Ginger Gold Mystery Box Set 3

by Lee Strauss

  "I was just checking it for you, madam."

  "No unaccounted-for reptiles I hope?"

  "No, madam, but the door lock had been jemmied open. Someone’s siphoned off the petrol."

  Ginger stomped her foot. Someone really wanted to keep her from investigating further, which only made her more determined.

  "I'll take a taxicab."

  Fortunately, Harrods wasn't that far away from Hartigan House. Though the store was massive, Ginger now knew her way and navigated quickly to the fourth floor to the motley mammalian and reptilian crew.

  Ginger kept a look out for Basil in case, if by some miracle, he had been released from custody and made his way directly to the Animal Kingdom. She didn't find him, but she did manage to track down the salesman they had spoken to before.

  "Mr. Long!"

  Mr. Long's eyes flashed with annoyance for just a fraction of a second before taking on an exaggerated look of welcome.

  "Hello again, Lady Gold. What can I help you with this time?"

  "I'm looking for someone who bought a coral snake, perhaps recently."

  Mr. Long's lips pulled down as he shook his head. "Sorry, madam."

  "Are you certain? I don't know if you've heard about the incident that happened yesterday, but a woman was killed."

  Mr. Long's lips twitched, and Ginger felt certain he was about to lie to her again.

  "You won't get into trouble with me, Mr. Long. I'm only a private investigator. I promise to keep your confidences."

  With a sideways nod of his head, Mr. Long led Ginger to a quieter spot in the store. "Between you, me and the gate post, there was a man in a couple of days ago. Sometimes I make a deal on the side see, charge a little extra and keep a little for myself." A film of sweat formed on the man's upper lip. "The boss doesn't know, and I'd get fired if word got out. That's why I lied to the big man from Scotland Yard."

  "Superintendent Morris was here?"

  "First thing this morning while the doors were being unlocked."

  Ginger's garage intruder may have done her a favour after all. Running into Superintendent Morris this morning would've been disastrous.

  "Did you get the man's name?"

  Mr. Long shook his head. "He said he'd pay cash if I didn't ask questions."

  "What did this guy look like?"

  A shrug. "He wore a trench coat and a trilby, pulled low, like. Average height and weight."

  "Eye colour?"

  The man wrinkled his nose. "I don't look into a man's eyes, madam."

  Ginger sighed. Mr. Long wasn't giving her a lot to go on.

  "He actually bought two. I had no idea what he meant to do with them. I really thought he wanted them as pets."

  Mr. Long removed a handkerchief from his suit pocket and mopped his face. "If it's any consolation, I'm truly sorry to hear about the girl's death, even if she was a loose woman."

  Chapter Thirty

  Ginger felt herself to be somewhat brazen, walking into the North Star club through the employee entrance as Lady Gold—Antoinette and Georgia were no longer necessary. Whoever put the snake in her motorcar yesterday and stole her petrol that morning knew who she was anyway. In a moment of spontaneity, she'd got the taxicab driver to drop her off here instead of taking her home.

  The light from outside was blinding, and when the door shut, she was left in complete darkness. As she waited for her eyes to adjust, she reached out her fingers along the wall where she swore she'd spotted an electric light switch. Fumbling, her fingers ran along chipped paint and cobwebs before locating what they were looking for. To Ginger's relief, the light clicked on, though it crackled and pulsed as if the filament was about to burn out any minute.

  The club appeared empty, confusing since the back door was unlocked. A cleaner had been through as the chairs were all placed upside down on the tables, and the carpets had been vacuumed. The passageway to the backstage area and the offices was eerily quiet. Superintendent Morris had absconded with her Remington pistol, so she dug out the German Böker trench knife she'd acquired during the Great War. The carbon-steel blade was secure in its sheath and tucked within easy reach in her handbag, Ginger decided to make her presence known.

  "Mr. Sayer?"

  A light flicked on in Conway Sayer’s office.

  "Mr. Sayer? Are you there?"

  Conway Sayer stumbled out of his office, hair tousled, eyes cracking open painfully at the bright light. "What the dickens? Who's that?"

  "Mr. Sayer, are you all right?"

