by Evelyn James
“On the other hand, if we wanted more distance, then the muzzle came down, so we were using the force of the explosive charge to push the shell forwards as far as we could before gravity caught hold of it. Now, the principles are similar with a bullet. When you fire straight ahead, the force of the gunpowder shoots the bullet ahead. Gravity is dragging on it the whole time, causing it to gradually dip, but if there is enough force behind it then gravity will not be able to pull it off its target before it hits.
“Shoot that same bullet straight up and it is immediately fighting against gravity to go upwards, the two forces are trying to combat each other, the propulsion from the gun against the drag of gravity. The result is the bullet loses energy faster than when it was going in a straight line and, theoretically, should not be able to go so far as if it was just fired straight. Nor will it hit its target with as much power.
“I would like to set up some experiments to prove that statement at some point as, from what Tommy has told me, I think that could be a key part of demonstrating whether or not the fatal bullet came from the ground.”
“This is starting to sound very interesting,” Tommy leaned forward in his chair, a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Imagine the possibilities of all this for solving crimes in the future. If you could prove exactly where a bullet came from, then you could clear up so many muddles.”
Clara did not add her own thoughts, which ran along the lines that as fascinating and important as science was, especially in the realm of crime solving, it would never be enough on its own. She was, however, keen to see what Harold would come up with. She needed solid evidence if she was going to persuade Brilliant Chang his sister was killed by someone inside the house.
“I am very glad you could come, Harold,” Clara said and meaning it. “You seem to know exactly what we need to help us on this case.”
Harold glowed with pride.
“It’s nice to feel I am of use,” he grinned. “These days I work in a bank, you know. Nice job, secure, but damn boring. This is the most excitement I have had in ages.”
“Maybe, after this, you will have something other than coordinates to list on your gravestone,” Tommy jested.
Harold’s grin widened.
“Oh, I do hope so! Yes, I do hope so, very much!”
Chapter Nine
Once Captain Laker had been settled in his new quarters, Clara and Tommy headed out to track down the pawn broker Ethel Dickinson had visited on the day she became ill.
“And there may have been a tortoise in this biscuit tin?” Tommy said, intrigued by the tale Clara had been told by Ethel’s mother. “Well, I suppose no one would be looking for him in there.”
“I wish I knew more about tortoises,” Clara replied. “I feel I am groping about in the dark.”
“I don’t know if there is anything especially important to know about them. They eat and drink like any animal and they go to sleep in the winter,” Tommy observed. “I think most people manage on such simple information.”
“I prefer to do more than just ‘manage’,” Clara remarked. “I know! When we get a moment, we should pop into the petting zoo in the park. I am sure they have tortoises and the keeper must know a thing or two about them.”
“Such as how long they can survive in the cold,” Tommy said glumly.
“I am trying not to think about that,” Clara protested. “Every now and then I have visions of a poor tortoise huddled under a bush in the Malorys’ garden, waiting to be found.”
“You searched the garden thoroughly,” Tommy pointed out.
“Yes, but I can’t help it. What if we just missed him?”
“I look at it this way, why would an animal that hates the cold be foolish enough to wander outside into an English winter just because a door was open?” Tommy said firmly. “Even animals have to have a little common sense.”
“Isn’t that a little callous?”
“No, just practical. I say, if we reach another dead end with the pawn broker, we could always take Bramble to the Malorys’ house and see if he can sniff out the tortoise!”
Bramble was the Fitzgeralds’ small black poodle, and while the little fellow was a good dog in all the usual ways, Clara was not convinced he was cut out to start tracking tortoises.
“If all else fails,” she said, noncommittally.
They had arrived by bus in the commercial district of Brighton. The pawn ticket Clara had been given had the name of the shop’s proprietor, but little else. She had gone to her trusty old street directory and trawled through it to find where the shop was located. She was not surprised to discover that the address was in one of the less salubrious areas of the town, tucked down what was little more than a dingy alley. It was the sort of place Dickens would have happily stationed some of his fictional characters, had it been in London.
They cut down various side streets, the roads narrowing noticeably and the filth and rubbish piling up along the walls. Dirty, bare-foot children cast them suspicious looks, and scuttled away like stray cats. Clara made sure she had a tight clutch to her handbag, even though it went against the grain to automatically distrust these people. They were poor, for sure, but that was no reason to assume they were criminals. Even so, Clara could not quite help herself. She had been a detective rather too long and had learned to be cynical.
They passed a pub with a drunk already lying prone beneath the dusty window. Loud jeers and cries came from within. Clara skirted a rat that wandered across her path, apparently unworried by the presence of people.
They turned down another side street, so narrow they could not walk abreast. Yet even here the valiant builders of Brighton had endeavoured to acquire the space. Front doors and windows faced what was barely a corridor between the two sets of houses. Clara could only imagine what it was like to live so close to your neighbours, to virtually tumble out on them every time you opened your front door, and how much light could those windows possibly shed in the rooms beyond? The alley itself was almost as dark as night on this dull day. Living in those houses must be rather like residing in a cave.
