by Evelyn James
“No, I agree with you,” Clara nodded. “My point was that people can take offence over things that they shouldn’t, and then that offence turns into festering hatred. But if you can’t think of anyone who fits that description, what about someone who feels deeply betrayed by Albion Industries?”
“You have asked me that before and I said I just didn’t know.”
“Please, think hard. Some small detail could be very important.”
Abigail obeyed and sat very still contemplating every rumour and word of gossip she had heard over the last few months, but nothing sprang to mind as being particularly sinister.
“Albion is very good to its employees,” she said at last.
They were once more at a dead end.
“Never mind,” Clara patted her hand reassuringly, “Maybe something will spring to mind.”
“Will they release me now?” Abigail asked pathetically. “I need to get back to work.”
“I’m sure…”
Clara was cut-off by the sound of the door opening and Inspector Park-Coombs appearing before them. His expression did not fill Clara with confidence.
“I wonder, Miss Sommers, if you might be able to explain how it is I found a knife in your room and some small pieces of what appear to be whalebone?”
“I…” Abigail looked from the inspector to Clara. “They are nothing to do with me!”
“We also found several tubes of used Pearl Pink lipstick and a small banner with the word ‘betrayal’ painted upon it.”
“Inspector, surely even to you such a large amount of ‘clues’ must seem suspicious!” Clara declared, though her stomach had lurched over at the thought that Abigail could be behind these crimes.
“They seem to me like the objects a person planning to undertake a campaign of terror against her employers would need,” Park-Coombs responded in his solemn tone. “The knife was necessary for opening the sealed boxes and removing packaging and, of course, for sharpening the whalebone stave. That was done hastily as a suitable message, plunging a corset strut into a corset salesman is very ironic.”
“But Abigail was talking to me when that happened!” Clara insisted.
“We can’t rule out an accomplice then,” Park-Coombs was not to be deterred.
“And the shavings on the floor? Surely any sensible person would clean them up?” Clara countered.
“They were in the crack between the floorboards, my boys almost missed them. They could have been missed when sweeping up in the evening.”
Abigail was watching this banter between the two with fresh tears streaming down her face. The case looked bleak.
“I did not bring a knife here,” she said, choking on her misery and fear. “I never stole a whalebone stave, nor carved it into a sharp point and I never made a banner.”
“That was under the bed,” Park-Coombs explained. “It was when my lads spotted that and bent down to pull it out that they also noted the shavings. The banner was very neatly folded. Where were you intending to hang it?”
“I was not intending anything! I never made a banner!” Abigail denied the allegations furiously.
“And what about the several purloined lipsticks? Worn down as if they had been used recently, perhaps to write a message on the floor of the Pavilion?”
“They are samples Inspector!” Abigail seemed about ready to scream at him, but was restraining her frustration. “They were used because I have been taking them about to my clients and letting them test the colour. The new shade is being launched this week, but that did not prevent me from securing early sales agreements for it. I am a sales representative, it is what I do!”
Abigail suddenly burst into tears, sobbing heartily.
“Someone wants to ruin me! Can’t you see?”
It seemed for the moment Park-Coombs could not see, or rather he could see plenty, but it all led in the wrong direction. There was nothing more Clara could do. Abigail would be detained and questioned further, her hotel room and belongings would be pulled to pieces and her private life exposed. The papers Niamh had found were now the least of her problems.
“Please, let me go,” Abigail begged.
The inspector shook his head.
“You’ll be staying here until this mess is resolved.”
The inspector took Abigail’s arm and gently led her from the room. She was to be escorted to the cells. Clara, feeling she had been of little help, wandered back to the front of the building and waited until the inspector reappeared.
“You realise she has been set-up?” Clara said to him.
“Maybe,” the inspector shrugged.
“It has to be Inspector! I shall continue my investigations and prove it!”
Park-Coombs merely shrugged at her.
“I have convicted people on a lot less,” he told her ominously.
Chapter Thirteen
Clara walked back to the Pavilion. It was late now, but the fair remained open until seven and most of the stall holders would be still there preparing for the next day. Clara hoped to catch Niamh and find out exactly what had happened between her and Abigail. She did not, for one moment, think Abigail was a killer. For a start, she would ruin her own career by acting out these peculiar acts of vengeance. In any case, why should Abigail feel betrayed when she was doing so well? No, someone was trying to implicate her and doing a good job of it, as far as the police were concerned. At least, Clara mused, while Abigail was in prison and appearing to take the blame, the murderer might cease their activities. For if another crime was committed Abigail would be immediately exonerated.
The lights were still on at the Pavilion. Clara wandered in with a nod to the police constable on duty outside. He looked tired and ready for his bed. The stall holders were tidying up after a long day, their displays needed restocking and neatening up. There was an alarming amount of discarded rubbish strewn across the floor – lost brochures, cigarette butts, sweet papers, empty product packaging and other assorted scraps of paper – which the regular Pavilion cleaner was endeavouring to tidy away. He glanced up at Clara as he went past with his broom pressed to the tiles.
