A Subtle Murder

by Blythe Baker

  Eventually, I came to a wide bridge where I was able to duck out of the walkway and stand in the shade of the arch. Since the day had already been gray and overcast, the underside of the bridge was nothing but inky shadows. An alley ran alongside the structure and it looked to cross behind a row of buildings and open onto another busy street that ran down to where the ship had docked. Perhaps the Worthings had gone down a busy street in search of me just as I had gone down a vacant street in search of them.

  I could see more people with luggage, clearly having come from the ship, up ahead, but I also saw regular Londoners. People going about their daily commute. Men loading cargo ships, boys waving rags and shouting their price for a shoe shine. The constant din of voices and cars whirred around me like a machine and I thought how easy it would be to get lost in such a large city. Then, a voice cut through the noise, closer than the others.

  A man stood in the shadow of a low, stone building, his back to me. He wore a dark coat and a fashionable fedora hat. His arms were waving animatedly and the wind carried his voice my way. He was angry, that much was clear.

  I took another step forward and a second man appeared just behind the corner. He was shorter than the other man, his face indistinct in the darkness, nothing but hard lines and blotchy cheeks. He had a thick mess of dark hair on top of his head that he tried to hide under a dark gray flat cap.

  “You’re angry for nothing, Frederick,” the one in the flat cap said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I could hear a scowl in the other man’s voice. “What kind of fool do you take me for? I saw the two of you cozied up together.”

  “Your imagination is very vivid, then, because no such thing happened.”

  The man in the fedora lunged out at the other, pushing him hard in the chest so that he stumbled backward.

  I jumped at the suddenness of the attack, falling back into the stone arch of the bridge, catching myself with the palms of my hands. A jagged rock scraped the back of my neck as I fell and I winced at the sharp pain.

  Then, the shouting stopped. The voices that had, only a moment before, been reaching a crescendo, had gone completely quiet. I pressed myself against the bridge, hoping they wouldn’t see me. Why hadn’t I stayed near the ship? I’d been in London for a matter of minutes and already I’d found myself in a deserted alley in the company of two angry men.

  I counted to thirty and held in my sigh of relief when the voices resumed.

  “You don’t want a quarrel with me. It will not end well for you.”

  I couldn’t see who had offered that ominous warning as I was already halfway down the alley, headed in the direction I’d originally come from, towards the protection of the crowded street.

  Stepping back onto the crowded street felt like experiencing daylight for the first time after a month of darkness. The weather, which had only moments before felt cold and gloomy, suddenly warmed my cool skin.

  It felt as though everyone I passed knew where I’d just been. I took deep breaths, trying to calm my rapidly beating heart. As it always did during times of stress, my hand reached for the locket around my neck. The locket I’d kept pressed against my heart for years, carrying it with me always. Except, for the first time since I could remember, I grabbed at empty air. Forgetting all decency, I pulled at the collar of my dress and looked down my front, but the inside of my gown was empty. Still, my fingers reached for the clasp at the back of my neck. Once again, there was nothing. I’d lost it.

  My feet stopped moving. I stood frozen on the street, disregarding the shouts of the crowd around me, people hurrying through their lives, ignoring my heartbreak. How had I lost it? When?

  Then came the memory of jumping back into the stone. The sharp pain at the back of my neck. I’d lost it in the alley. Immediately, I turned on my heel to make my way back to the alley, all fear of the fighting men lost to my determination to once again have my locket safely around my neck.

  “Rose, dear!”

  Mrs. Worthing was waving a handkerchief above her head as she walked down the sidewalk towards me, Mr. Worthing trailing behind. Her lips were pursed together, her cheeks red from the wind.

  “Where did you wander off to once we disembarked the ship?” she asked, pulling me briefly into her arms for a hug. She did not wait for me to answer. “I know you are a grown woman and not actually in need of our guidance, but we swore to see you safely to London and our job is not complete until you are happily in the company of your relatives.”

