A Proposal to Die For

But the green soap had just left ugly rims around the tea stains. So she had thrown the whole thing into hot water mixed with soda, and then put it on the washing board to work it with the pig hair brush Cook used to clean the sink.

Dubois had probably envisioned that some muscle was needed to get it clean and had smirked at her because of it.

But he had no idea how strong she really was.

Working the washboard like it was the arrogant Dubois underneath her hands, instead of merely his innocent handkerchief, Alkmene pushed on with gritted teeth, until she believed it should have worked.

And indeed, when lifting the brush, she found the stains were gone.

So was most of the fabric.

Suppressing something stronger than by George! Alkmene lifted the handkerchief to the light flooding in through the large window. She could see right through some sections.

Either Dubois bought a cheap variety of linen, or she knew even less of laundry doing than he had tauntingly suggested.

Mopping the sweat off her brow with her sleeve, Alkmene surveyed what was now best called a rag. Her reputation was on the line here. She’d never admit to that arrogant reporter that she had ruined his property. He’d never stop laughing at her.

No. There was only one solution.

Find an exact duplicate and pass it off as the old one.

With the soggy handkerchief remains in her purse, Alkmene made for the man’s attire store where her father was a regular and well-respected customer.

Normally the walk, the traffic around her, the nannies pushing prams with babies and calling out to naughty toddlers, would clear her mind and give her a brisk energy for the day, but now she was just anxious to find her replacement and ensure she’d suffer no loss of face.

Once inside the store, she asked the clerk if she could speak to him in the back room about a delicate matter.

Thinking she had some complaint to make about her father’s purchases there, the anxious man immediately led her into privacy, where she produced the remains of her laundry experiment and explained she needed to have the exact same thing. ‘But it cannot look too new, you understand, or the whole scheme will be obvious.’

The clerk frowned at her. ‘So you want a new handkerchief that looks…used.’

He uttered the last word as if it was absolute horror to him, but Alkmene nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly. I will be back tomorrow to pick it up. You can keep this as specimen of what it should be. And please remember: my father is a very satisfied customer and he wants to stay that way.’

The clerk took this statement for the subtle threat it was meant to be and accompanied her to the door, all the way shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Alkmene was glad Michaelmas was still a long way off and her father would never hear a thing about this. It wouldn’t bode well for her if he got round to asking why she brought in ruined gentleman’s handkerchiefs that were clearly not his.

In the street Alkmene sighed with relief.

‘Shopping?’ a voice said behind her back, and she almost jumped two feet off the pavement. ‘Oh, uh…’

The flush raging into her cheeks made her even madder than Dubois’s stealthy approach. ‘Do you always scare ladies in the street?’

‘Always,’ Dubois said with a twinkle in his eye. He surveyed the front of the store as if he knew what she had been doing in there.

Alkmene started to walk away from it as fast as she could. ‘My father needed a few new buttons.’

‘I heard he is in India.’

‘Yes, but he is very specific about his buttons. He wants them shipped out to him from here.’

‘By the time those buttons reach him he must be on his way back here,’ Dubois mused, walking by her side with his hands folded on his back. He wore a grey suit this time, as if he wanted to blend in with the city surroundings.

Perhaps he was out stalking someone? She had heard reporters did that sometimes to get a story.

Alkmene cursed the coincidence that had made him pass the very instant she came from that store, but tried to appear calm. ‘I have no idea when he will be back. If he hears about some hitherto unknown valley, he will put together an expedition on the spot to travel there and find new plants. My father is eccentric that way.’

‘I suppose he can afford to waste his money.’

Alkmene adjusted her shoulder bag and glanced up at him. ‘Perhaps you think this tinge of bitterness is fashionable, Mr Dubois?’

‘Is it not true? Has your father really worked one single day in his life? I mean, has he driven a cart, chopped wood, gotten coal out of a mine? Has he delivered beer or vegetables, shown people to their seats, swept pavements or cleaned chimneys?’