  "Just catching a bit of shuteye. Late nights at the club." He spat on his palm and mopped his hair back. "How did you get in here?"

  "The back door wasn’t locked."

  "Blast. I must've forgotten to lock it."

  Ginger narrowed her eyes. "You? That seems very unlike you." Ginger suspected someone else with a key had also paid a visit while the manager slept. One of Sabini's men perhaps? Were they catching on to Sayer's thievery? If so, Conway Sayer was quite lucky to still be alive.

  "How would you know what I'm like?" Sayer demanded. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Lady Gold, also known as—” she switched her accent to French, "Antoinette," and, pulling out her American twang, "Georgia."

  Sayer's blood-shot eyes shut and snapped open again. "What?"

  "I'm a private detective working on the Emelia Reed case. The victim was known here as "Destiny.'"

  Sayer grew stone-faced. "I had nothing to do with that."

  "This club is owned by Charles Sabini, is it not?"

  With a lazy shrug, Conway said, "What of it?"

  "He's the head of the Italian mafia here in London," Ginger said. "Guilty of many crimes, but has yet to be convicted of any of them. If he wants someone gone, they have a way of mysteriously disappearing."

  Sayer's shoulders tightened, and his neck seemed to disappear. He glared at her. "I don't know what you're getting at, Lady Gold, but you're trespassing. You’d best be leaving, or I'll be forced to call the coppers."

  Ginger ignored the threat. "It's come to my attention, Mr. Sayer, that you've been cooking the books."

  Even in the dim lighting, Ginger could see Conway blanch several shades whiter.

  "And I think Emelia Reed, alias Destiny, found out about it and blackmailed you for her silence."

  "Steady on. I didn't kill her."

  "Cindy found out too. Or perhaps she helped you kill Emelia but wanted something more. A cut of your illicit earnings.

  "No," Conway's tired eyes flashed with fear. "I didn't kill anyone."

  "You bought a couple of poisonous coral snakes, didn't you? You used one to kill Emelia Reed, and the other to kill Cindy."

  "No! You've got it all wrong! Yes, I'm pilfering, petty theft really, but I'm not a murderer! Besides, I can't stand snakes."

  Ginger arched a brow.

  "Look, I don't know what your game is, madam. Do you intend to blackmail me as well?"

  "So you admit to being blackmailed."

  "Drat! Yes, okay. Destiny was a Nosy Parker, and she had me cornered, but I was paying her."

  "That's means, opportunity, and motive, Mr. Sayer. A jury just might hang you."

  "How do you know it wasn't Cindy herself? It was her snake. And she hated Destiny. I wasn't the only one the witch was squeezing."

  "What did Destiny have on Cindy?"

  "She was in the country illegally. Broke some law in Virginia and didn't want to do time. Somehow she got smuggled into England. Destiny was going to get her deported."

  This was interesting news. Had Mr. Phillips, the fake American diplomat, assisted Cindy's passage from America? Phillips bought udder salve, and Cindy sold it as face cream. Perhaps she had double-crossed him. She had treated the man with a certain amount of animosity that last time Ginger had seen them in the club together.

  Cindy's accent had been clearly north London, but she could have been putting it on, just like Ginger had with her aliases. Had Superintendent Morris blundered by releasing her too
soon? Phillips might've had motive to kill Cindy, but he'd already been dead for several hours before Cindy's demise.

  Conway Sayer rubbed the back of his neck. "Come to think of it, and this may be nothin', but Billy asked me if Cindy had an extra cage lying around."

  "Did she?"

  "No. I told Billy to ask Cindy himself."

  "And you never thought to ask what he wanted it for?"

  "None of my business."

  "Do you know where Billy lives?" Ginger asked.

  "Same place as the girls. The Johnson Building."

  Ginger shook her head. "If he's there, he's not receiving post." She remembered the names Basil had read out. Then her heart stuttered to a stop. The pieces suddenly fell into place. She and Basil had been looking at this case the wrong way all along.

  "He's due into work any minute," Conway said. "You can ask him yourself."

  "That's fine Mr. Sayer. Please don't mention to him that you saw me here."

