by Angela Misri
He pulled back from me to give me a view of his lips. “Of course I’m here my dear, whenever you need me. I got in this morning and have been avoiding the crowds of London by reading as many newspapers as one could in such dreadful weather. Come, let me set you up with a bit of food before we go on. I see your hearing has returned?”
“A discernible improvement and I can communicate now that I am no longer taking Gavin’s special pills,” I replied, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice as I followed him to his recently vacated table.
“Ah yes, your former beau is proving quite talented in manipulation,” Holmes said, extending a hand to Brian and then using it to pull him close, to look him over closely. “And your current beau is paying for our miscalculation. I think you should take the aspirin you’re carrying around in your sack. Here, down the hatch with a spot of tea. Like you, I hoped young Whitaker had learned his lesson and left his foray into crime behind, following a lucrative path of foreign affairs. Instead, he has used his good standing to come back to London as a diplomat and weave his web around the one person I cherish the most.”
He slid an arm around me. “And for that, he must pay. No more allowances made for the man who once loved you, Portia. He must pay for his crimes in the light of day.”
I nodded, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “But what are his crimes?”
“His present one?” Holmes said, his grey eyes on mine. “Power. Amassing as much as he can. By aiding in these negotiations, he’s becoming invaluable to the men he represents and impressing the men across the table — on both sides, mind you. I believe he might even be funnelling the weapons your young journalist has been pursuing into the hands of the British government.”
“From where?” I asked. “Surely the Austrians aren’t going against the Germans by supplying …”
Holmes tapped out his pipe before answering. “No, I don’t think the weapons are coming from the Austrians and they have nothing to do with these Russian bombs at all. I need more data to answer that question my dear.”
I felt much better after a half hour with Sherlock Holmes, who asked a great many questions that led us down new routes of possibility. I changed back into my regular clothes and then when Brian went to the washroom to change into one of the new outfits Wilans had provided, I made sure my grandfather was fully apprised of Brian’s situation.
“I have seen many a good man led astray by the sinister influence of the opiate,” he said, putting a few coins on the table where we had been sitting. “I will not only keep an eye on him, but I will commission a few of your craftier Baker Street Irregulars to watch him as well.”
“He says he has it under control,” I said, rising to my boyfriend’s defence despite myself. “But addiction, as you know, is defined by the fact that you are not in control. The drug is.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded, his grey eyes drifting away from mine for the first time in our conversation. Watson had diagnosed his long-time partner with an addiction to cocaine, but as far as I knew, Holmes himself had never accepted the diagnosis. This reaction seemed to indicate that he still wasn’t ready to label his use of the drug as an addiction. If he were still partaking of his favoured seven percent solution, I saw none of the tell-tale physical signs on him right now.
Brian exited the washroom looking very handsome in his royal hand-me-downs and the change gave him back some of his old confidence. We said our goodbyes, Brian eliciting my promise to see him two days hence, with Annie, if at all possible.
He was exiting the ornate gates, a personal guard holding an umbrella over his head as he made his way to the waiting car when he saw her. He ducked into the car and then chastened himself for his reaction. She was the one who was being hunted, not he. He instructed the driver to idle here where he could observe her in relative anonymity through the dark windows. She watched the two men (one of them the fallen constable dressed in clothes far above his station) and then she glanced back his way. He met her eyes through the window, remembering falling into their violet depths. As much as his heart missed the excitement of being with someone who matched his every need — mental and physical — he had learned to push that aside for the safety of his future. Loving Portia Adams would mean settling for second place. Beating Portia Adams would mean quite the opposite.
CHAPTER 31
THE TRAIN TO SANDWELL was uneventful as far as I knew, perhaps partially because I had changed into my simple vest and jacket and pulled the tweed hat down over my forehead so I could get a couple of hours’ sleep. I woke as we were pulling into the station, to my surprise hearing the conductor. I could surmise that the announcement was about the station, but it felt like I was hearing just a little clearer, like the dulled piano sounds were a little sharper, under slightly less water.
Maybe that was just wishful thinking, but I retrieved my bags with a lighter step, moving through the crowd and onto the platform. I had decided along the way to locate the nearest ladies’ hostel, because I knew Annie’s finances would not allow for anything more costly. I hazarded asking about the hostel at the ticket desk, skipping the first booth, and instead waiting for the near-sighted ticket seller in case the posters with my face on them had made it as far out as this location.
“Old Nan’s place is the only spot out here,” the man said, squinting at me through the open window. “But I think she’s full up, t’be honest — I’ve had a couple young ladies like yourself ask about a place to stay tonight — is there some kind a’ convention or somethin’?”
I left with mysterious smile as my only answer, hailing the sole taxi idling at the station and was knocking on the door to a house with a recently forsaken garden within a half hour.
“What?” demanded the middle-aged woman who answered the door who was surely not Old Nan. “Who’re you, then?”
“I’m looking for a friend.”
