by L. A. Nisula
“I was, and thank you for making it easier.”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Did she tell you anything that might help her case?”
I realized I probably should be glad he was trying to find a way to let her go, even with what he considered a strong case. “I really didn’t have time to ask her.”
Inspector Peterson looked like he was trying very hard not to be annoyed with me. “Then what did the two of you spend your time doing?”
I reminded myself that he had questioned Milly too. “Working up to getting to the point where I could ask her a few intelligent questions and get actual answers. That’s what we were in the middle of when we ran out of time and they came to take her away.”
Inspector Peterson smiled in a way that told me yes, he did remember what it was like to question Milly when she wasn’t in a mood to be cooperative. “I’ll try to arrange for another session. Was there anything useful from this one?”
That was the problem. I didn’t really know yet. I wondered if there was some way to use the question to help Milly even when I didn’t have any new information. A way to get some information instead. “The weapon. There seemed to be something about the murder weapon.”
“She remembered something about it?” Inspector Peterson looked ready to start taking notes again.
“Not exactly, but there was something wrong about it. It was on the floor under the body. She was quite sure of that. She didn’t pull it out.”
“Her prints were on it. And if she stabbed him with it, it’s only logical she’d lie about finding it.” I could tell Inspector Peterson was trying to be reasonable.
“So your theory is that she went there planning to murder him? Why? She wanted a job from him.” When Inspector Peterson didn’t say anything, I realized I was making sense to him, so I kept going. “If he attacked her in some way, or she lost her temper and stabbed him for no logical reason, where did the dagger come from? If she’d taken it from the room, there would be other fingerprints on it, his at least, not just hers. Unless she’d wiped it clean after she killed him, but then why would she have picked it up again and gotten her prints all over it again?” At the moment, I was considering Milly so foolish for having picked up the dagger to begin with, that I might have been willing to believe she’d do something that idiotic, but I wasn’t about to tell Inspector Peterson that. “And if the dagger had belonged to her, something she brought with her, her prints ought to be all over it, not just one set from when she picked it up.” I was rather proud of myself for that last bit of logic. I’d probably read it in a book somewhere, but it did seem to apply in this case.
“All right, our killer went to the trouble of pulling the dagger from the body, wiping away the prints, and then what? Forgot it when they heard your cousin coming?” He sounded as if he were really considering my logic, not just humoring me, which made me consider it more carefully than I might have otherwise. It seemed better if I were the one to point out the flaws in my theory rather than him.
“Milly was certain no one was in the room when she got there, so she didn’t scare the killer away.”
“Then why leave the dagger? You’re right back where you started.”
So far the best idea I had come up with was to hide something about the dagger. But why leave it behind? “You said ‘leave the dagger’ not ‘drop the dagger.’ What if that’s what they did?”
Inspector Peterson sat up. “Left the dagger on purpose, you mean? But why?”
“We’re back to why they pulled the dagger out, to begin with.” I stared at the wall behind Inspector Peterson. Why pull a weapon out of the victim to begin with? To wipe it for prints? All right, but then why not just wear gloves? Or why not bring it away with them? Why pull it out at all, that was the real question, I realized. “There was something about the murder weapon that would make it too easy to identify the killer.”
Inspector Peterson caught on at once. “You differentiated between the dagger and the murder weapon.”
“It makes sense. Why pull a weapon out of the body? To keep the police from seeing it. The murder weapon was distinctive so the killer pulled it out and took it with them, then left another weapon to confuse us. You. Confuse you.”
The last bit seemed to mollify him. “An interesting theory.”
“Are you sure the dagger was the weapon?”
“I was until five minutes ago.”
And that was progress. “What did the dagger she found look like? Could it have been used to distract you?”
Inspector Peterson reached under the desk and pulled out a small box. “Something like this.”
I took the box from him and looked inside.
“Don’t touch it.”