  The Johnson Building was around the corner from the club, making it easier to walk to than dealing with the traffic. Ginger strode towards it as fast as her Italian shoes could take her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ginger waited across the street and out of sight until Billy Foster left the Johnson Building and walked away in the direction of the club.

  As luck would have it, the caretaker was walking through the lobby of the building just as Ginger got to the entrance. She pounded on the door, the heat of her breath shooting quick spots of condensation on the glass.

  Frowning, the caretaker opened the door to her.

  "Hello, sir. Do you remember me? I was here a couple of days ago to visit friends and silly me, I left my handbag behind."

  The caretaker's gaze dropped to the handbag over Ginger's shoulder. "Not this one. Another one."

  He waved her in and then continued on his way down the hall, whistling "Near the South Sea Moon."

  Ginger studied the names on the letterboxes and found the one she was looking for. W. Phillips, 304. Though she'd barely caught her breath from her jaunt over from the club, she hurried up the stairs.

  Those ocean-blue eyes. She should've put it together earlier. Billy Foster had the same blue eyes as John Phillips. Had she seen them standing side by side, the resemblance would've been obvious.

  The question was, why had Billy killed his father?

  Ginger trod quietly up the stairs making it to the second floor just as female voices filled the passageway. Ginger recognized the Irish lilt of Nuala's voice and Sorcha's laugh.

  Of all the bad luck. Ginger would have to run into the two ladies in the building that she knew.

  But they didn't know her. Not as Ginger. Ginger stood tall and walked confidently as if she had every reason in the world to be there. Sorcha and Nuala gave her a questioning glance but continued down the stairs without breaking stride or looking back.

  The third floor was quiet. Ginger waited for sounds and noises that indicated other flats besides Billy Foster's were occupied or worse, had occupants readying to leave, but all was quiet.

  She carefully picked the lock with her trusty hatpins and slipped inside.

  Billy's flat smelled stale and stuffy, of masculine sweat, aftershave, and burnt toast. His level of tidying landed between the cosmic mess of Nuala and Sorcha and the ultra-tidiness of Cynthia Webb. A bedsit, it didn't have a bedroom, just a sofa bed folded up, and the bedding piled neatly at one end.

  If Billy Foster had used a poisonous snake as a murder weapon, surely there would be evidence of it in the flat. If Billy had purchased two snakes, one of them might still be around, but there were no reptile cages or terrariums.

  The kitchen consisted only of a small countertop, a toaster, a two-burner hot plate and a small pantry. She opened the pantry and jerked to the side. Staring back at her was the head of a coral snake, yellow slit eyes staring morbidly.

  "Now this is a surprise.”

  Ginger slammed the pantry door shut and spun towards Billy's voice. He’d removed his shoes, which had muted his footsteps. The door to the bedsit was closed and Ginger wondered how far her screams would reach beyond it. Her heart thudded as the seriousness of her situation gripped her.

  Billy stepped closer, and Ginger stepped back. Pressed against the window, she reached into her handbag and fingered the button to release the strap that secured the knife to the sheath.

  Billy lifted a palm in peace. "I'm just getting something to drink. Would you like a whisky?"

  "No thank you."

  Billy removed a glass bottle from the pantry, twisted off the cap and poured the last of the amber liquid into a glass.

  "Was Emelia Reed blackmailing you?"

  Billy downed the whisky and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Who? Oh, that doxy, Destiny. No."

  "Why did you kill her then?"

  "Because she was a stupid woman, that's why. Led me on, made me believe she cared for me and said she'd leave her stupid husband for me. She told me he was a boring accountant. How was I to know he was a copper? And then she took up with my useless old man!" His face bloomed red with his apparent humiliation.

  “Did you kill her here?”

  Billy took another step toward her, and Ginger sidestepped towards the door. He nodded in response to her question. “It’s where I keep my snake head.”

  "And your father?"

  Billy's head snapped up. "You're pretty bright, Georgia. No, wait. They call you Lady Gold, don’t they? Ginger?

  A shiver shot down Ginger's spine. Billy had been looking into her. Of course, he knew who she was. He knew where she lived. Bile shot up the back of her throat.

