The Body in the Box Room

by L. A. Nisula

“To number 26, around the side. I assumed they were going to meet one of the maids.”

  I’d been hoping for number 24. “You’re probably right. It doesn’t really sound related. But I suppose I should look into it. Thank you for your help.”

  “Come any time. We don’t have many customers in the afternoon.”

  As I left the shop I saw Mrs. Parker and Martha trying to press the bandages to Samuel’s nose while he kept jabbering on about something I couldn’t hear and pointing at the tree hanging over the edge of the nearby garden wall. I crossed the street before I reached them and located number 26. It was next door to Mrs. Fetherton and built along the same lines. There was a path leading along the side away from Mrs. Fetherton’s, which seemed to be what Mrs. Perkins had described. I wondered if it was worth exploring and took my watch out of my pocket to check the time. Kate had agreed to meet me in six minutes, hardly long enough for a proper search of the area. The window was a far more promising lead anyway. I’d have to come back to the path later if nothing else presented itself.

  When I arrived at the place where I’d agreed to meet Kate, I saw a cab rounding the corner. I wasn’t surprised at all when Kate got out of it. I went to meet her as she paid the driver. “Let me guess, came early to look for witnesses.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And did you find any?”

  “Not really.” I described my activities so far as we walked to number 24 in case she had any suggestions.

  “Seems there’s quite a bit of activity on this street, but not much that will help Milly. Is there anything I should know about your potential aunt-in-law?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “As bad as that, hmm?”

  “That’s right, you haven’t met Randall. Mrs. Fetherton isn’t particularly inclined to be helpful. I think she’s worried the police will focus on Randall if they don’t have someone else to keep them busy.”

  “Do you think it’s him?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. He’s not very bright, but sometimes the dim ones have all the luck. The problem is, how did Miss Hayes get into the house when everyone was supposed to be out?”

  “I thought you said hers were the only footprints in the yard?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I would have thought the problem was how did her killer?”

  I stared at her. “That’s a good question. But I’m not sure how I can explore it without Mrs. Fetherton letting me look around.”

  Kate shrugged. “We’ll see what we can find on the window first. Maybe she’ll be so grateful that it’s fixed that she’ll give you the run of the house.”

  “Perhaps.” But I doubted it, and I was starting to think the neighbor’s path could be more important than I’d thought.

  Chapter 11

  NORA ANSWERED THE DOOR at number 24 quickly enough that I knew she’d been waiting for us. Mrs. Fetherton was hovering by the sitting room door. I could see her shadow against the hallway wall, even though she hurried away from the door as we entered so she was seated when Nora brought us in. I made the introductions.

  “It was very kind of you to come, Miss Ferris, but I’m not sure what you’ll find.”

  “Neither am I, that’s why I’m looking. Besides, I would hate for you to have a compromised lock on your ground floor. You’d be amazed how often people ignore one after they’ve been robbed, then the thieves return to steal all the lovely new things they bought to replace the old stolen ones.”

  “But nothing was stolen here,” Mrs. Fetherton pointed out.

  “All the more reason for them to return and complete their mission.”

  I concentrated on keeping my expression neutral. Kate was doing a very good job of making her presence sound essential, and just about any homeowner would be begging her to check their locks about now.

  Mrs. Fetherton still didn’t seem convinced, but she led us to the box room.

  “That’s the window.” I pointed the correct one out to Kate. “She was found under the desk.”

  Kate took her tools and crossed the room, careful not to disturb anything around the desk even though it seemed the police were done with it. I went to the far side of the desk in case Kate had any questions. I had hoped Mrs. Fetherton would leave Kate to work in peace—and me to investigate in peace—but she stayed in the doorway watching us. I was tempted to tell her that I could assist Kate and she didn’t need to stay, but that seemed too obviously a ploy to get rid of her, and I did hope to stay on her good side, so I kept silent.

  Kate examined the wooden parts of the window just as I had, looking for any sign of someone forcing their way past, then she turned her attention to the mechanism. She climbed out the window and reached around to toggle the lock on and off, then had me do the same while she watched from outside with the window part-way open and then again with it closed. She tried to jimmy it from the outside with a variety of files and picks, then motioned for me to open the window and climbed back in. Things became very dull when she started going over the mechanism gear by gear, removing each, studying it, then putting it back.

  While Kate worked, I wandered around the room, trying to figure out what Miss Hayes had been doing there. Mrs. Fetherton continued to watch from the doorway. I had the feeling she didn’t appreciate me looking around, and there didn’t seem to be anything to see among the covered furniture and stacked pictures. I did notice the bloody cloth was gone, but that was hardly surprising; Inspector Wainwright would want to examine it carefully. I looked at the other items I’d noticed that night. “Oh, you got the safes open?”

  Mrs. Fetherton nodded. “You were right about Inspector Wainwright; he would have preferred I wait for him, but I found the combinations last night written on some scraps of paper upstairs, and I wasn’t certain if they were for these or something in my husband’s old office in the city, so I just tried them. They were filled with old business papers, just as I thought. I sent Nora to Scotland Yard with them this morning in case he wanted to see them. I have no use for them.”