I had absolutely no desire to touch it, and not only because of the trouble Milly had gotten into from handling a murder weapon. “Don’t worry.”
The dagger was still covered in blood from tip to hilt. The hilt was also covered in black fingerprint powder, making the whole thing singularly unappealing. I moved to hand the box back, then resisted the urge to get it as far from me as I could and looked more closely. It wasn’t really a dagger. More of a letter opener. The hilt had been designed to look like it was covered in gears. Along the bottom of it, they were fully sculpted and poked down below the edge of the hilt, while on the hilt itself, where you would grab it to open letters, they had been carved in shallow relief, just enough to give the impression of gears while still letting someone hold it comfortably. I wasn’t sure how well it would work for opening letters, though, with the gears hanging down over the blade. I squinted down at the point. There did seem to be a great deal of blood there, but it still seemed wrong. “It seems awfully dull for stabbing someone.”
“I have been assured that it could do the job.”
“But how hard would she have had to push it in?”
Inspector Peterson took the box back from me. “I’ll ask. Now, if there isn’t anything else...”
But of course there were plenty of other questions. “Who else had motive?”
“Miss Pengear...”
“I’m sure Milly didn’t have any reason to kill him, and now that we’ve determined her prints on that letter opener,” best to avoid calling it a knife, or anything that made it sound like a weapon, “really have nothing to do with the murder...”
“Miss Pengear, I think it’s admirable that you want to help your cousin, but you are not an investigator.”
“The letter opener on the floor—”
“Was a very helpful observation, and I promise I will look into it, but this is my job, not yours.”
“I just wanted to know—”
“Who you should go and question? Again, not your job, and to be blunt, I prefer one dead body per case.”
“But my cousin—”
“I’d offer you a cup of tea, but what they consider tea here isn’t worth mentioning. I’ll show you the way out, unless you can find it on your own?”
So I’d overstayed my welcome. “I’ll manage.” I grabbed up my bag and left.
After asking two much more cooperative officers for directions, I made my way to the street. As soon as I stepped outside, I thought of several things I should have asked the inspector, starting with what store Mr. Hilliard owned. Milly had said she planned to ask him for a job. Maybe she told Mrs. Fitzpatrick where she was going, or had made some kind of note to herself. Both would be back at the Nell Lane apartment.
~ * ~ * ~
Mrs. Fitzpatrick wasn’t in the front hall when I got back to the apartment building, and apparently hadn’t been there for a while since I found the mail on the hall carpet. Six bills, two with red ink showing through the envelopes, all addressed to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and a handful of letters. I put the bills on the hall table and flipped through the letters. Most of the letters were for other tenants, but I did find one addressed to Milly in Aunt Lydia’s handwriting. I left the rest of the mail on the hall table and took Milly’s letter upstairs with m
e.
When I got to the apartment, I went straight to Milly’s desk to find a letter opener. Normally I wouldn’t have touched her letters, but if I brought it to the prison for her to open, the way she was feeling about her mother at the moment, I knew she would throw it right back at me, and I needed to see if Aunt Lydia knew anything about what was happening here.
The envelope contained another envelope, also in Aunt Lydia’s handwriting, with a large red slash through the address and the words “Return to Sender” in Milly’s hand. I opened that envelope and found another. And another in that. Five altogether. I sighed. So Milly hadn’t had real word from home in—how long, I wondered. I picked up the first letter and looked at the postmark. Sent last month. The next was a week later. Then six days after and five days after, and again a week. The most recent had been sent almost a week ago. No wonder Aunt Lydia wanted me to find out what was going on in London. I wondered when Milly had sent them back. Maybe it would give her an alibi.
I put the stack of envelopes on the desk and the letter opener back in the small cup Milly kept her pens in, which was near the desk calendar. I slid the calendar closer. I didn’t think Milly was the sort to keep a schedule, but maybe she still made notes to herself. There it was. September 6, Hilliard’s Sundries. That must be the victim’s shop. No address, but I could easily get that from a business directory, maybe even spring for a cab there instead of going on the Underground by myself. I did know it was in Mayfair, after all. It was the one bit of information Milly had given me, so I probably ought to use it.
