The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “I’m not certain,” I admitted. The buildings on this block had evidently all been erected around the same time, and were very similar in both design and materials. “Do you remember how many doors it was from the corner? We could count buildings and find it that way.”

  “Seven, if I remember right,” he said. “I wasn’t paying close attention, though.”

  “Neither was I,” I said. “Shall I go back around front and count, to be certain? It won’t do us any good to look in the wrong backyard.”

  “That’ll take too long,” said Mr. Clemens. “Tell you what—give me a boost so I can peek over these damn fences. I bet I can figure out which house it is we want, once I can get a good look at ’em all.”

  “If you say so,” I replied. He walked over to the wall, reached up, and put his hands on the top—which, fortunately, had not been covered with broken bottles as was the custom in New Orleans. I bent down and put my hands together to form a step, then lifted him straight up. Despite his being considerably shorter than I, he was by no means an easy burden—clearly, he had never stinted himself at suppertime.

  After a few moments’ pause—looking up, I could see him swiveling his head from left to right—he said, “As best I can figure, the one just to our right is Miss Martha’s. I counted houses, and that’s the seventh from the corner. Besides, it looks right.”

  “Looks right?” I said, lowering him back down. “I thought you said they all looked the same.”

  “The curtains on the second floor look right,” said Mr. Clemens. “And I can see that ledge running under the window,” he added. “It’s got to be the place.”

  I stood on tiptoe, trying to verify his information. But the glare from the windows made it hard to see the curtains, and as far as I could tell, all the buildings on that side had the same ledge under the window. I told him as much.

  “Well, I think it’s the right place,” he said, somewhat petulantly. “Let’s go see if we can get in that gate.”

  We walked the short distance to the wall behind the building he had picked out. A green-painted garden gate (or, rather, a rustic wooden door that extended the full height of the wall) stood before us. Mr. Clemens tried to open it, first pushing, then pulling, but without success. “Locked,” he said. “Or maybe it’s just hooked from the inside. Boost me up again, Wentworth; maybe I can reach the latch and get it open.”

  Almost involuntarily, I found myself repeating a phrase that I had heard from my lawyer father far too often during my own youth. “That would be trespassing.”

  “Don’t be silly, Wentworth,” said Mr. Clemens. “We aren’t going to steal anything, or hurt anybody. An innocent man could hang if we miss some important piece of evidence because we were afraid to open a gate. Now give me a boost—or would you rather go over the wall yourself?”

  “Oh, very well,” I said. But while I understood the need to gather evidence wherever we found it, somehow I felt like a timid young boy mocked by bolder playmates for not joining in their daredevil games. I had not felt like that in a long time. But when Mr. Clemens put his hands atop the gate, and lifted up his left foot, I obediently reached down and gave him a leg up.

  After he struggled for a moment, he turned back to me and said, “There’s a padlock on it, damn the luck. Let me back down a minute.”

  Back on the ground, he brushed himself off with his hands, then said, “We’ll have to go over the wall. Can you climb it by yourself after you help me get in?”

  “I should be able to manage,” I said, looking at the obstacle. Nearly even with the top of my head, it would be easy enough for me to get over. Then, after a moment’s thought: “But why do both of us have to go in? I could do it more quickly and easily by myself than the two of us can—besides, you’re likely to ruin your suit, climbing over garden walls.”

  “It’s too late to worry about that, I reckon,” he said, casting a rueful look at his formerly clean pants and overcoat. Despite his brushing, they already showed signs of moss stain and brick dust where his knees and belly had scraped against the wall and gate. Mrs. Clemens would not be happy. “Besides, two pairs of eyes will be better than one—if somebody comes outside and catches you, I’ll have a better chance of arguing us out of the pinch than you would alone. I guess I’m ready. Boost me up.”

  With a little straining and a couple of choice epithets, he was soon straddling the top of the wall, puffing a little bit. “The coast is clear,” he said. “Follow me.” He beckoned with his arm, then dropped over the other side.

  I removed my hat and coat and tossed them over the wall, then pulled myself up and quickly vaulted over. Once inside, I saw a small vegetable plot (now past its season, and grown up in weeds), and two crabapple trees still bearing a handful of late fruit. Mr. Clemens pointed. “Look,” he whispered. Following his finger, I spotted a wooden stepladder lying in the weeds along the left-hand wall.

