Body on Baker Street

by Vicki Delany

“I hope,” a man shouted, “you’re going to arrest that guy over there.”

  I turned to see him pointing at Donald.

  “Why do you say that, sir?” Detective Estrada asked.

  “He threatened Renalta. I heard him. We all heard him.” Heads nodded, and people murmured their agreement.

  “Threatened?” Estrada said. “What do you mean by that?”

  “He said someone had to put a stop to her. You heard it too.” He jabbed a finger at Ryan.

  “I heard an angry exchange in public,” Ryan said. “If we arrested everyone who threatened to kill someone in a moment of anger, the streets would be empty.”

  I glanced at Donald. His attention remained fixed on the pages of his book.

  “An exchange of opinion,” I said. “It happens sometimes.”

  “Sounded like more than just a disagreement to me. He said he’d put a stop to her writing her books. Looks like he succeeded, doesn’t it?”

  * * *

  At last we were alone in the tea room, sitting together in the window alcove, each of us wrapped in our thoughts.

  “Heck of a thing,” Jayne said.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “I want to go home,” Donald said.

  Everyone who’d been at the author talk had given their details to the police and had been either allowed to leave or politely but firmly shown the door.

  Everyone, that is, except Donald. The police wanted to talk to Donald about his so-called threat.

  Rather than customers shopping for the latest bestseller or Sherlock-themed gadget, the Emporium was full of white-suited men and women searching for evidence. Madison, Ryan’s niece, had begged to be allowed to stay, and he allowed it if she promised not to get in anyone’s way or to touch anything. She watched everything they did with a single-minded concentration I could only admire, although I could have told the forensics people they were wasting their time.

  Every surface would be a mass of fingerprints. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have passed through the shop. They pick up everything and put it down again. They go behind the counter, where they aren’t supposed to, and even try sneaking up the stairs to see if I have special merchandise there. What sort of goods they thought I might need to keep hidden, I didn’t dare ask. I dust and clean the shop regularly, but I don’t polish the books or rub down the Sherlock-themed mugs and plates with disinfectant.

  I thought Jayne might have a heart attack of her own when Estrada said they would also do the tea room. Fingerprint powder could be dusted off my goods, but it’s not so easy to do in jars of jam or containers of flour. I’d managed to convince Ryan, if not Estrada, that they didn’t need to check the tea room. Renalta had not gone in there on either of her visits, and the water in question had not come from Mrs. Hudson’s.

  It had fallen ominously quiet upstairs. Moriarty had either given up hope of rescue or escaped through a crack in the floorboards. I was afraid to go up and check.

  At last, Ryan and Estrada came into the tea room. Ryan took a seat at the table in the far back corner, while Estrada marched up to us. “We’ll talk to you now, Ms. Doyle.”

  “Can I get you something, Detective?” Jayne said. “We have plenty of sandwiches I’d intended to be served this afternoon, or I can make—”

  “This is not a social call,” Estrada said. “I’m not here to have high tea.”

  “We don’t serve high tea,” I said. “We serve afternoon tea. ‘High tea,’ more commonly just called ‘tea,’ is a working family’s early-evening meal, whereas afternoon tea is . . .” Estrada looked as though she were about to arrest me for excessive talking. “A common mistake,” I added meekly.

  I took a chair opposite Ryan. Estrada plunked herself down between us.

  “Have you heard from the hospital?” I asked.

  Ryan nodded. The expression on his face was an answer all of its own. “Ms. Van Markoff was pronounced dead on arrival.”

  “How’s Linda holding up?”

  “You mean the PA?”

  “Linda Marke. Yes. She was particularly upset when her boss collapsed.”

  “I don’t know. Louise and I will be going over there as soon as we’ve finished here. You seemed pretty sure it was cyanide poisoning, Gemma.”

  “Perhaps too sure?” Estrada said.

  I ignored her. “That bitter almond scent, so beloved of classic crime fiction, was a giveaway. That plus the speed at which she collapsed. Couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes, if that, between taking a drink and dropping.”