“Miss Fitzgerald, have you seen this little lot?” he gestured with his hand to the debris.
“I know Mr Morris, it is disgraceful,” Clara sympathised. “I shall have words.”
“I wouldn’t be so shocked if it had been the day the general public was due in,” Mr Morris shook his head and scuffed his broom on the floor. “I could understand that. You get all sorts to a fair when its open free to the public. But today it was just those professional folk, all dressed smart and looking as though money falls out of their mouths. I thought they would have some manners. I guess not.”
Mr Morris tutted as he stared at the forlorn mess lying about the hall.
“And it is such random things! I found a set of dentures in the gentleman’s convenience. How anyone managed to walk away not realising they had lost those defies me!” Mr Morris’ eyes went wide as he voiced his amazement. “Then I found all these little things that looked like wood shavings in the Prince’s old bedroom which isn’t even supposed to be in use. I suppose some workman went in there for a crafty smoke! I could smell it.”
“I thought the prince’s bedroom had been locked for that very reason?” Clara said swiftly. The stately bedroom of old Prince George, who had built and stayed at the Pavilion, was one of the main features of the building and retained its original decoration and some ornate and very expensive pieces of furniture. It was only very rarely opened to the public, though it was available for pre-arranged private viewings. It had been agreed by the committee that the room would be locked during the trade fair to avoid anything in it being damaged.
“That’s what surprised me when I tried the door,” Mr Morris agreed. “You see, there was this pink smear on the handle and I went to clean it off and as I did so the handle went down and the door opened. I could smell someone had been smoking in there at once.”
“I think I ought
to take a look at this,” Clara said, other thoughts swept from her mind in the face of someone desecrating the prince’s bedroom.
Mr Morris led the way upstairs to the bedroom, which was off the same corridor where the impromptu dining room had been arranged. Mr Morris opened the bedroom door. There was still a hint of cigarette smoke lingering in the air and Mr Morris grumbled as he went to the window and opened it to allow in some fresh air.
“Thought I had aired it enough already, sorry Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Not a problem, Mr Morris,” Clara cast her eye about the room looking for any signs that someone had attempted to steal anything or had caused any damage. “Where is the key for this room?”
“Hanging on a hook in my broom closet,” Mr Morris answered. “I do apologise that my cupboard is not itself locked. I had not thought anyone would go prowling in there.”
“And there is no other key?”
“No. If you recall, the committee decided I should have charge of the key so I could come up and dust the room once a week. I fear they will want to remove it now,” Mr Morris looked glum, feeling he had failed in his duty.
“Mr Morris, I don’t consider you negligent in your duty,” Clara reassured him gently. “You were not to know someone would go into your cupboard and steal the key.”
Clara finished assessing the room.
“Nothing looks damaged, though these wood shavings you found are worrying. I hope no one was attempting some ‘improvements’ to the furniture,” Clara could not fathom why anyone would want to come into this room and start causing havoc, but people were peculiar and not always respectful of the property of others.
“The shavings were by the bed, strange things they were. Very white,” Mr Morris bent down and poked at the bed curtains that hung to the ground. “Here, look, I missed one.”
He stood up and showed Clara what he had just found. It was a white, roughly triangular shard and she instantly saw that it was not wood.
“That is whalebone Mr Morris,” she took the piece from him. “This is very interesting. Clearly someone has been very busy in the prince’s bedroom.”
“Shall I relock the room? The key is back on its hook in my cupboard. Someone decided to replace it but could not be bothered to lock the room door,” Mr Morris sighed at the inconsiderate nature of the intruder.
“Lock the door Mr Morris and take the key home with you. Then I shall know it is in safe hands.”
Touched by this act of faith, Mr Morris almost blushed and his earlier concerns that he had let the committee down evaporated. He promised he would do exactly as Clara said.
Clara returned downstairs deep in thought. It now looked very likely that the murderer had used the prince’s bedroom to hatch their plot. They had sat and smoked in the room, hiding in a place no one would consider looking, because the bedroom was off limits for everyone aside from committee members. And there they had carved the corset stave into a lethal weapon, before travelling a mere few steps down the corridor to the dining room and using it on the unfortunate Mr Forthclyde. This also went some way to vindicating Abigail. The whalebone weapon had been created at the Pavilion, not in her hotel room. There was one last clue, though perhaps not as helpful as it might first appear; Clara now knew her killer was a smoker, and a heavy one by the smell that had lingered in the bedroom. She just had to find a suspect that fitted that description.
Back in the main hall, the diversion put to the recesses of her mind, Clara went in search of Niamh. The raven-haired woman was in one of the furthest rooms, (once a princely drawing room) where she was giving a talk to the other Albion representatives. It seemed that with Abigail’s absence Niamh had neatly stepped into her place and had taken charge. Clara thought that all too convenient. She waited while Niamh finished her talk.