  “I don’t think that’s tall enough to reach the second story,” I said. I retrieved my coat and hat.

  “It doesn’t have to reach the whole way,” he argued. “If an agile fellow could get a good grip on that ledge, he could pull himself up to it.”

  “In the dark, and carrying a gun? I wouldn’t want to try it, and I’m in better condition than most,” I said, looking at the stretch. I might not be quite in the form I had kept up when playing football at Yale, but I had not slipped far from it.

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” said Mr. Clemens, looking at the ledge again. “Let’s take a look below those windows, and see if there are any marks that look like they’re from a ladder. That’s what we came for, anyhow.”

  Together we headed toward the building. I was conscious of the dozens of windows, in this and the neighboring buildings, from which we were clearly visible. In a sense, this gave me some encouragement; if the killer climbed a ladder from the garden, as Mr. Clemens postulated, someone might have seen him despite the darkness and gloomy weather the previous evening. On the other hand, I had a guilty awareness that anyone looking out one of these windows in the last few minutes would have seen two men clambering over a wall into a garden where they clearly did not belong. At any moment, I expected someone to challenge us, and I found myself trying to decide whether, if caught, it would be wiser to run away, or to stand my ground and let my employer try his powers of persuasion.

  Mr. Clemens interrupted my train of thought. “Now, which window would have been the one he used?”

  I craned my neck up at the building and pointed. “The apartment was to the right when we came up the stairs, so it’d be that one, wouldn’t it? The window closer to the center of the building.”

  “Yes, that looks about right,” he said. He knelt down to inspect the turf where a ladder would have had to rest to reach that part of the building, and I bent down to look over his shoulder.

  The ground, though not quite muddy, was still damp, and soft enough for me to feel it give under my feet as I had leapt down from the top of the wall. As far as I could see, the ground bore no impression at all, of a ladder or anything else. After a brief inspection, Mr. Clemens straightened up and said, “Well, if anybody used a ladder here, it wasn’t last night. I reckon that finishes that theory—not that I’m all that sorry to see it exploded.”

  “Nor am I,” I said. “An assassin from outside would be ten times harder to find than someone from the group at the sitting. I am just as glad not to have to expand our field of inquiry to the entire population of London.”

  “I guess that’s a blessing of sorts,” said Mr. Clemens. “It still leaves us trying to figure out how Parkhurst was shot, and who might have had reason to do it.”

  “We haven’t really looked at that last question at all,” I said. “I haven’t any idea at all who his enemies were, if he had any—I suppose he must have, unless the shooting was a pure accident, or the murderer meant to kill someone else and missed his target.”

  “If that’s the case, then the original target is still in danger
,” said my employer. “We need to visit the other people at that séance—I reckon I can get most of them to talk. Somebody must know who had a grudge against the doctor—somebody besides the one who killed him, that is. I don’t expect the murderer to come right out and brag about killing him, the way gunfighters used to in Nevada. London society’s not quite as quick to set up a killer as a hero.”

  “Good Lord, I should hope not,” I said. Then I realized that we were still standing under the windows while we talked, in plain view of anyone who happened to look outside. “Don’t you think we ought to get away from here before someone notices us?” I said. “We’ve seen what we came to see.”

  Mr. Clemens glanced up at the building. “You’re right, Wentworth,” he said. “We can talk anywhere—let’s get back over the wall before somebody calls the cops on us.”

  We turned and headed for the back of the property, but we had barely covered half the distance when a door behind us opened with a bang, and a gruff voice called out, “Come ’ere, you two! Wot d’ye think ye’re doin’ in me garden?”

  For a fleeting moment, I thought about sprinting to the wall and vaulting over; had I been alone, I would have tried it. But that would have left Mr. Clemens alone to face the consequences of our trespassing. While he could undoubtedly take care of himself, it was not in my nature to abandon him. And so the two of us turned around to confront our accuser.

