Page 29 of Peril in Piccadilly
“I can take you back to the Savoy and then on to Essex Street.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “Keep the money the gentleman gave you,” because that was more likely than not the problem here, not so much that he particularly wanted to make the drive to Bloomsbury, “and set me down at Charing Cross. I’m sure you can find another fare there.”
He squinted. “You sure about this, miss? Seems the least I can do is take you back to the Savoy.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “just pull in here, and… thank you.” We rolled onto the cobbles beside the Eleanor Cross. “I’m just going to hurry back to the Savoy and pick up my… um… my gloves, and then I’ll take the tube home. You just stay right here and find another fare. The gentleman will never know the difference.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes. “Afraid he’s got something going on the side, are you?”
“Something like that,” I agreed with the best humor I could manage. Certainly a lot more than if there had been any truth to the suggestion. “There was a note delivered over tea. I’m just going to keep watch for a bit. See whether someone stops by, or whether he goes out somewhere, or something like that.”
He nodded. “But you don’t need me for it?”
I shook my head. “Oh, no. No, you stay out of it. Get another fare and get paid twice.” I pushed the door open. “Good evening, sir.”
He didn’t stop me when I swung my legs out of the Hackney, or when I shut the door behind me, or as I scurried away across the cobblestones, back in the direction of the Savoy, but I could feel his eyes on me until I had turned the corner and was out of sight.
ChapterSeven
The same doormanwas still on the door when I got back to Savoy Court, and he arched his brows when he saw me. “Back already, Miss Darling?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “I realized I left my gloves inside the tearoom.”
The lie came more glibly this time, having already been told once. He might even have believed me.
There were no gloves, of course. I hadn’t wanted to aggravate the plasters any more than I had to, so I had done without them today, in contravention of the usual, but I went to the door of the tearoom anyway, to keep up appearances. The maître d’ was away from his podium, but one of the waiters took pity on me. He went so far as to go back into the tearoom and peer under the tables we had sat at—both of them—and came back to inform me that no, no pair of gloves had been found. I thanked him and turned to contemplate the lobby.
There was no sign of Wolfgang, nor of anyone else I recognized. If the correspondent had been out here when the note was delivered, he or she must have gone somewhere else by now. Or the note may have specified a different meeting place, and Wolfgang had hied himself there as soon as I was out of sight.
After making sure that I was out of sight, in fact, by putting me in a Hackney and paying the fare and telling the driver where to take me, so as to make certain that I wouldn’t be here to see what was going on.
Unless I was being unduly distrustful, of course, and Wolfgang had simply been behaving like a proper gentleman. It was possible, even if his behavior had sent up a red flag for me.
“So suspicious, Darling,” Crispin’s voice murmured in my head. “Always sticking your nose into other people’s affairs.”
And while I didn’t appreciate his voice being where it didn’t belong, I could hardly quibble with what it had said. I’m curious by nature, and I don’t like secrets. I wanted to figure this one out.
An assignation might be exactly what it was, of course. The Crispin in my head hadn’t been talking about that sort of affair, but it seemed like a distinct possibility. Wolfgang was young and healthy and wealthy and handsome, and I knew for a fact that he was attractive to women. He might be upstairs in his suite right now, going at it—as Christopher had so charmingly put it—like a rabbit.
If Wolfgang were involved with someone else, though, why would he propose to me? And once he had proposed to me, oughtn’t he to have stopped the correspondence—and the rabbiting—with anyone else?
Or the note might have been something else entirely. Wolfgang had called it a business matter, and that might be all it was. A summons to the German embassy, or the bank, or—who knew—the front desk of the Savoy. It could be anything at all.
I shook my head. This had been an ill-advised impulse on my part. There was nothing for me here. I likely wouldn’t recognize the note-writer even if he or she were standing right in front of me—and he or she might be; there were plenty of people in the lobby at this time of day—and the last thing I wanted, was for Wolfgang to come out of whatever hole he had tucked himself away in, and find me standing here. The best thing I could do, was remove myself from the Savoy before he could come back downstairs and realize that I was back, and more importantly, the reason why.
I headed for the front door for the second time in ten minutes, and let the doorman open it for me. “No luck?” he inquired, when he noticed that my hands were still bare.
I shook my head. “It’s not important. I have other gloves.”
That didn’t explain why I would have bothered to come back for this pair, of course, but the doorman was kind enough not to point out the discrepancy. Perhaps he had already realized that I was lying through my teeth.
“Is theGrafvon Natterdorff still inside,” I added, “or did he leave, too?”
“TheGrafvon Natterdorff has not left through this door,” the doorman informed me, “although there are many ways into and out of the Savoy.”
Yes, of course there were. The hotel is quite large with plenty of exits and entrances.
“Does theGraf…” I hesitated, considering how to express what I wanted to ask, and came up with, “—receive a lot of visitors?”
