by Shéa MacLeod
She snorted. “No police around here. Give it time, and they will be. But I’ve got a good one. I was right here with my new man. We were getting real cozy like, if you know what I mean.” She winked then gave Hale a lascivious look.
I did. Unfortunately. “Oh, you’ve got a new boyfriend. How lovely for you.”
“So you see, no need to go bumping off old Dottie. She was her own worst enemy.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hale.
“You know,” she said meaningfully. “She pulled her tricks on you. That was Dottie. Cooking up schemes. Getting her hooks in innocent people. Told her that was never gonna get her places, but she wouldn’t listen. And look what happened.” She didn’t seem very broken up about it.
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Dottie?” I asked.
“Sure. Anyone who ever met her. But if you want to know what I think, I think it was Archie what done her in.”
“Why’s that?” Hale asked.
“She stole from him, didn’t she? Took a wad o’ cash right outta his trouser pocket.”
Interesting. Archie hadn’t mentioned that little fact. I wondered how much Dottie had taken and if it would have made Archie mad enough to kill her. The former boyfriend blamed the former best friend and vice versa. No surprise there.
“Was there somewhere Dottie liked to hang out?” I asked. “Somewhere she might have met someone who...”
“Wanted to kill her?” Kitty blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, those bright red lips pursing just so. Despite her relative youth, tiny lines already formed around her lips. “Well, last I knew, she’d just discovered this new placed called Apollyon. She said a lotta swells hung out there. She was gonna snare herself a new man.” She snorted. “She couldn’t even keep the one she got.” She eyed Hale knowingly.
With nothing else to discover from the woman, we said our goodbyes. I breathed a sigh of relief as we once again inhaled fresh air. It wasn’t just the smoky room that had been oppressive. Kitty, with her bad attitude and mean streak, was one of those women I found exhausting.
“Where to now?” I asked as Hale escorted me to the car. “I’m betting this Apollyon place doesn’t open for hours yet.”
“I won’t be able to go with you,” he said. “I’ve got to play tonight.”
I understood, but I still felt a slight pang, so I said breezily, “That’s alright. I’ll bring Chaz along.”
“I’ve got a couple hours before I need to be at the club. Why don’t we grab a bite to eat,” he suggested. “And talk.”
It sounded ominous. But I agreed. We did, indeed, need to talk. I just wasn’t sure where or how that talk would go.
Chapter 8
Hale chose a sandwich shop in a slightly better part of town from where Kitty lived. There was a phone box outside, so I quickly rang Chaz.
“I need to visit this club,” I told him, quickly running down what Hale and I had found out. “Are you up for it?”
“You know I am, love. We should talk to your aunt first, though.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows nearly everything that goes on in this town. And what she doesn’t know, Louise does. Maybe they’ll have more background on this place. If we’re going undercover, we should be prepared.”
He was right. “Fine, but I’ve got an appointment.” I would tell him about Hale later, but right now I didn’t need him sticking his nose in.
“I’ll ring them then. Let you know what I find out.”
“Fantastic. Goodbye, darling.”
The sandwich shop was a relaxed sort of place with linoleum floors, simple chairs and tables, and a menu of about half a dozen sandwiches. One could also order a pot of tea and some rather dry-looking scones. I stuck with a basic egg with cress, as it seemed the least likely to muck up.
For the first few minutes, there was an awkward silence as we ate our sandwiches and sipped slightly watery tea. Finally, I’d had enough.
“You wanted to talk. So here we are. Talk.” It came out a little more abruptly than I intended, but I wasn’t interested in playing games or beating about the bush.
He sighed and set down his sandwich. “I need you to know that since the day we met, there hasn’t been anyone else. Not for me.”
That surprised me somehow. “Truly?”
“Truly. I know our worlds are... different. Maybe unworkable. I don’t know. But I only ever wanted you. From that first night, you were it for me.”
“Until your past reared its ugly head,” I said dryly.
“Yeah. There’s that. And I can’t promise it won’t happen again. I haven’t exactly been a priest.”
