“Your father didn’t care for people disagreeing with him, either.”
“Why on earth would you bring my father into this?” he exploded. “This has nothing to do with the past! Why must you insist on being so thickheaded and stubborn?”
“Thickheaded, is it?” she replied stiffly, rising from her chair. “I should think you know something about that,” she added, sweeping from the room before he could stop her.
His forehead burning with impatience and rage, he kicked the chair she had recently vacated, sending it crashing across the room. “Damn,” he muttered. “Bloody stubborn woman!” Although already he could see part of the blame was his, he felt put upon and unfairly treated. He could hardly believe she did not take his warning seriously. What could she be thinking?
He wanted to go home and stew in solitude, but he needed to tell Dickerson of this latest development. Closing the office door behind him, he slipped into the rehearsal hall just in time to see the opening scene between Scrooge and his nephew. He stood in the back watching quietly as the actors recited their lines, scripts in hand, moving about the stage somewhat tentatively as they endeavored to remember their blocking.
The actor playing Scrooge was a rosy-cheeked older gentleman with a fine head of white hair, somewhat stouter than Ian imagined the character to be, but he was a handsome fellow with a strong voice and an amusing way of peering over his old-fashioned spectacles at the fellow playing his nephew. It had always struck Ian as strange that Dickens had failed to give the nephew a name, but the energetic young actor did not seem to care. He played the scene with great vigor, as if he, not Scrooge, were the main protagonist of the story. When his uncle asked why he got married, he uttered his response, “Because I fell in love,” with an ironic, humorous swoon that made several of the other actors sitting in the audience laugh. Not to be outdone, the actor playing Scrooge growled out his next line with such utter contempt and disgust that he brought forth an even louder roar of laughter.
“Because you fell in love!”
Ian was impressed with how the actor managed to impart the line with a sense of pathos and loss beneath the contempt, so that it was clear he was covering a chasm of past injury. Yet there was nothing sentimental about it; his anger was so fierce that it nearly compensated for the pain. Almost, but not quite. There was something familiar in the old actor’s attitude, he thought. It reminded him of someone . . . At that moment, he caught a glimpse of his aunt watching the scene from the wings. Leaning against a curtain pulley, she wore an expression he had only seen on her face when she spoke of Uncle Alfred. Her eyes were soft, a half smile on her face, and nothing else in the world seemed to exist for her except the scene being played out on the stage. At that moment he knew the reason for her fine dress, the curls in her hair, the rouge on her cheeks. She was in love with the gentleman playing Scrooge!
Perhaps that accounted for her stubborn behavior as well—he knew from experience as a detective that one strong emotion can beget another. His heart beat a pang of envy as he watched her, utterly absorbed in the characters on stage. What a sweet feeling it must be, he thought, being so enamored of another. Suddenly he had a strange nagging feeling he had forgotten something . . . Miss Stuart! It was Thursday, the night they were supposed to meet. It had completely slipped his mind. Fumbling, he pulled out his pocket watch—it was after eight! He had missed their assignation by over an hour.
But he still had not done what he came to do. Scanning the actors sitting in the audience, he spied Sergeant Dickerson. Walking softly to where the sergeant sat, he leaned over and whispered in his ear.
“Wha’s that, sir?” Dickerson said.
“Come with me,” Ian repeated.
The sergeant sprang from his chair and followed him into the drafty front hall.
“Wha’s the matter, sir?”
Ian told him of the major’s death.
“I were wonderin’ where ye’d got to all day. So he were murdered, then?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Related, y’think, sir?”
“It would be very odd indeed if they are not.”
“Does the chief know yet?”
“I left a message at police chambers before coming here.”
“Wha’ do we do next, sir?”
“Meet me at the station house tomorrow, bright and early.”
“Will do, sir,” Dickerson said, turning to go.
“And Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell my aunt she has good taste.”
Dickerson cocked his head to one side. “Sir?”
“She’ll know what I mean.”
“If you say so, sir,” Dickerson replied dubiously. He walked away shaking his head.
Wrapping his cloak around him, Ian pulled open the heavy front door. A blast of arctic air hit him square in the face, making his eyes water. Putting his head down, he pushed into the wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was no sign of Fiona Stuart at Le Canard. Ian inhaled the bewitching aroma of fennel-roasted potatoes and duck with cherry sauce while the svelte, haughty maître d’ informed him that a young lady had indeed been there, sitting alone for some time, seemingly waiting for someone, though any man who would abandon such a femme charmante surely must be a fool or a cad. He wasn’t one to judge, of course, but only a man without morals or sense would act with such orgueil déplacé. Such a man would naturally deserve whatever he got, though hopefully the belle femme had the sense to drop such a careless suitor like the ordure he was.
Ian spoke enough French to know ordure, loosely translated, meant “piece of filth.” Lifting one perfectly groomed eyebrow, the maître d’ let it be known that no Frenchman would dream of treating a woman so shabbily, let alone one such as her. Finally he produced a note written on the back of the restaurant’s card.
Sorry you were delayed—the next one is on you.
It was unsigned, though the tone and firm handwriting left no doubt as to its author. He slipped the note into his waistcoat pocket under the disapproving eye of the maître d’, who shook his head and clicked his tongue dismissively. Ian couldn’t quite bring himself to thank the man, so he nodded and winked, which confused the Frenchman completely. The bewildered look on his face was gratifying.
After leaving the restaurant, Ian was approaching West Bow Street when he became aware of someone following him. He turned around to see Derek McNair.
“Miss me, Guv?” Dressed in his usual mismatched, oversized clothing, the boy at least looked warm. He was clad in a navy-blue woolen coat over a green fisherman’s jumper that hung down nearly to the tops of his rubber Wellies. With the bright-red scarf wrapped tightly around his scrawny neck, he reminded Ian a little of the young lad playing Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.
“So, d’ye miss me?” he repeated, scurrying to catch up.
“Indescribably.”
“Missed ye, too,” he said, chewing on something; Ian did not care to know what.
“I can’t tell you how gratified I am to hear it.”
They walked in silence, their breath coming in white puffs as they passed beneath the streetlamps.
Finally Derek said, “Don’ ye wan’ t’know what I got t’tell ye?”