Wouldn't It Be Deadly

by D. E. Ireland

  “And who are you, sir?” Freddy turned to face the older man.

  “Detective Inspector Shaw of Scotland Yard,” Jack said, fighting back a grin. “We met earlier at the Yard when I released you and your sister.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember now. Being questioned at Scotland Yard was quite an alarming experience.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Eliza murmured.

  “I just received a call from one of my detectives,” Jack said to Eliza. “I thought you’d like to know that Professor Higgins was seen this evening at the Victoria Embankment. A witness spoke with him and clearly identified him.”

  “Thank heaven he’s alive.” Eliza felt dizzy with relief.

  “Mother will be so pleased,” Freddy added.

  “Go home, Freddy.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “But my love, I have no home but with you. Please run away with me tonight before—”

  From the hallway, a familiar voice cried out, “By Jupiter, who left their umbrella right in front of the door?”

  “The Professor!” Eliza pushed Freddy aside and raced into the hallway. Jack followed close behind.

  Henry Higgins stood in the foyer, shrugging off his overcoat. He looked as exasperated and arrogant as ever. Eliza didn’t know whether she wanted to smack him on the nose or embrace him. Instead she crossed her arms and glared at him.

  “Where in bloody hell have you been?” she asked.

  Higgins gave a hoot of laughter. “So much for the celebrated duchess of the Embassy Ball. You sound just like the rude little turnip I found at Covent Garden.”

  “You won’t get around me with insults tonight. Where were you, Henry?”

  He seemed taken aback by her calling him by his Christian name. She’d done so only once before. Higgins straightened his suit jacket before answering. “I was walking about in the city.”

  “All day and most of the evening?” she asked. “What in the world were you doing?”

  “Yes, what were you doing, Professor Higgins?” Jack came to stand beside her.

  Higgins narrowed his eyes at the Inspector. “At the risk of appearing as ill-mannered as you and Miss Doolittle, I must decline to answer. I would also like both of you to leave my house. But before you depart, sir, tell me who in the hell you are?”

  Freddy piped up from the doorway of the laboratory. “He’s a detective inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  Eliza could see Higgins did not expect that. “And why is an inspector from the Yard skulking about my house?” he asked. “Without invitation, I might add.”

  “I invited him.”

  “You invited him into my house? You insolent baggage.”

  “Oh, shut up. Don’t you have any idea what has happened today?”

  Before she could continue, Freddy came up beside her and put his arm about her waist. “Professor, I am afraid that I have bad news,” Freddy said solemnly. “Eliza’s employer was found murdered.”

  “Yes, I heard.” Higgins grew serious. “The newsboys have been shouting it from every street corner.”

  “What did you think when you heard the news, Professor?” Jack asked.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I thought the world was well rid of one more scoundrel.”

  Eliza shook her head, trying to warn him to keep quiet.

  “It appears there was no love lost between you and Emil Nepommuck,” Jack said.

  “If you are even moderately capable in your job as detective, then you already know that I was the one who provided the information exposing Nepommuck to the newspapers. Or did you expect me to pretend I had the slightest regard for that worthless blighter?” Higgins brushed past all three of them.

  “Professor, I must ask you a few questions,” Jack said.

  Higgins ignored him. “Mrs. Pearce! Where the devil is that woman? I swear, a caravan of gypsies could be traipsing through the front door and she’d be none the wiser. And seeing as how she has allowed the three of you into my house, I must say the gypsies would be preferable.”

  “We should let him eat something before you question him about the murder,” she said to her cousin in a stage whisper. “He’s rather upset.”

  Higgins spun around. “Of course I am upset, you treacherous guttersnipe! First you run away without a ‘by your leave’ after all Pick and I have done for you. Then you take up with this fool here.” He gestured at Freddy. “And you top it off by going to work for a charlatan who ended up stabbing me in the back!”

  Eliza winced. Even Henry looked as if he wished he could take back that last sentence.

  “Interesting choice of words, Professor.” Jack scribbled in his notebook.

  “Damn you all to hell, you know what I meant.”

