The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “Those shots were closer to me than to you, I think.”

  “I told you the worthless jackass couldn’t shoot straight,” said Mr. Clemens, laughing. “But what I’m really worried about is Lestrade finding out about the shooting. He’d probably use that as an excuse to order me to stop trying to solve the case, or at very least to send a bobby to protect me—and incidentally to see that I don’t go anyplace he doesn’t want me to. So we won’t tell him about it, and he’ll leave me alone.”

  “Don’t you think he’ll learn it on his own?” I asked. “I’d think that Scotland Yard would keep in close touch with other jurisdictions. Or the sheriff in Kent may want to ask you about the incident.”

  I could see him shrug as a streetlight briefly illuminated the passing cab. “I guess Lestrade will find out about it eventually,” he said. “But police the whole world over are jealous of their own jurisdictions. Lestrade is the kind of cop who probably thinks the country police are too dumb to clean their own boots. So he may pretty much ignore their reports unless he’s bored. And the same may be true of the Kentish sheriff—he may prefer coming directly to me than to asking Scotland Yard’s help. That may give us enough time to get something done before Lestrade decides it’s too dangerous for me to be involved.”

  Perhaps it is too dangerous for us to be involved, I thought. But Mr. Clemens had made up his mind to go forward, and that settled the question. It was my job to go where he went—dangerous or not. I hoped my own worries were unfounded. But I was not about to shrug them off. I found myself wondering where Martha McPhee had been this morning. She certainly knew that we planned to visit Sir Denis eventually. Had she gotten word to her husband, or some other confederate, that we were interviewing all the witnesses to the murder? Then I remembered her breaking down in front of us, and I felt a twinge of guilt for even considering Martha as possibly having set up the shooting incident.

  Mrs. Clemens and her daughters had already eaten before we got home, but the cook had left a big pot of hearty chicken soup simmering on the stove, and we ate it with great chunks of buttered bread while Mrs. Clemens and the two older girls—little Jean had already gone to bed—listened to Mr. Clemens give a somewhat selective account of the day’s events. Luckily, our clothes had cleaned up well enough to pretend that nothing worse had happened to them than a tramp through the woods and a bit of kneeling on the damp ground at Sir Denis’s shooting range.

  But as we were finishing our dessert, the maid came into the room and said, “Pardon me, Mr. Clemens, but there’s a man at the back door says ’e wants to see you.”

  “Oh? I wonder who that could be,” said my employer, starting to stand up. Then he caught the tone of her voice and her disapproving expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “ ’Tis a great bloomin’ Irishman, and ’e’s polite enough, but you’d think ’e’d find time to wash before ’e come to visit respectable folk.” She sniffed.

  “Irish, is he?” Mr. Clemens’s face lit up. “Well, don’t keep the man waiting. Bring the fellow in, bring him in here.”

  “If you say so, sir,” said the servant, and she went back into the kitchen to admit the mysterious visitor.

  “Irish,” I said. “Do you think—”

  “I reckon we’ll know in a minute,” said my employer. “But I’d lay odds it’s the man we went looking for the other night.”

  The door opened again, and in walked a man whose face I recognized, though I had seen it only briefly. “Terry Mulligan, right?” Mr. Clemens stood up and extended his hand to McPhee’s assistant, who took it in both of his and shook it.

  “Aye, that’s the name,” said the man. Then he peered at my employer for a moment. “I saw your picture in the paper.”

  Mr. Clemens growled. “I wonder if there’s any way to sue those bast—” Then, with a glance at his wife, he remembered his manners. “I guess you can understand why a fellow might not want his face to become too familiar. Come on in and have a seat,” he continued.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Mulligan, and took a chair. His clothes were dirty and rumpled, and he sported several days’ growth of beard. He cast a sidelong glance at the empty soup bowls on the table. It seemed clear that he had been in hiding ever since the murder.

  Mrs. Clemens saw him look at the table, too. She stood and asked, “Have you eaten? There’s good soup hot, and plenty of bread and butter. And I can bring you tea.”

