Work Text:
The antique shop on Wardour Street was closed for the night. Indeed, it had not been open since the day before yesterday. Yellowy lamplight filtered in through foggy shop front windows, causing the shadows of the many tables, cabinets, rocking chairs and oddments to loom in an alarming fashion.
It was also an inconvenient setting to navigate while also handicapped with a want of familiarity with the layout. Eliza bit back an ouch as she stubbed her toe on a stray fender and then backed away into a Japanese screen.
“Aha!” said someone, emerging from the deep well of shadow behind a battered oak wardrobe. “Stop right there! Now I have you!”
Eliza peered into the gloom. “Oh! Do you? Who is that?”
The other lit a lamp and held it up to study her more closely; revealing in turn, a fair head of hair and a vaguely familiar face. “Good God!” he gasped, taking a full step away. “A lady! What can you want here at this hour?”
“I might ask the same of you,” said Eliza, straightening up from the slightly undignified crouching position into which she had stumbled. She brushed dust from her dark skirts. “In fact, I think I will!”
“But – are you not the young lady who came in yesterday asking for a volume of seventeenth century Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society?”
Eliza gave a short nod. “That saves me my first question: you evidently are the young gentleman who owns the bookshop next door. But why are you here? Even if the proprietor had not been murdered the night before last, midnight is hardly a good time to call on anyone. At least – not if one means well.”
“Yes. Quite,” said Mr Craddock. (Eliza recalled perfectly that the bookshop next door had been called “Craddock and Co.” Co, whoever they might be, was not currently in evidence.) “And you have far less excuse than I to be creeping around old Hurdle’s place in the dark.”
Eliza raised her chin. “I beg to differ. I am a private investigator, assisting the Metropolitan Police in solving this murder, and therefore I have every right to be here at any hour I please.”
“Really? Inspector Wellington did not mention you.”
“No, well,” said Eliza, careful not to betray annoyance. Besides which, while Inspector Wellington might have asked for some assistance in this case, that request had not involved anything that warranted breaking and entering the house where the murder had taken place in the middle of the night. She gave a minute shrug. “He does like to keep his cards close to his chest.”
“And he sent you here alone at this time of the night? Miss – ah – Selwood, was it not?”
“Miss Scarlet. I apologise, but I gave a false name at our earlier meeting. I was trying to be discreet. Now, please, you have still not explained why you are here. Are you rifling through Mr Hurdle’s stock for antiquarian volumes?”
Mr Craddock stopped on the point of speaking and stared at her.
“Well?” said Eliza.
Mr Craddock glanced around and then placed the lamp down on a nearby bookcase. “I was trying to catch a thief in the act. I thought I had when I saw you, as you will recall. That is hardly the act of another such scoundrel, is it? Besides, I would never resort to such a thing!”
She folded her arms. “Then you had better tell me what you were doing.”
“It’s rather a long story,” he said, “and I am not sure whether or not I may trust you yet, Miss Scarlet. Villains have come in unlikelier shapes before, loath as I am to say it.”
“Of course. Then we must send for the Inspector and see which of us he is willing to vouch for?” She discreetly crossed her fingers behind her back, since if William found her breaking into shops at any hour of the day or night, he would probably only claim he’d never set eyes on her in his life and arrest her again – and that would hardly be conducive to encouraging Mr Craddock to confide in her.
Thankfully, Mr Craddock conceded at that and didn’t run to calling her bluff. “Very well,” he said. “The truth is, I am not merely a bookseller. I am something of an amateur detective myself. I have found that when it comes to devilry such as this, one can not always rely on the authorities to see justice done.”
“True,” she conceded. “Amateur? Then you have not been engaged on this case? No one is paying you?”
“I am simply trying to do my duty in memory of an elderly gentleman who was always very kind to me, whatever else he may have been or done.”
“Then you need not worry. This is my case now, and I will certainly see justice done. If I can,” said Eliza. “And I do not have the luxury of managing without my fee. Now, do please tell me why you are here!”
Craddock started, and held up a hand in lieu of answer, turning away from her to hastily extinguish the lamp. “Damn! That is – forgive me – do excuse my language. I had forgotten what I was about in questioning you. You see, Miss Scarlet, I happen to know that the murderer did not find what he was looking for the other night. Mr Hurdle entrusted it to me. Therefore the blaggard must return to the scene of the crime – and I intended to be waiting. Now, we might well have warned the fellow off.”
“I heard nothing,” said Eliza, putting a reassuring hand to Craddock’s arm. “And I have an associate out the back, so if anyone came that way, they will have been observed.”
Amusement coloured Craddock’s voice as he replied: “Excellent! I have an associate waiting out the front in the street, keeping his eyes peeled for trouble – so he says. So – perhaps you could share my vigil? This is no place for a lady, but if I cannot make you leave –”
Eliza ignored that last comment and wasted a bright smile on the darkness. “Thank you, Mr Craddock. An invitation I will happily accept. Let us hide!”
They settled back into the most appropriate hiding places each could find – Craddock pressed up against a tall bookshelf and Eliza hunched up down beside a mahogany cabinet – and waited.
“One thing,” added Eliza in a whisper, “although everything I have told you is perfectly true, I would be very grateful if you didn’t mention the exact particulars to Inspector Wellington if you see him again.”
“Your secret dies with me, ma’am.”
“Oh, I trust it won’t come to that, Mr Craddock!”