An Unwelcome Guest

by Emily Organ

  “I’ve no idea, I’m afraid.” She sighed. “I feel as though I don’t really know the lady she became. And I suppose there are practicalities to take care of now: the funeral and suchlike. It’s fortunate that Ma and Pa are both dead, as I don’t know how I ever could have explained this to them—”

  Her words were cut off by a choke and she dabbed at her eyes once again.

  Chapter 40

  “Another one, young Blakely?” asked Mr Hobhouse. “What do we have here, then?” He held his magnifying glass over the message we had found in the Morning Express.

  “Is it the Vigenère cypher again?” James asked.

  “I can’t tell from taking such a quick glance. It could be anything!”

  “Miss Green and I tried to decypher it, but we were working with limited lighting. We were trapped in a dark basement, in fact.”

  “In a basement? With this sweet young lady?” Mr Hobhouse looked me up and down, then tutted. “You’re as bad as your father! I don’t know how you attempted to decypher this if you couldn’t even be certain that it is Vigenère.”

  “The lady who was in possession of the previous message also had this edition of the newspaper with her,” I said. “We believe the message you decyphered was likely to have been her response to this coded message recorded in the newspaper.”

  “Ah, I see. So there is some rationale to this, after all. But you don’t know what the keyword is, do you?”

  “We thought it might be nemesis again, but we haven’t been able to solve it using that word,” said James.

  “Not as easy as it first seems, is it? I’ll take a look at it for you, Blakely.”

  “Thank you, Mr Hobhouse.”

  “A lady came to visit you yesterday, Miss Green,” said Edgar Fish, “but you didn’t turn up!”

  “Thank you, Edgar. Inspector Blakely and I have just visited her.”

  “So where were you?”

  “Locked in the basement of the Hotel Tempesta.”

  “How unfortunate! How did that come about?”

  “It was a malicious act carried out by someone who was trying to protect herself from falling under suspicion,” said James.

  Edgar laughed. “Locking an inspector of the Yard in the basement isn’t going to help, is it? Have you arrested her?”

  “We shall be addressing the matter in due course,” replied James, “but for the time being we have something rather more pressing to work on, and I’m hoping Miss Welton will be able to help us.”

  “Miss Welton is always able to help,” said Edgar. “I can’t say that she does it with much of a smile on her face, but she helps all the same.”

  Miss Welton’s dark dress was buttoned up to the neck and her grey hair was pinned neatly on top of her head. She peered at us over a pair of pince-nez.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Welton. We’re looking for the person who came in and placed this notice in the personal advertisements section,” I said, showing her the coded message in our copy of the newspaper.

  “Oh yes. One of those messages young lovers always seem to be placing.”

  “We don’t believe it was a young lover on this occasion,” said James.

  “Do you know what the message means?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” replied James. “But we’ve already come across something similar.”

  “I suppose it could be one of those common declarations of love,” I said. “We don’t know for sure at the moment.”

  “No, but we need to find out,” added James.

  “All the young lovers are doing it these days,” said Miss Welton, “and I’ve heard that some people are making a hobby out of decyphering them. I’d say that there is little point if one’s efforts are only likely to yield a silly message about matters of the heart.”

  “You don’t have much time for such messages, Miss Welton?” asked James.

  “I suppose I must have once, back when I was young myself. But then I was just as silly as everyone else at that age.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said James with a smile.

  “Are you sure you cannot recall the person who placed this notice?” I asked.

  “I can’t recall the individual, no, but I keep detailed records. Most of these notices are sent in the post these days; only a few people present them in person. I keep the original message and the record of payment for six months. What is the date of this edition? The eighth of November… Ah, you’re in luck, then.”

  “Wonderful!” I said.

  I grinned at James as Miss Welton got up from her chair and walked over to a cabinet of drawers. She opened one, took out an envelope and returned to her desk with it.

  “Here are all the notices placed on the eighth of November,” she announced, carefully emptying the notes out onto her desk. Each message had a slip of paper attached to it with a piece of thread.

  “Do you record the name and address of each person who places a notice?” asked James.

  “Yes, we do,” said Miss Welton.

  “Perfect!” I said, my heart skipping excitedly as she looked through the messages. “Who sent it?” I asked.

  “Patience, Miss Green,” she replied. “Ah yes, here we are.”

  She handed me a note, and I was delighted to see the handwritten cypher on it. My fingers fumbled with the attached slip of paper, desperate to see who had placed it.

  “Cooke,” I said. “Craig’s Court.”

  “Cooke?” said James. He laughed.

  “Have you heard of him?” I asked.

  “Let me take a look at it,” he said.

  I handed him the note, along with the attached slip of paper.

  “If this is the chap I think it is,” said James, “he recently left Scotland Yard to set up what he calls a ‘confidential inquiry office’. Do you know where Craig’s Court is?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Directly behind Scotland Yard!”

  I looked at the note in his hand, its letters jumbled just as they had been in the notice published in the newspaper.