  I was tempted to lean over and have a look in case there was something she’d missed inside one of the safes, but Mrs. Fetherton never took her eyes off of me.

  Kate gave a little grunt of frustration and put last gear back in place. “Nothing. I see absolutely nothing in the system that could have been over-ridden, picked, shorted, or otherwise tampered with.”

  “So how could she have gotten through it?” Mrs. Fetherton asked.

  “Either she was cleverer than you two think, or she didn’t come in this way at all, or someone unlocked the window from the inside. Do any of those sound likely?”

  “This window is always kept locked,” Mrs. Fetherton replied. “I’m very careful, and Nora knows to keep all the ground-floor windows locked at all times unless someone is in the room. You cannot be too careful in the city.”

  Kate turned to me.

  I shook my head. “None of them sound likely to me either.”

  Kate shrugged. “That’s all I can think of, though. I can research it a bit and see if I come across something.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Fetherton said. “I do thank you for your assistance, though.”

  I recognized her tone as a “please leave now” suggestion. Apparently Kate did too. She started packing away her tools. “My pleasure. If you do find out how it was done, I’d love to know.”

  “Of course.” But Mrs. Fetherton didn’t sound like she would be inviting us back. When Kate had her tools packed away, Mrs. Fetherton held the box-room door open for us and followed us all the way to the front door.

  Back outside, Kate regarded the house from across the street. “I don’t see how it could be done, Cassie.”

  “Someone must have been home, then.”

  “You’re certain they couldn’t have left it open when they went out?”

  “They seem certain. One of them must have opened it, but none of them say they were at home.” I sighed. “I’ll have to look a
t alibis again, it seems.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

  “Well, if the lock wasn’t picked or over-ridden, then either one of them left it open, or was in the room and is lying about it, so that was helpful.” I felt I ought to offer Kate something in return for her help. “Would you like to get something to eat?”

  “Is this some attempt to get me to investigate the lair of a poisoner or something?”

  “Of course not, although now that you mention it, there is a tea room that’s connected to this case which I have been more or less ordered out of...” It really had not been my intention to drag Kate into alibi-breaking, but now that she had brought it up, it seemed like a good idea.

  Kate grinned. “Tea it is, then.”

  When we arrived at the Delphie, I looked through the window and saw the same maître d’ at his podium. Not that I had expected anything else. Kate leaned over my shoulder to have a look. “I’m going to guess that’s the one you’re avoiding?”

  “That is.”

  “It might not be that he doesn’t want you around; I think he looks at everyone like that. He hasn’t seen me before, though. Wait here, give me a few minutes to get a table, then come in, and we’ll quietly spy on the lot of them.”

  I didn’t have any better plans, so I nodded and watched as Kate went inside.

  I wandered to the end of the block in case the maître d’ spotted me through the window, and paced around until I thought I had given Kate enough time to get us a table, then went inside the shop. I wasn’t certain how I was going to get the maître d’ to show me to Kate’s table, but I didn’t need to. Kate had managed to secure a table that I could see from the entryway, so I waved to her to let everyone know I knew someone inside and went in without waiting to be shown the way. I was a bit surprised that the maître d’ made no move to stop me.

  As I sat across from Kate, I inclined my head in his direction. “I wonder if he doesn’t remember me.”

  Kate grinned. “When I asked for the table, I said I was waiting for a friend, and then I went on about how this friend had said it was such a charming place and we really had to have tea here and how absolutely right she was.”

  “I see. Flattery. It does seem to have been effective.”

  “It usually is.”

  The waitress who came to our table was a disappointment as far as I was concerned. Serious and reserved, she looked irritated when I asked, “A friend of mine sometimes dines here. Miss Smythe.”

  “Is this the same person the policeman was asking about? As I told him, we do not memorize the names of our guests. Were you ready to order?”

  “Tea and sandwiches, please.” That would give me time to observe the room and the option to order a sweet if I needed more.

  When our food arrived, Kate sipped her tea in silence, giving me time to scan the room. Almost every head in the place was grey. The few that seemed younger were all seated with older ladies, either paid companions or young relatives. Someone like Nora would definitely stand out here.

  “Would you like some more tea?”

  I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t realize it was a different girl leaning over my shoulder from the one who’d brought the tea until I’d already said, “I’m fine, thank you.”

  The new waitress ignored what I’d said and leaned over, pretending to pour. “You were asking about someone?”

  “That’s right. I’m looking for a friend of mine. She could be in trouble if I don’t find out where she was on Wednesday.” I thought I’d get more help if I gave the impression I was trying to protect Nora.

  “Don’t remember a Miss Smythe, but I don’t really see names.”

  I tried to think of any details that might help her remember. “She’s young, light brown hair. Probably wore a green coat. It would have been last Wednesday, but her employer pays for her to come here every Wednesday.”

