Killing at the Carnival

by L. A. Nisula

  I could feel Davy trying to slink away from me, so I grabbed him by the shoulders and stared at him until he muttered,

  “We may have stumbled through the back of Cowboy Nick’s tent accidentally and caught a glimpse of him lying there.”

  “And whatever they had covering him just happened to have been moved. And you just happened to get lost on the way to Malvolio’s.” How could I of all people fault them for a little curiosity at a crime scene? I sighed and turned back to Art. “Did you recognize the other man?”

  “He’s not with the show, I’m certain.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Kind of tall. Big sideburns.”

  “What color was his hair?”

  “Kind of brown, could have been blond, or maybe… well…”

  So it could have been black or grey or purple. “What was he wearing?”

  “Just a normal sort of coat.”

  Not my best witness, but it was something. “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “I think so.”

  “And do you know anyone named Martha?”

  He shook his head. “Everyone here has names like Malvolio and Cobra and Lucinda. No Martha.”

  Davy was grinning from ear to ear. “This was important, wasn’t it?”

  “Very important. You need to tell Inspector Burrows about this.”

  “He looks kind of busy now.”

  I glanced over at him. Mr. Cardinal was leading him towards a wagon behind the midway that I was pretty certain contained one of the steam engines powering the show. That was probably where Nick was hiding. If I sent Art over, Inspector Burrows would remember I was following and probably send me away before I could hear Cowboy Nick’s side of things. “All right. The policeman near the cowboy tent should know when a good time would be.”

  “Right. I‘ll ask him.” Art paused. “Do you want us to keep quiet about telling you?”

  So he was sharp. “You can say I sent you, if you’d like, but unless he asks, I wouldn’t tell him you told me the whole story.”

  Art tapped the side of his nose. “Right. Come on, Davy.”

  I grabbed Davy’s sleeve. “No, Davy’s coming with me. Your aunt’s probably frantic.”

  “Go ahead,” Davy said. “I think she’s going to investigate.”

  Art looked tempted to stay, but I gave him my best schoolmarm glare until he nodded and ran off. I kept a firm grip on Davy’s shoulder and followed Inspector Burrows and Mr. Cardinal to the wagon in the middle of the clear area behind the midway. There were brass pipes poking out of the roof of the wagon, splitting and branching out over the top of the carnival carrying the steam that powered most of the effects in the acts and the games.

  Mr. Cardinal felt around on top of the door until he found the key.

  “Very secure,” Inspector Burrows said.

  Mr. Cardinal shrugged. “Nothing valuable inside, really. We lock it to keep the customers out more than anything.” He unlocked the door, put the key back, and led us inside.

  “You always put the key back?” Inspector Burrows asked.

  “It locks from the inside, too, so someone has to be able to get in if there’s a problem with the boiler or the engine.”

  The inside of the wagon had been plated in brass. We stepped into a small compartment that had originally been used to hold luggage and was now where the tools were kept. There was an opening into the center compartment of the car. We could hear someone sobbing faintly inside, the sound echoing inside the room. Inspector Burrows gave Mr. Cardinal a nudge. “Do you want to go first?”

  “And soften the blow? All right.” He stepped inside. “Nick? Someone here to see you. Nick?”

  Inspector Burrows followed Mr. Cardinal. I considered staying in the entry with Davy, but he was already following Inspector Burrows. Curious as ever, I supposed.

  The center room was taken up with the steam engine, a huge brass boiler with pipes carrying the steam outside. The boiler was surrounded by layers of what looked like quilt batting, keeping the heat in and making the compartment only slightly warmer than expected. Mr. Cardinal led us around the boiler to a small alcove that contained the main valves and levers to control the flow of steam.

  “Nick? They just want to talk. I know you couldn’t have...”

  Cowboy Nick was bunched up in the corner, half under the desk where the engine keeper’s logs were kept. He was still wearing most of his costume, including the hat, which was shoved back on his head and crushed up under the desk. Inspector Burrows knelt down. “Mr. Culpepper? Could we go outside? I need to ask you some questions.”

