by L. A. Nisula
Mr. Reginald Hilliard was found murdered yesterday evening in his lodgings in Portland Road. Scotland Yard was called to the scene but left with no more information than when they started, saying only “No comment” when asked what they found. Anyone with information is asked to contact this journal so we can direct you to the proper channels.
I noted they did not tell people with information to contact the police. “Not one of the better newspapers, I take it.”
“Oh, I find lots of my clippings in it. They have lots of pictures. But I don’t actually believe more than a third of what they write. The picture attached is of the building. You can borrow it if you like.”
The was indeed a picture attached, an engraving, but it seemed clear enough to identify the building. “Thank you.” I tucked the picture into my pocket. It was already too dark to go looking for a building in a strange neighborhood, and it was clear that it wasn’t his townhouse in Bloomsbury, but first thing in the morning, I was going to Portland Road.
The next morning, I slept in, hoping to avoid Mrs. Fitzpatrick by being late. It worked much better than being early had, and I got out of the building and to the Underground without having to make up any excuses. I found the building from the clipping without any trouble, located near the Underground station in the middle of a street of nearly identical buildings. It was almost conspicuous in its unassumingness. There was no sign of a police presence out front, which was a good thing for me, as it meant I wouldn’t have to explain myself to them.
There were three steps up to the front door and a very modern set of pneumatic tubes out front, each labeled with the flat it would deliver a visitor’s calling card to. Mr. Hilliard had been renting flat C. B listed himself as a T. Amble, Esquire and therefore was unlikely to help me. D was a Mr. J. Smith, so clearly fake and of no help either. A was a Mrs. Branston. She was probably the landlady. The only question was whether she was the kind who would protect her lodgers’ privacy at all costs, or the sort who was starved for company and would natter away to anyone over a cuppa? I’d have to take a chance.
I took a calling card out of my case and slipped it into the little brass cylinder in tube A. When I pushed the button, I could hear the magnets engage and the rush of steam as it propelled the cylinder to flat A. I leaned against the stair railing and waited for a reply. While I waited, I scanned the street. It was quiet, no cabs, no pedestrians, not even a postman. No one who might have seen Milly or the murderer. It was a good place to hide, I just didn’t know what.
And then I heard the click of the cylinder returning and the bell ring. I opened the tube and the cylinder and found the latchkey. So she would see me.
Mrs. Branston’s flat was at the back of a short entryway almost entirely filled by the staircase. She was waiting for me at the door to it. I wondered why she had bothered to send the key at all.
“If you’re here about flat C, I can’t let it until the police are finished with it.”
If she thought I was a potential tenant that she couldn’t accommodate and still let me in, she most likely fell into the lonely category of landlady.
“I did come about flat C, but not to rent it. Milly Prynne is my cousin.”
She looked me over. “Well, you’d better come in, then. Have some tea.” She turned and I saw the cane in her hand. She leaned heavily on it as she went back inside.
The apartment was compact, more of a bedsit than a full apartment. I put the latchkey on the table by the door and took the seat by the fire she indicated.
“I suppose you’re going to ask to see the flat where it happened.”
I hadn’t imagined it would be that easy. “Could I?”
“Police have it blocked off. Couldn’t show it to you if I wanted to.”
“Oh.” I wracked my brain for something else. “Is there a guard?”
“You are a clever one, aren’t you? No, no guard, but they’ve nailed tape over the door, so you could only look in, not enter.”
“Maybe that would be enough.”
“Drink your tea, and I’ll get you the key.”
As she seemed willing to talk, I tried a few questions. “Why did Mr. Hilliard rent here if he already had a house in town?”
Mrs. Branston shrugged. “People pay my rates for discretion. Mr. Amble hides clients here when he has a delicate trial. I know that because he pays extra for me not to question how often the tenant changes. I am fairly certain Mr. Smith is having an affair, but I don’t know about Mr. Hilliard. My leg keeps me close to my flat, so I can’t watch their comings and goings like I used to. I just see that I get my rent on time.”
“How long has he had a room here?”
“Two years. Not every day of course, but rent always on time and in cash.”
“If not every day, how often?”
She shrugged. “I hear him upstairs more nights than not.”
“You can tell which flat?”
“B has carpeting. He paid to put it in himself. D has wood floors. C has wood too, but his has so much stuff on it, it sounds like metal.”
“That makes sense considering his business.”
“Which is?”
So she really didn’t know much about the tenants. “He runs a tinkering shop.”
“Interesting. Not what I was imagining, but then it never is. Drink up and I’ll get you the key.”
I swallowed the last of my tea. “What did you imagine?”
“Sabotage. Something big. Maybe an airship or the Underground system.”
“What would you have done if he had?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any interesting tidbits to help you out. Here’s the key. I won’t tell the police you were here, but if they ask, I won’t hide it.”
“So I won’t give them a reason to ask.” I took the key from her. “Thanks for the tea.”