  The man before us was almost a caricature of John Bull: his figure was short and squat, almost square, and his broad face was made even broader by his luxuriant muttonchop whiskers, which set off his clean-shaven chin and bald pate. His waistcoat was open and his shirtsleeves rolled up, as if in preparation for working in the garden—and indeed, he held a large garden fork in both hands. At least, I hoped he had brought it for digging, and not to use on trespassers. It might not be rapier sharp, but it could undoubtedly inflict a nasty wound.

  “ ’Ello, wot’s this?” he said, when he got a look at us. His surprised expression made it clear that he had not expected to find two grown men, one with a full mane of white hair, in his garden. The usual run of trespassers was most likely small boys come to steal his apples. Then his eyes narrowed and he said, “I’d like to know wot you think you’re doin’ in me garden. A man’s ’ome is ’is castle—that’s the law. I don’t know any honest reason for trespassin’, but if you ’ave one you’d best tell me right fast, and if I don’t like hit, you’ll be talkin’ to the constable next thing. There’s been enough funny business ’ere already.”

  “There sure has,” said Mr. Clemens, in a calm voice. “In fact, that’s what we’re here about. Are you the landlord, by any chance?”

  “Lord, no!” said the fellow. Evidently deciding that my employer and I posed no immediate threat, he lowered his fork and rested the tines on the ground. “Do I look like a bloomin’ duke? I’m the caretaker, and I gets my rent free and the right to plant this ’ere garden.”

  “Ah, then you’re just the man we need to talk to,” said my employer. “You know everything that goes on around here, don’t you?”

  “Aye, that’s so. Wot’s it to ye, now?”

  Mr. Clemens lowered his voice and looked around as if making certain nobody was listening. “Well, then, you must know there was a fellow killed in that upstairs apartment last night. Mister—uh . . .”

  “Johnson, Halbert Johnson,” said the man, his own voice lowered to match my employer’s.

  “Well, I’m Sam Clemens, and this is my secretary, Mr. Cabot. We’re trying to find out what we can about that murder.” He signaled to me to take out my notebook and pencil, which I did, although I suspected he meant it more to impress Johnson than to record anything the fellow said.

  “Ah me, wot a dreadful business! But I’m ’ardly surprised, I tell you, guv’nor. There was somethin’ wasn’t right habout them two Yanks—beggin’ yer pardon, I know ye’re Hamerican yerself, but I can see ye’re a gentleman, and that Mr. McPhee, ’e isn’t, if you know wot I mean. Wot with all the folk traipsin’ in and out of the place it’s a wonder somethin’ didn’t ’appen before.”

  “We’ve been keeping our eyes on McPhee for some time now,” said Mr. Clemens, nodding. “He’s got a reputation back in America, and not one to be proud of. Can you tell us what he’s been up to since he moved in?”

  “Well, ’e and ’is wife—a pretty little bit, don’t know wot she sees in ’im—took the flat it must be six weeks since. Hit’d been hempty some months, and the landlord was pressing me to get hit let, so I didn’t hask a lot of questions. Per’aps I should’ve hasked some more, lookin’ back, but I didn’t, seein’ as ’ow they ’ad a character from a very proper gentleman, Sir Denis DeCoursey. But soon as they was hin, they started ’aving parties o’ folk comin’ hin and hout, halmost he very hevenin’. Now, from wot I could see, the visitors wasn’t riffraff or lowlifes, so I didn’t say nothin’, not until the noises began.”

  “Noises, eh? What kind of noises? You’re writing all this down, aren’t you, Cabot?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, dutifully scribbling down what bits of the conversation I thought significant.

  “Ah, the most ghastly stuff,” said Johnson, glancing up at the second-story windows of the McPhees’ apartment. “There was chains rattlin’ and church bells tollin’—me and the missus would ’ear the din downstairs terrible late at night, y’know.”

  “Yes, that’s what we’ve heard,” said Mr. Clemens. “I reckon you asked them to stop making the noises. What answer did McPhee give to that?”