  “Witnesses have told us that she drank from a bottle of water you handed her,” Estrada said.

  “The water was purchased at the convenience store on the corner about half an hour before it was consumed,” I said.

  “We’ve ordered all bottles of Riviera water pulled off the shelves,” Estrada said.

  “No need,” I said.

  “And what,” she said, “makes you so sure? Did you perhaps tamper with it yourself, Gemma?”

  I did not dignify that accusation with a reply. “Ashleigh, my shop assistant, bought four bottles for Renalta.”

  “That confirms what she told us,” Ryan said.

  “Of course it does, because that’s what happened. Renalta requested that the bottles be unsealed before given to her. It’s rumored that she has arthritis in her wrist, so I assumed she finds it difficult to break the seal.”

  “Have the autopsy check for that,” he said to Estrada. She made a note.

  “Presumably she didn’t want to appear to be struggling with a bottle in front of her audience,” I said. “I noticed that she drank a considerable amount of water. The . . . fatal one . . . was her third bottle in half an hour. She was nervous speaking in public, so I suspect the water acted as a crutch to give her something to do and something to keep her hands busy.”

  “She didn’t seem at all nervous to me,” Ryan said.

  “Thus proving the effectiveness of the crutch,” I replied.

  “Whatever,” Estrada said. “You do go on, Gemma.” She glared at Ryan as though that was his fault.

  “I am not going on. I am explaining the pertinent details to those who might not be capable of following along.”

  She half-rose in her seat. “Now see here . . .”

  “Enough,” Ryan said. “Gemma’s right. The amount of water she drank is pertinent. I assume she consumed that much water at all her talks. We’ll check with her PA.”

  Estrada lowered herself back down.

  “And,” I said, “if that was her habit, our killer might well have known that and thus been able to plan ahead.”

  “Tell us about the water bottle. Was it left unattended for a period of time?”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry to say, that was my fault.”

  “You’re admitting it?” If Estrada’s hands didn’t go immediately to the handcuffs on her belt, I’m sure they wanted to.

  “Don’t get too excited, Detective. I’m confessing to carelessness and nothing else. We were so busy, so many people, so much going on, that I put the two bottles to be used in the signing portion of the event on the counter and left them there. After Ashleigh had broken the seals.”

  “You’re saying that anyone in the room had access to them,” Ryan said.

  I leaned back in my chair. Estrada opened her mouth to say something, but Ryan gave her a look. I closed my eyes and drew up a mental picture of the Emporium as it had been when the afternoon’s program began. I stood at the podium to welcome Renalta; from there I could see everyone in the shop.

  People sat in their chairs, excited and expectant. The overflow had taken seats on the stairs. A few stood against the walls, Ryan and Jayne among them. A handful more stood along the windows. Aside from the swish of traffic on the street outside, the rustle of fabric as people shifted position, and the sound of Moriarty begging for freedom, all had been quiet.

  I moved my mental gaze across the room to the sales counter. “Grant Thompson, Irene Tal
bot, Kevin Reynolds, Linda Marke, Robert McNamara, Donald Morris, and Paige and Nancy, surnames unknown, were standing at the counter, with their backs to it.”

  “You have a good memory,” Estrada said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “As they were standing, they shifted about quite a bit. I’m sorry, but I can’t place the exact position of the water bottle. By the time I went back for it, everyone had moved off.”

  “Donald Morris was there?” Estrada said.

  “Yes.”

  “The same Donald Morris who was heard to threaten Ms. Van Markoff?”

  “His so-called threat is irrelevant. He said it in a fit of anger. As Detective Ashburton here said earlier, people say things like ‘I’m going to kill him’ all the time. They don’t mean it.”

  “But sometimes they do,” she pointed out. “And in this case, the object of the threat was dead not more than a few minutes later. Detective Ashburton, we need to take Donald Morris into the station for a little chat.”