Flat C was on the second floor, which I still thought of as the third. The police had put strips of tape over the door at angles known only to them. When I got close enough to inspect them, I could see Mrs. Branston had been wrong; the police had used magnetic locks to hold the tapes to the wall, not nails. With nails, there was always the chance to pull one out and get it back in place, but the magnetic tapes required the proper key to unlock them, so no chance of sneaking in around them. Still, I could risk a look inside if I was careful. I slid the key under the tape very gently so I wouldn’t disturb it just in case the locks had some way of knowing the tapes had been moved, then I reached over the tape and turned the knob. As the door swung open, I could smell the remains of the sort of cigarette smoke that never seems to go away,
The flat was another bedsit, one room with a sitting area, a sleeping area, and a dining area. Or there would have been if the entire place hadn’t been turned into a kind of workshop. The floor was strewn with gears and gadgets. There was an iron skeleton on the table, too long to be for a human automaton. The tea cart was covered with gears. The sofa table held several sets of tools. There didn’t seem to be any sort of closet or even a blind corner where someone could have hidden when Milly ran in. I leaned forward between the rows of tape, but I couldn’t see anything useful. I pushed back, feeling the tape scrape against my neck, but when I straightened, it all seemed intact and no alarms had been triggered. I reached for the doorknob to lock up again, but it had swung out of reach.
I leaned through the tape again, but I couldn’t get close enough to grab the knob. I looked around the hallway, but apart from a small table by the stairs for letters, there was nothing useful. I took off my shoe and reached through. On my third try, I managed to hook the knob with the back of the shoe and pull it close enough to grab it. As I switched from holding the shoe to holding the knob, I dropped the shoe. Clearly, breaking into crime scenes was far more complicated than the books would have you believe. Or I was simply ill-equipped for the task. I’d have to bring an umbrella the next time.
But that didn’t change the fact that my shoe was now sitting in a crime scene and was too far
away for me to grab. But it was close to the door. I pulled the door closed very slowly. It caught the shoe and dragged it along me. It pushed the shoe for a few inches, then the angle went wrong and my shoe slipped away around the edge of the door.
I extracted myself from the tape and flattened myself on the floor. I stretched as far as I could and managed to pull the shoe to me. I slithered out, then got the door closed. Quite a bit of effort for no real information. Mr. Hilliard had taken a flat for tinkering. Some kind of animal automaton, I thought. Although it seemed far too small to be an improvement on a mechanical horse. I wasn’t sure what else they would be used for, and it certainly didn’t look like anything the shop would sell. Still, I could go back and ask Miss Hopkins if that sounded in any way familiar. She might know what something like that could be used for.
It was only when I was putting my shoe back on that I noticed there was a button missing. I tried to tell myself that I could have lost it on the street or at the flat, anywhere but at a crime scene where I’d learned nothing.
As I made my way back to the staircase, I saw the mail sitting on the small table by the stairs. Since I was there, I thought I might as well be thorough. The letters were incoming, not outgoing. So someone brought the mail up. Not Mrs. Branston, with her cane, I thought. Perhaps a tenant. It would have to be Mr. Smith. Or a maid. There was probably some sort of maid to do the hallways at least. I flipped through the letters.
Three were from the shop. They were flat but stiff so I assumed they contained gears. One was a bill for coal delivery. The last was addressed to Beauregard Hilliard. No return address. So both brothers seemed to have a connection to the place.
I put the letters back where I had found them and brought the key down to the landlady.
“Did you find lots of things the police missed?”
“I’m afraid not, but thank you for letting me check.” I put the key down on the table. “What did you think of the brother?”
“Didn’t know there was a brother.”
“So he never visited here?”
‘No, I’d have known.”
I supposed he must have used the flat as a mail drop. “Thanks for your help.”
“You can see yourself out?” She tapped her leg with her cane.
“Certainly.”
Since the crime scene hadn’t given me any new ideas and my meeting with Jimmy from the accounting firm wasn’t for hours, I decided to try the tinkering shop again. Maybe something about the room would mean something to Miss Hopkins. It was worth a try.
When I got to Mayfair, the shop was slightly busier than the last time, meaning I could hear a customer or two moving around among the shelves. I wondered if they were the same shoplifting students from before. If they were, it seemed they weren’t Miss Hopkins’s problem. She was standing near the table of painted gears, rearranging the ribbons decorating the table, although I didn’t think they seemed to need much arranging. She looked over when she heard me open the door and smiled when she recognized me. “Can I help you?” I had the feeling that was both what she was told to say when a customer walked in and her attempt to start a conversation with me.
“I hope so,” I said for the benefit of anyone in the shop then went over to have a proper conversation with her. “I managed to get a look at some of the work Mr. Hilliard was doing. I was hoping you could tell me what it means.”
Miss Hopkins glanced towards the sales counter. “Let’s go out for lunch. We can talk privately.”
I followed her gaze and saw a woman about my age, wearing a green dress in the style that seemed to be the shop uniform, giving a pair of young men who seemed to be students a look that would have done the strictest schoolmarm proud. That seemed to confirm that they were the shoplifters from before, trying their luck for the second, and probably last, time. I suspected she was the manager Milly had mentioned. “You won’t get in trouble?”
