A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      I went home and changed into my blue cotton print dress and straw bonnet with ribbon trim, both more appropriate to the season. When I came downstairs, Tabby was loitering by the pump at the end of the yard where the cows were kept. She came running up to me, stumbling over the cobbles in her too-large boots.

      ‘There’s a hen got her foot caught up in some string. I can’t get her out of it.’

      I followed her reluctantly back down the yard. I didn’t want cow-byre smells clinging to my clothes, and the hens were the property of Mr Colley who kept the cows and ran a milk-round. Naturally, there was no sign of him or his idle son-in-law.

      ‘There.’

      A big red hen had got her leg tangled in a loop of old string attached to the wooden bars of the chicken coop and was flapping and clucking.

      ‘How in the world did she manage to do that?’ I said.

      ‘Dunnow.’

      There was nothing for it in all humanity but to crouch down in the dust and try to free her. I put my reticule down on top of the coop.

      ‘Can you hold her?’ I said to Tabby.

      Her brown and grimy hands enfolded the hen. The string was frayed and terribly tangled round the scaly leg. I broke a fingernail and was set coughing by the warm dust from the hen’s feathers, but at last she was untangled.

      ‘It doesn’t look as if the leg’s hurt,’ I said. ‘Let her go and we’ll see.’

      The hen stood for a while, not realising she was free, then shot off to join three or four others that were pecking by the manure heap. I watched her go and laughed.

      ‘Well, there’s nothing much wrong with her. It’s a good job you saw her before she died of thirst.’

      ‘You got straw on your dress now,’ Tabby said.

      She kneeled down in the dust and started brushing at it with her hand.

      ‘No, never mind. I’ll do it.’

      I picked up my reticule, adjusted my bonnet and hurried out of the yard, knowing that I’d have to walk fast now to get to Lincoln’s Inn by four.

      Mayfair was crowded and in sociable mood under the blue skies. I had to weave a zig-zag course among the gentry strolling and looking into shop windows or standing in the middle of the pavement, talking in the loud voices of people who have nothing much to say but are determined the world should hear it. As I went, I tried to plan in my mind the interview with Mr Lomax. Through Disraeli, he’d offered me an intriguing and well-paid case, and I’d been minded to accept. But that had been before the discovery of Simon Handy’s body. Did I still want to accept the case? Yes. Would Mr Lomax still want me to accept it? That was another question altogether. Simon Handy’s death might have changed the situation for him too. There were things about it that the Brinkburns wanted hidden, or why had Lomax gone to so much trouble to coach the steward in his evidence? And he had coached him, I was as sure of that as if I’d heard him doing it.

      I was still thinking about it when I got to High Holborn. The crowds were less fashionable there, but just as annoyingly inclined to drift along the pavements or make sudden changes of direction to watch two cab drivers arguing or avoid argumentative drunks.

      ‘Hey, stop! Stop, miss.’

      The voice came from behind me, a husky female voice. I thought it might be a beggar or an unusually importunate posy seller, so didn’t turn round.

      ‘Miss, you lost this–’

      I turned round and there was Tabby, red faced and panting. Her shawl had slipped, leaving her bare-headed. She was holding something in her hand.

      ‘Your purse, miss. You must have dropped it when you was seeing to the chicken. I’ve run all the way after you with it.’

      She held it out to me. Her eyes were as appealing as Whiteley’s had been.

      ‘You followed me all the way here?’

      ‘Yes, miss. There’s still all your money in it. I haven’t opened it.’

      All my money. Seven pence halfpenny, as far as I remembered. I took it from her.

      ‘Thank you, Tabby. I’ll see you when I get back this evening.’

      Disappointment clouded her eyes. A plump woman who’d stopped to listen looked at me reproachfully. She thought I should at least give this honest girl a penny for her trouble.

      ‘Is that all СКАЧАТЬ