  “Or something stronger, if you’d rather,” said Mr. Clemens.

  “Soup and bread would be grand, mum, if it’s not a trouble to you,” said Mulligan. “And a spot o’ tea would be perfect right now.” He had a warm baritone voice with a less pronounced brogue than I would have guessed.

  Mrs. Clemens smiled and nodded and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned, carrying a tray. She set a soup bowl and a mug of tea in front of Mulligan, handed him a napkin and silverware, and said, “If there’s anything else, please let Cook know. Now, girls, I think it’s time we went upstairs.”

  Susy and Clara were clearly unhappy at being deprived of the chance to observe a key witness in the murder investigation, but they followed their mother without complaint, leaving me and Mr. Clemens to watch Mulligan eat his soup and bread, which he did without wasting breath on conversation.

  Mr. Clemens sat back in his seat and looked at Mulligan. After he judged the man had had sufficient time to take the edge off his appetite, my employer said, “There’s a bunch of people besides me looking for you, you know.”

  “Sure, and I’d have to be stone blind not to know that, wouldn’t I?” said Mulligan, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “But most of ’em are bobbies, and I never got along with them. Mickey over at The Painted Lady said two of Mr. McPhee’s friends were lookin’ for me. I guessed that might be you, and I’m hopin’ you’re not after callin’ Scotland Yard to take me in.”

  “Scotland Yard does its own work, and I do mine,” said Mr. Clemens. “But McPhee’s in jail, and if you know something that’ll get him out, you might tell it to me. I can pass it on to the cops without saying anything to put them on your trail.”

  “I understand you,” said Mulligan. “Sure, then, I can’t say I know aught that might help Ed McPhee, but ask away, and if I can give you the answer, it’ll be yours.”

  “Fair enough,” said Mr. Clemens. “Let’s start at the beginning. What kind of work did you do for McPhee?”

  “Handy work of one sort or another,” said Mulligan. “Mr. McPhee had a need for a man that was good with his hands, and he asked about and found me.”

  Mr. Clemens smiled broadly. “Where I come from, if you say a man’s ‘good with his hands’ it can mean all sorts of things. Maybe he’s a good man in a fight. Or something else—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Ed with a deck of cards . . .”

  Mulligan gave a long-drawn-out whistle. “Enough to know not to play him for money. That’s not my line, though, nor fighting neither, though I can take care of meself if it comes to that. Nay, it’s making different devices that’s my work, crafting this thing or that, whatever folk have need of.”

  “I see,” said my employer. He gestured toward the teapot, and Mulligan reached over and refilled his cup. After he’d taken a sip, Mr. Clemens asked, “And what exactly did Mr. McPhee have you make for him?”

  “Things to make sounds in the sittin’ room,” said Mulligan. “The main job was a set ’o bellpulls. One dragged a bit o’ chain across a tin plate so it’d rattle good and loud. Another was hooked to a mechanical hammer that knocked on a hollow block of wood. Another made the sound of bells. There was a hidden gramophone, too—one of those American music boxes—that played a fiddle or an accordion. Then he had me cut a peephole through the wall, and hide it behind some pictures. And a few other things of the like. Nothin’ fancy—’twasn’t near as tricky as some jobs I’ve done. And then, when he found out I needed a little steady cash after, he kept me on in odd jobs, watc
hin’ the door when folk were arrivin’, and such.”

  “So, you weren’t doing anything actually illegal—is that right?” asked Mr. Clemens, leaning forward.

  “Not a bit, unless there’s a law against bein’ good with your hands.”

  “Then why’d you run when you saw the police?”

  “Sure, and wouldn’t I run from a mad dog when I saw it comin’?” said Mulligan. “I’d gone out to take the edge off me thirst, and when I returned, first thing me eyes lit on was that big bobby. I knew right then it was no place for Terry Mulligan to be, and so I put my legs to work. Next day, when I learned a man’d been shot there, I knew ’twas the right thing I’d done. You don’t look like a fellow who’s had aught to do with the police, but any Irishman’ll tell you tales enough.”

