Snifter of Death

by Chris Karlsen

  Ruddy and Archie exchanged an amused look. Both keying on the fact Finch didn’t see the irony of her relationship with him as far more improper than her discussing other lovers with him.

  Ruddy tucked the journal back in his jacket pocket. Finch watched, suspicion creeping into his expression. “Detective Bloodstone is it?” Ruddy nodded. “If she kept a journal, wouldn’t she have mentioned other men in it? It strikes me as odd she only talked of our relationship.”

  Good question. Ruddy hadn’t thought that far ahead when he grabbed the journal. He scrambled for a logical answer. “She’s only been keeping it since the start of the year. If she had another diary, we didn’t find it when searching her room.”

  “Oh.” Looking concerned he asked, “Will that be all?”

  “For now,” Archie said. Ruddy was already at the door hoping to escape before Finch asked to see the journal.

  Outside Archie waved down a cab. “That was a close call with the journal,” he said as they climbed into the cab. “I was afraid he might ask to see what she wrote.”

  “Me too. He asked that question about the mention of others and the first thing that popped into my head was: Ruddy, you’re an idiot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Mercy me, this is awful,” Mrs. Zachary said, holding her teacup midair as she read something in the morning paper.

  “What?” Graciela asked, forcing interest she didn’t feel into her voice. Depression over the lack of news about Finch’s death still clouded her mood. She’d eagerly read every page of yesterday’s paper searching for any blurb about it. Nothing. How could that be, she wondered. She thought a man like him would at least have one glass of an expensive port he’d received as a surprise gift.

  “A Harley Street nurse has been murdered. She worked for a Nesbit Finch.” Mrs. Zachary looked up from the paper and took a swallow of her tea. She put the cup down and the footman poured another without her asking. “Dr. Finch’s office isn’t far from Dr. Fitzhugh’s. Can you imagine? A murder, right there on Harley Street. We’ll have to have an escort the next time I go to Fitzhugh’s.”

  Graciela’s mouthful of tea went down hard almost choking her. Had the nurse gotten into the poisoned port? Would she dared have opened wine meant for Finch? No. Her murder had to be unrelated. How bizarre. She had turned a deaf ear to the rest of Mrs. Zachary’s timeworn rant about the decline of civilization and society.

  “Graciela, are you listening?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Zachary.”

  “I was saying boorish manners and practices of the lower classes are becoming acceptable. Too easily people are forgetting their place. It’s a slippery slope.” She shook her head in disgust. Fixing on Graciela and clearly expecting her to agree, she repeated, “A slippery slope.”

  “That it is. By any chance does the paper say how the nurse died?” Still quasi-panicked about the coincidence of the nurse’s murder, Graciela sent a silent prayer to the heavens that it wasn’t by her poison. Maybe the woman was attacked by a street ruffian as she left the office. Graciela hoped so anyway.

  “No, the police aren’t releasing too much information yet according to the article. They’re still trying to locate family. They also say there are unusual circumstances and they don’t want to jeopardize that end of the investigation.”

  “May I go to my chamber?”

  “Yes, I won’t need you until midday.”

  Graciela snatched Me-Too from her basket on her chamber windowsill and cradled the cat in the crook of her arm as she paced. “What do I do now? That fool of a nurse probably drank my port. The police didn’t say for sure, but I’ll wager that is what happened to her. Now I have to think of another way to kill Finch. Ugh. This is so annoying. Stupid, stupid nurse.”

  She stared out the window at the people and traffic passing on the street below. She’d never meant to kill an innocent person. There was the off chance the nurse died by another’s hand but Graciela couldn’t dismiss the feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was the guilty party.

  “But you know, Me-Too, Finch’s nurse wasn’t the most innocent of innocents. She had to have had an inkling, if not full knowledge what he got up to with those poor female patients at the hospital. So, if it was my poison, her actions neutralize my actions.”

