He blinks at me in the dim lighting. “What the bloody hell are you doing—” He stops and jabs at the stairs. “Go. Out the back. Thomas is in the front room.”
I nod and squeeze past him. Then I clamber down the stairs and wheel into the kitchen, where Isla is having tea with Mrs. Trowbridge.
Isla starts to smile at me, and then rises with a clatter. “My dear girl. You look a fright.” She strides over to pat my back reassuringly. “That must have been so difficult for you. I know you were terribly fond of young Archie.”
The note I found has my brain whirling, and combined with nearly getting caught in the room, I probably am a little pale. Isla must think I’m faking grief for Mrs. Trowbridge’s sake.
“I-I need some air,” I say. I turn to the landlady and curtsy. “Thank you so much for your kindness, ma’am. I hope I was not a bother.”
“Not at all, child. I am so pleased to know that Archie had a friend who grieves for him.” She glares toward the commotion in the front room as the boys tumble in from school. “He ought to have had more. He was a lovely lad.”
Isla says her goodbyes and jots something on a piece of paper, promising Mrs. Trowbridge it will be “exactly the thing” for her arthritis. Then she bustles me out the door, and we are gone.
We’re around the corner, near the steps in another close. I’ve given her the note I found, and she’s glaring as she reads it.
“Catriona strikes again,” I mutter. “Making friends wherever she goes.”
“I am not certain whether I am angrier with her, for getting into such scrapes, or this young man for his vindictiveness. So Archie knew Catriona?”
“It’s not his handwriting.” I show her the book, with his penmanship. Then I flip over the note. “This side, with the addresses was written by him. This other side was not. It’s someone asking him to dig up dirt on Catriona.”
“He wrote the addresses after receiving this note.”
“Maybe? But the note was hidden. The information on Catriona hardly seems something his housemates would care about. I think he was hiding the addresses, which would suggest he wrote them first. Also, it was folded with the addresses inside, and there’s no sign of it ever being folded the other way.”
She examines the note. “You are correct. That is terribly clever.”
“Nah, just basic detective work. It suggests that he jotted down these addresses and then spoke to someone about them. That person wrote the information about Catriona on the opposite side, which meant Evans had to keep the note.”
She nods as we walk, and she keeps nodding, as if thinking it through. I’m deep in thought, too. If I mentally shift past the note’s connection between Catriona and Evans, there’s useful data there on her backstory. I might be able to use that in figuring out who tried to kill her.
Then, without looking over, she says, casually, “What are you not telling me, Mallory?”
I don’t answer.
After a moment she says, “Well, I should be glad you are not outright lying and claiming to be hiding nothing. You should be shocked by a connection between the killer and Catriona. Is that not an incrediblecoincidence? You have already said you are not fond of coincidences, which means you have an explanation for this.”
“I’d like to check out this address,” I say, tapping the third one, with the question mark and a date beside it.
“Truly? Or is that a distraction?”
“Truly, though it does have the added attraction of allowing me to duck a question I don’t want to answer yet. Yes, I am only mildly surprised by a connection between Evans, Catriona, and a third person.”
“The third person being the killer?”
I hold out the paper. “Where is this? And don’t try withholding your answer for mine or I’ll just walk up to those guys, flash my bosom, and ask very prettily.”
She snorts. “Somehow, I cannot envision you ‘flashing’ your bosomorasking prettily.”
I lower my lashes. “Please, sir, if you might be of assistance. I am trying to find the home of my elderly aunt, who recently moved, and I believe I have been sent to the entirely wrong area. I am but a poor milkmaid from the country, all alone in the big city and so dreadfully overwhelmed.” I clear my throat. “Okay, the last part might oversell it.”
“Depends on whether you want directions or a coach and escort.”
“And a lap to sit in?”
She chokes on a laugh. “Yes, I believe the coach would be sadly overcrowded, forcing you to settle into a lap.” She shakes her head and takes the note. “It is about a half-mile walk. Come along.”
We’re outside a toy shop, and I’m ogling it as if I’m six again, standing outside FAO Schwarz in New York. As a child, I’d have found this tiny shop a disappointment compared to the bright and colorful ones I was used to, but as an adult, it’s a straight sugar shot of nostalgia for a world I’ve only ever seen on Christmas cards and in holiday movies. A place of Victorian magic, with marionettes dancing in the front window and a train set ready to chug around the base.