Before Ian could move, the door to the office swung open, and a disheveled Sergeant Dickerson lurched into the room. His uniform was unbrushed, his boots in need of polish, and one of the brass buttons on his jacket had come undone. “Sorry, sirs,” he panted. “I meant to be here earlier.”
“Good Lord, Sergeant,” Crawford began, but Ian stepped between them.
Dickerson stared at his bruised face. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Quite all right, thank you. What did Constable McKee have to say about the Waverley Station incident?”
“Nowt useful, I’m afraid, sir. No one saw anythin’—no one were even lookin’ at the poor bloke when it happened, and there were too much smoke fer those what were around.”
Crawford shook his head. “I feared as much. Poor fellow.”
“If it were our man,” said Dickerson, “why d’you s’pose he killed Inspector Gerard?”
“Perhaps he thought there was incriminating evidence in Paris that Gerard hadn’t yet discovered,” said Ian.
“Well, we’ll never know now.” Crawford sighed.
“What now, sir?” asked Dickerson.
Crawford scowled at him. “First of all, you can explain why you were late. And your appearance—”
“You’re just in time to help interview a chambermaid,” Ian interrupted.
“Sir?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Ian said, hustling him out of the room before DI Crawford could vent his spleen on the sergeant.
“Thank you, sir,” Dickerson said as they stepped out onto the Parliament Square side of the building.
“What on earth were you up to last night?” Ian asked, taking in his unshaven face.
“Nowt so much as you, by the look of it, sir.”
“Never mind about me—what about you?”
“I, er, saw a young lady, sir.”
“Anyone I know?”
“I—I’d rather not say.”
“I never would have taken you for a Lothario.”
“It’s a question a’ her privacy, y’see.”
“Everyone has secrets, Sergeant.”
“Even you, sir?”
“Especially me,” Ian said as they passed beneath the shadow of North Bridge, turning south on Niddry Street.
“If ye say so, sir,” Dickerson replied, sidestepping a coach-and-four careening around the corner onto High Street. “I ought t’write bloody bugger up,” he muttered as mud thrown up from the rear wheels splattered his uniform. “If that’s not ‘riding recklessly and furiously,’ I dunno wha’ is.”
“Never mind,” Ian said. “We have more important business—we must pay a call on Miss Abigail Farley, chambermaid at the Waterloo Hotel.”
Miss Farley lived in a dilapidated tenement in the Cowgate known as Happy Land—a fine example of Scottish irony, in its utter failure to live up to its name. Happy Land was filthy, unsafe, and unsanitary; it stank of sin, sorrow, and surrender. Behind its crumbling walls lived a collection of thieves, rogues, and whores, as well as a few murderers. Sprinkled in among them were unlucky, impoverished souls doing their best to make a living on the right side of the law.
Abigail Farley was one of those unfortunates. A plump, round-faced young woman with curly black hair, she answered the door immediately, beckoning them inside after glancing left and right, as if expecting brigands to dart out and attack at any moment.
She took in Ian’s battered face without comment, leading them into a small parlor, which was clean and swept, the well-worn furniture free of dust. She obviously had made an effort to create an atmosphere of what comfort she could; the rickety tea table was covered with a hand-crocheted antimacassar, and a threadbare woven rug covered the rough-hewn wood floors.
“Won’t you sit down?” she said nervously, gesturing to the room’s only chair, which had seen better days. Her accent suggested her Irish roots, light and lilting.
Sergeant Dickerson began to lower himself into the tattered armchair, but Ian glared at him and he leapt back to his feet.
“Perhaps you would like to sit instead,” Ian suggested to their hostess. “This must a very trying time for you.”
“I won’t call you a liar,” she said, sinking into the armchair with a sigh. “I’ve had better days, so I have.”
“Did the hotel give you the day off, Miss Farley?” Ian said.