‘Should he have?’ Alkmene retorted. She was familiar with the prejudice against her class and usually it didn’t bother her, as she supposed those people were merely jealous of something they wanted to have themselves and had not. But there seemed to be more to Mr Dubois’s quiet questioning.

Dubois tilted his head. ‘I think it is very good for any person, man or woman, to work with their hands to make a living. It shows you how tough life can be when you have none of those privileges given at birth, simply passed on with a last name, without being deserved, or earned.’

His words hit a sore spot as she had asked herself on occasion what of her wealth and reputation was earned, by her own endeavours, and not merely a nice gift handed out at her birth. It did seem important to feel accomplished. To do meaningful things in life.

But she merely said, sharply, ‘You are an anarchist.’

Dubois laughed softly, a warm throaty sound. ‘No, I suppose that one does need government and a monarch is just as well as any other form. They all cost money, you know. I am talking about the peerage. All those men who have titles because that is just the way it is. Their children…’ He glanced at her pointedly.

Alkmene wanted to open her mouth to say that she was not some overprivileged snob who didn’t know what to do with her hands, but her recent laundry disaster made her reconsider. It was true that if the servants left her to herself, in that big house, there would probably be more ruined things than one fine handkerchief.

She stared ahead with an angry frown.

Dubois laughed again. ‘Not even a sharp retort, Lady Alkmene? Simply ignoring the poor peasant who doesn’t understand your position?’

‘I hardly think you are a peasant. That is just the point. You understand the system better than people who say everybody should have the same, and flock to those farms where you are supposed to share everything.’

Dubois chuckled. ‘What is wrong with sharing?’

Alkmene looked at him. ‘Sharing implies a choice. I share of my own free will. When I am forced to share, it’s not sharing any more.’

Dubois didn’t laugh this time. ‘I agree. The peerage should see for themselves that they ought to share what they hold back from the people. But they don’t wish to see it. So maybe somebody should make them.’

‘Those kinds of ideas led to the French revolution, and aside from a couple of people losing their heads it didn’t solve a whole lot.’

Dubois studied her from the side. ‘Are you always employing that sharp tongue of yours or just when I am around?’

‘I’m afraid you are not that special.’ It was the truth, as most people who knew her well could testify, and still she was trying to make her point a little harder than she would otherwise. In fact, she could not remember any recent occasion where it had mattered to her much what another being thought of her.

Raised by an unconventional father, judged by society as the ‘sad girl without a mother’ or ‘the wild child who doesn’t know any rules’ Alkmene had learned at a young age to close her ears to other people’s opinions of her, and usually she was fine with whatever anybody said or thought about her.

It often even amused her to see how ignorant people were or what they thought of people with privilege while they had no idea about that kind of life.

But Dubois was for some reason different. His bitterness, she guessed, stemmed from experiences. Experiences that she was curious about, but couldn’t ask about right now.

Their brief acquaintance didn’t allow for any personal questions, and she doubted a man like him would want to talk about the past.

He had probably fled it all to start over, in a new city, a new country even.

Why else leave the glittering lights of beautiful Paris where he had even been writing for several papers? True, with the Olympics drawing to an end, the interest in the accomplishments there died down quickly, but she bet there were other engaging stories to take their place. Why come to London in the first place?

‘So what story are you after today?’ she asked. ‘Is it another undertaker smuggling prisoners?’

‘One thing you learn in journalism early on,’ Dubois said, ‘is that people do not like to hear the same story twice. You have to come up with new things all of the time.’

That made sense. ‘So what is new today? I suppose you could try and interview Ms Steinbeck about her uncle’s art collection. After all, it is hers now. Perhaps she is not suspicious of strangers and will let you see some of the rarer pieces. You were so interested in it before; you can’t just have given up on it now.’

When Dubois didn’t reply, she looked at him sideways.

Dubois stared ahead of them with that focused look that betrayed he was in tracking mode and losing attention for anything but the object of his interest. She found it kind of annoying to be ignored, like she was just dissolving into thin air while she was still walking beside him.

