The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  Mr. Clemens wasn’t. “Then why did you need all that foofaraw? If you were really in touch with the spooks, wouldn’t that be enough?”

  “Had I had my own way, we would have had none of it,” said Martha, looking my employer straight in the face and speaking very quietly. “I do have a gift, one I cannot explain to you by rational argument. But it is an unassuming gift, hardly given to spectacular effects. Edward thought we should display it to better advantage so as to attract more sitters. He argued that unless we could bring in a steady string of customers, we would have had little choice but to return to our previous means of earning our livelihood. And I am not yet so desperate as to return to that life. I will not deceive you, Mr. Clemens.”

  My employer listened to her in silence, massaging his chin between his right thumb and forefinger. Finally he said, “Maybe you are telling the truth, young lady. Polishing up the apples is just Ed’s style of business. But I don’t think you need to worry about him. If he didn’t pull the trigger, he’ll find a way to slide out of jail, sooner or later, and not much the worse for it. Why, he’d probably slip right through the noose if they tried to hang him.”

  “Mr. Clemens,” said Martha McPhee, looking my employer in the eyes, “I am in a strange country, with no resources and no close friends. The events of last evening have for all practical purposes destroyed my means of supporting myself—at the very least, until Edward is cleared of suspicion. Who will visit a medium whose husband is accused of killing a man?”

  “I reckon the same kind of customer that comes to any other medium,” drawled Mr. Clemens. “I’d be surprised if Ed couldn’t parlay that shooting into some way to double your business.”

  “Youth!” said Mrs. Clemens, sharply. I thought she was about to say more, but before she could do so, Martha McPhee had risen to her feet. Her visage was stem, but I thought I saw her lip quiver for a moment before she spoke.

  “Very well, Mr. Clemens,” she said, rising from her chair. “I can see that I have been wasting my time, and yours, too. I did not really expect to find a friend here”—did she glance in my direction as she said that word?—“so much as an ally against injustice. I was evidently mistaken. I shall go my way and leave you to your own business.”

  “Now just a minute . . .” said Mr. Clemens, coming to his feet, but Martha McPhee brushed past him and was out the door before he could complete the sentence. He stood for a moment staring at the door, and then said, “Damn.” I had never heard him get quite so much expression into a single syllable.

  “Very well done, Youth,” said Mrs. Clemens. “Now you need not exert yourself in the least. And if McPhee is hanged, why possibly he will have done something to deserve it.”

  “Hell, I reckon he has,” said Mr. Clemens. “Besides, I told you I wasn’t going to play detective anymore. You acted as if you thought it was a good idea.”

  “I thought so last night, yes,” said his wife. “That was before I heard Mrs. McPhee’s story this morning—which you have managed to prevent her from telling.”

  “What the hell did she say?” My employer’s scowl deepened.

  “Oh, it hardly matters,” said Mrs. Clemens, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Besides, I could never tell the story as well as she could.” She stood up and moved toward the door.

  “Damnation!” said Mr. Clemens. “I can see I’m going to have to hear her out, after all—and eat some crow while I’m at it. Wentworth! Run and see if you can catch her before she’s gone.”

  “Yes, sir.” I hastened out the door and down the stairs, trying not to make too much noise. As I passed the parlor, I saw Susy and Clara Clemens sitting with books on their laps. They looked up at me with surprised expressions. “Did you see which way Mrs. McPhee went?” I asked them.

  “She just called for her coat and went out the door,” said Clara, pointing.

  I threw open the door and rushed outside, where I saw Martha McPhee being assisted into a carriage by the man who’d driven us the other day—Jimmy, I remembered. “Mrs. McPhee—Martha!” I cried. “Please wait a moment.”

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder. “And for what reason, Mr. Cabot?” She stood with one foot in the carriage, showing her ankle, and turned to look down at me. “I thought Mr. Clemens made it quite clear he wanted nothing to do with me or my husband.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Clemens spoke too hastily,” I said. “He appears already to regret his haste. Will you come back in and finish what you came to say? I will do what I can to see that he listens to you, this time.”

  A faint smile came to her lips as she contemplated my statement, then she said to the driver, “Jimmy, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer. Mr, Cabot, will you help me down? If Mr. Clemens is ready to listen to me, I suppose I must swallow my pride and go talk to him. I do not have an overabundance of allies.”

  “Any port in a storm, eh, missus?” said Jimmy, grinning mischievously. I did not entirely like his expression, but he was not the one I had to deal with. I reached my hand up to Martha, helped her down from the carriage, and led her back inside to plead her case to Mr. Clemens.

  Susy and Clara Clemens gave us curious glances as we went back up the stairs. There we found my employer by the fireplace, poking up the fire. To judge by his subdued expression, Mrs. Clemens had been making clear her opinion that his brusque manner with Mrs. McPhee was not consistent with the seriousness of the other woman’s predicament.

  “Young lady, I guess we need to start over,” said Mr. Clemens, putting the poker back in its rack. “Tell me again why you think I ought to help get the cops off your husband’s back.”

  “That should not require any long explanation,” said Martha McPhee, taking the same seat as before. “He is a fellow American, and an old acquaintance—if not exactly a close friend—and he is being unjustly accused. I heard you say last night that you did not believe him to be a murderer.”

