“Yes, I see your point there. But even so, the police could help you find her. She might have been home by now if you’d come to me sooner.”
“Her mother doesn’t want word of this getting out. It would destroy Consuelo’s reputation, and with the Duke of Marlborough on his way—”
“Society people,” he murmured, his derision plain. “How do you do it, Emma?”
“Do what?”
“Move in their world. Put up with their ridiculous notions.”
I shrugged. “Is a ruined reputation a liability only in their world? No, Jesse. Every woman must be vigilant every moment of her life.”
He let that pass, his brow furrowing. “So, you’ve checked with Miss Vanderbilt’s closest friends?”
“Everyone I could think of that she’d go to for help.”
“But for all you know, someone may have lied. She could have been in a room right above your head, and you wouldn’t have been the wiser.”
I conceded the possibility. “I suppose that’s why I’m here. I’m about out of ideas. Nanny is helping, of course, but so far she hasn’t heard anything.”
He pushed paper and a pen across the desk to me, then set a pot of ink at my elbow. “Write down the names of her friends for me.”
While I complied, he sat back with a pensive look. When I finished I slid the paper back to him. He stared down at my list, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“If I’m going to be any help to you at all,” he said, “I’m going to have to bring a few men into this.”
“Jesse, you can’t.”
“There’s no other way to keep an eye on the people on your list. But see here. What I can do is have my men report back to me on visitors to their homes, whom they’re seen with in town, that sort of thing.”
“Won’t your men wonder why they’re shadowing some of society’s most prominent figures?”
Jesse smiled. “They might. But that doesn’t mean I have to tell them.” Through his coat, he tapped the badge she knew was tucked in the inside breast pocket. “This means I get to give orders without having to explain myself. But I can only use so much manpower before my chief starts asking questions, so if we don’t find your cousin soon, Emma . . .”
His thought went unfinished, but I understood. We were fast running out of time.
I came to my feet and Jesse did the same. “I’m glad you finally came to me with this,” he said. “It’s in Miss Vanderbilt’s best interests.”
“I know. Thank you, Jesse.”
“I’ll see you out,” he offered, but I didn’t move to go.
“I do have one more favor to ask. Or two, actually.”
His eyes closed briefly as he shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”
Jesse denied my first request. Or Anthony Dobbs did, I should say, by having stated upon his arrest that he would refuse all visitors except his lawyer. This unexpected roadblock frustrated me no end, but Jesse would not be persuaded otherwise. I supposed Dobbs wouldn’t have answered my questions anyway. My second request was more easily granted, and within minutes I stood where Jesse instructed me to, some three feet in front of the bars that lined Clara Parker’s cell. In deference to her being a woman, the police had housed her in a small, little-used section of the jail where she would not suffer the indignity of being seen by any male prisoners.
Upon seeing me approach she jumped up from her sagging cot and gripped the bars in front of her.
“Oh, Miss Cross, I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I swear I wouldn’t. You have to believe me.”
In my gentlest tone I said, “I’m not here to accuse you, Clara.”
The poor thing still wore the maid’s uniform she had been arrested in, except that the snowy white pinafore and the straight pins that held it in place were gone. Had the officers thought she might use the pins as a weapon, or strangle herself with the apron ties?
“As God is my witness, miss, I didn’t take the scarf from Lady Amelia’s room. I’d never seen it before . . . before . . .” Her head sank between her shoulders and her moan seemed to shiver up the bars of the cell. Her hair hung in limp strands around her face, and dark smudges made her eyes appear huge in her wan face. “Oh, please, miss, someone has to help me.”
My heart went out to her and I very nearly eased closer to grasp the fragile hand she stretched through the bars. But at the far end of the aisle between the four cells stood a door with a tiny window, and on the other side of the wavy glass a grim-faced guard stood watching. Jesse’s last words to me had been a warning to stay back or I’d be ushered from the building.