On the other hand it was also fascinating. He had the bloodhound instinct needed to succeed in his job, and she might learn something worthwhile from him if she just handled it right.

What exactly did he see ahead of them? She spied nothing special. Just the usual telegram delivery boy hurrying along, pushing past gentlemen in deep discussion.

‘Come with me,’ Dubois said suddenly, taking her arm and slipping it through his. Now they were walking like an engaged couple.

Alkmene was about to shake him off and give him a piece of her mind, when he made a sharp turn left and took her through double doors into the theatre.

The foyer was mostly empty. A man in a dust jacket swept something into a corner. He looked up and blinked at them from behind his heavily rimmed glasses. He was obviously not used to people just walking in there when there was no performance scheduled.

Dubois approached him with a ready smile. ‘Lady Alkmene here was at an opera last week and she lost an earring in the box. Would you mind terribly if we had a look around to see if it is still there?’

‘The floors have been swept,’ the man said. ‘I am sure that…’

‘It was small and might have vanished into the padding of the seats. I will look; you need not bother. Please do go on with your work. Thank you.’ And without even waiting for the man’s response, Dubois pulled Alkmene along, up the carpeted stairs to the corridor that led into the boxes.

‘I have not been to the opera in ages,’ Alkmene protested. ‘What are we doing here?’

‘I heard from the countess she saw something interesting that night. I want to know which box was hers, what she could have seen from there.’

Alkmene felt a rush of annoyance that the countess had shared her sighting of the man returned from the dead with Dubois. That had been her ace in the hole. But she should have known that the little lady was so excited about Dubois and his quest that she’d be determined to be involved somehow.

She sighed. ‘I told you I was not with her. How should I know in what box she was that night?’

Dubois rolled his eyes at her. ‘One moment. I’ll ask if that man in the foyer knows.’ He left her standing and ran down the stairs, taking them two steps at a time. His easy energy rubbed off on her and instead of thinking this was obnoxious and potentially ruinous for her reputation, Alkmene found herself anticipating a bit of childlike fun. She tried to keep her expression straight, but when Dubois came back up and whispered the number at her with an excited grin, she had to return it and follow him down the corridor to the right curtain.

They went in and stood a moment in the half darkness. Way down below lay the stage, empty, and all the rows of seats stretching away from it.

Even the chandelier in front of them on the ceiling seemed lifeless without the sparkles on the pendants and the little rainbows when you looked at them through squinted eyes. There was a hushed silence here, as of a house in mourning.

Dubois stared to the other side, in concentration as if he pictured the scene that the countess had seen that night. Norwhich and his niece in their box, then a man intruding. An argument…

Dubois said, ‘It is too bad that we don’t know the name of the man who came in here that night. But then again, if I just knew who he was and could go ask him what he was doing here, it would be too easy.’

‘He would probably not tell you the truth anyway.’ Alkmene let her gaze wander around the box. Beside the last seat there was a curtain that had no purpose but was just fashionably draped to hide the separating wall to the next box.

Alkmene narrowed her eyes to focus on it. Something about that curtain struck her as strange.

She turned her head and looked at the same curtain on the other side of the box. It was longer.

Longer?

She walked over to the curtain and sat on her haunches. ‘I think this was changed.’

‘What?’ Dubois asked without looking at her.

She ran her hands over the curtain’s edge. It had been folded double and was somehow secured with…

‘Ouch!’ She withdrew her hand, holding it up. Blood beaded on the tip of her index finger.

A strong grasp caught her hand, and Dubois leaned over it. He tsk-tsk-ed. ‘Not used to handling needles, are you, my lady?’

‘I had no idea there was a needle or rather a pin in that curtain,’ Alkmene said.

Dubois went to pull out another handkerchief to wrap around the injured limb, but Alkmene just slipped the finger into her mouth and sucked. It was unladylike, but she really had no idea how to get a bloodstain out of cloth and she didn’t want any more hassle with laundry than she already had.

Dubois grinned at her. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Only when I laugh,’ she muttered sourly.