“No, it’s time for my lunch anyway.” She joined the other woman at the cash register. “Miss Shepherd, I’m going to go and eat.”
Miss Shepherd never took her eyes off the students. “Very well. Be back in half an hour.”
“Right.” Miss Hopkins hit two buttons on the register. There was a whir of gears and the cash drawer popped out. I watched Miss Hopkins grab a few coins and close it up, with the manager still standing there.
“Come on, my treat.”
“I didn’t want you to have to take an advance on your pay. I can treat.”
“No, don’t bother. We’ll just call it petty cash.”
“And she won’t mind?”
“Miss Shepherd? Not at all. She’s the one that started keeping the petty cash in the register.”
“So you all just take money out when you need it? You don’t keep a log or anything?”
“No, not for that. Is that important?”
“No, no. I’m sure it’s fine. Where did you want to eat?” That seemed to distract her, but not me. If Miss Shepherd and the staff was taking petty cash out of the register, was that a reason for murder? Was someone taking something more than they ought to? Could it even be the reason the store was losing money? And did Mr. Hilliard know about it? If he did, when had he found out?
“Here we are.” Miss Hopkins had brought us to a pub on the corner. “The food is good here.”
I watched as Miss Hopkins went to the bar and ordered fish and chips for both of us then led me to a table near a window
“Do you like working at Mr. Hilliard’s shop?” I asked. That seemed an easy way to get her to start talking.
“It’s nice enough. I won’t be sad to leave when I do, but there isn’t much going on.”
“Paychecks are regular?”
“Like clockwork.”
“That’s good that he watched out for his employees.”
“He does. Did. He did. Well, he was a little forgetful, but if the pay packet wasn’t in the office, Miss Shepherd just took it out of the safe.”
“And Mr. Hilliard didn’t mind?”
She shrugged. “He probably didn’t notice. Miss Shepherd does the books, after all.”
I wondered if that would give her the chance to do anything worth killing Mr. Hilliard over.
Our food arrived just then, which seemed a good time to change the subject. When the waitress had left, I said, “It must have been quite a shock to find out he’d been murdered.”
“It was. There was no warning, no threats. At least nothing that I knew about. I suppose there could have been all sorts of things going on outside the shop. I mean, he wasn’t there all that often.”
That was as good an opening as I could have hoped for.
“Did anything odd happen before he was killed?”
“Nothing really. Unless you mean the gears.”
“The gears?”
“A packet of gears came back return to sender from his address in Portland Road. Mr. Hilliard said something like, ‘Well, that’s odd, but I’m sure Lennox will explain it tomorrow.”
“Did he say why it was odd?”
“No, only that it was.”
“Did you often send gears there?”
“I think so. He used to leave notes for what he wanted, and I’d package them up and post them. I supposed he didn’t want to carry them around.”
“Seems an odd thing to do when it’s just a couple of gears. Couldn’t he have put them in his pocket? Or address the envelopes himself? It would seem as much work as writing the note.”
Miss Hopkins shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he finds odd ways to be cheap. And the first time one of them came back, he was so annoyed with me. I was the one who had filled the order, you see, from the list he’d left me, exactly as he’d said to. And it was definitely the address he’d given me, although my handwriting might have been a little bit off. I suppose the postman might have thought the one was a seven.”
I wondered if the problem was her fault after all. “Did you still have the list to show him?”
“Of course. Miss Shepherd has us keep all of the orders like that at least until we’re paid for them, even when they’re his. He couldn’t argue when he saw the list. And then he told me not to fill any orders like that for him anymore. Isn’t that odd?”
Mr. Hilliard probably didn’t trust her handwriting. “It is, quite odd.” And then something about struck me as truly odd. “What was the address?”
“I don’t remember exactly, but it was on Portland Road.”
Probably the boarding-house address.
“So he was still sending the gears, just not having you fill the orders?”
“I suppose so.”
“So the manager was handling it?”
“Oh no, that last one wasn’t Miss Shepherd’s writing. I suppose he might have done it himself, although I don’t think it really looked like his writing either.”
“So someone else, then?”
I wondered how many other people there were in the shop who I hadn’t met.
“Not unless he had the charwoman do it. No, it must have been him. I suppose he could have had a bad pen or something.” She didn’t seem convinced that was true, but I didn’t get any better theories out of her before we finished our food either.
I spent the rest of the afternoon coming up with things I ought to look for in the files at Andsdale and Lennox. The list wasn’t very long, and it felt as if I ought to have done more to prepare for my chance at seeing the records, but I didn’t know what else there was to ask. Still, I managed to arrive at the door to the offices of Andsdale and Lennox only a few minutes after seven. Jimmy was standing in the window eating an apple in an obvious sort of way that made me wonder if eating apples was something they did often in the Sam the Shadow stories. As soon as he saw me, he hurried to the door and unlocked it. “I have the files all ready for you. I put them on Miss Cunningham’s desk, as it’s the most comfortable. I hope you don’t mind if I finish my work while you look at them?”
I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say to that, but I certainly didn’t want to disturb his real work and I knew he wanted to feel helpful, so I said, “Of course. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you some questions if I don’t understand what I find.”