  The waitress shook her head. “No, I’d remember a young woman alone here, especially if she was a regular. The last one was Miss Bridely. She came in every week to meet her aunt. She waited for her for two hours week before last. No one had had the courtesy to tell her the old woman had died. And then the woman left everything to some wastrel nephew in Leeds. Can you imagine?”

  “No gratitude at all,” I agreed. So Nora would have stood out if she’d been coming here as she said. So where had she really gone?

  The waitress refilled my cup properly and left.

  When she’d gone, Kate leaned across the table. “Well, it seems the reason you thought there was something odd about the story is that something was odd about it. It wasn’t true at all.”

  I nodded. “Now all I have to do is find out where she actually was.”

  ~*~*~

  When we’d finished our tea, I saw Kate off then got a cab of my own back to Rusham Street. I wanted to have a word with Nora. Now that I was fairly certain that she had not been at the Delphie Tea Room on that Wednesday or any other, the question was, where had she been? And I wanted to look into the combatants that had been there Wednesday afternoon. It was unlikely that they saw anything, but it seemed worth finding out who they were, if for no other reason than to officially eliminate them. Besides, it could give me a clue as to how the murderer got in. Perhaps the murderer was the one who let Miss Hayes in. That was something I hadn’t considered yet. Could she have known her killer? But that brought me back to Kate’s question—how did the murderer get in?

  Back on Rusham Street, I went to number 26 and found the path again. This time, I followed it until I came to the four stairs leading down to the kitchen door. When I knocked, the door was answered by a maid of about Nora’s age. “Mistress doesn’t give to charities at the door, ma’am.”

  She reminded me a bit of Milly, which meant she was the sort who would have gentlemen over when she wasn’t supposed to. I could see why that had been Mrs. Perkins’s first thought. If the men had been paying a call on the maids, it wouldn’t do to say I thought they might be mixed up in murder. “I’m not collecting. I was just wondering, you see, last week, there were two gentlemen in a cab, and there was a bit of an altercation, with blood spilled, and I wanted to be certain they were all right.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but there weren’t any gentlemen callers here last week.”

  “You’re certain? They came down the side of the house, towards the stairs here.”

  She shook her head. “We didn’t have any callers but tradesmen. When did it happen?”

  “Around two o’clock on Wednesday.”

  “The day they found the body next door?” she squealed. This time it was fear, not excitement, which made sense considering how close she was to the events.

  “That’s right. I’d have come to ask sooner, but when that happened...” I let my voice trail off to see what she would say.

  “I wouldn’t have come back here after that, except I live in so there’s really nowhere else to go. I was so scared. You don’t think whoever it was will come back for us, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. She didn’t live there, did she?”

  “The victim? No, she was the son’s young lady, or one of them. There were at least two. He had another one with him when he found the body. Maybe more that he didn’t bring around to the house.”

  “So he’d brought her there before?”

  “The one that was killed? Once or twice that I know of. But the gentlemen you saw, they definitely weren’t here that day. The mistress had several ladies over for tea and gossip, or the Improvement of Morals Society to hear them tell it. We wouldn’t have had time for callers.”

  “Then I wonder why they went along the side of the house.”

  “Maybe they were cutting through to get next door.”

  “Who lives there?” I nodded to the house beside the yard.

  “Not that house. It hasn’t been let in months. I meant Mrs. Fetherton’s. If you don’t go down these stairs, the yard goes around. It’s a bit of a squee
ze, but you can make it through to the other side behind the fence. Maybe it was her maid who had the caller.”

  A pair of secret gentlemen callers would be a reason for Nora to lie about where she was. “It very well could be. Do you mind if I have a look?”

  She shrugged as if she didn’t understand why I would want to. “If you like.”

  I thought it best not to tell her that that bit of information suggested the two men were involved in the murder somehow. “Thank you.”

  I went back up the stairs and followed the route. I didn’t try to press myself through the gap in the fence behind the house, but I could see that it was possible to do so. I went back to the street and up the other side of the house, the one that bordered on Mrs. Fetherton’s. There was another gap in the wall that someone could squeeze through and arrive at the end of the path to the kitchen door stairs. But had anyone used it?

  Yet another thing to check at number 24. I doubted they’d been calling on Mrs. Fetherton, and I didn’t particularly want to talk to Randall’s mother twice in one day, so I slipped around to the kitchen door and knocked. Nora opened it just enough to peer out, then apparently decided I was safe enough, as I was neither burglars nor the police, and opened it the rest of the way. “Good afternoon, Miss Pengear. Were you looking for the mistress?”

  “No, I don’t need to bother her. I just wanted to ask you a few things. First, did a couple of men call here the afternoon of the murder?”

  “I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. I wasn’t in, you see. I had tea at the Delphie Tea Room like I told you.”

  I decided to tackle one thing at a time. “Could they have been paying a call on Mrs. Fetherton?”

  “Oh no, she was out too. That’s her day for paying calls. That’s why I go out on Wednesdays; no one is in the house, so no one is inconvenienced.”

  I supposed it made sense in a way, and it had been too much to hope that she’d seen the men. I moved on to the real reason for my visit. “You said you were at the Delphie Tea Room all afternoon?”