The Problem of the Missing Miss

by Roberta Rogow

  Dr. Doyle buttered a piece of toast and munched on it. “I don’t see where that will lead us.”

  Mr. Dodgson’s voice took on the singsong quality of a teacher instructing a particularly dense pupil. “What do we know of the man who left his marks on Keeble?” he asked rhetorically.

  “How do you know it was a man?” Touie put in.

  “Keeble was of my own height and build, and I am not as short as I may seem,” Mr. Dodgson said. “Unless she is a veritable giantess, I doubt that a woman could have lifted him over the railings of the Chain Pier, which have been built quite high enough to prevent such accidents from occurring. Also, the button was one used in male attire. I realize that some women have taken to wearing manly waistcoats when engaged in sports such as riding or bicycling, but neither horse nor bicycle was on the pier that night. If so, it would most certainly have drawn notice.”

  “So,” Dr. Doyle said, warming to the task, “we are looking for a man, probably of average height or higher.”

  “Oh, taller than average,” Mr. Dodgson corrected him. “And strong in the arms and upper body, to lift Keeble over the railings.”

  “Wearing a brown suit,” Dr. Doyle added. “The button was brown, not blue or black. And if the man were in evening clothes, there would not be a button at all, but a white stud from his evening dress.”

  “Very good,” Mr. Dodgson said approvingly.

  “What’s more,” Dr. Doyle added, “we know that he is a gentleman, or at least, not a mechanic or farmer.”

  Mr. Dodgson raised an eyebrow in interrogation.

  “The dents on his collar,” Dr. Doyle explained. “They did not show any discoloration. A person who worked with his hands would have left a stain or smudge, as a farmer would have earth on his hands, or a blacksmith would have ashes.”

  “Aha!” Mr. Dodgson said with a decisive nod. “So: We have a tall gentleman, in a brown suit, on the Chain Pier at approximately nine o’clock of a Friday night.”

  “Nine?” Touie asked.

  “I have consulted a chart as to the tides. According to our friends at the police station, the body was able to drift onto the shingle because it was thrown over at the low tide. If the tide were going out, the body would have been swept out to sea, and Keeble would simply have been one of those unfortunate persons who disappear, never to be seen again.”

  “Did you know the man?” Touie asked sympathetically.

  “I have seen him on the Esplanade,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I also may have seen him play in London. I enjoy the theater,” he confessed.

  Dr. Doyle set down his cup. “So, how do you propose to find his killer? Assuming, as we are, that the man did not merely stumble into the sea fully dressed, clutching a button.”

  Mr. Dodgson leaned earnestly over the table. “Dr. Doyle, I have come here with the purpose of requesting that you join me in this endeavor. I am, perhaps, not as fit as I once was, and a younger man might be better equipped to run about after villains.”

  Dr. Doyle smiled under his mustache. “Indeed, sir, I was thinking that I could not make head nor tail of this nonsense, and that I would have to rely on the police to finish the business for us.”

  “Hm! The police!” Mr. Dodgson sniffed. “They persist in regarding both these deaths as unconnected accidents. I do not believe that these two deaths are either accidents or unconnected with Miss Marbury’s disappearance, and I am going to prove it—with your strong arm to assist me.”

  “Not another stroll down Church Street,” Dr. Doyle warned him.

  “Not at all. You and I, Dr. Doyle, must go out to the Esplanade and find Keeble’s friends, the members of his troupe. I dare say they are having some sort of memorial for him, as is the custom of such people. We must question them and find out who, if anyone, contacted Keeble. He was supposed to have been performing that night. It follows that one of the troupe might have seen the person who owns that button.”

  “But who was that someone?” Dr. Doyle was on his feet, looking for his coat and deerstalker cap.

  “I have considered that, too,” Mr. Dodgson said. “Someone must have hired him to impersonate me.”

  “And you suspect that this mysterious someone then fought with him and threw him over the rails to the sea below …”

  “Where he drowned, fuddled by drink,” Mr. Dodgson finished for him. “If Keeble recognized something particular about his employer …”

  “And tried to blackmail him …” Dr. Doyle took up the thread again.

  “It is very possible.” Mr. Dodgson looked favorably upon his new student. “Now we must ascertain if any of the troupe saw Keeble in conversation with a gentleman, in a brown suit, on the pier on Friday night.”