  “Sir, you’re home.” Mrs. Pearce hurried into the hallway, slightly out of breath.

  “Yes, and I would like to have my dinner if you don’t mind. But first see that this sorry trio is sent on their way.”

  “Henry, my old chap. We thought we heard your voice.” Pickering emerged from the dining room, followed by Redstone. “Extremely glad to have you home again.”

  Higgins turned around to face Eliza. “Is my mother here as well? Perhaps your father is upstairs in the bath and will be joining us, too. It will seem a fitting end to this circus of a day.”

  “Believe me, I haven’t enjoyed it any more than you have,” she said with a sigh.

  “I rather think you have eaten dinner,” he shot back, “which is more than I can say.”

  “I am not concerned about whether or not you have your dinner,” Jack said. “A man has been murdered, and it is my job to track down whoever did it. That means I must ask you a number of questions. You must answer them.” He paused. “If you refuse, your next meal will be served in prison.”

  Both Pickering and Mrs. Pearce gasped, while Higgins grew a shade paler.

  “You’ve no reason to haul him off to prison,” Eliza protested. “We all know he didn’t like Nepommuck, but he wasn’t the only one. I didn’t even like the Maestro myself.”

  Jack sighed. “When I received that phone call from one of my detectives a short while ago, he didn’t simply inform me that Henry Higgins had been spotted at the Victoria Embankment. The person who identified him was Corporal Theodore Trent, a veteran of the Boer War. And he swears he prevented the Professor from throwing himself into the river.”

  “What?” Eliza and Pickering said together.

  Higgins did not respond as Eliza expected. Instead he threw back his head and laughed. “Bloody idiots. You’re all bloody idiots.” He laughed so hard, tears began to roll down his face.

  “Idiots, are we?” Jack said sternly. “This wounded veteran claims that when he stopped you from throwing yourself into the Thames, you went on and on about how guilty you were feeling today.”

  Still laughing, Higgins waved Jack toward the door. “If you leave while I am in such a good mood, Inspector, I won’t be forced to embarrass you in front of everyone.”

  “Have a care, sir,” Jack said in a voice that any East Ender would know meant trouble. “My patience has limits.”

  Eliza put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go back into the dining room and let the Professor have dinner? It will give all of us a chance to calm down. And you can ask your questions while he’s eating. I am sure everything can be straightened out. Please, Jack. Do this one thing for me. For your little Lizzie.”

  “What the devil is this?” Higgins wiped the tears of laughter from his cheeks. “When did you have the time to take up with a Scotland Yard detective?”

  “Inspector Shaw is my cousin,” Eliza said.

  Her reply set off another wave of laughter. “What next?” Henry said. “Are you going to tell us that you’re the sister of the Russian Czarina?”

  Eliza turned to Jack. “Couldn’t your questions wait until everyone’s had a good night’s sleep?”

  He shook his head. “Murder has a way of upsetting people’s dinner plans and
their sleep.” Jack turned to Higgins with a grim expression. “You leave me no choice, Professor Higgins. I am afraid that I must place you under arrest for the murder of Emil Nepommuck.”

  Eliza fell back a step, stunned. Higgins stopped laughing. For once in his life, the Professor was speechless.

  She wished the same were true for Freddy. “One language teacher dead, the other arrested,” he blurted out in dismay. “Damnation, Eliza. Mother will never let us marry now!”

  SEVEN

  After a lifetime spent avoiding the coppers’ attention, Eliza was not happy to find herself once again at Scotland Yard. She could scarcely believe both she and the Professor had been viewed as murder suspects in the past twenty-four hours. Life was brutish in the East End, but it seemed far simpler.

  “If you don’t stop pacing, Eliza, you will rub the wax off the floorboards of this office.” Henry’s mother sat on a chair facing the room’s only desk. “Inspector Shaw already appears to have a grievance against us. We don’t need to add to it by marring his lovely floor.”

