“You will want the originals kept where they cannot be reached,” I said.

Harkness removed his spectacles and polished them, which was his way of telling me he had already thought of it and was offended I supposed otherwise. “They are lodged with the bank, my lord. Sealed. Mr. Poole and I are the only signatories.” He returned the spectacles to his nose. “A house may burn. A bank vault is a different proposition.”

"There is something else," I said. "What I feared has come to pass. Westmere has set the thing in motion. He has his sister already and means to have her certified within the week. A physician is expected on Thursday, I am given to understand."

Harkness did not exclaim. He merely set down his pen. "Then we are where we expected to be.”

"You are ready, then."

"My lord." There was the faintest reproach in it. "We have been ready for some time, since you brought the matter to our attention. The petition to the commissioners wants only the names and the date. Westmere is about to furnish us both." He drew a single sheet from the folder at his elbow and turned it for me to see—a document drawn close, in the same clean clerk's hand, with blanks left waiting where the particulars would go. "The moment the certificates are signed, we challenge them. Strode cannot examine a woman he cannot speak to. The certificate he signs will be worth no more than the paper, and we shall say so before the board in language they cannot mistake. The committal will be the rope, my lord. We need only let him fashion the knot."

It was, I thought, a remarkably bloodless way to describe the rescue of a living woman from a stone house in Kent. It was also exactly correct, which was why I employed Harkness and not a man with warmer blood and cooler wits.

I left his offices better armed than I had entered it, which is the most a man can ask of his solicitors, and rather more than most of them provide.

And then I went home to wait, which was the part I had never learned to do. I did not pace. I have a horror of being a man who paces, and, in any case, it was something I could not very well do. I sat in the library with a copy of the affidavit on the desk before me and Ajax stretched the length of the hearthrug and read the same paragraph of Miss Preston’s statement four times without taking in a word of it.

He put both his hands flat against her shoulders. And he shoved her into its path.

I knew the shape of the man now. I did not yet know his name. Somewhere in the warren of Bloomsbury, Dawson was extracting it from a publican, a name being the one thing a face like that cannot help but leave behind. And somewhere in the same streets—this was the thought that would not let me read—a ten-year-old boy in patched Yorkshire homespun was asking other boys whether they had seen a ginger man with a broken nose.