  Mr. Worthing walked ahead of us, talking over his shoulder as he went. “We need to get back to the passenger entry office. Last night I put a call through to your uncle, Rose. Lord Ashton seems to be a fine man. Fine man. He said there would be a car waiting for you at the port’s entry office once you left the ship.”

  I wanted to turn back and find my locket. I wanted to forget about the London branch of the Beckingham family and the Worthings and search for the necklace, but I couldn’t. The locket’s importance was wrapped up in my own personal mission, and without spilling all of my secrets, no one would understand why it meant so much to me. Without the Beckinghams and the Worthings believing my story entirely, I wouldn’t be able to help anyone. Assuming Rose’s identity and coming to London would be for nothing. So, for the sake of my ultimate goal, I followed the Worthings back towards the ship.

  “There is no need to be nervous, Rose,” Mrs. Worthing said, squeezing my elbow. “Your family will be so pleased to see you. I’m sure they’ve been beside themselves with grief and worry.”

  It was then I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to tell the Worthings what I’d seen. Mr. Worthing could notify a police officer and they could be told where they might return my locket should it be found by any passersby.

  “Oh, I am not nervous about seeing the Beckinghams again,” I said, though this was nothing close to the truth. I was terrified of meeting Rose’s relations, considering it would be for the first time, even though I was meant to have known them my whole life. “I did not plan to mention it, but I can’t push the thought from my mind a second longer. Moments before you found me on the road behind us, I had just run away from a rather disturbing encounter.”

  “Run away?” Mrs. Worthing asked, no doubt thinking of how unladylike I had looked while doing it.

  “Disturbing encounter?” Mr. Worthing echoed, concern etched in the lines of his face.

  I turned to him and nodded solemnly. “Yes, I believe I witnessed an attempted robbery of some kind. Two men were shouting at one another in an alley and one man lunged at the other. Fearing for my own safety, I ran from the scene and did not see the outcome, but it looked like a violent altercation.”

  Mrs. Worthing pressed a gloved hand to her open mouth. “Good heavens! Are you hurt?”

  I reached for her hands and held them in my own, squeezing her fingers in a reassuring manner. “No, Mrs. Worthing. I am perfectly safe. Excepting a gold locket I dropped in the excitement, I am perfectly well.”

  “Did you get a good view of either of the men?” Mr. Worthing asked, standing on the tips of his feet, trying to see above the crowd, as if he thought the men I spoke of might be creeping up on us. “We should probably report what you saw, before those fellows can do any harm.”

  No sooner had he said the words than Mrs. Worthing reached her hand into the flow of traffic around us and pulled a passing police officer out by his elbow as though she were drawing a fish from a river barehanded. “Sir, we have a crime to report.”

  The officer, a young man with pale hair and an even paler face, straightened his hat upon his head and stared at the Worthings, a look of bewilderment spread across his face. Then he looked over at me, and his expression softened. His eyes turned up in surprise and his lips fell apart. A blush crept into his cheeks.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, not taking his eyes from me.

  “Tell him what you saw, Rose.” Mrs. Worthing shifted from one foot to the other, trying to gain the
attention of the officer, but he kept his gaze fixed on me. “She encountered a violent altercation nearby. Two men.”

  The officer looked from me to Mrs. Worthing and back again. “Is this true?”

  I nodded, my hand moving absentmindedly to my cheek. I felt the lightly scarred skin over my dented cheekbone, and turned away from him. “Yes, it’s true. The men were two streets back in an alley.”

  The officer looked over my head and diagonally, as if he could see through buildings and locate the men without taking another step. After a few seconds, he tipped his hat and smiled at me. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, having forgotten the reason I’d told the Worthings about the altercation at all. Luckily, Mrs. Worthing couldn’t be so easily distracted by a smooth, handsome face.

  “Rose also lost a locket near the scene. If you discover it, have it returned to Miss Rose Beckingham at the home of Lord and Lady Ashton,” she said, emphasizing the names of my aunt and uncle clearly.