  “And then what?” Dr. Doyle looked about him for his deerstalker. Touie handed it to him fondly.

  “You need not worry about me, Arthur,” she said. “I shall remain here and write some letters. Just find that little girl, and bring her back here safely.”

  “Of course, my dear,” Dr. Doyle said, pressing her hand to his lips.

  “And do be careful,” Touie called out, as the pair left the lodgings and turned their steps to the seafront.

  The Esplanade was virtually deserted. The wind whipped the waves into curls of white foam that broke over the pebbled beach with a hiss and a roar. The hotels had put up canvas awnings to shield the verandas from the rain that would wreak havoc with rattan furniture or satin upholstery. The band shell was deserted; no musician would risk harm either to his instrument or his person on such a morning.

  The only person in sight was a stout man in a Mackintosh coat with a pile of handbills in a sack slung around his shoulder, who looked as if he wished he were anywhere but on the Esplanade in the rain at nine in the morning of a Sunday, when anyone with any sense was in bed, at breakfast, or in church.

  Mr. Dodgson crossed the King’s Road resolutely, and descended gingerly down the slippery wooden stairs to the shingle below. To Dr. Doyle’s surprise, the elderly scholar moved carefully down the beach, peering under the arches of the underpinning of the Esplanade.

  “Good morning,” Mr. Dodgson called out to someone under the piers.

  “Hello.” Dr. Doyle nearly stumbled on the stones in his haste to keep up with his companion.

  Mr. Dodgson had found friends, three girls and a boy, ages between eight and ten, as far as Dr. Doyle could judge. The children were dressed in patched cast-offs, but they seemed cheerful, with none of the pinched look of the habitually hungry.

  “It is a morning for ducks,” Mr. Dodgson remarked. “I see you have found a dry spot. May I join you?”

  “Suit yourself.” The boy appeared to be the spokesperson for the group.

  Mr. Dodgson drew the bag of sweets from his pocket. “I have heard,” he said, “that lemon drops are a sovereign remedy for damp. Because they are so dry, you see,” he explained.

  “Dunno about that,” the tallest girl said, taking the offered sweet.

  “A pity about the rain,” Mr. Dodgson said.

  “Ay,” the boy agreed.

  “No punters out,” Dr. Doyle put in. The children ignored him.

  Mr. Dodgson smiled at the youngest girl. “I have seen you on the pier,” he said. “You do acrobatics.”

  The girl smiled, revealing a gap where her two front teeth were missing. Then she bent backwards, flipped onto her hands, and circled Mr. Dodgson, her skirts hanging about her ears and her red drawers outstandingly visible. She flipped back onto her feet and took a bow.

  Mr. Dodgson applauded. “Very clever, my dear. I do hope you continue to improve yourself. Girls are often able to get work in the circus, even in London.”

  “Ah,” said the middle girl, wisely. “Lunnon. Pa says when the Brighton season’s over, we may try our hand at Lunnon.”

  Dr. Doyle fidgeted. Why did the man take so long to get to the point?

  Mr. Dodgson had taken the silk handkerchief from his pocket and was tying it into various shapes, to t
he delight of the children.

  “You should do that on the pier,” the boy observed. “You’d make a nice penny from that.”

  “Oh, dear me, no,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I just like to amuse children. I could never be a professional, like, oh—let me see? Who does those tricks on the pier?”

  “Old Keeble used to,” the smallest girl piped up. “But he’s dead. They found him on the beach yesterday.”

  “Drunk,” the boy said succinctly. “My ma says it’s drink as does you, every time. Made my pa sign the Pledge when the Salvationists came ’round.”

  “My pa says that’s all rot,” the middle girl stated. “He likes his pint, but he don’t go off like Old Keeble and blue the lot.”

  “I believe I knew Old Keeble,” Mr. Dodgson observed. “Wasn’t he with the Bailey Boys?”

  The oldest girl laughed heartily. “Not Old Keeble! You’re thinking of the Jokers. They’re down by the Chain Pier every night.”

  “Indeed.” Mr. Dodgson put away the candy and the handkerchief. “I wonder, would they be performing today?”

