Page 20 of A Moveable Feast
“Now.”
Armitage started again but after assessing the sergeant’s impatience, he lowered the box to the slate floor. He straightened, one hand going to his back.
“You can answer to the master if they go missing,” Armitage muttered both to me and the sergeant. “And put them all back. I have me duties to attend.”
“I will speak to you soon,” Sergeant Scott informed him. “Wait in there.” He pointed to the butler’s pantry.
Armitage began to splutter, but again, he wilted under Scott’s cold stare. Armitage sent me a baleful glance but scuttled into the butler’s pantry and slammed its door.
I moved around Sergeant Scott to peer into the box. “Half of those belong to the Mount Street house,” I said. “May I take them?”
Sergeant Scott studied me without expression. I knew he did not give two sticks about who the wine belonged to, but he also knew that aristocrats were possessive of their expensive wine collections. He gave me a minute nod.
“Send in Miss Parsons when you go.”
Without giving me a chance to answer, he stepped back into the housekeeper’s parlor and closed the door with a decided click.
I’d never heft six bottles of wine under my arms, so I began to shove the crate down the hall toward the kitchen. I half expected Armitage to pop out and accuse me of theft, but he stayed put. Sergeant Scott, without ever raising his voice, had thoroughly intimidated him.
I was not as worried about Tess facing Sergeant Scott alone, despite some petty thieving in her past, because she’d grown less fearful about the police in the last few years. Her beau, Caleb Greene, was a constable, and she’d helped Daniel and me in some of our investigations. Tess had finally concluded that the Peelers were simply men doing a job, though there still were plenty of constables who thought nothing of bullying innocents.
I entered the kitchen half bent over the box I was pushing.
“You are next, Tess,” I said breathlessly, and then added for the benefit of the others, “Sergeant Scott can be aloof, but there’s nothing to be frightened of. Just tell the truth. We were all here in the kitchen when the young master died.”
I heard no response, so I straightened up, pushing tendrils of hair from my face. Tess and Mary regarded me with worry.
“I’m not afraid,” Tess said. “But Jane’s gone.”
“Gone?” I shoved at another recalcitrant tendril. “What do you mean gone?”
“She legged it,” Mary supplied. “Not ten seconds after you went into the room with Old Bill. She tore away her apron, and off she went.”
Chapter 8
I uttered a few choice words under my breath as the other two watched me in trepidation.
Jane fleeing might have nothing to do with Lord Alfred’s death, I told myself. The theory went that a guiltless person had no reason to run from the police, but I knew that in reality, plenty of people who’d done no wrong had been banged up, myself included. The instinct to take to one’s heels was understandable.
Even so, it would be far better for Jane to stay and face Sergeant Scott than give him an excuse to arrest her.
“Tess, take our wine out of this crate and put it with what we brought,” I said. “Then go down the hall and speak to Sergeant Scott. Mary, carry on with what you were doing, and under no circumstances allow Mr. Armitage to come in here and abscond with more bottles. I will find Jane.”
So speaking, I removed my apron, snatched up my hat, and charged out of the house, taking the outside steps as rapidly as I could.
It was a bright, sunny Easter afternoon, perfect for families who lived on the square to stroll in Portman Square’s small park, as many now did. Children smiled at mothers and fathers, who put aside their aristocratic arrogance to teach games to their sons and daughters, nannies hovering to ensure their charges were on their best behavior.
No one bothered to take note of a woman in cook’s garb rushing along the street, searching every which way for an errant kitchen maid.
If Jane knew London well, she could be far away by now, gone to ground as only born-and-bred Londoners could. We might never see her again.
I doubted very much that Jane had stabbed Lord Alfred, but Sergeant Scott or Inspector McGregor might decide to arrest her in absentia and send out constables to scour the streets for her.
I headed down Orchard Street, reasoning that Jane would flee east and south as quickly as possible. She might have family or friends in that part of the metropolis or across the river who would take her in.
Long before I reached Oxford Street, I found Jane.
Or rather, I saw her struggling hard against Daniel, who was still dressed in his shabby clothes and trying to hold on to her.
