“Really? What is it?”
Peterson shrugged. “Might be nothing, but it’s better shown than told of.”
“All right then.” Drew gestured toward the shed. “Lead on.”
With a final farewell to Mrs. Peterson, Drew followed Peterson down the garden path.
“I didn’t want to cause Mrs. Peterson any further upset,” Drew said as they walked along, “but I would like to know where you were last Sunday but one. Bobby tells me that’s the only day you’ve been away since Christmas?”
“I didn’t like to say in front of the wife, sir.” Peterson hesitated, staring out over the fields and fidgeting with the striped braces that held up his trousers. “A mate of mine, chap called Clancy, was in the Queen Bess a month or so ago. He’d been up to London and happened to see our Opal there.”
“And?”
“She were . . . well, he said she were in one of them dancing halls, as they say, where the girls get a shilling a dance and heaven knows whatever else goes on.” Peterson’s face was red, and there was a tremor in his voice. “I couldn’t let the wife hear about that, as you can well imagine, sir, but she was visiting her aunt a couple of Sundays ago, and as it were my day off, I thought I’d take the train up and see if I could find Opal.”
Drew said nothing, waiting for the man to go on.
“I found her, just where Clancy said, working in that place and living with five or six other girls crammed into a mean little flat not fit for pigs. She wouldn’t see me at first, but I pushed my way in, and there she were in a tatty old robe and slippers, looking thin and edgy and talking all shaky like, most faster than I could follow at times. What makes a girl like that? Maybe she were that mad at me. I don’t know.”
Drew kept his silence still. A man who’d rarely left the village in his entire life would not recognize the signs of cocaine addiction.
Peterson groaned. “I didn’t care. Not what she done nor where she was. I begged her to come back, said we’d take care of her and get her all rosy again here at home. I told her that her mother had wept over her this whole year, but all she did was laugh, kind of crazy-like. She said she were still going to be on the stage and one day she’d be rich enough that we would all live better than the king. It were like she couldn’t even tell the sty she were in.”
“And all this because of Lincoln,” Drew said, watching the other man’s expression.
“Lincoln?” Peterson spat on the pathway. “I’d say rather all this because of me. My wife, she don’t know it, but Opal and me quarreled, right after Lincoln threw her over. I told her she had no more than she deserved from him, and besides that, she were no better than she should be. What’s a girl to do when her own father don’t have no kindness for her? When she’s already hurt past her young heart bearing?”
“Did you tell her to go?”
“No,” Peterson said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Might as well have done. I been that ashamed this year now to even tell the missus what I done. I thought I could make it right and bring Opal home, but she won’t have none of me now.”
Drew wanted to say something to comfort the man, something to assure him that his child would be home again in time, as soon as she came to herself, but he wasn’t as optimistic as that. There were too many of them, nice girls from good families, who tried the stuff for a lark and were never again free of it. A good many more than the ones who could take it or leave it alone.
“At least you tried,” he said finally. “She knows where you are if she decides to come home. There’s not much more you can do unless she wants to come.”
“It’s what my missus says. She says even God don’t make us come to Him if we’re dead set on living with swine, like the Good Book says about the prodigal son.”
“But He watches for us to come home and runs to meet us when we do.” Drew smiled a little to think he would remember that bit of his Sunday lessons in particular.
Peterson smiled faintly now, too. “True enough, sir. True enough. Here we are.”
They had reached the shed. Peterson opened the door and gestured toward a small kit bag grimed over with fresh dirt that sat on the wooden table he used for his work.
“Where did you get that?” Drew asked.
“I thought the moles had been at that rose bush that’s at the back of the garden, there near the wood. One side of it looked a bit peaked, so I thought I’d ought to give it a bit of looking after. When I dug round it, I hit this.”
“Have you opened it?”
“No, sir. I thought you’d better know about it first.”
“Have you seen it before?”
“Not as I can say, sir. I suppose it looks fairly much like any other of its kind, but I couldn’t say whose it were.”