  Graciela considered several different means of disposing of Finch. Most she discarded. Stabbing she disliked as too messy and she had to get too close to him to be successful. There was too much risk involved. He could overpower her and stab her or call the police or both. She didn’t think poison would work. If it was the port that killed the nurse, Finch wasn’t going to drink anything sent to the office. His office was on the third floor. She could push him out the window. Maybe. Maybe not. Again, she’d have to get close, not get overpowered, and the window would have to be open. Not to mention he might survive the fall and tell the police who tried to kill him. That left shooting him. She still had Addy’s derringer. He had warned her if she shot someone, he’d disavow her and never be in contact with her again. She hated to lose him as a resource. But, Finch had to die and shooting was the best option. The cleanest.

  She put the cat down. She had to think about making this work with no mistakes.

  I need to practice somewhere so when I kill him there’s very little noise, no blood-at least on me, and no mistakes this time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ruddy hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Mrs. Goodge put together a tray for him and a bowl of food for Winky, which Luke brought up.

  Ever since Ruddy had taken Luke to the station and shown him the stocking thief, as promised, Luke was obsessed with crime fighting. The boy had overheard Mrs. Goodge and the maid talking in the kitchen about the Harley Street murder. Luke now wished to discuss the crime with Ruddy, talk theories and “whatnot.” Ruddy didn’t have the heart to say no. Tired as he was and wanting only to eat, soak in the tub and go to bed, he chatted with Luke until it was the lad’s bedtime. By then Ruddy had his second wind kick in and was wide awake.

  “Come on, Winky. Let’s go for a walk.” Ruddy walked to the British Museum gardens before he finally stopped. No one was around that late at night so he let Winky off his leash.

  Ruddy had come to the gardens late one night last year when he’d hit a wall on a tough murder case. He didn’t receive any brilliant strokes of genius on that case then and he didn’t expect to now. But the setting was pretty at night and the roses and flowers in the different garden beds smelled nice.

  “What is motivating this killer, Winky?”

  The dog lifted his leg in response to mark yet another bush. Ruddy was sure at this point Winky was out of marking solution and just going through the motions or kidding himself.

  “It’s not political. No one kills a nurse for political reasons, the banker or the solicitor, maybe, but not a nurse. It’s not a religious statement. All the victims were Church of England. With the exception of her affair with Finch and based on what both he and her landlady said about her modest lifestyle, it was doubtful a jealous lover killed her.” Winky was sitting in front of him now, licking his privates. “Don’t do that when I’m talking to you.”

  Winky stopped.

  “You’re no help. Let’s go home.” Ruddy hooked up his leash and they headed back. As they neared the edge of the gardens, Winky stopped to pee on a statue of a young woman holding a basket of flowers.

  ****

  The next day, Ruddy left work early. He and Honeysuckle had plans for a late supper after her show, and he wanted to squeeze in a nap. He’d rather not go face down from exhaustion into his dinner entrée. After a quick bath, he slept like a dead man for a couple of hours.

  Whistling the cheery tune The Ratcatcher’s Daughter, Ruddy waved as he passed Sergei, the wall-eyed Russian who manned the back door of the Odeon. Sergei wasn’t really Russian. He was from a place no one ever heard of at the far end of Russia but he sounded like a Russki so that’s what everyone called him
. His main function was to make sure no one snuck into the music hall.

  His face was pointed Ruddy’s direction when he said, “Good evening, Mr. Bloodstone,” but Ruddy couldn’t be sure what he was looking at. The Master of Ceremonies once told Ruddy Sergei wound up in England by accident. Supposedly, he left his homeland headed for Spain but being wall-eyed, couldn’t see straight and turned the wrong way.

  “Good evening to you, too, Sergei.”

  “Miss Honeysuckle’s popular with your lot tonight,” Sergei said as Ruddy started to walk on.

  Ruddy stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “Another Peeler came back asking where her dressing room was a short time ago.”

  “You’re sure it was a copper?”

  Sergei snorted. “I may not see well, but I see well enough to know a badge flashed in my face.”

  “Huh.” No surprise someone wanted to see her. She was the Odeon’s star attraction. Ruddy was curious to see if it was a copper he knew.

