‘Difficult to determine but they think it came off an official paper. Good quality paper, touch of something red that might have been a stamp or seal. So it could have been some document Norwhich obtained in an official office. Marriage licence, birth certificate.’
Alkmene blinked. ‘What could he have wanted with those?’
Dubois shrugged. ‘No idea. Did it come from among his own papers? Or did the killer bring it? Did he show it to him to prove a point?’
‘Oh.’ Alkmene brightened. ‘Could it have been a will?’
Dubois nodded. ‘Could be. How come?’
‘Didn’t this niece of his, the American actress, turn up here fairly recently? She told me she had been here for a few weeks only. Maybe Norwhich changed the will in her favour. And maybe the original beneficiary wasn’t too happy with that. Because Norwhich never had any children, his original heir must have been some other relative.’
Dubois nodded. ‘We should look closely at Norwhich’s family relations and dispositions. The constable told me who Norwhich’s lawyer was. One Pemboldt. I wrote down the address. It’s just off Brook Street. Haven’t had time to look him up yet of course.’
Dubois lifted the frying pan off the stove and carried it to the table. He wanted to put it down, but Alkmene snapped, ‘Wait! That will ruin the wood of the surface. You need to put something underneath.’
She looked around her and fetched a metal tray that stood against the wall.
‘My landlady would be grateful for your efforts,’ Dubois said cynically, ‘but as you can see, not much can ruin this table any more.’
‘Still there is no point in making more marks on it,’ Alkmene insisted. ‘I suppose the wine has breathed enough now. Care to pour?’ She held out her cleaned glass to him.
Dubois picked up the bottle and poured just an inch. He also put the same amount in his own dusty glass, then put the bottle down.
Alkmene lifted the glass to her nose. She carefully sniffed, then let the wine waltz through the glass.
Dubois smiled at her. ‘You know how to drink wine.’
‘My father has such precious bottles that it would be a crime to just gulp them down.’
At the word precious his face set again, like he was reminded of something hard. He clenched the stem of the glass.
Alkmene took another sip. ‘Very nice. Fruity.’
‘I know it should probably have been white wine with this fish. Red is for pork, beef and venison. But I don’t own a cellar full of it like your father probably does.’
‘My father is a few thousand miles away.’ Alkmene lifted her glass and smiled at Dubois. ‘Prosit!’
He held her gaze a few moments, then his features relaxed. Leaning over, he touched his glass to hers and said, ‘Prosit!’
The wine gave everything this nice rosy glow, or was it the delicious fish that graced her plate with some potatoes and green beans with sauce?
Alkmene ate her fill, listening closely to the further details Dubois gave of his talk with the constable. The police were still treating it as an accident, but one of the neighbours had also testified to them that someone had come to see the master that night. He had not seen more than a shadow slipping to the door.
‘He obviously told them even less than he told me,’ Dubois said. ‘Doesn’t want to get called at the inquest, I bet. Doesn’t want to take the day off from work. Or just hates his name being mentioned in anything messy.’
Alkmene nodded thoughtfully. ‘But if the bundled up man who came to the house that night is the killer, why is he visiting Evelyn Steinbeck at her hotel? Did he act under her orders? Did she have her uncle killed in her absence, so she’d have an ironclad alibi? For the inheritance, the art collection?’
‘They were taking an awful risk if they played it that way,’ Dubois said. ‘If the police had cried foul play, she would have been the first and most likely suspect. After all, she benefits directly from the death.’
‘Right. But she wasn’t there that night. Lots of witnesses saw her elsewhere. As long as her accomplice is not caught and confesses, nobody can blame her really.’
Dubois nodded again. ‘There is another possibility. What if the bundled up man was the old beneficiary of the will? Ms Steinbeck’s brother for instance. Maybe he was sole heir before Norwhich became enamoured with her charm and made it all over to her. If her brother killed him, maybe in an argument, giving him some kind of push so he fell, that would explain why he visited her at the hotel and why she is not keen on a police investigation. She is shielding him.’