“Everyone calls me Abbie. Mr. McCleary—he’s the night manager, y’see—told me I was on no account to come in today, nor tomorrow if I didn’t feel up to it. He’s payin’ me wages an’ all, bless ’im.”
Ian’s opinion of Mr. McCleary took an upward swing. So he was not an unfeeling man, perhaps just one given to hysteria.
“So you discovered the body?”
She nodded and looked down at her nails, torn and ragged—scrubbing floors with harsh chemicals was hardly conducive to having nice hands.
“I was to turn the bed down, like—that’s one of me jobs, y’see.”
“Every evening?”
“Yes, and t’see if they would be wantin’ fresh linen or anything. In a fancy hotel, you’re wantin’ to keep the customers happy, y’see?”
“Indeed,” said Ian. “Please continue.”
“Well, I didn’t receive an answer when I knocked, so I finally just opened the door, figuring Mr. Wright weren’t in . . . and that’s when I found the poor man as I did. So help me, sweet Jesus, I dropped me arm of linens and let out a scream to raise the dead.”
“So you didn’t touch anything?”
“Good Lord, no! I backed out of there as fast as me legs could carry me, and it weren’t but a moment afore Mr. McCleary showed up.”
“Did you chance to pass by the room at all earlier?”
“An hour or so before I was a few doors away, near the staircase, when I thought I heard voices comin’ from that room. I can’t be sure, though—it might ’a been another room.”
“What sort of voices?”
“Two men it was—they weren’t exactly shoutin’, but you could tell there was tension atween ’em, y’know?”
“Did you hear what they were saying?”
“No, but a few minutes later, I heard a crash, like something fallin’ to th’floor.”
“Coming from that room?”
“I can’t say for sure. There’s ten rooms in that hallway alone.”
“Anything else?”
“No. I went on about my business—Mr. McCleary says it’s not right to spy upon the guests.”
“And you saw no one coming or going from Mr. Wright’s suite?”
“No, but I went upstairs shortly after that, so if someone did leave, I wouldn’t have seen nothin’. Was he murdered, then?” she asked, her frank green eyes wide.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” Ian said, showing her the police sketch.
“Lord if he don’t bear a resemblance to poor Mr. Wright,” she said. “Could be ’is brother, so he could.”
“But you’ve never seen him?”
“I can’t say as I have, no—never saw no one comin’ or goin’ in Mr. Wright’s rooms. Never knew a man who liked ’is privacy more—”
She was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and slamming, followed by the sound of stamping boots in the hallway, accompanied by a fit of consumptive coughing.
“It’s me brother, Seamus,” Abbie said, “back from the docks early.”
A young man entered the room. Clad in mud-encrusted boots, and a well-worn vest and jacket over a green flannel shirt, he was the very image of Edinburgh’s working class. In his right hand he clutched a handkerchief spattered with fresh droplets of blood. Upon seeing Ian and Dickerson, he pulled the tweed cap from his head, staring at them while hovering on the edge of the hooked rug. He had the same features and coloring as his sister, but his skin was bronzed from the sun, and he had the lean build and sunken chest of a consumptive.
“Take those boots off,” Abbie commanded. “I just swept in here.”
> He obeyed without taking his eyes off the two policemen. “What are they doin’ here?”
“Asking ’bout the death of poor Mr. Wright.”
“Oiy—what happened to you?” he asked Ian.
“My face had a disagreement with a fist about occupying the same space. The fist had the upper hand.”
“That’s good, sir,” Dickerson murmured. “The upper hand.”
Seamus frowned as he pulled off his heavy-soled boots, setting them on the metal rack by the door. “There’s not much ta tell. Abbie found the poor bugger hangin’ in his hotel bedroom. End o’ story.”
“I’m afraid there’s a bit more to it than that,” Dickerson declared officiously.
Seamus gave a harsh laugh, which set off another fit of coughing, a deep hacking that sounded as if his lungs would explode.
“That’s a nasty cough ye got there,” Sergeant Dickerson remarked. “Ye should see someone about it.”