  “Preposterous,” I said. “You’re taking two completely unrelated events—the so-called threat and the killing—and combining them to make an unwieldy conclusion. Your thought process is like that of a child mixing mud and water and thinking they’ve made a cake.”

  Louise Estrada was a good-looking woman. Tall, lean, olive-skinned, black-haired, brown-eyed. She always made me think of a racehorse, poised to leap out of the starting gate. She sucked in a breath, and in front of my eyes, the horse turned into a panther. Her dark eyes blazed fire, and a deep line appeared between her eyebrows.

  “Enough, Gemma,” Ryan said. “You’ve gone too far.”

  “Goodness, it sounds tense over here.” Jayne put her hand on my shoulder. “Can I get anyone a glass of water? There’s some coffee still in the pot. Not to mention all the sandwiches and tarts I made for afternoon tea, which will now not be needed.”

  “Water for everyone would be good,” Ryan said. “Thanks, Jayne.”

  She squeezed my shoulder and bustled off. Estrada let out a breath and sank back into her chair.

  “The average person does not go around with a jar of cyanide in their pocket,” I said.

  “We don’t know it is cyanide,” Ryan said. “Let’s wait for the autopsy results.”

  “A mere formality.”

  “You seem to know all about poisons,” Estrada said.

  “No more than the average educated person.” I knew Estrada didn’t like me, but she could at least hear what I had to say. “Therefore, we must conclude—”

  “We must, must we?” she mumbled.

  “Yes, we must. Obviously the murder was premeditated. Therefore, the fact that Donald and Renalta got into a minor tiff in public—an argument, which, I will admit in the interest of being fair, ended with him totally humiliated—is irrelevant.”

  “If he was angry at her,” Ryan said, “it didn’t come out of nowhere, Gemma. He might have come here today expecting a fight.”

  I didn’t think this was a good time to mention that Donald had been angry on Thursday when he came into the bookshop. I twisted in my chair. He was sitting where I’d left him, reading. I wasn’t surprised that he’d buried himself in a book in a time of crisis. “So might any one of a number of people. If not the fight, then the anger. We must conclude . . .”

  I was saved from any more of Estrada’s mumbles as Jayne put three glasses on the table. “From the tap,” she said, “just so you know.”

  “. . . not only that the killing was premeditated but also that the killer had to have some knowledge of and ability to obtain cyanide. One does not stroll into Wal-Mart and ask what shelf the deadly poisons are on. Donald’s a retired lawyer, not a chemist.”

  Ryan’s phone rang. “Ashburton.” He listened for a moment and then said, “They can go back to their hotel. Someone’s to stay with them until we get there.” He put his phone away and took a sip of water. “That’s it for now, Gemma. If our people finish here tonight, you can open the store tomorrow.” He stood up.

  “That’s it?” Estrada said. “You’re not going to take him in?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “What about the other suspects? There’s Paige and Nancy and . . .”

  “When we need your advice, we’ll ask for it,” Estrada said.

  Ryan walked to Donald’s table. Donald tore himself away from his book and blinked at the detective. “We might have further questions for you,” Ryan said. “Don’t leave town.”

  “I’ve no plans for a vacation,” Donald said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Ryan turned and spoke to Estrada. “Let me check in with the forensic guys. Van Markoff’s party has left the hospital. We need to talk to them. We can drop Madison at my folks’ place on the way.”

  Ryan and Estrada went into the Emporium. Jayne busied herself rearranging the display of loose-leaf teas and china pots on the shelf.

  “Time you were off home, Donald,” I said.

  He closed his book. The Sign of the Four. “I didn’t kill that woman, Gemma.”

  “I know you didn’t, Donald.”

  He shook his head. “They, the police, think I did it.”

  “It’ll all be sorted out soon.”

  “Help me, Gemma.”

  “Me? What do you mean?”

  “I’m not a total fool.” He pointed to his book. “I wasn’t getting much reading done while you and the police were talking, and the acoustics in this room are surprisingly good when it’s empty. Detective Estrada wanted to arrest me on the spot. Detective Ashburton persuaded her not to. At this time, I believe he said.”

