Waiting Game by Sheri Cobb South

reasons not entirely connected to the case. This dwelling, as he saw when she opened a door halfway up the narrow, uncarpeted staircase, proved to have nothing in common with his own flat save for its location over a commercial establishment. Large windows looked down onto Piccadilly, their curtains tied back to admit the pale winter sunshine that cast checkerboard patterns on the fringed carpet covering the floor and reflected off the glass protecting the framed prints on the walls.
    To Pickett, whose childhood had been spent in London’s worst slums, and whose cases over the past year had thrust him into the homes of some of England’s wealthiest and most powerful families, the linen-draper’s abode represented just the sort of respectable middle ground to which he himself might someday aspire, if he prospered in his profession. So respectable was it, in fact, that he wondered if it was quite proper for him to be here with Miss Robinson unchaperoned. Noises from the next room, however, indicated that they were not alone, and a moment later a middle-aged woman with reddened face and hands entered the room, wiping her work-roughened hands on her apron. Not Mrs. Robinson, he told himself; as he recalled, Miss Robinson had said her mother was dead. Clearly, the linen-draper’s shop was profitable enough for its proprietor to afford a servant.
    “Have you any hot water on the hob, Sybbie?” Miss Robinson asked without preamble. “Our wicked Brutus has bitten poor Mr. Pickett.”
    “Mr. Pickett, you say?” Sybbie regarded Brutus’s victim speculatively, giving Pickett to understand that he was being weighed as a prospective suitor for Miss Robinson’s hand.
    “Mr. Pickett is from Bow Street, Sybbie. He’s investigating our burglary.” Miss Robinson’s gently chiding tone, as well as the color that flooded her cheeks, was sufficient to inform Pickett that he had been correct in his interpretation of the older woman’s motives. “Now, about that hot water—”
    “Aye, miss, I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” she grumbled. She shuffled out of the room and returned a moment later with a bowl of water in her hands and a cloth draped over her arm.
    “Thank you, Sybbie, that will be all,” Miss Robinson said, when the woman seemed inclined to linger in order to observe the proceedings. Sybbie gave a little huff, but trudged away, leaving Pickett apparently alone with the linen-draper’s daughter. Still, he would have bet his last week’s wages that she was still within earshot—although whether the woman thought to protect Miss Robinson from any unseemly advances on his part, or merely hoped such advances might occur, he was not at all certain.
    “Pray sit here, Mr. Pickett,” Miss Robinson said, indicating the chair before the hearth. As he sat down, she picked up the poker and stirred the banked fire to life, then knelt at Pickett’s feet, dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, and began gently swabbing his injured hand.
    “I’m sure Brutus didn’t mean it,” she assured her patient, who was equally certain the big dog had done exactly what it had intended to do. “He’s a good dog, really. He only means to protect us, poor lamb.”
    Of all the words Pickett might have used to describe the Robinsons’ four-legged guardian, “lamb” was not one of them. Still, it would not do to cast aspersions on an animal of which Miss Robinson was obviously fond. “I won’t argue the point, since you know Brutus rather better than I do,” he said. “Still, I confess I feel a bit like Caesar must have done after being betrayed by his Brutus.”
    Her face lit up in a smile. “Why, Mr. Pickett! You are familiar with Shakespeare?”
    “I live not far from the theatre at Drury Lane,” he explained. “I go there as frequently as work and finances allow.”
    “Papa’s business was founded in the theatre, you know,” she said proudly. “My great-great—I forget how many greats—grandfather began as a costumer