  “Does that mean that Anna O’Riley was working for him?” I asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to ask him directly,” said James. “However, I should like to wait until Mr Hobhouse has decyphered the code before we do so.”

  “Must we wait?”

  “I know you’re impatient to get to the bottom of this, Penny, but I would prefer to speak to this Cooke fellow once we have discovered what his message says. Cooke may have placed many other messages in your newspaper. Would you mind if I arranged for some officers to search through your records, Miss Welton?”

  She sighed. “Of course I mind. They’ll be a major disruption to my work. But I don’t expect I’ll have much say in the matter, will I? You’d better ask Mr Sherman.”

  Chapter 41

  As I worked on the book about my father that evening, I decided to re-read the last letter he had written. The final paragraph described his imminent plans:

  ‘Tomorrow I plan to ride twenty miles south-west of Bogota to the Falls of Tequendama. I have heard a great deal about the orchids and tropical birds there, and am looking forward to the spectacle of the River Funza plunging from a height of five hundred feet. It must be a tremendous sight to behold!’

  It was incredible to think that Francis Edwards was now searching in the very same location. It was only three months since he had left for his adventure, but I felt sure that he must have stumbled upon some news about my father by this point. I desperately wished to hear more from Francis, but when I looked again at his latest letter I realised I had only received it ten days previously. I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be patient.

  Tiger climbed onto my lap and I let her rest there, concluding that I was too tired to do any further work that evening.

  Hurried footsteps on the staircase made me jump.

  I moved Tiger onto my bed and reached the door just as three sharp raps were planted on it. My sister almost f
ell into the room the moment I opened it. Her eyes were red and she held a newspaper in her hand.

  “Ellie!” I cried. “What has happened?”

  “Have you seen this?” She waved it at me and tried to suppress a sob.

  “No, what is it? Come and sit down!” I guided her over to the chair beside my writing desk. “Is that The Holborn Gazette you have there? What on earth are you reading that nonsense for?”

  She fumbled through the paper before thrusting an open page at me.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?” I asked.

  “There!”

  Her finger jabbed at the comment section, and I began to read the relevant piece of text:

  Readers may recall that just last week a news reporter for the Morning Express, Miss Penelope Green, caused a breach of promise action to take place against an inspector of Scotland Yard, Inspector James Blakely.

  News this week has cemented the reputation of the Green sisters as saboteurs of matrimony. Miss Green’s sister, Mrs. Eliza Billington-Grieg, has long been married to a lawyer in the City, Mr. George Billington-Grieg. The latter is no doubt ruing the day he allowed his wife to establish the West London Women’s Society, an association that champions causes such as women’s suffrage, rational dress and the abolition of the opium trade.

  I felt my teeth clench in anger as I read on.

  Mrs. Billington-Grieg’s strong opinions have led to the decision to divorce her husband, an action she has almost certainly been encouraged to take by her sister, Miss Green. There is no doubt that the two daughters of esteemed plant-hunter Frederick Brinsley Green have done for matrimony what the steam train did for the stage coach.

  Counsel for Mrs Billington-Grieg has cited her motivation for pursuing a divorce as ‘unreasonable behaviour’ on the part of Mr. Billington-Grieg. In our view, there is no behaviour that could be considered more unreasonable than the rational dress movement.

  “Oh, ignore it!” I cried, scrunching up the newspaper and throwing it onto the floor. “It’s Tom Clifford again, and he doesn’t know you at all, so he cannot possibly comment. He has only done this because you’re my sister, Ellie, and I’m truly sorry for it.”

  “Just think of all the people who must have read it!”

  “Most of them will already have forgotten about it. It’s not even news!”

  “But what about the people who know me?”

  “Do any of them read The Holborn Gazette?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If they’ve read it they may mention it to you, and then you can tell them it’s nothing more than a vindictive article aimed at your sister rather than at you. There was clearly a gap to fill in today’s edition. You read what Clifford wrote about me last week. The unfortunate little man obviously has nothing else to think about.”

  “It’s so unfair,” said Eliza, drying her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “You didn’t deserve it, Ellie. Notice how he makes no mention of George’s criminal activity; the very reason you cited unreasonable behaviour as your motivation for divorce. George’s behaviour hasn’t been called into question at all! This article has been written by a man who is evidently frightened of women who exercise a modicum of independence. With any luck his own wife will request a divorce from him in the near future!”

  “And then you can write something awful about him!”

  “I could, but why sink to such depths, Ellie? It’s better to simply ignore it. If he knows we’re upset by it he’ll feel victorious, won’t he?”

  “Yes, he will. You’re quite right, Penelope. We should pretend this silly article didn’t bother us in the slightest.”

  “How did you even know he’d written it? You don’t usually read The Holborn Gazette, do you?”

  “Absolutely not! It was brought to my attention by my employer, Miss Barrington.”

  “Well, tell her not to read such a worthless newspaper in future!”

  Eliza gave a laugh. “I shall do!”