Dubois sat down on his haunches, took the curtain in both hands and turned over the edge. ‘It has been secured here,’ he said. Then he whistled. ‘Not with a simple pin either. Look at this.’

Alkmene leaned down to see what he was trying to get loose from the curtain’s thick fabric. When he moved upwards, their heads almost bashed together.

‘Careful,’ Dubois said, but an inch from her face, ‘or you will sustain even more injury.’ His eyes sparkled as he added, ‘If you happen to have such an egg-shell skull as you told me about the other day, I don’t want to be responsible for cracking it and robbing your family line of the only one who can keep passing on the elect genes.’

Alkmene gave him a weak smile. ‘Very funny. Now show me that pin.’

In the little light that was there Dubois held up something that sparkled golden.

Alkmene’s jaw slackened. ‘That is real gold. And those stones…’

Dubois nodded. ‘This brooch is worth more than I make in a couple of years running after assignments.’

‘More importantly – ’ Alkmene ignored the jibe about money ‘ – what is it doing here securing a curtain? Was it used to create a pouch for documents? An important letter maybe? Code?’

Her mind went wild with possibilities of espionage, and exhilaration filled her brain. They could really be onto something here.

But Dubois shook his head. ‘There is nothing else there.’

‘What? That can’t be. You must have looked with your nose.’ She plunged down onto her knees, grabbing at the curtain.

‘Careful,’ Dubois admonished her. ‘I can’t be certain there aren’t more priceless brooches hidden in there.’

But there were none. No documents either, no letters, no plans to some top secret invention or treaty that could throw all of Europe into war again, unless the two of them prevented it.

Nothing.

Alkmene rose and brushed dust off her knees. ‘That man downstairs claims it gets cleaned here, but they could do a better job.’

Dubois studied the brooch thoughtfully. ‘Does anything strike you as particular about this piece of jewellery?’

Alkmene shrugged. ‘It is probably pretty valuable.’

He gave her a sharp look. ‘You don’t guard the family jewels at all costs?’

Alkmene laughed softly. ‘My mother had some, and I get to wear them when I have to show off the family wares at some special occasion. But most of the time they are in the safe in Father’s study and nobody cares about them much.’

He huffed. ‘Well, this one must be a family heirloom. It has a mark indicating the purity of the gold and the maker, and I bet we can trace it back to its origins.’

‘Shouldn’t we just turn it in to that little man sweeping the foyer? We might have found it, but it is not ours to keep.’

‘I didn’t say I was going to keep it. I intend to find out to whom it belongs. I am really curious why it was fastened here in that way. It didn’t fall off because the clasp came loose or something.’ Dubois studied her with a frown. ‘You were right about the pouch. This brooch was used to form the curtain into a container for something. But whatever it was, it is no longer there.’

Alkmene studied the curtain, which now hung in the normal way again. ‘We have no way of knowing for how long it was this way. Who has been in this box and who could be involved.’

Dubois put the brooch into his pocket and looked around. ‘Nothing else to be found here. We’d better leave again.’

In the foyer the sweeping man asked if they had recovered the lost earring. Alkmene said with a smile that she had and that he had helped them a lot. Dubois led her outside. ‘He is probably now telling himself you would have helped him more if you had given him some money,’ he observed.

‘Why? I would feel like I had bribed him. It would have looked suspicious. I merely looked for my own lost earring. Why give him something for that?’

Dubois shook his head. ‘You have no idea of real life. To grease the wheels of cooperation you have to have ready cash on you for all occasions.’

‘Well, then you should have given him something,’ Alkmene said.

They walked down the street away from the theatre. The bright light formed a sharp contrast to the dimness inside of the building. Her eyes almost hurt. ‘Where will you determine who owns the brooch? I mean, what you said before about gold percentage and maker.’

‘I’ll do that alone.’

‘Why? Is it not appropriate for a lady to see?’

Dubois laughed softly. ‘You don’t have to make a point for me. I am well aware of the things you have never seen in your life.’