Nor had I, but he didn’t need to know that. “What is it that you want, Hale?”
“I want you, Ophelia.” His gaze on me was intense. I could almost feel his need like a palpable thing. I shivered with the weight of it. “That’s all I want. Whatever we decide this is going to be, that’s what I want. Nothing and no one else.”
“Then why didn’t you call me when you left Dottie?”
“I wanted to be free, truly free, first. I needed to make it right. What do you say, doll?”
I swallowed hard. “I want to be with you, too. I just...”
His expression tightened. “You just what?”
“I don’t know what we can be. I don’t want marriage. Not again.”
He shrugged. “Marriage is just words on a paper. What we have, no paper can define that. No legal bull can make it stronger or weaker. We are what we decide we are. Together.”
I felt a little woozy inside. All sort of melty and weak. I didn’t like it. Not the weakness. But I liked the melty wooziness. It felt like the best sort of whiskey, all warming and rich. I wanted to say yes, and yet I wasn’t sure if I was ready to risk my heart again. He’d already crushed it once.
Being married to Felix had been light and fun. There was no heart involved in it. Merely affection and companionship. When he died, I had been sad, but in the way one is when one loses a family member, not perhaps in the way one should be when losing a spouse. But when Hale had left...
I never wanted to feel that way again. I knew I had a choice. I could live safely and never have to feel anything remotely like that again, or I could live extravagantly, loudly, and risk all the pain of all the emotions a person feels when they love with abandon.
And there it was.
I loved Hale Davis. It was that simple and that complicated. And while I may not wish for marriage and all the baggage that came along with that, I did want him.
“Well,” he prodded.
“Hale Davis, will you make a dishonest woman of me?”
His smile was one of joy and relief. “I thought you’d never ask.”
IT WAS THREE HOURS later when I woke in my own bed, the afternoon sun so low in the sky the room was nearly dark. I stretched languidly and smiled to myself.
My reunion with Hale had gone rather well. He’d left an hour ago for band practice. I didn’t mind. It had given me time for a quick nap before I met with Chaz. Maddie had promised to wake me up when he rang, but she hadn’t. I frowned at the clock. Nearly four. What was taking so long?
I threw on my dressing gown, slid my feet into a pair of slippers, and made my way downstairs to find Maddie. She was nowhere to be seen, but my sitting room was full. Apparently, while I slept, Chaz, Aunt Butty, and Louise had put in an appearance.
“There you are,” Aunt Butty called from her place near the fire where she was contentedly sipping on some sort of bright green alcoholic concoction. “Whatever are you wearing? Surely you’re not greeting guests in your nightclothes.”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, ignoring her dig about my clothing. She was one to talk. Her mustard yellow dress was covered in moss green polka dots and was enough to make a person’s stomach turn.
“I rang earlier,” Chaz said, toasting me with his martini. “Told Maddie we were popping over for tea. Louise has some informati
on for us.”
I sank down on the divan next to Chaz. “She didn’t tell me.”
“Good help is so hard to find these days,” Louise said in her usual loud voice. “All the young girls want to be secretaries and marry their bosses. Ridiculous nonsense. I blame Hollywood.”
“Of course you do,” I muttered. Chaz nearly choked on his cocktail. I ignored him, and said aloud, “What sort of information do you have for us, Louise?”
“Let the poor woman have her tea first,” Aunt Butty said. “Maddie should be here any minute.”
“Oh, dear.” I dreaded to see what Maddie would come up with for tea. The kitchen wasn’t exactly her area of expertise, although she made a fine slice of toast and her hot chocolate was excellent.
Just then, Maddie banged through the door with a wheeled tea cart I hadn’t even realized I owned. On it sat two steaming pots of tea, an enormous mound of tea sandwiches, and what looked like an entire pack of Bourbon cream biscuits. As teas went, it wasn’t exactly top notch, but I was pleasantly surprised she’d managed to come up with something passable.
“Sorry, m’lady,” she muttered as she set out the tea things. “I meant to wake you up, but Mr. Chaz threw me off with his... shenanigans.” She gave him a grimace to which he laughed.