  “So would any Chinaman in California,” said Mr. Clemens, nodding. “I guess I don’t blame you for skipping out, but I wish you hadn’t, because that complicated everything. For starters, it gave McPhee a few nights in jail that he didn’t deserve.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Or maybe he did deserve ’em for some of the other stuff he’s done. But never mind that. It’s the shooting we’re worried about today. You were standing by the door as everybody came in that night. Was anybody carrying something suspicious?”

  “Oh, they had all sorts of things along,” said Mulligan. “Mr. McPhee told me folk’d be bringin’ the odd bundle to the sittin’s, and so they did, every single night. But ’twasn’t my charge to inspect ’em, and I didn’t.”

  “When you were doing your work in that place, did you see any sign of a hiding place—something big enough to hold a gun, set up so somebody could get it quickly and then hide it again?”

  “Not a bit,” said Mulligan. “If there was aught of the sort, ’twas someone else put it there, not Terry Mulligan.”

  “Nothing in the walls? Nothing in the furniture?”

  “Why, there could have been most anything in the furniture, for ’twas all borrowed,” said Mulligan. “That Mr. McPhee and his little lady hired the place empty, with not a stick in it. Saved a pretty penny, they said. Then the young lady went ’round to all their posh friends, that baronet and Mr. Villiers—I did some work for him, once or twice—and a lot more, and got the loan of everything—carpets and chairs and beds and lace curtains and teacups and paintings for the walls. I never saw the like—she has the gift o’ blarney, same as her husband. But if there was a hidin’ place in anything, I never got wind of it, and I helped carry the most of it upstairs.”

  “So much for that angle,” I said. “Another door slammed in our face.”

  “I think not,” Mr. Clemens said. “If Ed and Martha borrowed all their furniture, there might have been a hidey-hole in almost any piece of it. The killer could lend it to them, wait until he knew the doctor was coming to the séance, then bring along a gun, knowing he’d have a place to hide it after the shooting. If we can find a hiding place, we’d know that the person who lent that piece is the killer. That’s assuming there is a hiding place.”

  “The police searched very thoroughly,” I reminded him. “Remember Sergeant Coleman looking under the chairs? We did our own search, and didn’t find anything. I have a question for Mr. Mulligan, though. You say you did some work for Mr. Villiers—what kind of thing did you do for him?”

  “Funny thing you should ask,” said Mulligan. “I just now remembered, it was just the kind of thing your boss was askin’ about—furniture and the like with secret hidin’ places. I made that cane of his—’tis all hollow, with a glass phial inside—he never said what he meant to keep in there, and I thought better than to ask. Anyhow, you’d never fit a gun into that.”

  “What about the furniture he loaned? Were any of your pieces among it?”

  “Nay, I’d have remembered that,” said Mulligan. “ ’Twas all just plain wooden chairs, and a little wooden side table, nothing at all fancy.”

  “Well, there’s some food for thought, at least,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t know what it means yet, Wentworth. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder. But I know there’s an answer to be found somehow, and I’m going to find it.”

  “I hope you do,” said Mulligan, standing up and picking up his cap. “Because until this case is wrapped up, I’ll have to dodge every time I see a bobby, and that’s no picnic. So the sooner the better, says I. And if there’s aught I can help with, you let me know.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Mr. Clemens. “Tell Wentworth how to get a message to you, and you’ll hear from us if we need your help.” He shook hands again with Mulligan, and I showed the Irishman out the back way again. But I thought to myself that I had never seen Mr. Clemens so discouraged.

  24

  Next morning I was up early, but not before Mr. Clemens, who had gone out to use the telephone yet again. He stuck his head into the dining room, where I was just finishing my toast and marmalade with tea, and said, “Hurry up and finish your breakfast, Wentworth, we’ve got more work today.”

  “I’ll be up to the office directly I finish this,” I said, waving the last half slice of toast.