‘Bravo,’ Alkmene said, ‘but all of this holds little water as long as we have no idea if Ms Steinbeck has a brother who might have benefited from the will before she turned up. Perhaps she was Norwhich’s beneficiary all along, but she simply never came here because she was building her career on Broadway. We could be looking in the wrong direction altogether. Just consider this. What if Norwhich was blackmailed as well? What if he was writing a cheque before he died and that’s how the ink got on his fingers? Did you ask the constable if any blackmail letters were found among his paperwork? Or if anybody knew he was under strain lately? You said when we first met that he was wary of strangers like one is of rabid dogs. Maybe he was afraid because he was being blackmailed.’
‘Now I have to say bravo.’ Picking up his wine glass, Dubois leaned back in his chair for a moment. ‘No, I did not ask the constable all that but I will as soon as I can. It is a very interesting point. Find the blackmailer, find the killer. Or at least the link to him.’
His dark eyes sparkled with an energetic light as he surveyed her. ‘How did you manage to keep Moustache away for so long?’
Alkmene shrugged. ‘Instead of making up a theft I invented a runaway pooch. I had him search inside a cellar for it. He got just a teeny bit of coal dust on his uniform.’
Dubois laughed. ‘I bet he enjoyed that little job. Must be your last name that makes people willing to crawl through the dirt, literally, to please you.’
Alkmene dropped her fork with a clatter. ‘I wish you would stop pestering me about my last name. I can no more change it than you can change yours.’
There was a charged silence, then Dubois said, ‘Fair enough.’
He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes suddenly dark.
Alkmene took her glass and emptied it, but this last draught of wine was a bit bitter.
Dubois said, ‘When the SS Athena sank, how many people were on board? Do you know?’
‘I have no idea. A few hundred I’d guess.’
‘More like two thousand. Now I have gone over the passenger lists and I have checked as far as I could how many people survived. Not just in general, but specified into groups. The first class passengers. Second class. Third class. Then crew. What do you think I found?’
Alkmene pursed her lips. ‘I have no idea. I do know crew members are supposed to stay on board longest so I suppose most of them perished.’
‘Correct. But how about passengers?’
Alkmene had a feeling where this was going. She put her empty glass down and faced him squarely. ‘If you and I had been on board, my chances for survival would have been far better than yours, assuming I would have travelled first class and you third.’
Dubois nodded. ‘About three times better. Now what does that say?’
Alkmene shrugged. ‘That people pay for better service when they take out a first class ticket and that they actually get it.’
‘It means,’ Dubois said with emphasis, ‘that one human life is worth more than another. Simply a matter of money. And it’s the same thing inside the police force. Crimes against people with money or title are handled with a lot more zeal and dedication than those among poor people. In a back alley you can simply stab someone in passing for a few coins and nobody will bother to find out who did it or punish the killer. But have a brooch stolen from someone like your friend the Russian countess and the whole police force is out and about looking for the thief.’
‘I thought she was your friend too.’ Alkmene stretched her legs. ‘Are you not being a bit hypocritical?’
Dubois sighed. ‘Maybe. But the numbers in the SS Athena case rattled me.’
Alkmene nodded. ‘I can understand that. I am still thinking about the little boy and… I hope his father didn’t beat him too badly for what I brought. I should have thought better about it. But I was just trying to help.’
Dubois held her gaze. His expression became somewhat softer as he said, ‘I was there late last night. The old man said he had turned the vegetables into a nice soup they could also share with a sickly neighbour. And the boy was playing with the horse. I think the cart got broken when his father kicked it, but it will be repaired.’
‘I just wish that father would vanish and never come home again. Then the boy could have peace.’
‘His grandfather would be all he has and the old man could die any day. What would he do then? Some of the orphanages are worse than living with a drunk father. No, he is well off still having a parent to care for him.’
