“But, Dody,” Pike interrupted. “The truncheon was returned. By Fletcher, I assumed.”
Dody paused, the thin edge of the teacup against her lips. “It was? Then what—”
Pike got up from his chair and began to pace the room. Dody had never seen him so agitated. Dread descended like a dark mantle around her, banishing the sense of pleasure she’d felt at the beginning of his visit.
He stopped pacing and returned to the table, where he delved into his briefcase and extracted an envelope of photographs. He pointed to the tea tray. “Can you clear this away, please. I have to show you something. Look at this photograph, Dody. Pay particular attention to the policeman you see in the background emerging from the alley.”
Dody could see nothing but a blurry shape and the glint of a badge on a beehive helmet, and told him so.
“But what was this officer doing in the alley,” Pike asked, “while his colleagues in the foreground are clearly in need of help?”
“Relieving himself?”
“In the middle of a violent demonstration? That’s the last thing a policeman would be thinking about, believe me.” Pike pointed to another picture, in which a policeman stood behind two others struggling to hold a thrashing woman. This time the image was slightly clearer. “I think this is the same policeman.”
Dody stared hard at the picture. “You may be right. He seems to be the only one in a cape. The others are wearing greatcoats.”
“Indeed, his uniform is slightly different to the others, but that’s not the only difference.”
Dody continued to stare at the picture. After several seconds she said, “Yes, I see it. He is much shorter than the rest. The difference is quite remarkable.”
“Exactly! Metropolitan police are required to be a minimum of five feet eight inches. That person would be five foot five at the most.”
A shiver coursed through Dody’s body. She suddenly saw the figure in a very different light—narrow at the shoulders, wide at the hips. “Because it’s not a policeman—in fact, it’s not a man at all, is it?”
“Exactly. A woman disguised as a policeman and carrying a policeman’s truncheon.”
Pike strode from the morning room as fast as his game knee would allow. “You have a telephone in the hall? I need to send some men over to Miss Barndon-Brown’s flat.”
“Olivia? Surely you don’t mean that Olivia is Catherine’s killer?”
“We have just deduced that there was a woman disguised as a policeman at the riot. Why else would Miss Barndon-Brown have a truncheon hidden in her wardrobe? Why else would she have lied to your sister when she found it, telling her that it was the truncheon you were using in your experiments?”
The cold of the hall hit them after the cosy warmth of the morning room. Why indeed, Dody thought. And what will Olivia do when she finds Florence on her doorstep, wanting to hand the truncheon back to the police?
Chapter Thirty
Pike slammed down the telephone receiver and glanced at the grandfather clock in the hall. “The telephone station is closed, confound it. I had no idea it was this late.” He spun on his heel. “I need my coat and hat.” But Dody was already staggering from the cloakroom with their outdoor things in her arms.
Pike reached for his coat and collected his bowler and gloves from the hall table. “You can’t come with me, Dody. The situation is too unpredictable.”
Heat rushed into Dody’s cheeks. “Unpredictable? Don’t skirt the issue with euphemisms. If Olivia has killed once and if she is as unstable as I suspect she is, then Florence is in terrible danger. If you think I would run the risk of my sister being injured with no medical assistance at hand, then you have to think again.”
“As you wish, but I do not like it.” Pike headed out the front door, but did nothing to stop her from following him into the street. Dody hastily shrugged into her wool cloak and ran to catch up with him.
“Besides,” she added as he continued to pay her no heed, busy searching up and down the street for a cab, “you don’t know where Olivia lives, do you?”
He swivelled to face her, abashed at his own haste.
“If we don’t find a cab soon,” she added, glancing around, “it will be quicker for us to walk—Olivia lives only down the road from here.”
Bombarded with questions from both Pike and Dody, Olivia’s aged doorman seemed to have trouble comprehending either of them.
Dody tried to calm herself. “This is going nowhere,” she whispered to Pike. “The man is hard of hearing. It is important that only one of us speaks at a time—let me question him.”
