The Housekeepers(55)

Later, sneaking out to the mews lane for a smoke, Mrs. Bone nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Archie?” she whispered, disbelieving.

Her cousin was lurking under the guttering, fiddling with his mustache. He looked panicked. “It’s true,” he said. “You’ve gone and lost your head. Look at the state of you.”

“What in heaven’s name are you doing here, bothering me? Who’s minding the shop?” He smelled of new cologne—orange flower and spices. Who’s paying for that? she wondered.

“We’ve got trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“The shop’s gone.”

Mrs. Bone felt her pulse jumping in her neck. “What do you mean,” she said, very slowly, “‘the shop’s gone’？”

“It was Mr. Murphy’s boys, first thing this morning, before the stalls were even out. They sent a rock through the front window.”

Mrs. Bone shut her eyes. “That’s just larks.”

Archie frowned. “Larks? Mrs. Bone, that was a starting shot, clear as day.”

“Where’s the ledger?”

He patted his overcoat. “Got it. But we had to leave the rest.”

“Leave?”

“We’d already boarded up the back windows. We knew something was coming—you could smell something fishy all week. We put locks on the back office, but they’ll get through those, no trouble. Same with the rooms upstairs.”

My hidey-hole, thought Mrs. Bone, heart tightening. She grabbed Archie with both hands, shook him. “You ought to be up there seeing them off, not down here talking to me.”

He wrestled himself free. “You ought to be up there seeing them off yourself,” he said hotly. “They wouldn’t have come if you’d been at home. But everyone knows Mrs. Bone’s absent without leave.”

“Get down to the bloody factory, lock the gates, get a dozen men on patrol.”

“A dozen men? All our bloody men are down here, Mrs. Bone.” He took a breath. “And they won’t stay put if they know we’re in trouble.”

Mrs. Bone squared up to him. “Then you’d better hold your tongue, hadn’t you?”

Archie let out a rattling sigh. “Men need their wages, Mrs. Bone.”

“We’ll pay ’em this week. We’ll pay ’em tomorrow.”

“We’ve got debts up to our eyeballs. We can’t be paying anyone anything, not till this harebrained job’s settled.” He fixed her with a grim expression. “If it’s settled. We might need to go to Mr. Murphy, call a truce, seek a loan. What’s your fee on this job?”

She straightened. “Two-sevenths,” she said, stoutly. “And I’m not asking Mr. Murphy for tuppence.”

Archie was doing the calculations in his head. “Net or gross receipts?”

She paused.

“Mrs. Bone?”

“Net.”

Archie shook his head. “That’s not enough.” He gave her a careful look. “You signed a contract?”

She wanted to box his ears. “I always sign a contract,” she said, voice stiff.

“There’s ways out of that.”

She summoned her brother then. She did what Danny would have done. She rose up on the balls of her feet, pressed a fingernail to Archie’s face. Scratched the surface of his skin, ever so gently. Traced his eye socket. Said, voice low, “Don’t be telling me how to run my affairs, Archibald. And next time Mr. Murphy comes around, get out the guns.”

She exerted a tiny bit of pressure, imagining his nerves and muscles tingling underneath.

“Mrs. Bone. If we don’t have the cash, and our men get spooked…”

“Not a word more, Archie. To anyone. You got that?”

He nodded, silent.

“Then off you go.”

She hurried back into the house, thoughts swirling, not liking this one bit. Two portions of the net receipts suddenly didn’t seem like much money at all.

A crowd began to form outside the house. By tea-time, there was a crush on both sides of the street. Shepherd put men on the pavement to guard the front porch.

Miss de Vries did her rounds. She couldn’t sit still: she had to watch the transformation. It was like watching the house grow a new skin. Huge boards had been set down across the garden, a vast and slippery deck. The supper tables had been placed under the cypress trees, branches strung with lights. They could catch fire, she thought, glancing upward. The whole place could go up in flames.

After mass she changed her clothes. “Alice can do it,” she said when Iris came up to help her with her dress. Alice looked scared, but she nodded, and dressed Miss de Vries gently, barely touching her skin. Miss de Vries put on her deepest mourning, layering herself in serge and black taffeta, her waist strapped with black velveteen. Her veil was thickly embroidered and came all the way down to her waist. She felt the heat rising in her skin as she descended to the garden, white lilies in her hand.

“Dear Papa,” she said so that the gaggle of newspapermen could hear her. “How we miss you.”

She knelt outside the mausoleum, and laid the lilies at his grave. The flashbulbs burned the air, shocking the pigeons into flight. The picture would make the papers. She’d counted on that.