  “In this slop?” The boy was scornful. “They’ll be down the beach, along with my pa and the rest of ’em, giving the old boy a good sendoff.”

  “Would you direct me to the place? As a patron of the art of busking, I would like to pay my respects.”

  “Come on, then. We only came out to get out of the way.” The boy led Mr. Dodgson and the rest back along the beach toward the Chain Pier.

  To Dr. Doyle’s surprise, the children ducked under the shorings of the Esplanade, to a sort of cave that had been left when the construction had been completed.

  Here, only a step away from the fashionable world, a makeshift tavern had been set up, where the Sabbath laws were cheerfully being broken by a crowd of actors, singers, acrobats, jugglers, and comic players. A rough plank table held bottles of beer and stronger stimulants, together with an assortment of glasses and mismatched mugs for dispensing of same. A short, balding man with enormous ears and a snaggle-toothed grin served the liquor, spicing his talk with a series of anecdotes. There was a dead silence as the company realized that a stranger was in their midst.

  “Someone wants to pay respects to Old Keeble,” the boy announced, in the sudden hush that descended at the sight of Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Doyle.

  The trumpet player of Keeble’s troupe stared at the tall, stooping scholar and his tweed-clad companion. “Dang me, for a minute there I thought you was him come back to haunt us!”

  “Dear me,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I had no idea the resemblance was so … so marked.”

  “Sit down, sir, and ’ave a pint on Old Keeble,” the trumpeter said. “I’m the Joker, Joker Jim, you can call me.” He slapped a measure of beer in front of Mr. Dodgson, who picked it up and set it down without tasting it.

  “Old Keeble seems to have come into money,” Mr. Dodgson observed.

  “We found nine quid in his pockets,” Billy, the comic genius of the troupe, said. “What better way of spending it than on a right blowout? He can’t use it where he’s gone.” There was a general laugh at that.

  “Nine pounds? A veritable fortune,” Mr. Dodgson said. “You must be doing quite well, for such a sum to come to him.”

  Joker Jim sat down at the table across from Mr. Dodgson. “Now that’s the odd thing,” he said, twisting his rubbery features into a grimace of perplexity. “We were doing well enough, but I did wonder about that nine quid. Y’see, Old Keeble had been talking on and on about his being on the stage, and how we didn’t really appreciate his genius. And how there was some Nob who did, and were we going to be surprised some day.”

  “Any idea who this Nob was?” Dr. Doyle could not suppress himself any longer. Joker Jim shrugged.

  “No idea. Old Keeble was getting past it,” he said. “I thought I saw him on the pier, just before our turn Friday. Hey, Billy!” Billy squeezed out of the crowd. “Didn’t you tell me you saw Old Keeble Friday night?”

  “I did,” Billy agreed. “Talking to some gent, he was, up on the pier.”

  “A gentleman?” Dr. Doyle pounced on the phrase. “Then, I suppose, this gentleman was in evening clothes.”

  “You mean soup-and-fish? B’iled shirt and tailcoat?” Billy shook his head. “Nay, ’e wore a sack suit.”

  “Brown?” Dr. Doyle hinted.

  “Couldn’t tell the color. But ’e sounded like a gent, all smooth and polished. Careful in ’is speech, like.”

  “Then you could hear what they were saying?” Mr. Dodgson leaned forward.

  “Not the words, exactly,” Billy said ruefully. “But I could ’ear they was angry.”

  “I don’t suppose you could perform that scene,” Mr. Dodgson said wistfully. “I have seen you, down at the pier. You have a gift, young man, a most interesting gift.” He turned to Dr. Doyle. “This young man can mimic any voice, once heard. Very clever.”

  Billy’s narrow chest puffed out slightly under the weight of public approval. “It was like this.” He sprang up on the table, enacting first the old actor, then the Nob. “Keeble was against the rails, and the gent, he was in front of him.”

  “Did you see him go over?” Dr. Doyle asked eagerly.

  “Nay. Jimmy called me over, and we were on.”

  “Did you hear any of the quarrel?” Mr. Dodgson continued.

  Billy shook his head. “But if I know Old Keeble, he was putting the bite on the gent. That was his way; he owed all of us, one way or another.”

  “That’s why we’re making him pay for drinks now,” Joker Jim said with a laugh. The rest of the company roared their agreement.

