Read Online The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine E. Robins - Free Book Online Page A

thought that, if they were shown a picture, they might recognize from which house the person had come.
    The largest of the boys, apparently the leader, looked round at his small troop, then nodded to her. “Yes, miss. I think so.”
    “Well, then. Kindly look at this and tell me if either of these two ladies is familiar to you.” She took the portrait from her reticule and, holding on to it firmly lest the temptation to make away with the frame prove too strong, showed it to them. The boys studied the picture with grave attention; this was a new game to them and they seemed determined to play fair at it.
    Finally the largest boy raised his head, looked around to his mates and, on some signal of group agreement, pointed to a good sized house of gray stone across the street and half-way to St. James’s Square.
    “You are sure?”
    The heads bobbed in ragged agreement. Miss Tolerance dispensed a penny to each of the boys, which caused a second ripple of bobbed heads, and mumbled thankees. Miss Tolerance took a tuppenny piece and held it up between gloved fingers.
    “Can any of you tell me the name of the people who live there?”
    The leader turned to his mates, eyebrows lifted as if to encourage an outpouring of information which did not come. “Noffin’?” he prodded. The boys looked back and forth between the coin and the house; she watched each one consider and abandon the idea of a lie.
    “Never mind it,” Miss Tolerance said bracingly. “What can you tell me about the people who live in that house? How many are there?”
    “Fambly or servints?” the leader asked.
    “For now, just the family.”
    “There’s your young ladies,” one of the smallest boys piped up. “Only the sittin’ one in the picher, she ain’t always ‘ere no more.”
    “Catch-fart! She’s married! ‘Er ‘usban’ come to visit wiv’er.”
    Miss Tolerance was required to head off a quarrel by reminding the boys of the question under discussion.
    “The one that was standin’ in the picher, she live here,” the small boy reported.
    “Yeah, and ‘er da, too,” said another boy, in the tone of one who is telling a tremendous joke. Miss Tolerance looked down her nose at him and his merriment subsided. There was some subsequent discussion of the nip–farthing ways of the men of the house, who never paid for a sweeping.
    “Nah, the young gent pays,” a sandy-haired boy offered. “‘E’s aright. Ast me once ‘ow many we ‘ad at ‘ome, and ‘f we got enough to eat.”
    “Whot ‘e want to know that for?” the leader objected.
    The sandy-haired boy shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe ‘e wanted to invite us all over for Sunday dinner.” This was met with a roar of merriment.
    “When is the last time any of you saw the younger lady?”
    This question caused a good deal of head-scratching and twisting up of faces. In the end the consensus was that it had been more than a week. “The young ‘un, miss? Spec’ she’s gone to the country,” one of the boys said. “A-huntin’ of foxes or summat, ‘ey, miss? They cuts the tails off,” he added with relish. The other boys were much impressed with this bit of trivia. Miss Tolerance wrenched the topic back to the family in the stone house.
    “I have a task for as many likely boys as I can find. I need to have that house carefully observed, and I will pay each boy who works for me…” she paused thoughtfully. “Thruppence a day upon my errand.”
    “What we observin’ for, miss?” the tall boy asked.
    “To see who comes in or goes out, over the next few days. But you must be careful that no one in the house knows what you are doing—including the servants. I will need a report each day of the visitors that come to the house. Can any of you write?”
    After a moment of silence one of the smaller, grubbier boys raised his hand. This occasioned a chorus of ooohs, half-taunting and half-admiring, from his fellows.
    “I can’t spell so good, missus, but I know me letters. Me