  "John Phillips was my father in name only. Left me and my ma when I was a baby, went back to America where the money was. Never sent back a damn cent to support his illegitimate son. My mother pretended to have married him, took the name Mrs. Phillips just so she'd be treated kindly. It's better to be a widow than a ruined woman, you know? We meant nothing to him. When he came into the North Star a couple of months ago, with all his airs, I knew exactly who he was. I see him every day when I look in the mirror."

  It was true, Billy had his father's ocean-blue eyes. John Phillips had been too blind or too conceited to even consider his son might be in London, much less the same club.

  “I knew he’d be harder to subdue, so I added a little something to his drink first.”

  That explained the arsenic found in John Phillips’ system.

  Billy huffed. “The fool thought I’d invited him here to play family.”

  "What did Cindy have to do with anything?"

  "John Phillips 'smuggled' Cindy into England," Billy said. "She was just another stupid doxy fling like my mother. They had this face cream swindle going, you know? Sold the stuff farmers smear on cow teats. I worked on a farm as a kid, so I knew what it was. When I caught her adding perfume to a tin of bag balm, I laughed out loud. Cindy swore me to secrecy, but when I wanted a cut for my silence, she and John Phillips refused.

  He grinned crookedly. "I'm going to take over the family business now, you could say."

  Billy Foster was telling her too much. It was clear he didn't plan on keeping her alive.

  "Why snake venom?" she asked. She needed to keep him talking, but she also wanted to know.

  "Creative, eh? My father thought he was so classy. I thought I'd bring him and his women down a peg."

  Billy opened the pantry, but instead of getting another bottle of spirits, he removed the plate with the snake’s head.

  "Did you know that venom remains in the jaws of a snake after it's dead?"

  He placed the plate on the counter and removed a pair of leather gloves from his jacket pocket. "Extra tough leather," he explained. "For my own protection, you see." He smiled at her as if they were best friends having a nice visit. He opened a wobbly kitchen drawer and removed a ball of twine. "It's best for you if you don't fight back."

  Even with one bad leg, Billy had a long, strong
stride. Ginger darted around the small table, whipped out her knife and tossed the steel-tipped leather sheath onto the floor. She gripped the knife tightly in her right hand, the blade sticking out from the soft side of her fist.

  "Stay back."

  "Whoa." Billy stilled. "Aren't you just one surprise after another?"

  "I am, Mr. Foster. I'll warn you. I'm no stranger with a knife."

  "So you've carved a goose?" Billy laughed. "You've definitely got pluck, I'll give you that." He stepped to the right, she mirrored his movement in the opposite direction.

  "I'm warning you, Mr. Foster. I once stabbed a German intruder in France, straight through the heart."

  Billy studied the weapon with interest. "Is that a Böker? How on earth did you get a German trench knife?"

  "You don't want to know."

  With the strength of one arm, he upended the table. It hit the floor with a crash, and Ginger just barely managed to jump out of the way of it landing on her foot. She ran for the door. It was locked. She struggled with the handle, but the time spent allowed Billy to catch her.

  He pushed her against the wall, and his lips pulled into a smarmy smile as he held her captive, his fists tight around her wrists.

  His breath was hot and stunk of booze. "Drop the knife, Lady Gold."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Billy's blue eyes grew icy cold. "I said drop it."

  "If you say so," Ginger said. She stretched out her fingers letting the knife go, point downward.

  Releasing her, Billy let out a blood-curdling yell. The blade of her knife stood upright from his good foot. He swooped down to remove the weapon, and in doing so, revealed the nape of his neck. Ginger struck the spot with the edge of her hand, and Billy crumpled to the floor.

  The door swung open and a startled and bewildered Basil Reed stared inside. "Oh, my God, Ginger!" Basil's voice echoed through the small room.

  A wave of relief washed over Ginger. Basil had found her, but how did he know she'd be here?

  "Basil, how—"

  "As soon as Superintendent Morris let me out I rang Hartigan House. Pippins said you took a taxicab to Harrods. I immediately went there, and when I didn't find you, I threatened Mr. Long with his life to tell me what he knew. I wagered a guess you'd go back to the club, and Sayer told me you came here. You could've been killed!"