  His eyebrows rose in recognition and with one final smile and nod of his hat, the officer cut a path down the road, headed for the scene.

  By the time we reached the ship again, the crowd around the dock had thinned. It was no surprise everyone had cleared out quickly. The wind off the ocean was icy and sharp, slicing through my clothes and giving me chills. Luckily, the passenger entry office had plush chairs and a fire roaring in the hearth while we waited for the car. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a fireplace in use while in India.

  “I’m going to be sad to see you go, Rose” Mrs. Worthing said, dabbing at her dry eyes with a handkerchief.

  I didn’t doubt her sincerity. On the contrary, in the weeks I’d come to know Mrs. Worthing, I knew she had a very large heart and rarely said anything she didn’t mean entirely. However, she also had a flare for the dramatic. Mopping up her pretend tears simply made the moment more memorable, which was why she’d done it.

  “We will see her again, dear,” Mr. Worthing said, patting his wife’s shoulder and looking over her head to find me and offer a reassuring smile. “Just because our voyage is ending does not mean our friendship must. We will all be living in the same city, after all.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Yes, absolutely. I won’t allow us to never see one another again.”

  “You’ll come for dinner, then?” Mrs. Worthing asked, her voice full of hope.

  “Only if you promise to dine with me once I’m settled into my own home,” I said.

  “You won’t live with the Beckinghams?” Mrs. Worthing asked. “I assumed you would want to live with family for the time being.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose only time will tell. Perhaps I will decide I enjoy the Beckinghams and test their good faith.”

  Mrs. Worthing pulled me in for another hug and pressed her lips against my hair. “I have cherished our time together these last few weeks. It would take someone of very little good faith to tire of you.”

  “A car has arrived,” Mr. Worthing said, breaking up the emotional hug to point to the curb just in front of the office. I turned towards the window and away from Mrs. Worthing just in the nick of time. I was moments away from shedding very real tears. I had so few people in the world who cared about me. It made me happy to think I could add the Worthings to that list. Of course, they believed me to be Rose Beckingham, daughter of a deceased British government official in India, but that seemed like an unnecessary detail.

  “Oh, this is all happening so quickly,” Mrs. Worthing said, wringing her hands. “Do you have everything you need, Rose?”

  I looked down at my small steamer trunk. It was the only thing I’d taken with me when we left India. After the attack that killed the true Rose Beckingham and her parents, it had been too dangerous for me to go back to the house where they had lived for so many years, for fear of another attack. I’d bought what I needed before leaving India with the promise that I would receive my inheritance from my family back in London and have plenty of money to replace whatever possessions I wished.

  “I believe so,” I said.

  Mrs. Worthing nodded her head and glanced around the small room, double-checking that was true. Then, she stood in front of me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “You are a brave young woman, Rose Beckingham. I can’t begin to imagine the horrors you’ve experienced these last few weeks. I only hope your future is much brighter than your recent past.”

  Once again, tears welled behind my eyes and I swallowed them back, my throat thick. “Thank you, Mrs. Worthing.”

  Mr. Worthing patted my back quickly, and I glanced up at him to see a slight mist in his eyes, though he was clearly trying to ignore it. “Well. Enough with the goodbyes. We will see one another again. We need to get you to the car before the driver leaves you behind.”

  He took my trunk and pushed on my lower back, leading me towards the door. Suddenly, a nervous ball of energy grew in my chest. The next phase of my plan was beginning, and I wasn’t as confident as I’d been at the start. Fooling the Worthings into believing I was Rose Beckingham had been easy. They hadn’t known Rose and had only seen her in old photographs. Rose’s relations, however, would have a much better memory of her features and habits. They had shared a family history with Rose that I was not a part of. Would I be able to fake my way through old memories and familial anecdotes?

  As we stepped onto the sidewalk, a chauffeur slid from the driver’s seat and moved to meet us at the front of the car, his hands behind his back. He wore a dark gray jacket with two rows of buttons cutting vertically down the front, paired with matching pants, and a high pair of black boots. He had a gray cap pushed back on his head, framing his tanned cheekbones and wavy auburn hair.