Clara gave a shudder and felt Tommy’s hand on her shoulder. He was walking behind her.
“I was thinking about how dark it is and the grime,” she told him.
“Oh, I thought you were recalling all that business with Peterson being stabbed in an alley.”
Clara briefly thought back to the case that had started her recent association with Jao Leong.
“I believe that alleyway was rather nicer than this one, positively luxurious by contrast.”
She was keeping her voice low as there were people about, mainly women stood in doorways, chatting to each other or conducting what chores they could in the frail light that seeped into the alley. They cast the same suspicious looks at Clara as the children had. She tried not to take it personally, it was, after all, extremely odd for a well-dressed man and woman to walk in such an area. Maybe they thought she was the sort of woman who volunteers for charitable work in slums, or to hand out Bible tracts. Either way, they were keeping out of her way.
At the very end of the alley, which was making Clara somewhat claustrophobic, stood the pawn shop. It turned the alley into a dead-end, with its shabby green door nearly filling the entire width of the alley. A sign above read in faded letters – Perth’s Pawn Brokers. Open Daily. Once upon a time a trio of gold balls, the ubiquitous sign for a pawn shop, had hung over the doorway too, but now only the hook they had dangled from remained. It seemed Mr Perth’s business had seen better days.
Clara knocked on the door, then tried the door handle. She was a little uncertain if she should just walk in or wait to be greeted. The shop looked more like a house than business premises and made her wary.
The door creaked open and, when no one shouted at her, she stepped inside and looked around. As there was no room for a window onto the alley, the industrious builder who had created this property had added one on the side, where the wall lined up with the backs o
f the houses to the right of the alley. This had not achieved the desired effect of providing natural light, as the room was too long for the small window to be much use and the result was a lot of deep shadows. Maybe, on a bright sunny day, you might just be able to make out the contents of the shelves on the far side of the door without a candle – maybe.
“This is an Aladdin’s cave,” Tommy muttered behind his sister. “If the cave was filled with junk rather than treasure.”
The room was positively heaving with ‘things’, many unidentifiable in the limited light. Ominous-looking shapes loomed from shelves and hung from the ceiling on hooks and strings. The room was divided by old bookcases, set back to back to provide storage space for the array of items Mr Perth had taken in pawn. These shelves were further cutting up the light shed through the forlorn window and, at times, Clara felt as if she was wandering about in pitch dark.
She stumbled over an old pram that was filled with tin cans and three pairs of boots. Picking up a tin she saw it contained beef stew and a label stated that it had been proudly produced for the boys at the Front. Military rations. Someone had brought the stuff home and then pawned it.
“Better than eating it,” Tommy remarked, noting the layer of dust on the tin. “Is anyone actually here?”
They edged around an overcrowded bookcase that had a precarious lean to it and spied an older man sitting on a high stool by a similarly high desk, eating an apple thoughtfully. He did not seem to have noticed their arrival.
“Hello?” Clara called out.
The man looked up. Tiny spectacles teetered on the bridge of his nose; one lens was cracked.
“Are you Mr Perth?”
The man peered at her for a moment, then took off his glasses and gave her another look. Finally, he rubbed his glasses on the sleeve of a grey cardigan, replaced them on his nose and gave a last hard stare at Clara and Tommy.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
This seemed to be all he intended to say, as he returned to his apple, his gaze wandering out across the stock on his shop shelves. Clara felt dismissed.
“I have come to redeem a pawn ticket,” Clara informed the man. She produced the ticket from her bag and held it before him.
Once again, the gentleman paused, lifted his glasses, which seemed to be of little use to him, and examined the ticket.
“Where did you get that?” His tone had gone from disinterested to demanding.
Clara sensed trouble.
“I received it from Ethel Dickinson’s mother, who in turn found it in the pocket of her daughter’s coat. Unfortunately, Ethel passed away yesterday. I have been sent to redeem the ticket.”
Clara knew there were issues with her explanation, not least what a lady of her standing would be doing redeeming a pawn ticket for the likes of the Dickinsons, but what else could she say?
“This is one of your tickets?” Tommy asked the pawn broker.
The old man glowered at him.
“Has my name on it, don’t it?”
“And you are Mr Perth?” Tommy persisted.
“Who else? Does it look like I could afford to have someone else work here and just have my name above the door?” Mr Perth snorted.
He was a man of indeterminate age, he could have been sixty, he could have been eighty, the light of the shop did not allow for close examination. He seemed composed of shades of grey, his shoes were grey, his trousers, his shirt and cardigan, even his skin and hair. He could have been an ink drawing rather than a real man.
“Mr Perth, we are not here to cause you any bother, we just wish to redeem this ticket. I believe it was for a biscuit tin,” Clara said, trying to appease him.
“You can believe all you want,” Mr Perth growled, “but I can tell you that I have never issued a pawn ticket to anyone by the name of Ethel Dickinson. I remember everyone who pawns something in my shop, everyone.”
He was quite firm on that point.
“Then how could Ethel have this ticket?” Clara asked him. “It is a ticket you have issued?”