  Nick turned in his corner. “What kind of questions?”

  “You know what happened?”

  “Not really. I’m always so careful. But...he fell...” Nick turned back towards the wall.

  “Let’s go outside, and you can tell me all about it.”

  “And then you’ll arrest me. You don’t understand. I can’t be arrested for murder. Dad teaches law in Boston. My grandfather was a Boston cop. If I’m arrested for murder, my family will, will kill me.” He burst into tears again.

  Davy leaned in. “I don’t think he’s a real cowboy, is he?”

  I smiled a little. “Maybe not.”

  “But he sure was a good fake one. He didn’t kill that man, did he? He wouldn’t use his sharp shootin’ for that.”

  “I don’t know, Davy.”

  “I do. And you’ll know how to prove it.” Clearly Mrs. Albright had been talking about the time I helped her.

  Mr. Cardinal knelt down next to Nick. “Come on. Let’s go outside. You tell him the truth, and he’ll find out what really happened. Isn’t that how it worked with your grandfather?”

  “How he wanted it to work, but...”

  “Now is Cowboy Nick going to sit here blubbering when one of his fans is watching?”

  I gave Davy a poke in the back, and he ran forward in his full cute-boy act. “I know you didn’t do it, Cowboy Nick. And we’re going to find a way to prove that, just like they do in the Marvelous Mike and Spike books.”

  Apparently the cute-boy act worked on cowboys as well as it worked on aunts. “All right. I’m coming. Let me find my hat.”

  “Try your head,” Mr. Cardinal suggested.

  As we made our way back to Inspector Burrows’s temporary headquarters in Mr. Cardinal’s tent, Constable Jones caught up to us. “Sir, I’ve compiled the list of names and Constable Lipson has started preliminary questioning.”

  “Very good.” Inspector Burrows was managing to be appreciative and dismissive at the same time.

  “And I located a gentleman who was with the victim at the show.”

  Nick made a strangled sort of sound like a sob.

  “I’ve asked him to wait for you in… at your temporary desk.”

  “Thank you, Constable. Excellent work. Now would you take Mr.—” He glanced at Davy then at me.

  “Hawkin,” I supplied.

  “Mr. Hawkin back to meet with his party, a Mrs. Albright at Malvolio’s show. I believe you’ve met her?”

  “Miss Pengear’s landlady? Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Culpepper, I think it would be best if I questioned you here.”

  Nick made another sobbing sound but nodded.

  Inspector Burrows sighed. “Have you calmed down enough to answer questions reasonably?”

  Nick looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry about that, but you have to understand...”

  Inspector Burrows cut him off before he could get started again. “Now, the gun that you were using in your act, does it normally contain real bullets for this trick?”

  “It never has real bullets in it, not for any of the tricks. Always blanks. It’s too dangerous otherwise. If I’m off by even a fraction, I could hit someone in the audience.”

  “Then why did it have real bullets today?”

  “It shouldn’t have. Even if the prop cupboard ran out when they were loading it, I have som
e in my wagon. And even then, this is London, not some backwater. We could have sent one of the roustabouts out to buy some if we needed to.”

  “So who could have substituted them?”

  “No one. Jerry, Jerry Dalton, the prop man, checks the guns before the performance when he brings the supplies out. I check them again when I load them backstage. Then we put them out on the table at the back of the stage, and they stay there until Lucinda brings them over to me.”

  “Could Mr. Dalton have slipped a bullet in?”

  “No, not possible. We look at the guns together and put them out together while the steam engine that runs the smoke effects is warming up. They let the audience in almost as soon as we’re done, so there’s no way he could get back out there without being seen by the audience. Not that he would anyway.”

  “I’ll add that to the list of questions I ask the audience, then. Now how was the trick supposed to work?”

