Free 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan Page B

take the case to trial. It will be difficult, but I believe that I am up to the task. Perhaps only I can do it. I will need money to float us for a while. The firm owes me money, and I’ll take a loan out against this house. But I promise you, darling; I will pay the loan back, every cent of it. You shall see.”
    She closed her eyes for a minute. He could not tell if she was going to cry or lash out at him.
    The cook appeared at the open door of the salon. Seeing them sitting so still, she cleared her throat and then rapped lightly against the doorjamb. Clinton swiveled around.
    “Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, there’s a boy come round by the kitchen door. He comes from your office. He has some things for you.”
    “A boy? Oh, yes. I’ll come down,” said Clinton. He stood up and slipped his stocking feet into the moccasins. He helped Elisabeth up, and they followed the cook downstairs where the boy, John, was standing just inside the kitchen door with a cardboard folder wrapped in string.
    “John, my boy,” he said.
    “I went to your office to find you, like you asked, sir, and they sent me here with a package,” the boy said, offering the document case.
    “John, this is Mrs. Clinton, and this is our excellent cook, Mrs. Fullerton. As you see, between the two of them and these ovens, we have an unending source of shortbread.”
    Elisabeth pulled out a kitchen chair for the boy.
    “John is the young lad who worked at 31 Bond Street,” Clinton explained, “and had the misfortune of finding his master’s body. He continues on as a houseboy under the Coroner’s regime.” Clinton undid the string on the package.
    “Are you hungry?” asked Elisabeth. John gave a shy shrug, but she was already reaching for some kitchen flatware and a napkin. “Mrs. Fullerton, pull him off a piece of the beef. And serve him some vegetables if they are ready.” Clinton unwrapped the parcel and looked over the papers.
    “James certainly has not wasted time. This is the formal dissolution of the partnership.”
    Elisabeth glanced at him as the cook placed a slab of roast beef on John’s plate and served up some roasted carrots and a potato. The boy began to eat the food hungrily.
    “I’ll give you a basket to take with you,” she said. “Are they feeding you enough there, at the inquest?” Elisabeth asked John, concerned.
    “I think his meals were scarce before, and now he’s just scraping by,” said Clinton, placing the legal papers on the edge of a cupboard. John tried awkwardly to slice the beef, which was very rare, and he chewed it with difficulty.
    “Be careful swallowing now, if you’re not used to red meat,” said Elisabeth. She began to cut his meat for him in small pieces. “Henry, do you remember Thayer?” she asked.
    “That young lawyer, fresh out of Columbia?”
    “Yes, the fellow who came to dinner with his wife. They were going to have a baby; Thayer, wasn’t it?”
    “Barnaby Thayer. Why do you ask?”
    “He will do the work of ten James Armstrongs,” Elisabeth said. “He is bright and eager and has trial experience. I was very impressed by him.” Clinton was always amazed by how her mind worked. She had scarcely absorbed the news and she was jumping past him, already staffing.
    “Mrs. Fullerton,” continued Elisabeth, “Mr. Clinton is the head of a new law office handling the Bond Street murder,” she said.
    “My word!” said the cook, turning around from the stove with wide eyes. “The world will be watching this one.”
    “If you’re going to be placing bets, keep in mind, we are the underdogs,” said Clinton, putting his arm around Elisabeth and squeezing her tightly. But the worry was not gone from her eyes, and he was terrified of disappointing her. He would go to the bank in the morning for the loan. There would be a slow reduction of niceties, of the things she was accustomed to, like flowers and chocolates and jewelry he brought home as a surprise, and their trips to Hastings