Pike conceded and backed down the porch steps. Dody touched the old man on his sleeve and asked him his name.
“Biggs, miss.”
Looking him full in the face, she asked slowly, “When we asked if Miss McCleland was here, you said that she had been and now she was gone. How long ago did she leave, Mr. Biggs?”
“At least ’alf an hour ago, miss,” Biggs said with a look of relief.
“Was Miss Barndon-Brown with her?”
“No, miss, she was on her own.”
Dody heaved a sigh of relief. Florence had come to no harm. Perhaps she hadn’t mentioned the truncheon after all.
“Do you know where she was going?”
“She wanted me to get ’er a cab to Whitechapel, but I couldn’t find one. I think she took the tube.”
“Lord, she’s gone to Whitechapel on her own,” Dody said to Pike. “O’Neill lives in Whitechapel.”
“That’s right, I know the place. Would she have any other reason to go to Whitechapel?”
“None that I know of.”
“Do you have any idea why she would go to O’Neill, and at this time of night?”
“She was livid with him about—” Dody paused to choose her words, not sure how much Pike knew about Florence’s involvement in the golf course sabotage. “A certain issue. It wouldn’t surprise me if she wanted to have it out with him.”
“We need to talk to Olivia,” said Pike. “Ask the doorman to show us up.”
“But surely we should find my sister first—I can’t bear to think of her in Whitechapel alone!”
Biggs had caught snatches of their conversation. “Don’t worry, miss,” he said, trying to console Dody. “Miss Barndon-Brown went out not long after. Perhaps she was intending on keeping an eye on the young lady.”
Dody felt herself sway.
“Was Miss Barndon-Brown carrying anything?” Pike asked the old man.
“Yes, sir, some kind of bundle—might’ve been clothes by the looks of it.”
Dody gasped and Pike stepped closer to her. It was the smallest of movements, but comforting nonetheless. Despite his physical incapacity, she realised there was no one else she would rather face this awful situation with. She swallowed and made herself stand tall. She must be clearheaded if they were to succeed.
Pike thanked Biggs for his help and steered her down the porch steps. He looked anxiously up and down the street, the fog so thick even the streetlamps failed to penetrate it. “It looks like we’ll have to take the tube, too. British Museum Station will be the closest.”
Until now, Dody had always managed to avoid the underground railway, but she gave the matter no thought as they hurried on foot to the station. Pike purchased two tickets and they descended in the rickety lift. Within seconds she found herself standing in a chilly tunnel of tiles and soot, waiting for the arrival of the next train to Aldgate.
As they waited in silence, Dody forced herself to think rationally. Who was the most lethal of the pair? That rogue O’Neill or the suspected killer, Olivia? Then again, there was always the chance that Pike had it all wrong, that neither of them was any danger to her sister. He’d admitted to a bias against the Irish, and she’d seen for herself the prejudice he held for the militant suffragettes. These thoughts brought some fleeting comfort until they were dashed by a picture of Florence making her way alone at night across the East End, blinded to th
e peril of London’s most notorious streets by her stubborn sense of purpose.
Pike must have sensed her thoughts, felt her tremble. He offered her his arm. The comforting warmth of his body reached her through her thick cloak. “I don’t wish to sound impertinent,” he said, “but how worldly is your sister? How might she cope in a hostile environment on her own?”
Dody envisaged Florence on the hockey pitch. Then she pictured the tact and insight Florence used when controlling some of the more difficult members of her WSPU group. Goodness, she’d even managed to make her way back from the golf course alone the other night and on foot. But the baser side of human nature, the causes and effects Dody witnessed day after day at the hospital—of impoverished, desperate men and women—could Florence read them? Was Florence as worldly as she liked everyone to think? And even if she was, how could she ever imagine that her dear friend Olivia was a danger to her?
She was about to answer him, to explain Florence’s well-hidden naivety, when she felt the slap of hot air on her cheeks, then the rumble of rails. Soon it was impossible to hear the sound of her own voice. A monstrous light appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, the wind increased, and they were almost blown off their feet as the train screeched to a halt.