  “I ask for a volunteer from the audience. Lucinda finds one and brings him up to the stage. We give him the card, and he holds it up. I do my patter about how good a shot I am, then I turn and fire at the card. Then I run forward and grab the card before he gets a chance to look at it and flourish it around. While I’m showing off, Lucinda is getting the right pre-shot one from under the table. I pretend to hand her the card, and she pretends to take it and carries the shot one around for everyone to see while I get rid of the original one.”

  “So it’s a magic trick.”

  “It is. Most of the stuff with audience volunteers is. Mr. Kingston doesn’t want me shooting at civilians.”

  “A very sensible attitude.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, you don’t sound like you’re going to arrest me.”

  “Not at the moment, but I am going to have to ask that you not leave town for any reason and that you make yourself available for further questioning.”

  “Of course, of course.” Nick looked ready to promise anything to avoid the shame of arrest.

  “All right. I’m going to have more questions for you once I’ve investigated things more thoroughly. Until then, you’re free to go. Which is your wagon?”

  “Second row, third down.”

  “It looks like a prairie schooner,” Mr. Cardinal offered.

  “The only one like that, I assume. Very well, I’ll find you when I need you.”

  Mr. Cardinal put his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “Come on, Jerry always has a bottle hidden somewhere. I think we could both use a drink.”

  When Cowboy Nick and Joe Cardinal were out of hearing, Inspector Burrows asked me, “Did you notice anyone by the prop table before the performance?”

  I shook my head. “But I wasn’t really looking for that. Davy was telling me about the tricks he was hoping to see, and Mrs. Albright was counting how many tickets we had left once Davy saw all the shows he was looking forward to.”

  “And that’s how it will be for everyone. No one thinks about it until they’re asked, and then who knows if what they remember is what they actually saw. On to questioning the victim’s friend, I suppose.” He looked around and realized he’d sent his constable away again. “I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?”

  “Unless you want to take your own notes, but then you couldn’t do your little shut-the-notebook-this-is-just-between-us trick.”

  “Come along, then.”

  Chapter Four

  I followed Inspector Burrows into Mr. Cardinal's tent. There were two men waiting for him. I recognized the one closest to the entrance as Dr. Greer, the medical examiner. He looked up when we came in and nodded a greeting.

  “We’re taking the victim away now. I just wanted to let you know it was the shot that killed him.”

  Inspector Burrows nodded. “And have we identified him yet?”

  Dr. Greer pointed to the man sitting at the table. “He was with him. His name is Harris. The victim was Josiah Spalding. I’ll drop by your office when I have more information.”

  I could feel Inspector Burrows perk up when he heard the name Josiah Spalding. Clearly it meant something to him. But before I could ask him, he had crossed to the table and sat across from Mr. Harris. I took the seat slightly behind them and picked up the notebook that had been left there.

  “Mr. Harris, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were here with the victim. Were you friends?”

  “Coworkers, associates really. We both worked at the Montwell Bank.”

  Now Inspector Burrows was really interested; I could tell by the way he leaned in, trying to catch every detail. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Poor old Spalding. That man had the worst luck ever.”

  “You don’t seem very upset.”

  “We were just business acquaintances. This was supposed to be a treat for our branch having the second-highest rate of new business accounts. First place got to go to Paris.”

  “What did you mean about his bad luck?”

  “Let’s see, his first wife left him for another man, the first bank he managed was robbed two weeks after he took over, the first airship he took crashed on the way to Paris, the first...”

  “I see,” Inspector Burrows cut him off. “So this was most likely an accident, you think?”

  “That’s right. What else could it be?”

  “Well, who would have reason to kill him?”

  “No one that I can think of.”

  “The first wife?”

  “No, she’s in America now, Chicago I think.”

  “The first bank?”

  “Why would anyone from there be after him?”

  “I have to leave my options open.”

  “I suppose you do. I don’t know of anyone, but it was the Crilston Bank in Goston. It’s near Newcastle, I think.”