‘Care?’ Alkmene echoed in disbelief. ‘You call that care?’
Dubois shook his head at her. ‘Why do you think he responded so violently? He is worried the vicar with his plan for children will take his son away from him. It is the constant fear of the single parent. My mother was just like that. Thinking: if I die, what will happen to Jake?’
So his name was Jake. It was simple and strong and befitted him.
Alkmene moved her glass over the table. ‘My mother died when I was just four years old. I don’t remember much of her, but that she sat on her tabouret at her dressing table and did her hair before leaving for some party. It flowed down her back all golden, and my father brushed it.’
Alkmene fell silent, remembering the tender intimacy of that scene. Her parents had loved each other in a quiet, but intense way. Maybe that was the reason her father had never remarried, even though family and friends had advised it, not just for the sake of ‘the child’ as they had called Alkmene, but also to ensure he would get a son, an heir for all of his property and name.
But he had not wanted to replace the love of his life.
‘I guess you are lucky that you had your mother much longer,’ Alkmene said slowly.
Dubois huffed. ‘It is easy to think you are lucky when you have a little more than another.’
Alkmene winced. It seemed that whatever she said to Dubois, to show him she understood, or at least tried to, it was always the wrong thing.
After a silence Dubois added, ‘I am glad she is no longer alive, because she would constantly worry about me. Now I am free to do whatever I want. To risk my life in whatever way I want to.’
Alkmene had often met men who talked like that, risking their necks horse riding, polo playing, even experimenting with light planes. They needed danger to feel alive.
Perhaps deep inside of her she understood that feeling, better than Dubois or anybody else would ever guess. So often when she sat at home reading about strange events in times of old, she had wished she could have been there to help solve them. She had been amazed at how easily people had gotten away with murder, simply because nobody had asked the extra question or two.
Now Silas Norwhich’s death had given her a perfect opportunity to ask all the questions she wanted. And with Dubois’s help she might actually have a chance of proving someone guilty.
But this was real life. Not a book.
If someone was guilty here, and they proved it, he or she would end up on the gallows for it.
Someone would die because they had refused to leave the case alone. The police seemed eager enough to write it off as an accident and be done with it. What right did they have to be poking into it? A mistreated party had not asked them. They could not even know if Silas Norwhich would have been glad to see his death avenged. If he had loved his niece and she turned out to be involved, would he have wanted her to be executed?
‘Hey… What are you thinking about now?’
She looked up at Dubois, realizing he was studying her with a frown. He had told her before it was not a game and as they progressed, she began to see what he had meant. This was a matter of life and death. Something stark black and white, while she had an unsettling feeling that nothing in this case was black and white, clear and obvious. They were not even sure Silas Norwhich had been coldly murdered. His fall and subsequent death could have been unplanned, unwanted, by the person who had been present as it happened. He or she might have fled in panic, not out of guilt. How to untangle the whole web?
Dubois was still watching her, waiting for an answer.
She tried to smile. Forcing herself to sound light and unconcerned, she lifted her glass. ‘Shall we finish off the bottle? It sours when it’s left too long.’
Chapter Eleven
Still pensive, Alkmene approached the men’s wear store to get the old-new handkerchief for Dubois. He had told her as they parted that he was meeting Silas Norwhich’s manservant for dinner later that day, to get all the details about the room in which he was found. ‘If he has anything special, I might call upon you tonight, so you’d better have my handkerchief ready and waiting for me.’
The clerk who had taken the assignment from her the other day was there and waved her into the back room at once. He spread a handkerchief on the table for her, gesturing over it with his hand. ‘It is the same quality, material, colour. This should do very well.’
Alkmene demanded the specimen she had left him to make a close examination of similarities and differences, but the clerk claimed to have thrown it out with the trash. ‘I can assure you this was the best I could do.’