Drew rubbed his hands in anticipation. “How about we have a look?”
The latch was fastened and locked, but Drew’s penknife quickly made that of no importance. In another moment the bag was open and its contents spread out on the table.
It had belonged to a man, judging by the toilet articles and the gentleman’s undergarments it contained. Other than some handkerchiefs, a book, and some packets of headache powder, there was nothing else inside.
Drew flipped through the book. Fly-fishing. “And you didn’t find anything more?”
“No, sir. Not there, but I did find these.”
Peterson reached down to the shelf under the table and brought up a pair of men’s dress pumps. They were mangled out of shape and smeared with rubbish.
“Where were these?”
“That’s the queer thing of it, sir. Mrs. Devon gener’ly saves me the leavings from the kitchen so’s I can use some of it on the growing things. I dumps out the bin to sort through it all, and there they was.”
Drew wrinkled his nose and prodded one of the shoes with his penknife. “How often does Mrs. D bring you this, uh, bin?”
“I usually collect it of a Saturday night, but last week, with the goings-on, begging your pardon, Mr. Drew, I didn’t empty it until the Monday morning.”
“So anything in here was put in sometime between then and last night?”
“Must have been, sir. Who’d’ve put shoes in there, though? A gentleman’s shoes at that, and quite nice, I must say, till they was spoilt.”
“Quite the sort to wear to a party, wouldn’t you say?”
Peterson nodded. “Shall I polish them up, sir?”
“No. Best leave them as they are for now. The police will want to give them a look.”
There were those footprints in the grass, along with Constance’s. They might be well acquainted with this particular pair of shoes.
Drew used his penknife to turn the left one over. There appeared to be some dried egg yolk and something that looked like apricot jam on the heel, with a faint smear of white paint. No doubt the mark would match the one on the left stocking on the body in the greenhouse.
“Better put them in a box of some sort for me, and I’ll see to them and the kit bag. Let me know if you find anything else, will you?”
“Oh, right away, sir, right away.”
“And if I can be of any help about Opal . . .”
Peterson fidgeted with a button on his vest. “Very good of you, sir, but we sees to our own.”
Fifteen
Drew spent most of the next morning in his study. Minerva was taking a brief holiday from her kittens, lying in the sunshine and watching him pace as he waited for an answer to the telegram he had sent to Canada. It was nearly eleven when Denny finally brought it up to him. He read the terse message and then went down to the parlor to find Nick and Madeline.
“Yes, it does,” she said, and Drew recognized the pert, challenging look in her eyes that he found as intriguing as it was infuriating.
“No, it doesn’t,” Nick protested. “Who cares if a snake can actually hear a whistle? It’s a ripping good yarn either way.”
“But part of the fun is trying to solve the mystery before you read the solution. Y
ou can’t possibly figure out what that whistle is for until the end of the story, because snakes just don’t . . .” Madeline looked up at Drew. “What’s the matter?”
“Bad news?” Nick asked.
Drew shook his head. “I was just wondering . . . suppose it really wasn’t Lincoln in the greenhouse.”
For a moment, the other two merely stared at him.
“What do you mean?” Madeline finally asked.
“That bag, for one thing. Suppose it was Clarke’s. Why would anyone want to get rid of it? He wasn’t staying the weekend, so he wouldn’t have brought much up to the house. His real luggage would have been sent on to the ship. Besides, they weren’t expecting him in Edmonton. According to Mr. Rushford, he was meant to pop in unannounced to see how things were going over there without anyone prettying things up in advance.”
Nick wrinkled his brow. “What have the police said?”
“They haven’t identified it yet. There’s not much in there to go on. The shoes are a different matter.”
Madeline raised one eyebrow. “Whose are they?”
“They don’t quite know that either, but they are the same ones that made the footprints in the garden where Constance was that night. Don’t tell this to anyone yet, but I think what Rushford heard at the office the night he was attacked was Lincoln’s voice.”