Chapter Thirty-One
Florence’s angry knock rattled the door and she felt somewhat pleased when Derwent O’Neill opened it, the cigarette falling from his lips at the sight of her.
He appeared to compose himself, gave her a quizzical smile, and bent to pick up the dropped cigarette. After pinching the glowing tip between finger and thumb, he pushed it into his waistcoat pocket. “Well, well, what a sight for sore eyes. Miss Florence McCleland—to what do I owe this honour?” he asked.
What indeed? Florence stared back at the Irishman. The boiling rage that had fuelled her horrendous journey had all but dissipated. As she stood by the door, she felt the last of it fizzle to the floor and disappear into the cigarette butts and stains of the tenement landing. She took a deep breath, summoning the last of her courage. “I’m surprised you need to ask. Did you not read today’s paper?”
Derwent ignored her question. He put the back of his hand against her cheek. She flinched and stepped back. “Lord, woman, you’re half froze,” he said. “Come in out of the cold. This place isn’t much; my cousin’s out of work and we’re on the last of the coal, but ’tis a lot more cosy than the landing.”
“Your cousin is home?”
“No, out drowning his sorrows.”
Florence drew herself to her full height. “Then I will say what I have to say right here where I stand.”
Derwent gave her a crooked smile, turned, and called back through the door. “Say hello to Miss McCleland, Patrick. It seems the lady does not want to be in the flat alone with me.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” came Patrick’s voice from within. “Hello, Florence! Do come in, it’s quite safe.”
“Patrick’s working on another draft of his play. Your dear mother said its message was too strong, so he’s trying to tone it down, make it more acceptable to the English censors.”
Florence felt her shoulders drop with relief. “Very well, I’ll come in, but only for a moment.”
Derwent bent at the waist and made a sweeping gesture to usher her in. The odour of the flat hit her first, an unsavoury mixture of unwashed clothes, alcohol, smoke, and burning oil. But the fire in the grate was bright, and the smile Patrick flashed her from where he sat writing at a makeshift desk was reassuring. “Will you pardon me if I don’t get up,” he said. “I’m writing a very tricky exchange of dialogue. I won’t be long.”
“Please, don’t let me interrupt you.”
Derwent cleared a crate for her beside the fire and placed a handkerchief over its splintery surface before she sat. He then took a ceramic jug from the mantelpiece and filled two glasses with black ale. When Florence opened her mouth to speak, he silenced her with a finger to his lips.
“Drink up; it’s not businesslike to launch straight into things. If you want to be treated like a man, you must learn to behave like one.” He lifted his glass. “Sláinte.”
Florence had never tasted ale before and found it more pleasant than she’d expected. The dark frothy liquid slid down her throat as smooth as warm milk.
“I must congratulate you on escaping the force of the law. It is too bad the other three were not so fast on their feet. It must be all that hockey you play,” Derwent said.
“We were betrayed; it is no joke. But Olivia has just been released after two days of force-feeding, so that is something at least.”
Poor, brave Olivia. Florence pictured her friend as she had left her: sunken, dark-rimmed eyes blazing from paper-pale skin. It was the memory of those eyes that had kept her going through her arduous journey to Derwent’s lodgings. Olivia had suffered so much, while she had run away. Tackling O’Neill was something she had to do—for Olivia and for Jane and Daisy, for the whole Bloomsbury group—if she were ever to hold her head up among them again.
She took a sip of ale. “You knew those blasting caps were defective, didn’t you?”
Derwent flashed her an infuriating smile. “You think I’d be so irresponsible as to let loose a pile of dangerous explosives on a group of hysterical females? I didn’t want your deaths on my conscience, especially not yours, charming Florence.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. You led us to believe—” She broke off as Derwent moved to squat before her, close enough for her to smell the ale on his breath, see the line of his unshaved neck beneath the beard.
