The Kingdom of Bones

THIRTY-FOUR

When Sebastian got to the Chestnut Street building, it was open but still largely silent.

He climbed the stairs to the Pinkerton agency suite. If the key holder was delayed, the employees had to wait out in the corridor. If he didn’t show at all, they’d have to fetch the building supervisor with his duplicates.

A key holder with no keys…well, that was something the system wasn’t set up for.

No one was waiting outside yet. The door had an etched glass panel with the agency’s name lettered on it. Sebastian stopped before it and listened, but heard nothing. Then he tried the door. It wasn’t supposed to be unlocked. But it opened.

He stepped inside. “Sayers?” he called out, but something in the way his voice echoed through the rooms told him that he wasn’t going to find anyone. No presence, no warm body anywhere. He’d hoped to catch Sayers here, but the man had already been and gone.

Sebastian went straight to the criminal department and the records room. Another door that should have been locked, but wasn’t. The cabinets with all the records in them should have been locked as well, but they weren’t.

Sure enough, there were gaps where some of the cards and some entire files were missing. The one on the man with the needles in his belly, for a start. Without a list, it was hard to say for sure what might have been taken.

At that point, Sebastian heard voices. As he emerged from the records office, two stenographers were passing through on the way to their room at the end of the hall. They were chatting animatedly, as awake and alert as a couple of sparrows. As far as they were concerned, the office had been opened up for them as normal. They broke off to bid Sebastian good morning and then carried on with scarcely a break.

“Good morning,” he belatedly called after them. Even the stenography room was open. Sayers must have been right through the place.

When Sebastian reached his desk, he found his missing keys lying there, right next to the wooden bar with his name on it. With a guilty glance around, he opened the top drawer and swept them out of sight. Only when he’d closed the drawer did his heart stop pounding and the tightness in his chest begin to ease.

The loss of a few inactive files—that wasn’t so bad. If Sayers had asked him for them, the answer would have been no—although, in truth, they were unlikely to be missed. Old files reached the end of their useful lives, just like old employees.

If that was all Sayers had taken, then the loss would be of no real significance. It was wrong, and it made Sebastian angry; he’d welcomed Sayers into his home, and now his hospitality had been abused. But the actual damage was small.

Never trust a drunk, or a man obsessed, he thought to himself. Plausible though he seemed, Sayers was both.

As more people arrived, Sebastian pulled out his chair, took a deep breath, and reached for the first of the papers that had begun to fill up his in-tray during his time out of the office. His initial panic aside, this was not quite the day of disaster it had threatened to be.

Awaiting his attention were some letters from potential clients that merited only standard replies. There was a cable for some information from an operative out in California. There was Oakes’ claim for reimbursement for his tram fare yesterday. That would have to wait; only Mr. Bearce could give authority for a payment from the office’s petty cash reserve.

Sebastian went very still. Then he got to his feet.

He went into Bearce’s empty office and around the manager’s desk to the safe. It was a mighty cabinet of iron and brass, older than the building it stood in. It took the largest of the keys, and when the door swung open, it did so with the mass of a Babylonian gate.

“He took it,” Sebastian said bleakly. “The cashbox was empty. The entire office cash reserve, including the money we keep to pay informers.”

Elisabeth said, “Do you know how much?”

“Twelve hundred dollars and some change. Bearce keeps the record in a separate ledger so the informers’ names won’t get out.”

Twelve hundred dollars. A dismayed silence prevailed as they considered the implications of Sayers’ theft.

They were sitting on Frances’ bed. After spending most of the day looking for some trace of Sayers at the railway terminus and asking around all the steamer offices in town, Sebastian had returned home and gone straight to his sister-in-law’s room. There he’d broken into the prizefighter’s cabin trunk and searched through it in the hope of finding some clue to the man’s plans. After managing to stay calm for several hours, he now grew steadily more frantic.

He couldn’t be sure at what point Elisabeth appeared in the doorway. He only knew that she’d been watching him for a while before she moved in beside him and interceded with a gentle hand, stopping his efforts and insisting on being told what was wrong.

“Your trust was betrayed,” Elisabeth now said.

“I doubt that he even considered that,” Sebastian said. “His obsession is his entire horizon.”

“How long before the loss is discovered?”

“Two days. Three at the most.”

“Maybe someone could have seen Sayers going in?”

“That isn’t the point,” Sebastian said. “I’ll still be held responsible.”

Twelve hundred dollars. In Tom Sayers’ mind he’d have been taking the money from the agency, with no thought of any consequence to his host. But when Bearce returned and the money was found to be missing, Sebastian would be called to account for it. Blaming Sayers would not help him.

He looked down at the books and clothing that he’d strewn all over the floor. Nothing here was of any help. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

Elisabeth said, “We have almost eight hundred dollars saved. And we’ve the certificates in my name from before we were married—they’re worth about two hundred now. We can cash them in or I can borrow against them.”

“To do what?”

“To replace what’s missing before anyone else finds out about it.”

“That’s no solution, Elisabeth,” Sebastian said. “That money’s our future.”

“If you lose your job and reputation,” Elisabeth said, “we have no future. Take our savings, replace the money in the safe, and then go after Sayers and get back what he took. He’s only been gone a few hours, and you know he’s gone to Richmond. I know you can find him. He stole from the Pinkertons. How bright can he be?”

“It won’t work,” Sebastian said. “We can’t raise enough.”

“There’s Frances. I know she has some money stashed away. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“No,” Sebastian said helplessly, and put his head in his hands.

It was a disaster. How had it come to this, and in a matter of only hours? In his heart, he cursed Tom Sayers and he cursed the moment in which he’d turned around and gone back into the boxing booth, when he could so easily have walked away. Twelve hundred dollars was more than he’d earned in the past year. The sum was no great fortune to a business, but it was the kind of money that could make or break a family.

And now Frances was to be asked to pitch in. He knew why she put money away from the tiny allowance they were able to give her. Although she’d no beau and no immediate prospect of one, she was saving for her wedding.

Sebastian knew the worth of what he had. He’d endured a cold upbringing and a loveless youth, and he took none of his present happiness for granted. He’d once been ambitious, and sought success. Now his life was modest, ordinary, and filled with small pleasures—a less spectacular prize, but one he valued more.

Elisabeth said, “Everyone in this house depends on you. And God bless you, Sebastian, you’ve built a decent life for all of us. Let us support you now, or everything that you’ve worked so hard for will go for nothing.”

She made him look at her.

“Get it back, Sebastian,” she said. “Follow him. Tell them whatever you have to tell them and do whatever you have to do.”