“Are you sure?” Madeline asked, her eyes wide.
Nick’s only response was a low whistle.
“Remember when we were looking at the body, Nick?” Drew asked. “Before Jimmy shooed us off?”
Nick nodded. “Hardly something I’ll soon forget.”
“I’ve been puzzling about that ring ever since then.”
Madeline frowned. “You mean it wasn’t his, after all?”
“No,” Drew said, “it was his all right. But there was something not right about it. It wasn’t on his finger properly, only about halfway down, if you know what I mean.”
“As if the killer tried to pull it off,” Nick said.
“Or as if he didn’t manage to get it all the way on,” Madeline breathed. “Oh, Drew, you don’t think . . . ?”
“Ever since the break-in at Farlinford, I’ve had suspicions.” Drew took the telegram out of his pocket. “I got this just a bit ago. It’s a reply to the one I sent yesterday to Canada.”
“Hold on,” Nick said. “You think Clarke—”
“He never got to the office in Edmonton,” Drew interrupted. “He never got on the ship.”
“What better way for Lincoln to avoid pursuit than being declared dead, eh?” Nick grinned. “And as a point of order, I must say it’s hardly cricket for you to have suspicions and not lay them out for inspection. Father Knox wouldn’t like it. But I suppose the question now is where has our charming Mr. Lincoln taken himself off to?”
“Poor Mr. Clarke,” Madeline said. “I had forgotten all about him. I remember Mr. Rushford saying Lincoln had recommended him to be Uncle Mason’s secretary. And he did look rather like Lincoln from the back.”
“Did he?” Drew asked. “I guess I never saw him but that once, in the study. I don’t recall that he looked like Lincoln at all. Rather an odd, pasty-looking fellow, as I remember.”
“He did from the back,” Madeline said. “It startled me at first. But I never thought of him again once I went back to the party with you.” She shook her head. “I can see why Lincoln would want to disappear.”
“Blackmail is no small thing,” Nick said. “Maybe Mrs. Parker was going to turn him in to the local constabulary.”
“Or,” Drew offered, “perhaps another of his satisfied customers decided he’d had enough of paying blackmail and was out to shut him up permanently, and Lincoln thought it best to make his exit.”
“Still, it’s not right,” Nick said grimly. “It’s not right at all.”
“Rather bad form to kill a chap just because he fits into your dinner jacket,” Drew agreed.
“No, I don’t mean that,” Nick replied. “That’s bad enough. But Father Knox didn’t approve of doubles. Lincoln’s doing it all wrong.”
“The police have already checked his flat for clues. Perhaps we should take a look at Clarke’s. Maybe there’s something there.”
“But the police—”
“The police don’t know what I know yet. Or at least what I think I know. We can be in and out of Clarke’s and them none the wiser. What do you say?”
“Oh yes,” Madeline said. “I want to go with you.”
“Are you in, Nick? I can ring up Miss Stokes and get the address, and we can be off.”
“All right,” Nick said. “But we’re likely to find no more there than we did at Lincoln’s.”
“Now, now,” Drew said. “Faint heart and all that.”
“I’m afraid you have won the only fair lady at hand,” Nick said. “Or at least you’re set on winning her.”
Drew winked at Madeline. “Quite right, and don’t you forget it.”
Once Drew had obtained Clarke’s address from the overly inquisitive Miss Stokes, he and Nick and Madeline drove up to Winchester.
“This can’t be right,” Nick said, looking around at the row of seedy warehouses and tatterdemalion little shops that lined the street. “What number did you say?”
Drew glanced at the back of the envelope where he had jotted down the address. “Thirty-seven.”
Number 37 housed the cannery that preserved for market Frye’s Freshest Fish. No one currently at work there recognized Clarke’s name or description. All of them were quite sure that no one was allowed to actually take up residence in the building.