“Good idea,” Seamus Farley shot back. “I’ll just pop ’round an’ drop a month’s wages on one o’ those fancy Princes Street surgeons, shall I?”
“Seamus!” Abbie scolded. “There’s no reason to be rude. It just shows your bad breeding, so it does.”
“God forbid these fine gentlemen should think we’re ill-bred, Abbie,” he responded with a bitter laugh, which set off another coughing fit.
Ian knew the type: working class, resentful of the system that kept him on the edge of poverty, a chip on his shoulder the size of a caber. The Scottish Enlightenment had barely touched people like Seamus Farley, who could just see over the edge of their own misery onto what they didn’t have.
“Is there anything at all you observed about Mr. Wright that may help us find his killer?” Ian asked Abbie.
“He was murdered?” her brother said, his face slack with amazement.
Abbie rolled her eyes. “Why d’you think they’re here, Seamus?”
“Your sister is not a suspect,” Ian assured him. “We merely want to find out—”
“Who’d want to murder a fellow like him?” Seamus said, shaking his head. “Maybe a jealous husband, d’ya think?”
“Let the policemen do their job,” Abbie said. “Then I’ll be about gettin’ you a mustard plaster for your chest.”
“I’ll get me own plaster, so I will,” he said, stomping off in the direction of the kitchen. The sound of muffled coughing came from behind the closed door.
“How long has your brother been sick?” Ian asked.
“Since last winter,” Abbie said. “The cold and wet makes it worse. I told him I’d take in sewing so’s we can live off what I make, but he won’t hear of it.”
“Right he is, too,” Dickerson remarked. “No self-respecting man would let a woman support him.”
“Thank you for your enlightened social views, Sergeant,” Ian said. “Now then, Miss Farley, if there’s nothing else—”
“Hang on a minute,” she said. “There was one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just a detail, so maybe it weren’t nothin’.”
“The solution of a crime often turns on the smallest detail, Miss Farley. What is it you saw?”
“It’s more what I didn’t see.”
Dickerson cocked his head to one side, like a confused spaniel. “I don’ take your meaning, miss.”
“It was a vase, sir. Or rather, it wasn’t a vase—that is, it was gone.”
“Can you be more specific?” said Ian.
“That room had a pair o’ Chinese vases—big ones, like ye find in rich people’s houses. Only these are only reproductions, o’ course.”
“Go on.”
“Well, sir, whilst I was waitin’ for Mr. McCleary to come up, I happened to notice one of ’em was missing.”
“Are you certain?” asked Ian.
“Hadn’t I dusted them both earlier in the day?”
“Did you mention it to Mr. McCleary?”
“There was so much rumpus an’ all, I didn’t think to mention it till now. A missing vase didn’t seem very important at the time.”
“Miss Farley,” said Ian, “that is where you are mistaken. A great deal could ride upon that detail. Your missing vase could prove to be very important indeed.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
“What’s significant about the vase, sir, if you don’ mind my askin’?” Sergeant Dickerson asked Ian as they trudged up the High Street toward police headquarters.
“It could be proof that Henry Wright was murdered.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“I believe it was broken in the attack, and the killer removed the broken bits to cover the fact that there was a struggle.”
“I see—very clever, sir.”
“I’d like you to pay another visit to the Waterloo Hotel and have a look round the room for any broken pieces left behind. Then ask the manager—Mr. McCleary—if he had the vase removed from the room for any reason.”
“Now, sir?” asked Dickerson as they stepped aside to make room for a blacksmith leading a pair of chestnut geldings down the hill toward the foundry section of town. The man’s face was smeared with grease and soot, shiny as the glistening coats of the horses.
“No time like the present,” said Ian. “Off you go.”
“Yes, sir,” Dickerson replied, scurrying away in the direction of the New Town.
Ian continued toward the station house, passing a group of schoolchildren playing pitch-and-toss underneath George IV Bridge, their halfpennies clattering hollowly against the gray sandstones. The sun was just coming to rest from its daily labors when he entered the building, mounting the stairs to the main room on the second floor.
