“What do you propose?”
“To treat him as Datchery. Let him continue the investigation. He wishes to meet tonight at the Abbey. He promises to take me to a secret location he says will provide the answers we seek.”
Rebecca's eyes narrowed at the package on the table.
“Have a look,” Osgood said proudly. “This is what I purchased at the auction, before I was chased out for asking about the statue.”
She unwrapped the edge of the paper. “The glass tazza from the Gadshill mantelpiece!”
“I wanted Miss Dickens to have it back. I thought it would be a small token of our gratitude to the family.”
Rebecca's heart beat at the kindness of the gesture, but her feelings were conflicted and her mouth felt dry. “That is,” she swallowed, “very gentlemanly of you.”
“Thank you, Miss Sand. I must prepare for my outing. This sort of suit would be a phenomenon where we must go tonight, says Datchery.” He cited his new acquaintance approvingly. “I'm afraid I didn't bring anything quite appropriate. But you've been shaking your head so much your bonnet strings are coming loose.”
“Have I?” she returned innocently. “It is only the idea of not knowing where it is you will be going. With a man of an unstable, and potentially shattered mental state, as guide, in a city unfamiliar to you. Consider!”
Osgood nodded. “I thought of consulting with Scotland Yard to secure a police escort, yet it would likely drive away the very man who can guide me. I am a publisher, Miss Sand. I know what it means. It means I must find a way, very often, to believe in people who believe in something else-something I often may not be inclined toward in the least. A story, a philosophy-a reality different from one I have known or will ever know.”
As Osgood readied himself for his expedition, Rebecca sat and stared into the leaves of her tea as though they, too, were endowed with the spiritual or prophetic attributes her employer seemed to want to find in his new acquaintance. She could not help somehow feeling stranded by the decision and how he had come to it.
Osgood returned in a suit only a little less formal. “I am afraid I shall still stand out,” he said, smiling. “We have a letter from Fields today, by the way,” Osgood went on, branching away from the topic with a comfortable businesslike tone. He put a troubled hand at the back of his neck. “Houghton and his man Mifflin, they are like two halves of a scissor, you know. They have formed a journal to compete with our juvenile magazine and are pouring money into it. And the Major announces the Harper brothers will open an office in Boston, no doubt in order to try to drive us into deeper trouble! Harper is not wrong. I cannot shield myself from business realities, not if I want to continue what Mr. Fields has built. And to show that I can be a publisher of the same caliber, that I can find the next Dickens. Miss Sand, I must try everything I can think of.”
“You must,” she said.
“Yet you disagree,” Osgood said. Seeing her hesitate, he said, “Please, speak freely to me about this, Miss Sand.”
“Why did you ask me to come to Chapman and Hall with you the other day, Mr. Osgood?”
He pretended not to understand. “I thought we might need to copy documents-if he had given us any to see. What does that have to do with this?”
“Pardon my saying, but it seemed to me like I was present there only to be, well, womanly.”
Osgood looked like he wanted to move on, but Rebecca's strong gaze would not let the topic go away. “It was true,” he answered finally, “that I had noticed on my previous visit to their firm that there were no female employees there and thought Mr. Chapman just the type of strutting man to speak more easily in front of a pretty woman. You did say you wanted to help by coming to England.”
The color in Rebecca's cheeks flushed carelessly by his untimely compliment. “Not by being pretty.”
“You're right, I shouldn't have done that with Chapman, not without explaining myself to you, at least. Still, I must notice that you are upset all out of proportion about this.”
“Perhaps I am not as talented as Mrs. Collins at speaking bluntly, making suggestions of marriage upon first meetings,” Rebecca said, standing with hands on her hips.
“Miss Sand…” Osgood said, nervously flustered in a way that upset her even more. “This whole conversation is unfathomable to me.”
Rebecca knew that signaled the end of the exchange and that she should not speak to her employer in this manner. But her gaze kept shifting to the glass tazza, her distorted reflection urging her on like an inner demon.
“I can see why Mamie would be far more persuasive than I can be,” she added. “She would be a good match for any man. She is a Dickens.”
“Miss Sand!” Osgood exhaled impatiently. “I've brought you here to help me, and to help you after Daniel's death. Perhaps this whole idea of your accompanying me was a mistake. To think I had designs on Mamie Dickens because of who she is-I'm not looking for a Dickens!” It seemed like there was another sentence waiting on his tongue but he swallowed it down.
Osgood, consulting his watch, exited and his footsteps could be heard rushing down the stairs of the inn. Rebecca stood there scared. Scared of what had just passed between them, scared of what their failure might mean for her future in Boston, scared of what could be-fall Osgood in the dark corners of London.
Chapter 21
Bengal, India, July 1870
THE OPIUM DACOIT HAD BEEN CAPTURED. NOW HE HAD TO BE interrogated for more information relating to the crime-including the whereabouts of the stolen opium. Outside the room where this was to take place, Mason and Turner, of the Bengal Mounted Police, tried to be patient.
“I'm surprised he'd be found holed near his family village,” Mason said. “An obvious place for an escaped thief to hide!”
Turner sneered. “Not obvious enough, was it, Mason? We wasted a whole afternoon encamped in the mountains waiting for him, while Dickens tripped over him like a lucky fool.”
“Do you think the inspector from the Special Police will have some luck in there? Turner?”
“A lucky fool. That's Frank Dickens!”
“ARE YOU INNOCENT of that opium dacoity?”
The thief nodded.
“I understand that is what you have been explaining to our mounted officers,” said the special inspector. “Yet you are a registered dacoit. Lie down there, my son.”
The thief lay on the chabutra, the inspector offering a gentle hand to position him so that his feet were on the higher edge of the platform, his head the lower. He trembled in fear at what he knew was coming.
“The budna, please,” the inspector said to his assistant. Then he frowned at the prisoner as if apologizing for some minor personal rudeness.
“I HEAR HE'S mute as an Egyptian Sphinx.”
“Don't mumble,” Turner grunted in response, then added: “He's no mute.”
“He's barely said a word since he was arrested,” Mason pointed out. “That's what I meant. Even when they flogged him something awful. You think he'd dare to, after seeing how we captured his friend, with your carbine and my sword? ‘Course he had to jump through the train window-lost his head, that one.”
Turner grunted.
“Dickens says.”
“What?”
“Superintendent Dickens says the thief's scared. That he's hiding more than the theft.”
“Dickens doesn't-that damned stuttering scamp!” Turner replied. “He's the one who called in the inspector. I could have done the duty just fine-give me a whip and a rod on any dark-skinned heathen where you will, don't need no Special Police at all.” Turner pushed his chair away and paced down the hall.