Alkmene hoped his best would be good enough and left, having paid for the new-old handkerchief in cash so it would not pop up on her father’s bill. He was so chaotic that he might not notice, but just in case he did, she didn’t want to answer any difficult questions about it.
She believed Jake was right in saying she should not hand over the money demanded in the blackmail note, but that meant the blackmailer might make good on his threat to inform her father of her alliance with a convict. She could hardly explain to him that the purchases ending up on his bill were for said convict. He might think she had gone mad and sign her over to an asylum before he left on his next botanical expedition.
Actually, merely hiring a chaperon for her would be bad enough.
She needed her freedom to move around.
Once home, Alkmene gave the handkerchief a critical perusal and decided it looked too new, so she crinkled it and put it under a pillow, then sat on the pillow for an hour or so reading in a French novel so she could surprise Dubois with a casual conversational phrase here and there.
Satisfied with the handkerchief’s appearance now, she moved to the theme of scent and sniffed it critically. It was too new still.
She used some of the lavender drops she poured on her pillow on occasion to sleep better to create a flowery scent that a man might mistake for soap. After all, despite all his criticism of her, Dubois didn’t launder himself either, so what did he know?
At last she put the handkerchief in some brown paper and put it ready to present to him should he appear after his meeting with Norwhich’s manservant.
She had some dinner, Cook’s leek soup, followed by mutton in cream sauce with rosemary-covered baked potatoes. She took dessert, blanched pear with whipped cream, into the living room and got out On Rigor Mortis, to find out what it meant that the dead man’s fingers had been so stiff when the police surgeon arrived that he had to break them to get the bit of paper out.
The treatise was very long and dry and not at all conclusive about hours and times of death, and instead of making copious notes that would prove vital to their quest, she just had three lines scribbled in pencil, when the butler opened the door and announced, ‘A guest for you, Lady Alkmene. He has no calling card and… Hey, wait a moment, sir.’
He was pushed aside by someone who whoo
shed in with the freshness of summer rain.
Indeed Jake Dubois’s dark hair was wet, and drops glistened on his suntanned skin. He raced to her and stood in front of her chair, gesturing widely as he called, ‘I know what the dead man was holding in his hand. What it was that got snatched away from him by the killer. Now we can be sure Evelyn Steinbeck is at the heart of it all.’
Alkmene snapped On Rigor Mortis shut and asked, ‘So?’
Jake glanced at the butler, who was still standing at the door, opening and shutting his mouth like a fish out of water.
‘You can go now, Brookes. Please close the door,’ Alkmene said quietly and put the volume on the side table. She patted the pillow beside her. ‘Sit down.’
Jake gestured. ‘I am soaking wet; I had better stand.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She rose and walked over to the fireplace. ‘Here, you can sit on this stool. The fire will get you warmed and dried up in no time.’
Jake followed her and sat down. Still standing she was now towering over him. He extended his hands to the fire and smiled as he felt the heat. Waiting for him to speak, she straightened her father’s collection of marble elephants on the mantelpiece. He usually brought one from every trip to the east, and had gathered quite a herd of them.
At last, as Jake kept silent, she prompted, ‘What did Norwhich have in his hand?’
‘A birth certificate. I have looked at several, and that bit of paper definitely came from one of them.’
‘Whose birth certificate?’
‘No idea. But what if Evelyn Steinbeck wasn’t his niece? Or she wasn’t even Evelyn Steinbeck, but someone pretending to be her? I mean, an actress could play any part. I think we have to interview her as soon as we can to find out who she really is.’
‘As if she is going to tell us.’ Alkmene blew a strand of hair from her face. ‘By the way, I have your handkerchief for you – like you asked.’
She left the room to go get it. She was a bit nervous about her deception succeeding, so decided to get it over with as soon as possible.
As she came back into the room, Jake was stirring up the fire, sending sparks dancing into the chimney. He really had to be cold. She had not even noticed it had begun to rain. The house’s walls were so thick they kept out any sounds of the street.
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