“Maddie, my love, you are a treasure.”
She sniffed. “You, Mr. Chaz, are a pain in the backside.” She marched from the room, ignoring his bellow of laughter, used to his antics by now.
While I poured tea, the others helped themselves to sandwiches and Bourbons. Louise munched contentedly on a salmon paste. I’d no idea where Maddie had got that nasty stuff from, but clearly Louise was enjoying it. Occasionally she fed little nibbles to Peaches who was curled by her feet. I was glad to see he was none the worse for wear after his French adventures.
“Now,” Louise said in her braying voice, “about the Apollyon.”
“Yes,” I said eagerly. “What do you know?”
“It’s not a place a lady goes.” She eyed me carefully.
“Which is why we’re going under cover,” Chaz said, selecting another Bourbon.
“Very well. But you should be most careful. According to my sources, Apollyon is owned by one Derby Jones.”
Chaz stared at her with his mouth open. Aunt Butty let out a gasp.
“Who is Derby Jones, and why have I never heard of him?” I asked.
“Probably a good thing you haven’t,” Louise said dryly. “He’s a gangster, my dear. Not at all our sort of person.”
Since up until I married Lord Rample I hadn’t been considered “our sort of person,” I ignored that. I couldn’t, however, ignore the reference to his status as a gangster.
“What makes you think he is involved in the underworld?”
“My dear, everyone knows it,” Louise said, helping herself to a second salmon paste. I hoped she ate them all, because otherwise I’d be forced to throw them out. “His father went to prison for forging legal documents. His mother was, well, a woman of ill repute. It’s well known that Apollyon is a front for laundering the money Jones makes through less-than-legal means.”
“What sort of means, exactly?” I asked.
“Prostitution, extortion, you name it,” Chaz said. “He’s not the sort of person you want to tangle with, love.”
“I don’t want to tangle with him,” I said. “I merely want to ask a few questions.”
Aunt Butty snorted. “I’d be careful what sort of questions you ask, or you’ll end up at the bottom of the Thames.”
“Thank you for your concern,” I said tartly, “but I think I can manage. He’s a man, after all.”
Chaz lifted a brow. “Which means what, exactly?”
“Which means that most men, excepting you, darling, can be led around by their, ah...”
“Yes, we know what you mean, Ophelia,” Louise said. “And it’s true. Especially of men like Derby Jones. But he has a type.”
I groaned. “Let me guess. Rail thin with short skirts.”
“You got the short skirts right,” she said. “Jones, however, likes them voluptuous and tarty.”
“I think she’s got the voluptuous down,” Chaz said.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I have anything tarty in my wardrobe,” I mused.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Aunt Butty said around a mouthful of Bourbon cream. “I’m sure we can find something in my attic.”
I repressed a groan. I’d no doubt my aunt had something suitably tarty, but it was more than likely a good thirty years out of date.
“How’s Maddie with a sewing needle?” Chaz whispered, coming to the same conclusion.
“Passable.” I hoped. Because if we didn’t pull this off, no doubt Derby Jones would have us sleeping with the eels.
Chapter 9
“I do look quite the tart, don’t I?” I said, admiring myself in the mirror.
“Yes, m’lady,” Maddie said dryly. “Very tarty, if I do say so myself.”
“It’s all thanks to you,” I applauded.
“And Lady Butty,” she reminded me.
After tea, Aunt Butty and Louise had gone off to sort through Aunt Butty’s attic. They’d returned an hour later with a pile of gowns—decades out of date as I’d suspected—and instructions for Maddie. Somehow, my maid had managed to whip up something suitable for the evening’s undercover adventures.
The dress, such as it was, had been repurposed from one of Aunt Butty’s red velvet gowns. It hugged my curves to the point of indecency, revealed a rather generous amount of cleavage—which Maddie had helped along with the use of a great deal of padding despite my not needing any assistance in that department—and showed rather more leg than I was strictly comfortable with. She’d also put on my makeup with a heavy hand. The end result was that instead of a lady, I looked like, well, a tart.