“Aren’t we all, doll face?” she interrupted me, leaning against the doorway and looking me up and down. “Ain’t no friends here for the likes of you though.”
“Her name is Annie Coleson. Is she staying with you?”
“Mayhap she is,” the woman replied and then yelled at someone over her shoulder. “It’s not really our policy to give out that kind of information …”
I pulled out my coin purse, anticipating that the policy was more of a monetary one than a moral one and the woman confirmed my assumptions, extending her hand, revealing a light rash on the palm. She turned to yell back at the person I suspected was the real “Nan” and then watched greedily as I counted out a few bills for the required information.
“Might be that a blonde girl going by the name of Annie’s in a little bit of trouble,” she said as she pocketed the bills. “Could be that you could find her at the police station on Harvills. Best take the bus at the corner into town.”
“Thank you for the advice. May I extend some of my own? You may want to be kinder to your grandmother,” I said, putting away my pocketbook.
“Huh?”
“The woman I presume you are yelling at in the house,” I replied. “You may think that you’re waiting her out until she dies and this house becomes yours, but your syphilis has advanced to the point that she may yet outlive you.”
She hid her hand behind her back, so I turned away and threw back over my shoulder, “You may need her more than she needs you soon. I’d be kinder to her knowing that.”
The courthouse was a converted manor house of red brick and wrought iron, chosen, I was sure, for its intimidating façade. Wearing my borrowed maid’s uniform, I entered through the back entrance that led into the kitchens, passing a man who was urinating against the building. As I had hoped, my uniform wasn’t much different than that of the kitchen staff here, a grey linen dress with a white apron. The biggest difference was the fanciness of the hair bonnet, so I removed that hastily and tucked it into my apron, leaning over to rub some gre
ase on the too-white apron. I tucked my satchel and Wilans’ mail bag into an open cubby in the mudroom and walked into the kitchen.
“You there,” said a skinny cook with a white moustache from one corner of the kitchens. “You filling in for Marta?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered meekly.
“Get this tea up to the judge’s chambers quick now,” she said, handing me a tray and bustling me out of her space. “And take care and wait outside his chambers to take it back down!”
The staff at so small a courthouse was minimal, so I passed no one as I walked up the back stairs that led into the judge’s chambers. I knocked on the door, and entered, finding no one inside. I quickly placed the tray on the large desk and looked at the mess of papers on the desk, the single photo of the judge and his family, and the remnants of the last three meals he had eaten here. A quick scan made it clear that there was no logic to this display, but that was a clue in itself. A disorganized desk meant this judge didn’t have a reliable assistant to help him and may indicate a docket that was overloaded — something I could use to my advantage. I opened the nearest filing cabinet and pulled out files and documents at random, spreading them over the desk and exchanging them for more current files which I placed at random in the cabinet. The corkboard behind the desk held equal promise, with the list of cases from last June and two very old posters listing local men being sought for two different crimes. I left the way I had come, taking the stairs back down to the kitchens and, ignoring the cook, who was now scolding a young boy, flipped my maid’s uniform for the fanciest outfit Wilans had provided, a long skirt and white blouse with more ruffles than I had ever worn in my life. I pulled my hair into a chignon, threw my satchel over my shoulder, and walked out of the back door and in through the front doors of the courthouse, nodding at the singular bailiff standing out front.
I saw Annie well before she recognized me. She was sitting on a hard, wooden bench, looking like she hadn’t slept in days.
She looked up only when I sat down next to her and I put my arm around her, all the communication that was required. She sobbed into my shoulder as I rubbed her back, not hearing anything she was mumbling. When she was spent, I handed her a kerchief and asked her to repeat what she had said.
“My father has been charged with murder, Portia,” she sniffed, rubbing at her cheeks with my kerchief. “His trial is a sham, the man assigned to represent him a drunk, and the prosecutor an unapproachable monster. He will hang for this. And I haven’t even been allowed to see him. The only moments I have had are in this courtroom where they won’t even let me speak to him or pass him a note. And he’s not even defending himself against the charges. Oh, Portia. What will we do? What will I tell my brothers?”
“We will tell them to get their toys out of their parents’ room for their father will be home soon,” I replied, squeezing her shoulder. “And meanwhile, I will take over your father’s case this very moment.”
“How?”
“Is this the drunk lawyer you spoke of?” I said in reply, noticing a disheveled man exiting the men’s room and recognizing him from his outside urination activities earlier.
She nodded, so I left her there on the bench holding my satchel and approached the man.
“Sir, I need you to do something at this morning’s hearing,” I said, giving the man a once-over. “I’m a law student from London and I need you to introduce me as your associate and hand the case over to me. I will ask for a one-day extension to catch up on the case and you will support me in this.”
The sweaty man gaped at me, running his own kerchief over his face as I spoke, as if he could just as easily erase me from his gaze.
“Your father-in-law is the judge, which surely is the only reason you have this job as a court-appointed defence,” I said. “And he doesn’t know that you have been stepping out on his daughter with someone from the local mining company. I only hope that the man you’ve been seeing isn’t actually involved in this alleged murder because then you have escalated your crimes from philanderer to accessory.”