  “I must ask you to leave,” Honeysuckle told someone. The order came from her dressing room.

  Ruddy took off in that direction. As he approached Honeysuckle’s dressing room, he heard her add, “It’s always nice to hear from fans of the show and of course, I’m terribly flattered by your invitation but I must decline.”

  “Miss Flowers, you can’t mean to break my heart without giving me a fair chance. You must have dinner with me. They’re holding a table at the Criterion.”

  Napier. He could see the man’s reflection in the large, glass-framed posters that hung directly across from Honeysuckle’s door. Ruddy thought he looked like a dandified monkey in the tuxedo he wore, which was an unkindness to simians.

  “But, Miss Flowers—”

  “The lady asked you to leave. Get out.” Ruddy stepped between the dressing table where Honeysuckle sat and Napier.

  “This is none of your business, Bloodstone. This is a private conversation between the lady and me. If anyone should leave, it should be you,” Napier said.

  “It became my business when the lady asked you to go and you didn’t. Now get out.”

  “Who do you think you are talking to? I’m not some mealy-mouthed whelp like Northam or one of those others who yes sir and no sir you.” As he argued, Napier moved in close to Ruddy. He brought his hand up fast toward Ruddy’s chest. A faster Ruddy anticipated a shove or blow and clamped his hand around Napier’s wrist.

  Ruddy twisted Napier’s wrist and gave him a firm shove. “Try to touch me again and you’ll be on your arse looking up.”

  Honeysuckle stood and laid a hand on each man’s arm. “Gentlemen, please don’t fight over me.” Both ignored her.

  Napier smirked. “I love a challenge.” He immediately raised a hand and made to push the issue.

  Ruddy didn’t wait for the touch. He punched Napier in the mouth. Napier stumbled back, nearly knocking over Honeysuckle’s chair. “It’s time, Napier. I’m tired of dancing around this issue of a challenge. You and I. Pick a day and it has to be a neutral spot.”

  Napier pulled a handkerchief from his inside coat pocket and dabbed his bloody lip. “For once, I agree with you. I’ll ask Chief Superintendent Effingham and Kelly from my club to find a good location.”

  “Oh no. He’s not going with your boy Kelly. I want Archie to go with them. You’re not stacking the deck against me by choosing a club where Kelly’s in league with the referees.”

  “You don’t trust Chief Effingham?”

  Ruddy would love nothing more than to give an honest answer. Speaking ill of a man of Effingham’s rank could land him neck deep in an intradepartmental political manure pile. “I’m saying I want Archie to go along.”

  Napier bent and quickly checked the damage to his mouth in the dressing table mirror. Finished, he turned to Honeysuckle. “I take it Bloodstone here is the reason you’re not going to dinner with me.”

  “Mr. Napier, I try to avoid being rude or mean spirited. That means I don’t always tell the whole truth, but in your case I’m making an exception. Yes, I do have plans with Rudyard this evening.” Honeysuckle flipped the silky skirt of her gown back and straightened to a stiff-backed regal position. “And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go to dinner with you. I don’t like you. You wouldn’t accept no when I declined your invitation and you’re arrogant. Too arrogant to believe I know my own mind. I sir, am one woman who always knows her own mind.” Finger out, she pointed toward the door. “Go.”

  “Like many women who have a limited view of the world, you mistake confidence for arrogance. How unfortunate for you.” Napier tipped his head.

  “Snap to and get out, Napier. Your organ grinder master is waiting,” Ruddy said.

  Napier whipped his top hat from the chair where he’d laid it and said, “You and me, Bloodstone, been a long time coming.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  Napier’s heavy footsteps echoed off the corridor walls all the way to the back door.

  “His organ grinder master? Really Rudyard.” Honeysuckle came over and slipped her arms around Ruddy’s neck.

  “Tell me Pop Goes the Weasel didn’t jump into your head when you saw him done up that way.”

  She kissed him. “It didn’t. I think you’d be very handsome in a tuxedo, nothing like an organ grinder’s monkey. Maybe one day we’ll go somewhere formal. I’d love to see you in that kind of elegant garb.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “It’s not far across the river on Blackfriar’s Road,” Archie said. “Nice club, clean like Kelly’s.”