In the end, I decided it was worth the expense of a cab rather than searching for a business directory—which Milly did not have in her flat—and then sorting out the trip on the Underground. The cab driver had no trouble finding the place and set me down quite near the door. The shop was on a fashionable street in Mayfair, with an understated sign out front and two large bow windows. Inside, it had the look of a place that hadn’t quite decided what it wanted to specialize in. There were large numbers of small gears in bins along one wall, another wall of tools, another that probably should have held bookshelves, only they were mostly empty. The middle of the shop had tables displaying a variety of boxed kits, but there didn’t seem to be any theme running through them. The overwhelming impression I had was of a shop that didn’t quite know what it wanted to sell yet.
The shop was also empty, except for the girl at the counter. She was quite a bit younger than I was, wearing a dark green dress that had the feeling of a uniform, and was flipping through some sort of magazine on the counter in front of her. Since she wasn’t paying any attention to me, I took the chance to look around the shop. Not that there was much to see. I was beginning to understand why Milly had thought this would be a good place for her to work. Very little actual knowledge of tinkering seemed to be required, and if the current shop girl was spending her time reading magazines, that seemed just the sort of position Milly would like. It also meant the girl at the counter would probably be more than willing to talk to me, I just had to figure out how to ask what I wanted to know.
I wandered through the shop, looking at the displays while I tried to figure out how to begin. It wasn’t the easiest way to kill time, as there weren’t many displays to look at. Once again I wondered if Mr. Hilliard was still trying to decide just what he wanted to sell in his shop. There was some sort of drilling machine that no one in Mayfair would need. What seemed to be a prototype for a climbing apparatus of some kind. Parts to make an airship engine for a very small airship. I stopped by one display, prominently in the center of the front shop, viewable from the door, with pink silk ribbons, a lavender tablecloth, and, of all things, gears painted in pastel colors.
“Hideous, isn’t it?”
I turned and saw the girl from the counter had come up behind me. Just as I’d thought, she seemed very bored and very eager to talk. “I can’t see any self-respecting tinkerer buying from that display. I would think the paint would chip right off when they started turning.”
“Not that any tinkerer could afford our prices. Not with what we have to charge to cover the rent.” If she was willing to talk, this was my best chance at a witness.
I didn’t think I had to be too careful with what I said, but I didn’t want to jump in too quickly either. “Are you interested in tinkering?”
“Not really, but they were looking for a shop-girl, and I needed the job. I’m getting married in a few weeks, and we need all the money we can get before that.”
It seemed a logical enough reason to have taken the job. “Do you like working here?”
“It’s fine. Not terribly taxing, which is nice. I was working in a tea shop before this, and it was always busy.”
That seemed enough small talk. I steered the conversation towards my actual interests. “Is the owner nice?”
“He was. He passed away recently. Murdered.”
“Oh my. Then he was the one I read about in the papers?”
“Probably. They say some woman did it. Can you believe that?”
I wondered if I should see if she remembered Milly applying for a job but decided I didn’t want her to know I had any sort of connection to it just yet. “So you didn’t think he was the sort to make enemies?”
“Oh no, Mr. Hilliard was a nice man and a very good boss. He never complained, never criticized. In fact, he really wasn’t around all that much. Not recently.”
“So he was busy at other stores?”
“No, I don’t think so. I thought this was the only one he owned.”
“He must have had some other projects, then.” I paused, hoping she might offer some suggestions.
“I never really paid attention. His brother inherited the family business. He sometimes stopped by to check on things, but I try to be busy with customers then.”
“Not as nice as this Mr. Hilliard?”
“Mr. Beauregard is a complainer. Nothing’s ever right. He’s even complained about the sign.”