He found DCI Crawford in his office, staring out the window, slumped in his chair.
“Sir, I believe I have definitive proof that Henry Wright was murdered.”
“Good for you,” Crawford replied listlessly, without turning around.
“Sir? Are you quite all right?”
Crawford sighed heavily. “It’s strange, isn’t it? We live in the city with one of the greatest medical colleges in the world, and yet . . . I don’t know, Hamilton. Sometimes I don’t know why I get out of bed in the morning.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind—what were you saying?”
“The death of Henry Wright. I have evidence indicating it was murder.”
Crawford gave a little chuckle. “You don’t let up, do you? Good on ye, mate.” He took a deep breath, but instead of a laugh, what came out was a ragged sob. It was followed by another, and another. Ian stood uncomfortably, hands at his sides, staring at the ground, while his boss wept. After a couple of minutes, Crawford pulled out a blue-striped handkerchief, blew his nose loudly, and stuffed it back into his pocket.
“Sorry you had to see that, Hamilton.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
“It’s damn unprofessional, and I apologize.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you indeed?”
“Your wife is not well, sir, and you’re worried about her.”
“Humph.” The chief inspector gazed out the window at the darkening city, then turned back to Ian. “Have you ever been in love, Hamilton?”
“When I was young, perhaps.”
Crawford gave a disgusted snort. “You’re still young, man.”
“When I was younger, then.”
“I have been in love only once, with the woman I married.”
“Quite commendable, sir.”
“Watching her suffer is unbearable, and thinking about losing her is even worse.”
“Have you consulted any doctors at the medical school?”
“My physician is going to try to get a referral to a specialist, but they’re so busy, I’m afraid they won’t have time for her.”
“Then we shall simply have to see that they make time.”
Crawford swung his head around to gaze up at Ian. “I’m beginning to think I was wrong
about you, Hamilton.”
“Maybe my brother can help find you someone.”
“Your brother is back in town? Last I heard he was—”
“He’s back,” Ian interrupted, “and he’s thinking of applying to the medical school.”
DCI Crawford rose from his chair and stretched his long, ungainly body. “Hamilton, why the blazes don’t you have a woman?”
“Perhaps I don’t like fat little wives, sir.”
Crawford frowned. “What?”
“You once told me to find a fat little wife.”
“Oh, yes—I remember,” he said, pulling a bottle of Glenlivet from his desk drawer. He poured some into a couple of empty teacups and handed one to Ian. “I was just trying to snap you out of your damn earnestness about this wretched job. You look terrible, by the way.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Not sleeping?”
“Perhaps no more than you.”
“See here, Hamilton, the world is full of evil wretches who seek nothing but their own self-gratification, and they don’t give a damn whom they hurt in the process. We’ll never catch every single one of them.”
Ian took a sip of scotch, sharp and peaty and tasting of the earth. “Sir, I—”
“You believe such a person is responsible for your parents’ death. While you may never bring that criminal to justice, you can still seek justice for others. Very noble, I’m sure, but mind it doesn’t crush you in the process.”
“Is that what happened to my father?”
“Your father was a gifted policeman.”
“You worked with him. What happened?”
“There was an allegation of accepting bribes.”
“Was it true?”
“It was never proven. You seem very drawn to questions that have no answer, Hamilton.”
“I’m afraid it comes with being a Highlander, sir.”
Crawford took a long swallow of scotch. “So you believe Henry Wright was murdered by his brother, whom you also believe to be the Holyrood Strangler? How the blazes are we going to find him?”
“Remember the word poor Freddie Cubbins was trying to utter when Daft Lucy found him?”
“Magi—”
“Magician.”
“Yes, so you thought.” Crawford squinted and rubbed his forehead. “Which means we’re looking for a murderer who’s also a bloody magician?”
Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries Book 1) Page 30