  “Miss Rose?” he asked, already bending his upper body in a low bow without awaiting confirmation. “I’m sorry to be late. I had a bit of trouble finding where I was meant to park.”

  The man seemed full of nervous energy. His hands folded and unfolded behind his back and his eyes darted from me to the Worthings continuously, as if unable to rest on any one face for too long. I wondered whether his anxiety came from fear of disappointing me or his employers. I hoped it was the former. I wanted the Beckinghams to be abundantly kind people. The sort of people who would be much too afraid of offending anyone to ask whether they were actually who they said they were.

  “That is perfectly all right. We only just got here, anyway,” I said. “I, too, had a hard time finding where I was supposed to meet you.”

  The chauffeur smiled his appreciation and reached for my trunk, which Mr. Worthing handed over readily. As he loaded my luggage in the back of the car, Mrs. Worthing looped her arm through mine and walked with me to the curb.

  “I am sorry for the circumstances under which we met, but I am glad we got to know one another, Rose,” Mrs. Worthing said, placing her gloved hand on my forearm and squeezing.

  “As am I,” I said, squeezing her hand in return.

  She beamed up at me and then pulled away as the chauffeur moved to open the passenger side door. But before he could, I saw a red smear on the silver handle. I recognized the rust color immediately.

  Suddenly, I found myself beneath the familiarly warm sun of India, a cloud of dust enveloping me as I looked around, trying to understand why my ears were ringing, why my eyes burned. The people who had only moments before filled the street around our car, making the journey through Simla a slow one, had disappeared. The laughter and conversation I’d been ignoring in favor of my own thoughts had silenced. I turned my head, a simple movement that made me feel as though I were swimming through quicksand. Rose had been sitting beside me, but when I was finally able to focus on the spot where she’d been, I realized her seat was empty. My friend had disappeared to be replaced by a puddle of blood on the leather seat. The red liquid dripped from the upholstery onto the floor in thick rivulets. I leaned forward to make sense of it, not yet recognizing the horror before me. As I did, I noticed a hand in the backseat. Her hand. The lo
ng, delicate fingers of my friend, disconnected from her body.

  I shook my head, trying to separate myself from the horror. I took deep breaths of the cool, London air and tried to focus on the movement around me. On the normalcy of everyday life continuing on despite my flashback.

  “Are you feeling all right, Miss?”

  The chauffeur’s nerves had clearly been replaced by concern. His eyebrows were pulled together as he stooped down to peer into my face.

  I blinked several times slowly. I wanted to respond, but everything felt far away, even my own thoughts. I turned to find the Worthings, but they were no longer behind me. They were halfway down the street, walking arm in arm.

  “Miss?”

  I looked back at the door handle, but the blood from moments before was gone. The Chauffeur pulled the door open further and used a bare hand to direct me inside.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  My face reddened with embarrassment. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

  I stepped into the car and let the chauffeur shut the door behind me. As he walked around the back of the car and hopped into the driver’s seat, I took deep, calming breaths.

  I couldn’t allow myself to fall into my memories in that way. I needed to keep up appearances, which included not letting everyone around me think I was mad.

  The blood had been in my imagination. Being back in a large city and climbing into a car had simply pushed my memories to the surface, jumbling them with the present. If there had been blood visible on the door, the Worthings would have seen it. The chauffeur would have seen it. Someone would have mentioned the oddity. But no one had, which meant I must have imagined it. That was the only logical explanation.

  “All set, Miss?” the chauffeur asked over his shoulder as he put the car into gear.

  The next time I got out of the car, I would be meeting Rose’s relatives. My relatives. The people who could destroy the disguise I’d kept up this long. The people who could make everything I’d done up to this point useless. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and reminded myself of my ultimate goal. If I failed and the Beckinghams barred me from their home and Rose’s inheritance, I wouldn’t be the only person in dire straits.