“Of course!” Perth grumbled. “Why would anyone go around fraudulently offering pawn tickets in my name? Everyone around here knows me, knows I work alone. That’s my ticket and I issued it, but not to Ethel Dickinson.”
“Then, to whom did you issue it?” Clara asked, still trying to be patient and polite.
Perth gave her a sour look. He took another glance at the ticket number and then consulted a black ledger sitting on the desk next to him. His crooked hands, thin fingered with bulging joints, crawled across the pages of paper that contained all the details of his business dealings. His finger tapped at a specific line.
“As I thought, I issued that ticket to Alf Martin.”
“Are you sure?” Tommy asked, not meaning to sound doubtful, he was just confused like Clara.
Mr Perth took offence.
“Who are you to doubt me? Every ticket I issue has a number on it and the date. My ledger is arranged by year and month. I consult the correct page for that date, look for the specific number and thus I know who I issued that ticket to,” Mr Perth wagged his finger at Tommy. “Young man, I may be a humble pawn broker in a back alley that smells of cabbage and cat urine, but I have a respect for organisation and bookkeeping. I would never have lasted this long if I was not very thorough and conscientious. People try to trick a pawn broker. They treat me little better than if I was a thief or something. They need me, I am essential to them, but they also resent me. But they won’t fool me, that is certain.”
“Yet, if you issued this item to Alf Martin,” Clara said carefully, “why would Ethel Dickinson have it?”
Perth turned his nose up at her arrogantly.
“That is surely obvious, but then you are not a pawn broker and you are clearly not resident of this area,” he managed to make this sound like an insult, as if Clara should feel embarrassed that she was not wandering around barefoot. “Just because a person is issued a pawn ticket, does not mean it remains in their possession. After all, you acquired the ticket from Ethel’s mother. In an area like this, such things are treated like currency.”
“You mean, Alf traded this for something Ethel gave him?”
“Precisely. Honestly, it happens all the time.”
Clara stared at the ticket, wondering where on earth the biscuit ticket with its potential resident tortoise now was.
“Do you still want to redeem the ticket?” Mr Perth asked and now his voice had become solicitous. “It will cost you five shillings.”
Clara frowned for a moment; did she want to redeem the ticket? She had to presume that whatever Alf Martin had pawned, Ethel had considered valuable enough to trade something for the ticket. Perhaps there might be some use for it, and it was not as if five shillings would trouble her purse.
“Very well,” she told Mr Perth, who was looking brighter now that money was in the offing. “And I shall throw in another shilling if you can tell me where to find Alf Martin.”
Mr Perth hopped off his stool and scurried to one of his bookshelves. Off his perch, he proved to be considerably smaller than Clara. He returned with a black leather bag, which he opened to reveal an array of ordinary workman’s tools. Clara was baffled, why would Ethel be interested in these?
“Now, as for where Alf is, I suggest you try the Red Lion, if that fails, he lives with his mother and sister in Grace Street,” Mr Perth held out one hand to Clara, while the other firmly clutched the handles of the leather bag.
Clara made a show of counting out a suitable number of coins and pressing them into his palm. Mr Perth was smiling when he handed over the bag.
“Send my best to Alf,” he said, quite merry now there was money in his hand. Then suddenly he frowned. “Did you say Ethel had passed away?”
“Yes, yesterday,” Clara answered.
Mr Perth’s frown deepened.
“Dear me, I do hate it when a potential customer passes before I have had a chance to meet them.”
Chapter Ten
Mr Perth’s suggestion of looking for Alf Martin in the Red Lion was only partially helpful – there were three pubs of that name in Brighton. However, it seemed logical to conclude that Mr Martin would frequent a pub that was in his local area, and as he seemed well-known to Mr Perth, it seemed safe to assume he was a resident of the alleyways and back streets near the pawn brokers. Having acquired his money, Mr Perth had returned to being surly and had only given the vaguest directions for the location of the pub, before endeavouring to turf Clara and Tommy out of his shop. He puttered as they left about them being bad for business, though Clara was not sure how he came to that conclusion.
Outside, the locals were not interested in talking to Clara or Tommy either. When they were approached, they slammed their doors in their faces, one woman even spat at their feet.
“Friendly bunch,” Tommy snapped sarcastically after his patience had been pushed to the limit. “What did we ever do to them?”
“We are outsiders,” Clara replied with greater calm. “And outsiders mean trouble to these people. Besides, I am poking my nose about in a business they would probably tell me was none of mine.”
“Except Ethel stole from the Malorys.”
“I don’t think people around here would see that as an excuse for me to be interesting myself in their lives.”
“What was that pub called we walked past?” Tommy asked.
Clara shook her head.
“I don’t recall seeing a sign, just the drunk beneath the window.”
“Maybe that is the Red Lion?” Tommy suggested.
“It has to be worth a try,” Clara shrugged.
They found their way back to the pub, which proved harder than they had first imagined. They had taken a lot of turnings since then and retracing their steps was not straightforward. Dusk was already upon them when Tommy spotted the filthy pub window, so thick with grease, soot and grime that it seemed unlikely any light came through it at all.