“Bravo,” Chaz said when he saw me. “Darling, you look a treat.”
“A rather cheap one,” I said in a snide tone. “You think he’ll fall for it?”
“If he doesn’t, believe me, he doesn’t bat for your team.”
I snorted. “Shall we get on with it?”
We took his car, which was only slightly less flashy than mine, and parked a couple blocks away from the club. We were supposed to be ordinary folk, and ordinary folk did not drive around in expensive motorcars.
The club was located at the edge of the East End, tucked among dozens of restaurants, shops, and other clubs. It was loud, flashy, and very obvious. Inside, big band music played while women in costumes even tartier than mine strolled around serving drinks and selling cigarettes. A familiar dastar in the far corner caught my eye.
“Is that—?”
“Mr. Singh,” Chaz confirmed. “Aunt Butty thought we could use some backup.”
Mr. Singh was Aunt Butty’s Sikh butler. She’d picked him up somewhere along her travels, just as she had her dreadful maid, Flora, and her new driver, Simon Vale. Mr. Singh knew things that no proper butler should know and had skills no proper butler should have. He was very mysterious, our Mr. Singh, and I liked him immensely.
He sat quietly, nursing what appeared to be a whiskey, neat, watching the crowd with what I was sure was feigned boredom. Boredom was not an expression Mr. Singh ever bore. His gaze swept over us, completely blank, as if he’d never seen us before.
“Let’s mingle,” Chaz said, pulling me into the crowd.
We’d formed a plan on the drive over. He and I would drink and dance and behave just as two people on a night out should behave. Once we spotted Derby Jones, I would arrange an “accidental” meeting during which I would work my feminine wiles. Once he was under my spell, so to speak, I would proceed to extract information about Dottie Lancaster Davis. Meanwhile, Chaz would work the crowd, trying to get whatever he could out of the patrons and employees. And, apparently, Mr. Singh would be watching our backs the entire time. His presence made me feel much better about the whole thing, I must say.
We found a table not far from Mr. Singh where we could keep a good eye out. Chaz got us a couple of drinks, very cheap liquor, very watered down. Then we danced a bit to the subpar band, before chatting up the people around us. No one seemed to know Dottie, and Derby Jones was nowhere in sight.
At last I visited the rather dodgy cloakroom. It smelled dreadfully of mold and unmentionable things. As I checked my makeup, a young woman came in. I recognized her as one of the cigarette girls.
“Hey, you work here?” I asked, reverting to the country accent of my youth. It was easier than trying to fake an East End one, and no one would catch me out because of it.
“Sure, doll,” she said, chomping on a wad of gum. “Ya need somethin’?”
“Actually, I’m looking for a friend of mine used to hang out here. Haven’t seen her in a while. Dottie?”
Her eyes, thickly rimmed in kohl, widened. “You mean Dottie Davis? Didn’t you hear? Someone done her in.”
I gasped in feigned shock. “No! What happened?”
“They found her in Hyde Park a couple mornings ago. Somebody stabbed her through the heart with a sword!”
Well, she was half right. “Oh, no! That’s dreadful! Why would someone do that?”
“Probably messed with the wrong husband, you know what I mean?” She gave me a once over. “Don’t tell me she didn’t try it on with your fella. He’s a looker.”
I realized she meant Chaz. “She’s not his type. Wasn’t, I mean.”
The girl snorted. “Dottie was everyone’s type. At least for a good roll in the sack.”
“Did you hear who killed her?”
“That husband of hers. They arrested him, but they let him go. Then they arrested some uppity lady. She got out, too. Rich always do.”
“Don’t they just?” I murmured.
“Don’t know who they suspect now.”
“What about...” I leaned close enough I caught a cloying whiff of her cheap perfume. “What about your boss?”
“Mr. Jones? I doubt it were him. He didn’t care much for her.” She swiped a finger under her eyes to smarten up her makeup. “Mind you, he’s a dangerous man, Mr. Jones, but long as you don’t cross him everything’s fine. And Dottie was smart enough not to cross him.” She frowned. “At least I think she was.”