  “You say Jameson went with you,” Ruddy repeated what Archie had told him, surprised by his Superintendent’s decision to go along.

  “He did. He took me aside and on the sly said he wouldn’t put it past Effingham to use his rank to exert undue influence on me so I’d agree to wherever he and Kelly chose.”

  Ruddy couldn’t argue with Jameson’s assumption. Effingham had shown himself to be a haughty sly boots more than once. Napier was his official bootlicker.

  “What about referees?” Ruddy asked.

  “Turns out Jameson is a bigger boxing fan than we thought. He knows some of the successful current boxers. He took our group to visit them and we had a nice list of fair and trusted men. Once you agree to a day, we’ll approach the men on the list and see who is available.” Archie pulled a piece of paper from his coat pocket. “These are the days that Napier liked.”

  Ruddy thought the sooner they got this over, the better. With less time for word to get around the different station houses, there’d be fewer men to witness the event since the outcome was uncertain.

  “Next Saturday is fine.”

  ****

  The fight was scheduled for midday Saturday. Tony accompanied Ruddy to the Blackfriar’s Athletic Club. Archie and Jameson greeted them as they came through the door.

  “Looks like most of our constables are here,” Ruddy said, scanning the rows of benches.”

  “Most everyone who has the day off,” Jameson said. “Coopersmith and Northam are manning the wagering table, just there.” He pointed. “The other two at the table are Effingham’s lads. He gestured to a dignified man about his same age standing at his side. “Bloodstone, Holbrook, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine from my club, John Daley. He’s a boxing fan.”

  “Nice meeting you.” Ruddy shook Daley’s hand.

  “Sir.” Holbrook did the same.

  Ruddy introduced Tony to Jameson whose interest was immediately sparked by the boxer’s background as a fighter. While Jameson was distracted talking to Tony, Ruddy whispered to Archie, “How’s the betting look?”

  “Our fellows are putting a decent amount of coin down on you.”

  “More than on Napier?”

  “I take it Tony will be your corner man?” Archie replied, changing the subject.

  The evasive answer told Ruddy what he needed to know. He couldn’t blame the Holborn men for n
ot wanting to lose money. The safe wager was on Napier.

  “What are the odds?” Ruddy asked.

  “4-1 for Napier.”

  Ruddy took offense. Who wouldn’t? At worse, he thought the odds might be 2-1. “Really, I’d have thought they had more faith in me than that. I am a good street fighter after all. They’ve seen me in enough donnybrooks.”

  “It’s not a donnybrook where anything goes. I think they’re nervous about Marquess of Queensberry rules holding your feet to the fire.”

  “How’d you bet?”

  “On you, of course. We’re partners aren’t we?”

  “How much did you bet?”

  “Five quid.” The words were barely out when Northam came over and handed two betting slips to Archie.

  “Here you go, Arch. A fiver note on Bloodstone and a two quid note on Napier.”

  Archie had the decency to look sheepish.

  “You covered part of your bet on me with one on Napier? You wound me, Arch,” Ruddy said and shook his head, hoping to shame his partner more. “What about you, Northam? Did you cover your bet on me?”

  The young constable flushed deep red. “Ah...ah...”

  “I see. Et tu, Northam?”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s a Shakespearean reference, Northam,” Jameson said. “Run back to the wagering table before he starts quoting Milton.” Northam dashed off.

  “Before we take our seats, I just want to reassure you Bloodstone that I have wagered only on you.” Jameson shot a pointed glance at Archie.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me if I decline to reveal who I’ve wagered on,” Daley said.

  “No worries,” Ruddy said.

  Tony came from the back of the club and joined them. “Ready to get changed?”

  Archie flashed two thumbs up as Ruddy turned to follow Tony.

  Ruddy and Napier would fight shirtless wearing close fitting bottoms similar to long underwear, leather flat-soled boots that laced up past the ankles along with boxing gloves.