In fact, she anticipated me, for she had already been shown to the room before I arrived and was sitting in one of the chairs before the fire, clutching a reticule in her gloved hands and playing with the clasp. The Italian greyhound, Al-’Ijliyyah, shivered at her feet, dressed in a little coat made from an old jumper. She looked distinctly miserable, but not more than her mistress, who regarded me with dull eyes as I entered. She rose politely but seemed on the verge of collapse. I rang at once for refreshment, guessing she suffered from inanition. We spoke of meaningless things until the food arrived, and I insisted she drink two strong cups of heavily sugared tea and consume a plate of sandwiches and another of cake before changing the subject.
“I am certain you wish to know why I asked you here,” I began.
“Asked?” Her expression was faintly mocking. “You insisted. To the point that you included a train ticket. It led to the most furious row with Charles. You do understand that I have run away, Miss Speedwell. It was the only way to escape my family in order to do as you asked. I have come as instructed, and I am penniless and alone in the world now, so I hope you will provide me with enlightenment and possibly employment before I starve on the streets,” she said, and I heard a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. She was so very young, I reminded myself. Almost the same age as when I had married Harry Spenlove. Scarcely more than a child, but determined to survive—nay, to thrive.
“You will understand shortly,” I promised her. Without further delay, I launched into an explanation in the simplest and most straightforward of terms. But the swift reversal in her fortunes confused her and she could not accept the facts until I explained them, and even then she queried me at length.
“I am to study with the Misses Marvell in Scotland,” she said in a small voice.
“Yes. In exchange for doing light domestic and secretarial labor in their observatory—writing up notes, dusting instruments—you will be given lodging and board and tutelage.”
“And a stipend,” she breathed.
“A very tiny one,” I said. It would be even tinier than I had intended now that my own salary had been reduced. But her expenses would be few, and I had every expectation that Effie would prove up to the challenge. “You will live a hand-to-mouth existence, but you will not starve and you will be doing what you love. Moreover, you will be given opportunities—if you prove a dutiful and diligent student—to do your own research and to write. The Misses Marvell maintain a voluminous correspondence with fellow astronomers throughout the world and are happy to provide the necessary introductions when you have proven worthy of them. All you need do is work hard and think about the stars, Effie.”
She had held herself taut throughout the conversation, but it was at this point her resolve seemed to falter. Her hands shook and she forced out the next words through a throat that must have been tight with emotion.
“But Al-’Ijliyyah, I cannot leave her,” she lamented. “And she would never abide the cold in Scotland.”
She held tightly to the little animal, her feelings clearly at war. Her own desires were in conflict with her responsibility to her pet, and the fact that she hesitated to leave the dog behind, even at the expense of her work, made me like her even better.
I sighed, knowing I would regret the next words I spoke.
“I will take her,” I told her. “There are already four dogs. Why not a fifth? Besides, Stoker is handy with a needle. I suspect he will enjoy making little coats for her.” Effie wept then, liberally dropping her tears into Al-’Ijliyyah’s fur as the dog stared at me with what looked like an entirely human expression of resentment.
“I do not know how to thank you,” Effie said, mastering her emotion at last.
I handed her a small portfolio. “You haven’t time, my dear. Your train leaves in an hour. There is your ticket and some money for food. I have included the latest journal of the Society for Astronomical Studies. I thought you might enjoy some reading for the train.”
She fell into weeping again, and it proved much more difficult to dislodge her the second time. But at last, I managed to persuade her, still sniffling and petting the dog, out of the room, down the stairs, and into a cab, whilst I held an indifferent Al-’Ijliyyah in my arms.
“Wait,” I called, and Effie put down the window. “I am certain that Anjali has told you by now that the man calling himself Jonathan Hathaway was not your brother.”
She nodded, sniffling hard. “I knew from the beginning.”
“How? When everyone else in the family was uncertain?”
Effie’s smile was cool. “Because one of the tasks Mary liked to set for me was collecting the boots to be polished. I took his and compared them to the brogues that I wore. The brogues were Jonathan’s, you know. The newcomer’s boots were fully an inch shorter.”
“And a man’s feet may grow, but they will not shrink,” I said, shaking my head. “So stupidly obvious. And yet everyone overlooked it but you.”
She put her hand out the window to shake mine. “What is overlooked is often the most significant, Miss Speedwell.”
She said a final farewell to Al-’Ijliyyah. “You will write and tell me how she fares?” she asked, an anxious line etched between her brows. But her eyes were bright with anticipation, and I knew in her heart she had already begun her grand adventure.
“I promise,” I vowed. Effie waved again and was still waving long after the driver sprang the horses and moved smartly into traffic.
I looked down at the dog and she gave me a long, baleful look. “We are going to be friends,” I warned her. “Whether you like it or not.”
CHAPTER
32
The matter of Effie Hathaway had been settled to my satisfaction; the matter of the cameos slightly less so. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I returned to the Belvedere and threw myself into my work, hoping that the methodical cataloging and restoring of lepidoptery would, as it had so often done in the past, soothe my troubled spirits. Yet too often in the following days, I would find my attention wandering and my thoughts elsewhere.
Stoker and I spoke little during the days that followed our adventure with the impossible impostor, as I had come to think of Harry Spenlove. I had, true to my word, entertained J. J. to tea after my sending Effie on her way. Without alluding to the Hathaways or my own personal entanglement with Harry, I told her everything I knew about Isabel de Armas MacGregor, relating the details of the Brazilian railway affair. J. J. took copious notes and then went to ground. When she surfaced, two days later, it was with an exposé published on the front page of the Daily Harbinger. lady adventuress swindles brazilian royalty screamed the headline, and there were several illustrations of her, enabled by my description. Göran, I was interested to see, warranted little more than a footnote. It was the notion of a lady criminal that intrigued the public.