  “Now, let’s burn it on the fire,” I said, retrieving the screwed-up newspaper from the floor and throwing it into the little hearth. I watched with satisfaction as the flames leapt up and devoured Tom Clifford’s words.

  “Oh, what a silly mess,” said my sister. “All I’m trying to do is begin a new chapter in my life. Why is it so difficult?”

  “Because that’s just how it is sometimes,” I said. “But you have family and friends who love and support you. Please remember that.”

  “Thank you, Penelope. Sometimes you really sound quite wise.”

  “Sometimes is better than never, I suppose.”

  “I need some news that will cheer me up. Have you heard anything from Francis recently?”

  “As it happens, I was just looking at his latest letter.”

  “When did we last hear from him?”

  “About ten days ago.”

  “Oh, I thought it was much longer ago than that. I suppose we shouldn’t expect anything more for a while yet.”

  “Do you remember him mentioning a telegraph office in western Colombia?” I said. “Hopefully he’ll travel in that direction and send us something new from there. It would be quite exciting to receive an immediate message from him rather than having to wait for a whole month! I just hope he has something to tell us soon, but I suppose I’m being impatient as usual.

  “I struggle terribly with my patience levels. I already cannot wait for tomorrow to arrive, as I’m hoping we’ll find out more about a mysterious message James and I are trying to decypher.”

  “Which message?”

  I gave Eliza an update on the case concerning Mr Gallo and Anna O’Riley, and explained how desperately I hoped to find out more about Mr Cooke and the message he had written.

  “You were locked in a basement for eight hours?”

  “Fortunately, James was with me.”

  “Without a chaperone?”

  I felt a sudden warmth in my face. “If you must know, we passed the time trying to solve a coded message.”

  “While locked in a basement together?”

  “James is a gentleman, so he did nothing to take advantage of the situation,” I said. “And he was also extremely comforting. He helped calm me when I became fretful about being locked up in the dark.”

  “I would have completely lost my mind,” said Eliza. “I think I would have screamed the place down!”

  “So would I, had James not been there with me.”

  “When will he propose marriage, do you think?”

  “Neither of us have even considered it, Ellie! The breach of promise case was only last week, and we have both been extremely busy working on this murder case.”

  Eliza laughed.

  “What’s so amusing?” I asked.

  “If you did marry, I wonder what the conversation would be like beside the fireplace in the evenings. Neither of you would ever stop talking about your work!”

  I smiled. “No, I don’t suppose we would.”

  “Hopefully that means you are well suited and will be very happy together.”

  Chapter 42

  “Good heavens! What’s happened?” asked Edgar the following morning. “The Morning Express offices have been raided by the police! What have you been up to, Potter?”

  Four police constables sat in the newsroom with us, looking through the many envelopes contained in the stack of drawers taken from Miss Welton’s office.

  “We’re looking for coded messages,” I explained. “We need to locate all of them.”

  “Would you like me to help?” asked Edgar.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Fish,” said Mr Sherman, “but only when you’ve submitted your article on the rowdy behaviour at the recent Covent Garden Promenade Concert.”

  “I need Miss Welton to typewrite it for me, sir, but she’s busy with the police.”

  “How about you have a go yourself?”

  “I would sir, but I’d be unlikely to get it finished before Christmas. P
erhaps Miss Green could—”

  “I’m just about to leave,” I said. “I need to speak with a private detective in Whitehall about the Gallo case.”

  “You’ve been spending rather too long on that case, Miss Green,” said Mr Sherman. “I’m concerned that it’s taking up the majority of your time.”

  “Not at all, sir. I’ve been meeting the deadlines on all my other work.”

  “I realise that, but you are employed as a news reporter, Miss Green, and I fear that you’re doing more than straightforward news reporting.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “I wonder whether you fancy yourself as a detective.”

  “I think I do a little,” I said with a smile, “but reporting requires a certain degree of investigation.”

  “It does indeed. You need to be aware of where the roles of detective and reporter begin and end, however.”

  “I am aware, sir, but this case is extremely relevant to me, not only because I was at the hotel when the crime took place, but also because the private detective we’re interested in chose to place his messages in our newspaper.”

  “Yes, yes, I know all that,” said Mr Sherman. “But I don’t want this taking up too much of your time, especially when your acquaintance with Inspector Blakely is clearly blossoming.”

  One of the constables glanced up with interest and I felt a flush of embarrassment.

  “I can assure you, sir, that I both value and respect my profession, and will continue to apply myself as best I can to my work at the Morning Express.”

  “That is reassuring to hear, Miss Green,” replied my editor with a nod. “But do have a think on what I’ve said, won’t you?”

  “Why didn’t Mr Cooke use a false name and address when he placed his notice in the newspaper?” I asked James as we met under dark grey skies outside Mr Hobhouse’s office.

  “Perhaps he thought his messages would go undetected. He must have assumed that nobody’s attention would be drawn to a line or two of jumbled text in the notices column.”