“…today was a good start ladies, but tomorrow I want to see more, I want sales, sales, sales! Especially of Pearl Pink. I saw some promising figures from your pre-orders, but we need to improve on that. If someone says they will take a dozen, sell them two dozen, that is our motto for tomorrow. Find out how many they want and then double it! We shall make this the most successful trade fair for Albion Industries there has ever been! Now, go back to your hotels and get some rest, tomorrow is another busy day.”
Niamh dismissed the other ladies and then turned around. She immediately saw Clara and the satisfied smile she had been wearing evaporated.
“Have you had a good day, Miss Owen?” Clara asked politely.
Niamh started to scowl, then restored her professional demeanour. She had learned since their last encounter that Clara was an old school friend of Abigail’s, and that instantly made her the enemy by association.
“It has been a fair start,” she said cautiously.
“I see you have taken charge of proceedings?”
Niamh lost some of her business-like façade at the statement. Clara reflected that she was a little too temperamental and did not control her emotions well enough. That probably went some way to explaining why Abigail was always ahead of her. Niamh would let her passions get the better of her in a negotiation, while Abigail was always professional.
“Someone had to step up after Miss Sommers unfortunate breakdown,” Niamh replied rather haughtily.
“Abigail broke down?” Clara said, feigning surprise. “I had not heard that. I heard you attempted to threaten her with those papers you were bragging about earlier.”
“Threaten!” Niamh put on a good appearance of being affronted. “There was nothing but truth in those papers! And Abigail attacked me!”
Niamh thumped a finger into her chest to emphasise her words. Her mask of calm had completely faltered, in her fury she had resorted to using first names.
“Are you satisfied your rival is in a police cell facing serious charges?” Clara asked stoutly.
“She is there through her own fault!”
“The way I hear it, Abigail tried to take the papers off you and you stumbled. You then chose to scream blue murder.”
Niamh’s eyes flashed with fiery anger.
“So, that is how it is?” she declared. “I’ll tell you this, Miss Fitzgerald, I did show those papers to Abigail and I told her I knew exactly how she had been cooking the books. She became scared that I was going to reveal her and flew at me, trying to snatch the papers. She pushed me and I fell to the floor and I saw the look in her eyes, the murderous look! She was intent on harming me! Had I not screamed… well, perhaps we would not be speaking now.”
Niamh thrust out her chin in surly stubbornness.
“You really think Abigail capable of murder?” Clara said in disbelief.
“For the right motive I do,” Niamh pointed a finger at Clara. “You have spent too much time listening to her bleeding heart stories.”
“Suppose I have?” Clara countered. “Why not prove to me otherwise?”
Niamh smiled, rising to the challenge. She picked her handbag up off the floor and pulled out two sheets of paper.
“I got these from a friend,” she waved the papers at Clara. “These show the number of sales a girl has made. The girls fill these in and send them to Albion’s accounts department. These are Abigail’s most recent sheets, you can see where she has filled in the figures.”
Niamh thrust the papers at Clara.
“Take a note of the names of the retailers and distributors she claims to have sold this number of goods to. Now look at these,” Niamh rummaged in her bag and produced another sheet of figures. “This is from Albion’s shipping warehouse. This paper shows the actual number of boxes of products sent out to the shops and people Abigail made sales to.”
Clara took the second sheet and compared the figures. She felt her heart sink a bit when she realised the figures differed. Not hugely, but always by a box or two, to make it appear that Abigail was selling just a fraction more than she really was.
“Why has Albion Industries not realised this?” Clara asked.
“The accounts department
and the shipping department are two different things,” Niamh shrugged. “Each month the accounts department will receive the takings from the sales of stock each shop and distributor sells, but there is no reason to assume they will sell everything, so if the figures are lower than those the representative stated they actually sold to the shop, well, that is to be expected. The shop or distributor holds on to the goods they are sent until they are all sold and there is always going to be a certain amount of products that either do not sell or can’t be sold due to being damaged or even stolen from the shop. Albion accepts these losses. The only way the accounts department could know that Abigail was cheating was if they did exactly the same as I have done. But they have never done that. They rely on the good faith of the representatives, rightly or wrongly.”
Clara stared at the papers and the blatant evidence they provided. The first sheets were signed by Abigail and there was no denying that they differed from the second set. If both sets of figures were genuine, then something very odd was occurring.
“So now maybe you see that Abigail is not the great innocent she makes out?” Niamh’s tone put Clara’s back up again. It did look likely that Abigail was cheating, but Niamh’s snide satisfaction still rankled. She had not sought out this evidence for the sake of Albion Industries, but because it would further her position and disgrace someone she had come to jealously hate.
“Could I keep a set of these figures?” Clara asked. “I would like to show them to the police and to Abigail, so I can hear her explanation.”
