Phantom of Blood Alley Read Online Free PDF Page B

constitutions, even as a boy. I’m concerned you’re making yourself ill.’
    ‘Well, don’t be,’ he snapped. ‘I’m fine. And anyway, you’re my sister, not my governess, and I’m not one of your precious pampered charges. Do you understand, Clarissa? I don’t want your concern.’
    ‘But my dear Laurence,’ boomed Clarissa,‘all I want – all I have ever wanted – is what’s best for you.’
    ‘Then give me the money I need,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve made a great breakthrough, Clarissa, and I need funds to exploit its full potential. You have that strongbox full of gold sovereigns that Lord Riverhythe bequeathed you, which you hoard like a miser, while I, your own flesh and blood, have to beg and borrow to fund my work …’
    ‘But what
is
this work, Laurence?’ Clarissa asked beseechingly. ‘You won’t talk of it. It’s making you ill, and yet you ask me to invest my nest egg in it …’
    ‘Well, if you won’t cough up the gold,’ screamed Laurence Oliphant, ‘I’ll take something I can sell, at least!’
    ‘No, Laurence!’ Clarissa Oliphant exclaimed, the motherly tone to her voice replaced by fierce emotion. ‘Not that! You know how much it means to me.’
    ‘And you know how much my work meansto me,’ he shouted. ‘I’m going to my studio. Do not attempt to follow me!’
    The drawing-room door flew open and he stormed past Tilly and me in a blur of movement, his fustian weave overcoat flapping behind him.
    ‘Laurence, dear,’ Clarissa called after him.
‘Laurence!’
    The front door slammed shut. Tilly and I exchanged glances. The next moment, Clarissa Oliphant appeared in the hallway.
    ‘Bring me my smelling salts, Tilly,’ she said wearily, ‘I’m feeling a little faint.’ She turned to me. ‘Mr Grimes,’ she said, a single eyebrow arched. ‘You’re still here, I see.’
    I nodded as Tilly hurried off to the scullery, drying her eyes on her apron.
    ‘My nerves,’ she said, pushing behind her ear a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun. ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take.’
    ‘If there’s anything I can do?’ I told her.
    She nodded, and I saw the resolve in her pursed lips. ‘There is, Mr Grimes,’ she said, her voice booming once more. ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing, I want you to take me to this lock-up of Laurence’s. I intend to have it out with him. It’s time to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.’

F irst thing, she’d said, and first thing, I was there, knocking at 12 Aspen Row at eight o’clock on the dot. The door flew open and Clarissa Oliphant stood before me, dressed for the cold in a heavy calf-length greatcoat and an oversized green tam-o’-shanter. Her face was drawn and there were bags under her eyes. It didn’t look as though she’d got a moment’s sleep all night. She twirled an umbrella in her hand and thrust it forward.
    ‘Lead on, Mr Grimes.’
    We must have made an odd couple as we strode through town. Clarissa Oliphant, tall, portly and silver-haired, striding impatientlybehind me as I led the way, anxious not to be trampled underfoot.
    The city was busy. It was Saturday, and several streets and squares were lined with bustling market stalls. We picked our way through the crowds on Fenugreek Street and Marston Lane as I retraced the route I’d taken the previous day. There was a distinguished-looking gentleman in front of the old Navy Memorial, exchanging lapel pins for donations to the Old Sailors’ Benevolent Fund. I paused to give him some spare change, causing Clarissa Oliphant to barrel into me and almost lose her footing on the cobbles.
    ‘Come, Mr Grimes,’ she insisted as I grabbed her elbow to steady her. ‘There is no time for delay!’
    Broadacre was thronging and, not for the first time, I looked up longingly at the rooftops overhead, wishing that I was up there, far above the heaving cobbled streets. Using her umbrella like a weapon, Clarissa droveforward, her top lip