The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [85]
Perhaps the “embarrassing illness” to which Mrs Melas referred had been another such episode.
At the top of the quiet street, I paused to study the noble doorways. Goodman murmured, “No-one awaits.”
I was sceptical, as he’d spent perhaps thirty seconds in the survey. “How can you be certain?”
He did not answer; it occurred to me that I’d asked an unanswerable question, so I changed it to “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Very well; I’d trusted his eyes in the night-time woods, perhaps I should do the same in this night-time city. “All right, let’s see if he is home.”
But he was not: The curtains were drawn, and a piece of advertising had been left against the door, which I had seen in none of the other houses. We went back onto the pavement, so as not to attract the attention of the man walking his dog or the tipsy couple, and kept our heads averted as we strolled down to the end of the street and turned towards the lights of New Bond Street.
“I’ll wait here for a time,” I said. “He may be in later.”
“You plan on breaking in,” my companion noted.
“Er. Perhaps.”
“Do you need me?”
“I was going to suggest you find your way back to the hideaway.”
“I will go and sing to the trees for a while, I think.”
With no further ado, he turned in the direction of Hyde Park. I watched him go, wondering if he could possibly mean that literally. I only hoped he was not arrested for vagrancy. Or lunacy.
I circled corners until I was across from the Sosa door—or doors—and when the street was empty, I chose a low wall and settled down behind it. After ninety minutes that were as tedious and uncomfortable as one might imagine, the surrounding houses had all gone dark (for in Mayfair, no traces survive of the eponymous annual celebration of wild debauchery) and passers-by had ceased.
I waited until the local constable had made his semi-hourly pass. Then I climbed to my feet, brushed off my skirt, and went to break into the house of a spymaster’s assistant.
The locks to the basement flat were impressive, the sorts of devices I could be cursing over for an hour, and the door was a bit too exposed for comfort. However, those who find security in large and impressive locks often neglect other means of entry—and indeed, the adjoining window, although well lifted up from the area tiles, was both wide and inadequately secured. Ten seconds’ work with my knife-blade, and its latch gave.
Being Mayfair, the window-frame was even well maintained, emitting not a squeak as it rose. In moments, I was inside.
I stood, listening: The room was empty, and I thought the house as well. As I turned to pull down the window, something brushed against my toe; when the window was down (unlatched, in case of need for a brisk exit) I bent and switched on my pocket torch. It was a tiny Japanese carving called a netsuke, a frog with an oddly expressive face and perfect details. I left it where it lay, and walked through his flat, making sure the rooms were empty. Which they were, although the missing razor and tooth-brush, the empty hangars, and the valise-sized gap on a bedroom shelf suggested that he had not merely stepped out for the evening.
Richard Sosa’s home was a handsome, self-contained flat made from those portions of the building once given to the servants, although more opulent than one might expect of servants—or of a man with a secretary’s income. Some of its opulence was that of old money—much of the furniture had descended from the house above, receiving fresh upholstery in the process. But those things that reflected Sosa’s personal taste—the delicate Oriental ivory carvings, two new carpets, the