He took a step back at my words, almost running into the door he had just left, giving me my last clue.
“If I were to step into that bathroom behind you, I believe I would find your lover, which is remarkable to me,” I said. “That you would engage in such activity right under the nose of your father-in-law. But perhaps that is part of the thrill. Or perhaps this is your only opportunity to philander because your wife suspects you and demands an account of all your time. I care not. The cocaine on your kerchief and the ill-fitting belt tell enough of a story. Your lover is a bigger man who often attaches tools to his belt. You should exchange it back with him before he leaves for work or he will not be able to do his job. I’ll wait for you out here with Miss Coleson so we can proceed with my plan.”
With that, I returned to Annie’s side. She was reapplying her makeup when I sat down and I asked her to do the same for me; we needed to make the right impression on the judge.
By the time the doors to the courtroom were opened, we were ready. We followed the bailiff inside to an empty courtroom where I positioned myself at the defence table and Annie sat directly behind me in the gallery. The bailiff looked like he wanted to correct me, but frowned when the lawyer sat down beside me as if I were supposed to be there.
“I will do as you say, but Billy has nothing to do with this case. He wasn’t even in Sandwell when the foreman was killed, I can prove it,” he mumbled at me, still sweating and now smelling of urine as well as body odour. “But I cannot leave you alone in this courtroom without an excuse. My … The judge will not have it.”
“Your obvious illness might do the trick,” I suggested. “You need only take the day off and I will take care of the rest.”
He hesitated, possibly not wanting to upset me into spilling his secret, but pulled out a thin folder and pushed it my way. Then the judge entered the room, requiring us to all stand and end our conversation.
“Good morning, good morning,” he said, speaking first to the bailiff at his side and then to the prosecutor who had entered the room at the same time, possibly from a private meeting with the judge. He then glanced at our table and frowned at the defence attorney. “Sam, who is this young lady at your table?”
“This … This is …,” Sam turned terrified eyes my way.
“Constance Adams, your honour, aiding in the case for the defence, if it please the court,” I said, directing my response at the judge.
“It does not please the court,” the judge answered. “Approach the bench, Sam.”
Sam bumped into the desk twice trying to get around it and I followed him up to the judge’s raised bench, a manoeuvre not lost on the older man.
“Sam, what in blazes is going on? Young lady, I did not ask for you.”
“With respect, your honour, if your words are for the defence, then I must be here on behalf of our client,” I answered, holding the folder I’d been handed. “My colleague has advised me of his dizziness and sickness and asked me to step in on this case.”
“Yes, but who are you?”
“My credentials were sent in a week ago from London and should be on your desk by now,” I said to the judge. “Have you not approved them?”
The judge glanced back at his closed office door, perhaps mentally sifting through the paperwork he was guilty of ignoring, and said, “Yes, of course, but Miss Adams, is it? You are not a known party in this case. Who are you?”
“A colleague,” sputtered poor Sam, mopping at his brow again. “I must vouch for her, sir, and ask you to give her a day to get caught up on the details of the case, while I … recover.”
He said this and then bolted from the room, retching sounds following him as he made it out of the courtroom, but not quite to the bathroom. Either the cocaine or my blackmail had driven the man to vomiting, it didn’t really matter which, because his r
eaction bolstered my claims.
“I wouldn’t want to influence a mistrial or delay this case any more than it has been,” I said, looking up at the judge. “I wouldn’t need more than today to get caught up and represent our client the way he deserves.”
The judge glanced over at the prosecutor’s table, where the man in the sharp suit stood and said, “We have no objections to the change in representation, your honour, but we would ask for as little delay as possible.”
“A half day, Miss Adams,” the judge said, hammering his gavel once. “We will see you back in this courtroom at three o’clock in the afternoon and not a moment later.”
“I will need to consult with my client and the witnesses,” I said, to which the judge nodded at the bailiff.
“Benton, make sure Miss Adams has all the accommodation she requires,” he said, coming down from his bench.
I walked over to the prosecutor’s desk and he smirked at me, ignoring the hand that I extended. “I thought this case would be over in a week, but without Sam, I think I could be back on the pond by tomorrow morning.”
“I appreciate the faith in my abilities,” I said acerbically. “In the meantime, your witness list?”
“Just one witness, Miss Adams,” he replied, handing me a case file. “The police chief’s assistant, Sarah Valentine. Saw the whole thing happen at The Four Ducks pub. Good luck.”
CHAPTER 32
THE FIRST THING I did was arrange a private meeting between Annie and her father. I walked into the police station with trepidation, but luckily saw no posters with my face on them, nor newspapers from London lying about, identifying me as the consulting detective from Baker Street. The bailiff was the sympathetic kind, who, out from under the judge’s eye, allowed daughter and father a few minutes in the interrogation room alone as we stood outside, before I entered as a representative of the court.