  Johnson frowned. “McPhee allowed as ’ow ’e wasn’t the one makin’ the noises—’e blamed it hall on spirits, ’e did. Now, we’d never ’ad no spirits ’ere before, and I told ’im so to ’is face. ‘Tell your spirits we doesn’t want ’em ’ere,’ I said, and I meant hit, too, guv’nor. But McPhee, ’e said ’e couldn’t just horder ’em hout, like guests wot hoverstayed their welcome. ‘Well then,’ says I, ‘wot if I turns you hout? Per’aps the spirits will go with you.’ ”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “ ’E said, ‘We’ll go hif you say so, but wot’ll you do hif the spirits don’t come with us? My missus says they was ’ere before we came, and she knows. She knows ’ow to make ’em be’ave, too, and I guess you don’t—you hain’t seen the pranks they can play when they gets frisky or hif they don’t take a fancy to you. Noises hain’t near the worst of hit. This place sat hempty near six months before we come and took hit—hever hask yourself why? Maybe hit was them there spirits.’ And ’e ’ad me by the short ’airs, there, ’e did. Better a tenant wot gets halong with the spirits than none at all—not with the landlord comin’ by and haskin’ why hit hain’t been let.”

  “So you let him stay,” said Mr. Clemens, with a sad but sympathetic expression. “Well, I reckon you didn’t have much choice, so I can’t blame you. The landlord won’t hear anything about it from me, you can be sure. Now, about that business last night—did you see or hear anything unusual yesterday?”

  “Not hif you don’t call them ’orrible noises hunusual,” said Johnson. “I saw McPhee and that Irish fellow wot works for ’im set hout for somewheres, just before teatime.”

  “Did you notice when they came back?”

  “No, sorry, guv’nor,” said Johnson. “It just so ’appened I was on the step when they went out, I never saw ’em return. Then the noises started, the usual time, and hit seemed there was a bit more goin’ hup and downstairs than usual. Me an’ the missus, we shut our hears and went to bed, and then this morning we learn a gentleman was killed hup there. A sorry thing, says I.”

  “How did you hear about the killing?” said Mr. Clemens.

  “The constable came by this mornin’, after breakfast,” Johnson said. “ ’E wanted to know hif we’d ’eard or seen anything, same as you gentlemen. We told ’im pretty much wot I’ve told you. And that’s that, pretty much.”

  “Well, I reckon we’ve found what we need to, then,” said my employ
er. “Cabot, can you think of anything I haven’t asked Mr. Johnson?”

  I studied my notebook a moment, then said, “No, not at the moment. Perhaps we’ll think of something when we’ve talked to some of the other witnesses.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mr. Clemens. “Well, Mr. Johnson, we thank you for your cooperation, and we’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we think you can help us with. Can you get in touch with us if you think of anything you’ve overlooked? Give him our address, Cabot.” I scrawled it on a sheet of notebook paper, tore it out, and gave it to Johnson, who took it and nodded.

  “Now, we’ve got some other people to speak to today,” said Mr. Clemens. “If you could let us out the front way . . .”

  “Yes, sir,” said Johnson, eagerly. He led us through a plainly furnished flat that smelled of boiling cabbage—I caught a quick glimpse of a dowdily dressed middle-aged woman, his wife I guessed—and showed us out at the front of the building. The door closed behind us, and Mr. Clemens and I looked at one another.

  “I’ll be damned,” said my employer, staring back at the building. “I wouldn’t have thought we could get away with it. I figured we were in real trouble when that fellow showed up with the pitchfork, but he turned out to be tame enough, didn’t he? By the time we finished, I reckon he’d have given us the family jewels, if I’d asked him politely enough.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Still, I’m just as glad he didn’t call the constable—we’d have been hard-pressed to explain things to him.”

  “Well, we’ve bluffed our way out of that pickle,” Mr. Clemens said. He brushed his hands together as if washing them, then pointed down the street to our right. “Now, let’s go see if we can find Cedric Villiers at home—we’ve barely started, and there’s still a killer to catch.”

  14

  It was not quite fifteen minutes’ walk from the McPhees’ flat to Cedric Villiers’s home—or it would have been, if I’d been walking it on my own. At Mr. Clemens’s leisurely pace, it was closer to half an hour before we found ourselves outside Villiers’s picturesque cottage on Godfrey Street, not far from Chelsea Green. Actually, to call it “picturesque” would be an understatement—the entire street was lined with homes that looked as if an artist had designed them. Given what I had seen of Villiers’s tastes, this was exactly the kind of neighborhood where I would have expected him to live.