  “I don’t know what I can do.”

  “Do what you did with the Longton case. You solved that. You didn’t need the police.”

  “The police would have eventually come to the same conclusions I had.”

  “By then it might have been too late. Please, Gemma. I need you. You said it yourself, there are other suspects. I wonder if the police are even going to look at them.”

  Jayne had finished rearranging the shelf and joined us. “Gemma will get to the bottom of it, Donald. Don’t you worry. Would you like some sandwiches to take home?”

  What could I say?

  Chapter 8

  “You’ve got to stop baiting her,” Jayne said once Donald had packed away The Sign of the Four, gathered his cape around him, put his hat back on, accepted the bag of food she pressed on him, and left. I decided not to point out that he’d taken the book off the store shelf and not paid for it.

  “Baiting who?”

  Jayne threw up her hands. “Detective Estrada, of course.”

  “I’m not baiting her or anyone else. I’m only trying to help. Some police officers seem to need my help more than others.”

  “That’s my point, Gemma! You ridicule her. You mock her. Even Ryan thought you’d gone too far this time, talking about children and mud pies.”

  “Cake, not pie.”

  Jayne groaned.

  “I know she doesn’t like me . . .”

  “That’s the understatement of the year. She’s going to complain to the chief about Ryan and you. Again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I eavesdropped, of course. I must be learning something from you. She said he’s been blinded, once again, by your interference in a police case. She said the only reason he’s not interrogating Donald is because you told him not to.”

  “Preposterous. I didn’t tell him not to. I merely pointed out that Donald is an unlikely suspect and they would be better spending their time investigating others.” I let out a long sigh. “Jayne, I can’t pretend not to notice the things I notice or force myself not to arrive at logical conclusions.”

  Jayne touched my arm. “I know. But you don’t make it easy for yourself sometimes.”

  Which was precisely why my relationship with Ryan Ashburton had ended. We’d met when a string of arsons struck the shops on Baker Street. I had simply observed what oth
ers had not and took my observations to the police. For my pains I’d been accused by the lead detective (now thankfully retired) of starting the fires because I craved the attention. Fortunately, newly promoted Detective Ashburton convinced his bosses to listen to what I had to say. The arsonist was caught—exactly where and when and whom I had deduced.

  The chief of police thanked me for doing my civic duty, and I’d fallen head over heels in love with Ryan Ashburton. Ryan (I thought) loved me in return.

  But love wasn’t enough. Too clever by half, he’d called me on more than one occasion. After I ruined his big surprise proposal by guessing (deducing) what he was up to, he told me he was leaving to take a job in Boston. He’d been away for a while but recently returned to West London when the position of head detective opened.

  My sources—meaning Irene Talbot—told me Louise Estrada had thought she was guaranteed the job and had not been happy when Ryan was brought back to take the position. She didn’t like me, and she didn’t trust me, but it was more than that. I feared she saw me as a way of undermining Ryan.

  “I’ll try to be nicer to Louise next time,” I said. “Maybe we can have dinner together one night or something.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Jayne said. “Are you going to help Donald?” She looked at me, wide eyed and expectant.

  “I’ll do what I can. I find him irritating much of the time, with his die-hard devotion to the canon, but I have to admit to a certain a fondness for him. Eccentricity can be endearing, if it isn’t taken too far. We English are known for our love of our eccentrics, aren’t we?” I didn’t point out to Jayne that she was being highly contradictory. On one hand, she was telling me not to annoy Estrada—which any involvement on my part in the case would do—and on the other hand, she wanted me to help Donald.

  “I have insights the police do not, as I’ve had prior contact with Renalta’s employees and some of her fans. We should talk to Linda and Kevin first, of course, because they’re closest to Renalta. However, Ryan and Louise are on their way to do that now, and I don’t think it would be wise for us to show up and ask to sit in on the interview. That will have to wait. Find out where they’re staying.”