“Heigh-ho,” Nick sighed as they returned to the car. “And what now, mon capitaine?”
“Obviously a false address.”
“And a fake name,” Madeline added.
“Perhaps not. His file could have been tampered with in our records. I certainly wouldn’t put it past whoever’s behind all this.” Drew smiled. “I think, for now, I’d best have a little chat with our Mr. Rushford.”
Rushford was sunning himself on the terrace when Drew returned to Farthering Place. It seemed a pity to upset the old boy when he was just beginning to get his nerves back, but there it was. He already had a glass of something in his hand, so perhaps he’d be in a mellow mood.
Drew pulled up a chair next to him. “Having a pleasant afternoon, sir?”
“Oh, hello, young man. Yes, very nice. Very nice. Perhaps I should have a country place of my own. Nothing like it for the nerves. Been thinking of going back to Canada one day. Pleasant place for an old man to finish out, what?”
Drew smiled. “Not for a good many years yet, I trust.”
He was glad to see Rushford smiling, glad that fear was gone from his eyes. It was the worst thing to see in an old man—fear and uncertainty and helplessness. He hated having to bring them back to Rushford now, but it couldn’t be helped.
“I’d like a word if I might, sir,” Drew began. “About the other night at Farlinford.”
Rushford’s smile vanished. “I don’t know of anything more—”
“I’d like to know about what you heard.”
“What I heard? I never—”
“You said you weren’t sure you had heard properly. Heard what?”
“I said I heard someone on the telephone. I told you that.”
“But you said something couldn’t be, that it was impossible, that you mustn’t have heard properly. What did you mean?”
There was a flash of anger in the old man’s eyes. “I never said such a thing. You must be mistaken.”
“You wrote it in your diary.”
Rushford’s face went white. “You read my diary?”
“It’s inexcusable, sir, I know, and I can’t blame you for feeling misused, but we’re dealing with murder here. I have to know what you heard.”
“I don’t know.” Rushford put his head in his hands. “It’s all so muddled, I can’t say for certain.”
“Just te
ll me what you thought.”
“It was the voice, the one talking about sharing things out.”
“What else did he say?”
“I didn’t hear anything more, but his voice . . . No, it’s madness.”
“What about his voice?”
“I think . . . I think it was Lincoln. It was David Lincoln.”
Drew nodded. “The chief inspector will want to hear this.”
“They won’t believe me,” Rushford said. “I hardly believe myself, but that was what I heard.” He looked up at Drew, his tired eyes pleading. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“I do. I’ve always thought there was something peculiar about that body in the greenhouse. But if Lincoln is alive, why is he still here? I should have thought he would have decamped with the money the moment he was dead and buried.”
“But if it wasn’t Lincoln who was shot,” Rushford said, “then who—”
“Mason’s secretary, that Clarke fellow, God help him. He never turned up in Canada.”
“Lincoln’s bleeding us dry.” The blood surged into Rushford’s face. “The greedy little worm is bleeding us dry.”
Drew gave him a moment to collect himself, and then he stood. “Well, I’ll—”
“The police have got to be told. About Lincoln. They must be told.”
“I’ll see to it right away. No doubt Inspector Birdsong will want to speak to you about it.”
“Yes, of course. I should have told the police about this before now, but it was so fantastic, I thought perhaps I was hallucinating back at the office.” Rushford blinked rapidly. “I . . . I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure I had my head about me.”
“Perfectly understandable, sir.”
There was something pitiful in Rushford’s trembling smile. “Rather nice to know I haven’t gone completely mad.”
Drew rang up the chief inspector and listened as Rushford stumbled through his explanation of what had happened at Farlinford and why he hadn’t mentioned anything about it until now. Then, chastened, Rushford handed Drew the telephone.
“He’d like to speak to you.”
Drew grinned. “I suppose I’m in for it now.” He put the receiver to his ear. “Well, Inspector, a rather interesting turn of events, is it not?”
Rules of Murder Page 20