  Eliza collapsed in a heap onto the chair beside her. The older woman sat as calm and motionless as a statue. Eliza’s insides boiled, however. Bad enough that Jack dragged Henry off to Scotland Yard last night, but the Professor’s cavalier attitude only worsened the situation. Did the man take nothing seriously aside from the study of phonetics?

  She wanted to hit him over the head for not explaining what he was doing at the Victoria Embankment. Or why that Boer War veteran thought Higgins was about to throw himself into the river. She could hardly blame Jack for arresting him. For while she knew the Professor could never have killed Nepommuck, to an outside observer Higgins had a strong motive and a flimsy alibi.

  “I don’t understand how you can remain so calm,” Eliza said in a hushed voice, although there was no one to overhear. The two women sat alone in the room. Higgins had been taken for questioning elsewhere in the Yard, and Jack had let them stay in his office all morning.

  Mrs. Higgins sighed. “My dear, you have only known my son for a matter of months. Let me assure you that Henry can be as exasperating as the Mad Hatter. I suspect that the police will be eager to release him, if only to put a halt to his incessant talking.”

  The office door swung open. Colonel Pickering and Major Redstone stalked in, both looking as agitated as Eliza felt. “Have you heard anything?” she asked.

  Pickering shook his head. “Only what the sergeant out front has been saying since we arrived. After being kept in a holding cell last night, Henry was brought to the interrogation room about five hours ago. He has been there ever since.”

  “I hope Jack hasn’t let Grint and Hollaway question him.” Eliza shuddered at the memory of how viciously both detectives treated her yesterday during her interrogation.

  “It appears that Inspector Shaw is handling the situation himself.” Pickering leaned against the cherry wood desk, its surface covered with bulging stacks of files, all securely bound. “And I have been doing what I can. I contacted the finest barrister in London, in case this absurd mess is actually brought to trial.”

  “Why can’t the Professor explain exactly where he was yesterday during the time of the murder?” Eliza asked. “Someone must have seen him during the morning. This is London, after all, not the moors.”

  “If Henry does not explain it adequately to the police, he had best explain it to me,” Mrs. Higgins said in a threatening tone.

  What a shame the police didn’t allow Henry’s mother into that interrogation room, Eliza thought. She’d wring answers out of him.

  Eliza hoped to persuade Jack that he ought to investigate the people with real motives for wanting the Hungarian dead. She had already told Jack that the Maestro boasted at the Embassy Ball about how he made his clients pay—and for more than lessons. Higgins had passed her off as a duchess just by changing her speech. Nepommuck could also have trained his students to take on another identity. Why weren’t the police questioning them, rather than Professor Higgins? Especially if their newfound positions in society depended on Nepommuck keeping their secrets.

  She got to her feet and paced once more, only now she had to weave in and around Major Redstone and Colonel Pickering.

  Redstone touched her elbow. “Are you all right, Miss Doolittle? You seem a thousand miles away.”

  She glanced up at him. “I wish I knew exactly where the Professor was yesterday.”

  “Oh, I know what he was doing,” Pickering said. “He was walking the streets with not a care in his head. One day, he’ll wander all the way to Dover. When he’s listening to dialects, Henry is oblivious to everything else. He once found himself at a sheep shearing in Chesham. Had no idea how he’d gotten there.”

  Their exchange was interrupted when Jack Shaw hurried into the office. Her cousin’s dark hair looked more unkempt than last night, and his eyes seemed bleary from lack of sleep. Eliza also noticed that he wore the same suit and tie, so he hadn’t been home. Proof to her that Jack had been working on the case all night, even while Higgins was allowed to sleep in his cell. Her spirits lifted when he shot her a quick smile.

  “What can you tell us about the Professor?” she asked.

  He sat behind his desk with a sigh, clearly exhausted. “Still trying to get clear answers from him.”

  “You do have a witness, though.”

  “Corporal Ted Trent? That’s not good enough and you know it. In fact, it makes his innocence harder to prove.”

  “Why is that?” Pickering asked.