  Mr. Dodgson produced some coins from his waistcoat pocket and lay them on the table. “I wish to offer my condolences on the loss of so valuable a member of your troupe,” he said politely. Joker Jim snatched up one of the coins skillfully, tossed it in the air, and caught it.

  “And you’re a right one,” he said. “Not like that other lot that come in here. We wouldn’t have a word with them! Bloody Peelers!”

  “Indeed.” Mr. Dodgson rose, touched his hat, and moved toward the door. “One more thing: Mr.… Billy? Would you recognize this gentleman if you were to encounter him again?”

  “You mean, could I point him out? D’ye think he’s the one did for Old Keeble?”

  “It is very likely,” Dr. Doyle told him.

  Joker looked around the room. “We take care of our own, sir.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Mr. Dodgson said. “But, in the event, would you assist me in apprehending this … this murderer?”

  “You mean catch him?” Joker looked around again. “It would do the Peelers in the eye, wouldn’t it?”

  “They have not been very assiduous in pursuing his killer,” Mr. Dodgson observed.

  “He means …” Dr. Doyle began.

  “I know. Old Keeble was just some washed-up old rummy of an actor, not worth the bothering about,” Joker Jim said bitterly.

  “He was being used in a shameful plot to abduct a child,” Mr. Dodgson declared. “He was chosen for his accidental resemblance to myself. For this reason, if for no other, I have sworn to find the man who hired him. If any of you can recall anything—if you have ever seen the man before—try to remember, please?”

  He looked about the room. Billy frowned. Then the smallest girl, the child from the beach, said, “I saw Old Keeble with a Nob, once.”

  “Where?” Dr. Doyle pounced on her.

  “On the pier. In front of the Grand Hotel. And there was a lady with him, a lady with red hair.”

  A woman in a gaudy red bodice and short striped skirt slapped the child resoundingly. “Betty, don’t never let me see you with that woman, never!”

  “But I didn’t say nothing to her!” Betty wailed.

  “Don’t you even get close enough to look at her, nor her girls!” Betty’s protector gave her a shake to punctuate the lesson. “We may be low, but we’re not”—she looked at Mr. Dodgson’s faintly ecclesiastical
dress and paused—“not that low.”

  Mr. Dodgson sat down again. “My dear Miss Betty,” he said, beckoning the child forward. Her mother kept a wary eye on him.

  “This is most interesting,” Mr. Dodgson said. “This woman, with the red hair. You know her?”

  “Know of her,” Betty’s protector corrected him. “And I wouldn’t have nothing to do with her, not for all the tea in China, nor all the gold in the Mint. I think better of myself than to sell my girls to that … that …”

  Mr. Dodgson nodded. “Most commendable, ma’am. This woman—does she have a name?”

  Another woman, tall and slender in blue velvet skirt and violet bodice, said, “Harmon. Miss Julia Harmon, she calls herself. And she may parade herself on the pier, but we know what she is, and what her girls are, and none of us would dirty our lips with her name, not in public.” The rest of the performers nodded agreement.

  “But there are some women who would,” Mr. Dodgson murmured.

  “Not in the profession,” the woman in the blue skirt said indignantly. “As for that place of hers in King Street.” She closed her mouth over her opinion, but her eyes spoke eloquently for her.

  Mr. Dodgson rose again. He added more coins to the small pile on the table. “Thank you all,” he said gently. “You have been extremely helpful. Master Billy,” he added, “may I call upon you, if need be? I am beginning to have the inklings of an idea as to the identity of this miscreant, but I may want you to make the final identification.”

  Joker Jim scooped up the coins before the rest of the company could get to them.

  “You’re on, Guv’nor,” he promised. “Just send word right here, and we’re yours for the night.”

  Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Doyle left the buskers to their wake, and climbed back up to the world of the Esplanade. The drizzle had coagulated into a definite rain now, sweeping across the pavement in sheets, driven by the wind.

  “And what did all that signify?” Dr. Doyle demanded.

  Mr. Dodgson smiled at him. “That there is a house in King Street where a respectable woman will not permit her daughters to be seen,” he said. “I believe we may now approach the police with what we have discovered. If Miss Marbury is still in Brighton, the likelihood is that she is being kept in that house.”