The Deeds of the Disturber - Elizabeth Peters [66]
Peering through the clouds of blue smoke, I caught a glimpse of fiery auburn hair. It was a flash, no more; but it was enough. I called out.
‘Mr O’Connell!’
All conversation abruptly ceased. In the profound silence a sound, as of shuffling footsteps, could be heard. ‘I hear you, Mr O’Connell,’ I cried. ‘Come here at once, if you please.’
A man at the side of the room leaned sideways out of his chair and addressed a muttered remark to someone who was invisible to me. After a moment O’Connell rose sheepishly to his feet and the man behind whose desk he had been hiding said with a grin, ‘Here he is, ma’am. What’s he done – got you in the family way?’
‘If that is an example of journalistic humour, I don’t think much of it,’ I replied, as Kevin gave the humorist an outraged stare. ‘Come here, Mr O’Connell. Don’t be such a coward, I only want to talk to you.’
‘Coward, is it? There’s never been an O’Connell, male or female, that was afraid to face –’
‘Yes, to be sure. Only make haste.’
Kevin snatched his coat from the back of a chair, clapped his hat onto his head, and approached me. ‘Make haste indeed,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve ruined my reputation for a certainty, Mrs E.’
Once we were outside, Kevin blew out his breath in a long sigh. ‘I apologise, Mrs Emerson. I’ll be having a few words with Bob later. But really, you know, you shouldn’t be coming to such places.’
‘I have been in worse,’ I replied. ‘And what about Miss Minton? She is employed in just such a place.’
‘Oh, now, you don’t suppose such a fine lady would share the same room with common, low journalists.’
‘I don’t suppose the common, low journalists would want her in the same room,’ I said dryly. ‘They cannot have lost all the instincts of gentlemen; the presence of a lady might make them uncomfortable, incredible as it might seem. Where is she, then, if not at the offices of the Mirror?’
‘She lives with a widow lady in Godolphin Street,’ Kevin replied. ‘Sends her bit stories to the paper by messenger; the old dowager fancies herself a suffragist, but she’d not approve of the Honourable granddaughter rubbing elbows with rough, vulgar men. ’Twas pure accident that the death of the watchman turned into a cause célèbre, her editor only assigned her to the story to keep her out of harm’s way, hoping, no doubt, she would soon tire of her little hobby –’
‘Nonsense. She was the one who turned the story into a sensation, you said so yourself. And she writes very well – journalistically speaking.’
‘She’s learning,’ Kevin said grudgingly. ‘But it’s the family connections and her acquaintance with that prim bespectacled stick at the Museum –’
‘Jealousy, Mr O’Connell! Pure jealousy, and your masculine blindness to the superior abilities of women. I believe I will go along to her lodging and see if she is in. What is the address?’
‘I’ll walk with you, if I may. ’Tis a fine, bright day, and too pleasant to be indoors.’
I knew his true reason; but I flatter myself he got as little out of me as – regretfully – I was able to learn from him. The only time he forgot himself and spoke without calculation was when I mentioned Lord St John.
‘That filthy spalpeen! May goats – er – sit on his grandmother’s grave!’
‘What do you have against his lordship?’ I asked.
Mr O’Connell had a great deal against his lordship. ‘We learn things we can never print, Mrs Emerson, not even in the Daily Yell. ’Tis not so much a question of news fit for the eyes of ladies and children, as of legal action. If I were to tell you all I know of his lordship –’
‘I doubt I would be shocked or surprised,’ I replied sedately. ‘Yet he makes a favourable impression, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, he’s charming to the ladies! And,’ said Kevin grudgingly, ‘he’s kept fairly quiet the last year or two. Says he’s reformed. Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf, as he claims, but I have me doubts.’
Godolphin Street was in an old-fashioned neighbourhood, between the