It had not escaped my attention that Mr. Sack’s shrewd eyes had examined my attire, landing with a spark of lust upon the Punjabi diamonds.
“Governesses are expected to be such drab creatures. It is a life of terrible drudgery even when one is not living in fear of one’s employer, Mr. Sack.”
“Frightened you, did they, the scoundrels?” Mr. Sack commiserated. “Happily, you are safely under the care of John Company now, Miss Stone.”
Mr. Sack poured claret from a decanter on a carved mahogany sideboard; he was just as I remembered him, doughy and pink faced, with gleaming cheeks and fat fingers. Now I saw that his rich attire—a maroon coat on this occasion, with a yellow silk necktie—matched his office, for everywhere I looked were signs of needless expense. From ivory cigar box to silver-chased gasogene, Company executives seemed to display wealth like peacocks spreading their plumage.
He ushered me into a chair, equipped us with wine, and perched on the front of his desk. “First, Miss Stone, let me offer my solemn oath that you may tell me anything in complete confidence—I gather that you departed Highgate House in great anxiety, which I confess does not surprise me, considering the dark history of Thornfield and his shadow, Singh. If we are to be friends, we must trust each other.”
So I am already promised immunity for stealing the trunk, I thought, delighted.
“I am yours to command, Mr. Sack, so harrowed was I by my recent experiences.”
The sympathetic frown he manufactured was revolting, so sharply did his eyes cut from my necklace to my face and back again. “We speak of desperate men, Miss Stone. Please—tell me everything.”
I did not tell him everything, and several of the things I told him were bold-faced lies.
Tremulously, I informed Mr. Sack that after the knives had driven him away at breakfast, I had feared for my life. However, I had determined to wait at least until I was given my first quarterly wages, having no other means of returning to London. In the meanwhile, I had launched a secret investigation of the house’s occupants and learnt what Mr. Sack had been doing visiting Highgate House thanks to covert eavesdropping (not untrue); thus had I heard the story of the trunk and its contents.
“The tale sounded to me quite preposterous, but I continued in my quest to discover all I could,” I informed him shyly. “There seemed no other choice if I wished to escape their clutches.”
“None at all, none in the world, Miss Stone—you did quite right,” the Company diplomat soothed. “Please go on.”
Leaving out the pieces of the story which reflected badly on Sack was simplicity itself. I knew my employer had robbed David Lavell and his wife, Karman Kaur, but said nothing of Sahjara’s kidnap; I knew John Clements and Jack Ghosh were both dead, but implied Mr. Thornfield or Mr. Singh were to blame. The Company man’s ruddy cheeks creased in sympathy whilst his stare bored into me with all the gentility of a bullet.
“This Jack Ghosh person’s death was the final straw,” I lamented. “Oh, Mr. Sack, it was so horrid—their claims it was an accident, the blood on the floor. I redoubled my search for the trunk, and . . .” I allowed myself to blush.
“And enterprising woman that you are, you found it, and you took it in order to escape the clutches of these fiends,” he said softly.
Pretending a coquettish version of guilt, I said nothing.
“The trunk was hid amongst Mr. Sardar Singh’s things, I imagine?”
Dumbfounded, I blinked at him.
“Why do you say so, Mr. Sack?”
“Because it’s that posturing heathen who taunted me with word of it upon my arrival back in England. This was before the loss of John Clements, of course—wretched business, that, and I don’t know that this Inspector Quillfeather will ever get to the bottom of it, more’s the pity. I thought Thornfield to blame at first, and told the Director so, but now I have reached another conclusion.”
These assertions sounded nonsensical—that either man would ever stoop to poisoning anyone (as I had once done) was ludicrous, I thought, and the notion that Sardar Singh had made any communication to Augustus P. Sack whatsoever beggared belief.
“I don’t understand . . . Mr. Singh seemed so contemptuous of you,” I faltered. “You claim he was a correspondent?”
“He did hate me, the swaggering savage, and wished me to live knowing his crimes would go unpunished. See for yourself.”