  “Higgins could not have been looking out over the Thames for the better part of a day. If that was true, why can’t we find anyone to corroborate that? Trent was only there a matter of five minutes or so himself. And the Professor’s comment about feeling guilty is especially damning.” Jack looked at Mrs. Higgins. “I am sorry, ma’am. I’m doing all I can.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate that, Inspector.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Eliza said. “Maybe I can pinpoint where he walked.”

  “I saw how well he reacted to your questions last night, Lizzie.” Her cousin rubbed his eyes. “I’m giving him a little time to stew about things. Plus he’s insisting on his late morning tea and biscuit. After he’s done, I’ll try again to get some helpful answers.”

  Eliza caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned toward the open door. Blimey, Mary Finch was here, with her husband trailing behind her.

  A moment later Mary entered the room in a fury. She looked the very picture of an avenging widow, completely garbed in black silk save for kid gloves the color of butter. Eliza shook her head. Leave it to Mary to be unable to resist a spot of bright yellow even when in mourning.

  Mrs. Higgins raised one of those gloved hands accusingly at Jack, knocking her feathered hat askew. She straightened it without a word.

  “Where are you keeping that cold-blooded killer? I want to see him so I can spit in his face.”

  Jack got to his feet, his expression beyond weary. “May I ask who you are?”

  “Mrs. Cornelius Finch.”

  “Mary was one of the Maestro’s students,” Eliza said. She flashed him a meaningful look. “And a very close friend.”

  Cornelius Finch stood behind Mary. “My wife and I were students of Emil Nepommuck and Miss Doolittle.”

  “Yes, and we’ve come here to make certain that monster is not set free. I knew Professor Higgins was a brute, but to think he actually stabbed the poor Maestro!” Mary began to weep. “That noble, goodhearted soul who never harmed anyone.”

  Cornelius handed her his handkerchief. “You’re the Detective Inspector assigned to investigate Maestro Nepommuck’s murder, am I right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “We heard you arrested the killer, sir.”

  “And who might that be?” Jack asked.

  “Professor Higgins, of course,” Cornelius said. “My wife was so upset when she heard of Nepommuck’s death that she insisted
on confronting Higgins herself. But when we arrived at his home this morning, no one was there save the servants. They told us he’d been arrested for the murder.”

  “Mary, I can assure you the Professor did not kill anyone,” Eliza said. “The two men only had a disagreement the day of your lesson.”

  “Disagreement? More like a battle royal, Miss Doolittle.” Mary blew her nose and then flung the handkerchief at her husband. “You insufferable brat. You’re the cause of this whole thing.”

  “What?” Pickering, Redstone, and Eliza all said at the same time.

  “The trouble began when Miss Doolittle left that monster Higgins and went to work for the Maestro. The Professor was so enraged about what she’d done that he interrupted our lesson and scared the life out of me. Thank heavens the Maestro came to my rescue, only to have Higgins vilify the poor man. You were there, Miss Doolittle. Tell the Inspector what he said.”

  “Everyone knows the Professor has a temper, but he had good reason to be upset.”

  “He had no reason to act like a barbarian! I assure you, Inspector, that Professor Higgins sorely abused poor Emil. Do you know that after he accused the Maestro of stealing Miss Doolittle away, he threatened to throttle him? And he actually wondered why someone hadn’t plunged a dagger in his back.” Mary fought back further tears. “Then the Professor claimed that he might stab him. How much proof do you need, Inspector?”

  Eliza bit her lip. She had hoped no one would remember those damning words said by Higgins during the argument with Nepommuck.

  Jack nodded. “I am aware of what the Professor said that day, Mrs. Finch. I’ve been questioning him for hours. You haven’t told me anything new.”

  She seemed taken aback. “Then you know he had the best reason to murder the Maestro. He’s guilty.”

  “But was he the only one who had a reason to want the man dead? I suspect not, Mrs. Finch. And until that question is answered to the law’s satisfaction—and mine—I would be very cautious about proclaiming anyone’s guilt.”

  Colonel Pickering nodded in agreement. “Well said, Inspector.”

  “But you did arrest him.” Cornelius Finch appeared confused.