  “No, this isn’t inside work,” he said, walking into the room. He was still wearing his overcoat. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Milton Ashe—Parkhurst’s junior partner, and from what he said on the phone, he’s got a mouthful to talk about with us. I want to go see him before the patients start lining up in his waiting room so he can give us the whole story with no interruptions.”

  I put down the toast, unfinished, and pushed back my seat. “In that case, let’s not tarry.” I had no idea what Dr. Ashe had told him over the phone, but it had clearly recharged his enthusiasm for the murder investigation. He was champing at the bit, and it would take a braver man than I—or a far more foolish one—to try to hold him back.

  • • •

  Dr. Parkhurst’s surgery was located on Thomas Street not far from Guy’s Hospital, where he had taught in the medical school. This was a good distance from Chelsea, but Mr. Clemens’s driver took us there by a quick route along the Thames. We crossed the river at Westminster Bridge, and cut through the Borough to our destination. Mr. Clemens was in a reflective mood, and I took the opportunity to watch the river traffic, which was as varied as that of the Hudson or Mississippi—though here the boats were mostly smaller, and the city was much more built up on both banks than along either of those great American rivers.

  Our destination turned out to be a modern building that housed the offices of several physicians. The rooms occupied by the late Dr. Parkhurst and Dr. Ashe took up a corner suite on the first floor. From the paneling in the entryway and the tasteful rows of framed engravings along the hallways, the building had more the air of a first-class hotel than of a medical office—certainly in comparison to the rooms of the family doctor I had gone to in New London. I wondered whether Dr. Ashe would be able to retain enough of his senior partner’s patients to maintain himself in such lavish style. But the waiting room was already beginning to fill up, and (to judge by their dress) charity patients were in the distinct minority. Perhaps Dr. Ashe would be able to keep up the rent, after all.

  A stem-faced woman in a plain but well-tailored dress sat behind a desk guarding the entryway; I judged her to be just the other side of thirty years old. She looked up with a mixture of annoyance and pity as we entered, but when my employer announced himself, she nodded and said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Clemens, the doctor said to show you right in. This way, please.”

  One well-padded man with a fringe of white hair around the pink globe of his balding cranium gave us a scathing look as she whisked us past him. I wondered how long he had been waiting for the doctor. In fact, with this many patients to attend to, I wondered how long it would be before the doctor could spare any time for us.

  This part of the suite had evidently been Dr. Parkhurst’s personal office, for his framed diplomas (from Cambridge and Edinburgh) were still on the wall behind the desk—itself an impressive expanse of dark polished
wood, with only a few tidily arranged piles of paper atop it. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase full of medical tomes filled the wall to our left, while a pair of windows, giving a view of the hospital itself, occupied the right wall. There was a faint whiff of carbolic acid, and some other chemical odor I could not identify. Mr. Clemens and I sank into two overstuffed, leather-covered chairs, and waited for the doctor.

  I was just beginning to wish for something to read when the door opened and in walked a short middle-aged man. His face bore a few wrinkles, and his dark brown beard had begun to collect a few silver hairs. His complexion was sallow and his features somewhat coarse, and his shoes needed shining. But his eyes were a warm brown, and his smile as he saw my employer was the genuine article. “I never thought I would find Mark Twain sitting in my office,” he said, shaking hands with both of us. “I gather you’re not here on account of your health.” His hands were long and thin, as I would expect a surgeon’s to be, and there was an unmistakable strength in his grip.

  “That’s right, Dr. Ashe. I told you on the phone we wanted to see you about some unusual business,” said Mr. Clemens after we had resumed our seats. The doctor had taken his place behind the big desk, and sat with his fingers steepled in front of his lips.

  “You are investigating my partner’s murder,” said Dr. Ashe, his face a blank page. “Naturally, I have a strong interest in seeing justice served. But perhaps you will pardon my asking just how my answering your questions will advance the cause of justice in this particular matter.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, maybe it won’t,” said Mr. Clemens. “The police have a fellow in jail already, and they think he’s going to tell them the answers they want. Except he hasn’t yapped, so far. Anyways, the suspect’s wife asked me to find out the truth, and I reckon I can at least try.”