“I led you to believe what you wanted to believe,” he said silkily. In the fire’s light his dark eyes sparkled. He looked intently into hers. And then the infuriating look became something else, a look she did not care to meet. “I told you when we met at your parents’ house that I didn’t give a fig for your little cause.” He shrugged. “But who am I to deny a group of bored bourgeois women a good time—add a little excitement to their dried-up lives?”
Heat surged through her and she lashed out at him. The slap stung her hand more than it did his sandpaper cheek, but it was still powerful enough to unbalance and knock him to the floor.
At the noise, Patrick stood up and stretched. “There, I’m done,” he said, eyes shining with amusement. “I told you you’d met your match with this one, Derwent.”
Florence got to her feet. The consuming rage that had filled her had dissolved into a warm glow of satisfaction. She knew herself well enough to recognise that the blow had not been for Derwent alone. The poet who had tricked her out of her virginity, the police, the politicians, the magistrates, and the male doctors with their feeding tubes—that slap was for all of them.
Derwent rubbed his cheek and glared at her from where he had fallen. Patrick winked at Florence. Then a grin cracked Derwent’s granite features, followed by a laugh as smooth as Tullamore Dew.
Patrick laughed, too. “You pack a fine punch, Florence, to send Derwent O’Neill to the ground. It is good to start as you mean to finish—and this one certainly needs keeping in line. I think you will make a fine job of taming him, and my mother will thank you for it.”
Florence smiled uncertainly. Patrick seemed to think she and his brother had some understanding between them. She wanted to scotch the notion right then, but her head felt fuzzy. It could wait.
Derwent heaved himself up from the floor. “Well, maybe I deserved that.” He dusted himself down, took the jug from the mantelpiece, and emptied the dregs into his and Florence’s glasses.
“Hey, save some for me!” Patrick said.
“Too late, little brother, ’tis all gone.” Derwent tipped the empty jug upside down. “Get us a refill from the White Hart. Hurry up now, before it closes. There’s money in the tea caddy.”
“That’s Liam’s money in the tea caddy, for emergency use. I’ll not touch it.”
Derwent sighed, put his hand in his pocket, and dropped some coins into his brother’s
palm. “Get yourself an extra pint and all—and one for cousin Liam, too, if he’s still there.”
Florence put down her glass. “And you can walk me to Aldgate Station, too, please, Patrick, before it closes for the night.”
Derwent spoke before his brother could answer. “Mark Lane Station stays open longer. I’ll walk you there when we’ve finished our chat.”
Florence lifted her chin. “I’ve said all I wanted to say. I thought I’d made myself clear.”
Derwent pouted and played the aggrieved party. “But you’ve given me no time to defend my actions. And besides, I have other suggestions for your campaign that might interest you.”
“You’ve already told me that you have no interest in the cause.”
“True, my own cause is at the top of my priorities. But any kind of thorn in the side of the British government suits me, no matter how small. There are several strategies we have not discussed, strategies that pose no more danger to the perpetrator than a stiff fine.” He tilted his head to the door, urging his brother on his errand.
“Well, are you coming or not?” Patrick said to Florence.
Again Derwent answered before she had a chance to reply. “Be off, man. I’ve said I’ll walk her to the station.”
With a shrug, Patrick farewelled Florence, picked up the jug, and grabbed his coat. Soon his heavy footsteps on the stairs were rattling the thin tenement walls.
Florence’s common sense told her to call out to Patrick, make him wait for her, but she found a heavy mist clouding her mind as thick as the fog that had descended on the London streets earlier that evening. It was the alcohol clouding her judgement, she knew, but she didn’t care. This must be how Dody’s patients feel after being given an anaesthetic, she thought. Awake yet oblivious to the operation being performed.
The room was cosy and her lids heavy. She still had plenty of time for the tube at Mark Lane, and she didn’t doubt that Derwent would see her safely there. She had put him in his place, had she not? Shown him who was boss. And besides, she was interested in hearing what he had to say that might give the cause more publicity.
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