Alkmene halted. ‘I find your attitude patronizing and unjust. You have never even tried me. How do you know what I would do, how I would react, if I was part of an investigation with you?’

Dubois surveyed her a moment. Then he nodded and hailed a cab.

Wait a minute. He was agreeing to take her along?

Just like that?

Her persuasive powers had to be greater than imagined.

The cab halted, and Alkmene got in with a sense of excitement, but also a slight feeling of impending doom, throbbing in her hurt finger.

She had about as much an idea of investigative work as she had about laundry.

She’d better make sure she didn’t interfere with Dubois’s handling of it, or he’d never again take her anywhere.

Chapter Five

The cab dropped them off on the corner of two streets full of small shops and peddlers trying to sell off their wares. Dubois led the way, her clinging to his side, to avoid the grubby hands reaching out for her.

Loud voices screamed from all sides, and a scruffy dog on a rope snapped at her ankle.

Fortunately, the rope was just too short for him to get a nibble. His teeth just shut with a vicious clang that echoed as they pushed on.

On the corner was a tall building of four storeys. The door was open, and in the hallway was a sweet stench of decay.

Or was it something cooking?

If it was, it was disgusting.

Alkmene pretended to rub her face while keeping her nose shut against the stench.

They had to walk up an endless amount of steps spiralling to the top floor. Here and there the steps were so worn she was worried she’d tread right through them and plunge down. Her heart pounded with exertion, and her lungs struggled for air.

At the top, at last, Dubois knocked on a battered door. A voice from inside called, ‘Who are you?’

‘Three for the fisherman and two for the priest.’ Dubois leaned his hand against the door as if he expected this magic formula to open it.

It did open a crack, and giving full pressure, Dubois pushed his way in.

A small man, hunched forward so his chin rested on his chest all the time, sat on a tall stool at a table, covered in parts. Parts of watches, clocks. Cogwheels and tiny springs and bit and pieces Alkmene had never seen before.

He was holding a gentleman’s pocket watch in his hand and trying to take some part out or put it in with tweezers.

Alkmene stared in awe at the mess around him. The floor was covered with piles of old books, while the shelves on the left wall held stacks of yellowing papers. A kid no older than six had opened the door, and then scurried back into a corner where he was playing with something…

It took her a few moments to realize they were actually tin soldiers, but all the paint had rubbed off. The child squatted on the floor moving his hands with the soldiers up and down and muttering something in his play. His hair was matted with dirt, and his clothes could better be thrown out with the trash. Trying to mend them would be no use as on the knees and elbows the fabric had gone so thin it would tear again the moment it was pulled together with needle and thread.

The old man looked up at them. ‘Got catch for me?’

Dubois shrugged. ‘Just something for identification.’

The old man shook his head. ‘You should bring me things I can use, not ask me questions I cannot answer.’

Then his eyes focused on Alkmene. ‘Who is that fine lady? Another client?’

‘Ah,’ Alkmene said, ‘so you are some sort of consulting detective.’

The old man laughed, so loud the boy looked up from his play, with wide eyes. Apparently he didn’t hear this sound very often.

The old man said, ‘The police are there to restore order, or at least so they say. They are like these – cogwheels in a bigger whole. They churn because they are put into motion from the outside and they grind to pieces whatever they catch between them.’

Alkmene shivered, not just because of the bleak reality he painted, but also because of the desolate acceptance of it as a fact of life. This man here had no hope at all that things could be different, better, from what he expected.

‘Now our friend here,’ the old man continued, ‘creates his own world of cogwheels and he thinks he controls them. He digs up dirt and then he is surprised he is finding dead bodies. But when you overturn stones, you find critters creeping out from underneath them.’

‘Enough platitudes for one day,’ Dubois said gruffly and he tossed the precious brooch at the old man.

Deftly, he caught it between his weathered hands.

Alkmene winced as she imagined the sharp stab again that the pin had put in her finger. But the old man didn’t seem to feel anything. He studied the work with a gleam in his eyes. ‘Very good. Highest level of craft. Certainly not English. Eastern. Russian maybe.’