“The sign? What’s wrong with it?”
She shrugged. “Probably nothing. He’s always telling Mr. Hilliard how to run the business. Do you think he’ll be in charge now? I hope not. Can you imagine?” She shuddered. “But he’s not all bad, I suppose. Just last month he gave my fiancé some investment advice. Hesport Ironworks. We made quite a nice bit of money on it, then Paul, that’s my fiancé, then Paul decided we ought to sell it so we could buy our house. We’re moving to Shropshire, you see, to be near his family’s pub. A pity we couldn’t have kept our money in longer, then maybe we could have bought a pub of our own, but the cottage came up for sale, and we really couldn’t wait. So I suppose I really shouldn’t be too upset at Mr. Beauregard. But still, I’m glad I’ll be gone before he takes over.
She didn’t seem to know much about Mr. Hilliard, and I couldn’t think of anything else to ask about, so I said, “I’ll let you get back to your customers.”
“No need to hurry off. There aren’t any, in case you hadn’t noticed. And there won’t be if the last few weeks are anything to go by.”
“What? No customers at all today? Is Wednesday a slow day for tinkerers?”
“No tinkerers live in this neighborhood. Do you think they could afford the prices here? It’s a bit like selling paints or political pamphlets. No one who does more than dabble can afford these prices.”
“And you have to charge these prices in order to afford this rent.”
“Exactly.”
I looked around the shop, “But it all looks so—so prosperous.”
“Mr. Hilliard believed in looking like you mean to be. Although to be honest, I think he was being overly optimistic. I haven’t had a paying customer all day. And yesterday was just two students from the alchemical college. One tried to steal some gears then insisted he just put them in his pocket to carry them to the register when I spotted him. Our one sale, stolen gears. How would that look to old Beauregard? There can’t be much profit in this.”
I smiled. “Ma
ybe he economizes at home.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You haven’t seen his house.”
It couldn’t be that easy. “Where does he live?”
“In Bloomsbury, near the church. Big yellow house, ridiculous color really. Well, I suppose you have better things to do. Stop by any time. Ask for Martha Hopkins if you want to chat.”
I thanked her and left the shop. At least I had one potential source of information, if only I knew what to ask her.
~ * ~ * ~
I got directions to the Underground from a newspaper seller and found it to be a bit of a walk, which gave me time to think. If Mr. Hilliard wasn’t making money on his shop, where was he getting it from? And who would know? A big yellow house near a church in Bloomsbury sounded easy enough to find. It was worth at least trying to locate it. And perhaps someone there would be willing to speak to me. Of course, it did seem odd. Milly had followed him to a boarding house, and she had thought that was his home. So why did he have a room in a boarding house if he also owned a large yellow house in Bloomsbury? Perhaps, if I found the house, I’d find some sort of answer. And questions were good. Questions were something that might point Inspector Peterson in a direction, any direction, so long as it was away from Milly.
The house proved easy enough to find. I took the Underground to Bloomsbury and found the nearest church, hoping it was the one Miss Hopkins meant, then found a messenger boy who seemed to work in the area and told him I’d lost the address for Mr. Hilliard, but I knew he lived in a big yellow house. That got me an address and directions and an offer to lead me there if I wanted, which I turned down as I didn’t want witnesses. From the look he gave me, I suspected I’d tipped him too generously and resolved to get the money properly sorted out as soon as I had Milly sorted. Surely, sorting out shillings and pence couldn’t be any harder than sorting out Milly.
Mr. Hilliard lived in the more fashionable part of Bloomsbury, not the artistic bit. My first reaction was to wonder how he could afford it if he was a shop owner, unless he had a private income. It was not the sort of place I could go to the front door and ask to have a chat with the missus, particularly as I didn’t think there was one. There was an iron railing and a set of stairs leading to the servants’ entrance. That seemed more promising. The kitchen door was answered by a young woman in a black dress. “Did the agency send you?”