  “I see, I see.” Furious scribbling followed. “And the airship?”

  “The Iron Dove. He joked about the name before he got on.”

  “I see.” But Inspector Burrows didn’t write that down. “And is there anything else that you can think of that might be helpful?”

  “‘Fraid not. He was a nice guy, decent boss. Probably brought most of his trouble down on himself.”

  Inspector Burrows didn’t look up. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, his problems begin and end at the whist table. Or the roulette wheel. Or the racetrack. Or the poker table. Or which wall of paint will dry faster in a room.”

  “So he was a gambler?”

  “Would bet on anything where there was some uncertainty. He would swear he was stopping, then take it up again. I think he was looking for something to bet on here. He got all twitchy when we started past the midway, and he disappeared for about ten minutes while we were getting in line and wouldn’t say where he’d been.”

  “Did he win?”

  “Every so often. He’d win £100, but lose £200 getting it, if you see what I mean.”

  “I do. And how are the bank’s finances?”

  “Really, sir, I said he was a good man. Our finances are in excellent condition. There’s no evidence anywhere of fraud or embezzlement.”

  “I didn’t say there was, but I do have to ask. What about his personal finances?”

  Mr. Harris calmed down. “I wouldn’t know. He did his banking through our bank, so I’m sure you can get the information through the proper channels.”

  “And I will. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like you to show me what was involved in this trick.”

  “Certainly. Who am I playing?”

  “Mr. Spalding, if you don’t mind. Miss Pengear will be the Lovely Lucinda. Will this stage do?”

  “I think so.”

  “Excellent. Then the two of you were sitting where?”

  “Towards the back.”

  “If you would...”

  Mr. Harris got up and sat in the second row from the back.

  “Now Lucinda came down the aisle, and what did Mr. Spalding do? Raise his hand? Stand up?”
>
  “Oh no, I think he thought the whole thing was silly. He was kind of hunched down in his seat, like he didn’t want to be seen. I told him that was the wrong way to go about it; they always take the one that doesn’t want to be picked so they can have a good laugh. Then she came down the aisle, looking at everyone, and grabbed his arm.”

  “Miss Pengear?”

  I walked down the aisle, looking from side to side at the empty seats; then I stopped by his row and grabbed Mr. Harris’s shoulder. “Like this?”

  “No, she had a pretty good grip on his forearm.”

  I shifted my hand.

  “That’s right. She just stood there smiling at him while he said he didn’t want to go, and I kind of nudged him. I mean, it’s better to just take the medicine, as it were. So he went up with her.” Mr. Harris stood up, and I led him up the aisle and on stage. “Then there was some patter, and she gave him a playing card.”

  I went to the edge of the stage and waited for Inspector Burrows to give me one of his calling cards, which seemed to be the closest thing to a playing card he had. We arranged ourselves as they had been on the stage.

  “And the cowboy shot the gun, and Spalding fell backwards. You don’t want me to do that, do you?”

  “No, I get the general impression. And what did you think when it happened?”

  “That the poor fellow fainted. I mean, the gun was loud, and with all the steam on the stage, it was hard to tell what was going on.”

  “When did you know it was worse than that?”

  “When your man started asking if anyone knew the volunteer, I knew something had gone wrong.”

  “Not when you were ushered out?”

  “No, I thought they were calling a doctor or something. Maybe he’d hit his head and there was blood they didn’t want the audience to see.”

  “And what do you think the explanation is?”

  “It’s an accident, isn’t it? Something wrong with the gun, I would expect.”

  “I think that’s everything. Did you leave your address with Constable Jones? Then you can leave. Thank you for your help.”

  When Mr. Harris was gone, Inspector Burrows started to look through his notes. I stayed put. It took him five pages to realize I was still there. “Thank you for your help, Miss Pengear, but you’re free to go, too. By which I mean the door is that way. Or tent flap, I suppose.”