  “Well, maybe not a murderer,” said Mr. Clemens, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he took a little bribe to let somebody use that spy hole last night.”

  “Youth!” said Mrs. Clemens, but Martha McPhee raised her hand.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Clemens,” she said. “I appreciate your solicitude, but if we are all to work together, I think the time has come to speak frankly. After all, the police will undoubtedly be making these same accusations, and we had best be ready to refute them.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, young lady,” said Mr. Clemens. “Now, both of us know Ed—you better than I, likely as not—and I think you’ll agree that he has a sharp eye for a dollar, and a faster hand to take it. Why wouldn’t he have let somebody else use that spy hole while he took a stroll around the block, if the fellow offered to pay him for it?”

  “Because he’d have had to take the time to show the other person how to use the rest of the apparatus,” said Martha. “We can never predict what spirits will appear, or in what order, so Edward always has to pay close attention to decide, when to pull the rope that makes raps, or to play the gramophone. Some other person could not just walk in and take over those tasks. Edward would have had to stay—so he would have seen the shooting.”

  “You don’t think he’d have snitched, do you?” said Mr. Clemens, leaning forward. “That don’t seem like Slippery Ed.”

  Martha looked thoughtful. “It would depend,” she said. “If a fellow professional were involved, probably not, unless Edward felt that he himself had been betrayed. Or if he’d taken a payment, he might feel bound to keep silent.”

  “Honor among thieves,” suggested my employer.

  “If you like,” said Martha, spreading her hands. “But that isn’t my point. Edward was as surprised as I was at the shooting, even half an hour later when I finally saw him. Believe me, Mr. Clemens, he could not have deceived me in that regard. I know my husband better than that.”

  “I’ll concede that,” said Mr. Clemens. “Ed can lie near as well as I can, but that didn’t look like an
act to me, last night. So where does that take us?”

  “It seems very clear to me,” said Mrs. Clemens. “If we postulate that Mr. McPhee was not involved in the killing, someone else must have been. And the inescapable conclusion is that it was someone in the room with us.”

  “Weren’t me,” said Mr. Clemens. “And it wasn’t you or Susy. I reckon I’d have noticed if you’d pulled out a pistol and started taking potshots, since you were both right next to me. Wentworth, now, he’s got a look about him—”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said. “Both my hands were being held at the time—one by your daughter, one by Mrs. McPhee here. I hardly had the opportunity to shoot anyone, even if I had been so inclined. And I assure you I was not.”

  “But then everyone else at the table has the same alibi,” said Mrs. Clemens. “Iii that case, nobody could have done it. What do you think, Youth?”

  Mr. Clemens furrowed his brow for a moment, then gave his head a shake. “Damnation,” he said at last. “Here I’ve been swearing up and down that I was through with that detective business, and you were telling me I was right to leave it to the police, Livy. Now you’re talking like you want to take it up yourself. Which am I supposed to listen to?”

  “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind,” said Martha McPhee, smiling. “But your wife is an eminently sensible woman, Mr. Clemens. I suggest you listen to her. Of course, I say that with my own interest in mind.”

  “There must be a dozen good detectives here in London,” my employer insisted. “Any of ’em would be a better choice than I am. Here I am, an old rascal who’s fallen into the business by accident, with less experience than any new recruit to the police force. On top of that, I’m a foreigner—why, every twelve-year-old Cockney knows this city better than I ever will. Besides, I’ve got a book to work on, lectures to prepare, and way too many debts to pay. Why pick on me?”

  “I can think of three reasons, actually,” said Martha McPhee. “To begin with, hiring a professional detective is simply beyond my means. But perhaps you would help me out of a sense of justice. Secondly, any other detective would have to be told everything from the beginning—you were there, and saw it all with your own eyes. You are a witness.”

  “That’s not necessarily an asset,” said Mr. Clemens. “Somebody else might be more objective. But I can understand not having the money to pay somebody—I guess you know that money’s been short in my household for a while, too. I haven’t been charging anybody for my detecting, and I guess I won’t start now. What’s your third reason?”

  Martha blushed, very prettily—I had had occasion before to wonder whether she could blush to suit her purposes. “Why, Mr. Clemens, because someone has killed a man right in front of your face. I should think you’d consider that a challenge, if not an outright insult. I’d think that would spur you to find out the truth for yourself—if only to show them they can’t play you for a fool.”

  My employer’s mouth fell open in astonishment, but then he frowned and said, “You only say that because you want me to think Ed didn’t shoot that man. What if I find out he did do it? Do you want the truth, or do you just want Ed out of jail? Because if I start mucking around in this mess, I’m going after the truth, whether or not anybody else likes it. And if that means I’ve got to find Ed guilty, then I will.”

  “I can accept that,” said Martha calmly. “I already know that Edward is innocent, so I have no fear of anything you can discover.”

  Mr. Clemens looked from his wife to Martha McPhee, then back again, as if trying to decide how to answer. But before he could say anything, the sound of girlish laughter came from the half-open doorway, and he looked up to see his three daughters peering around the edge of the door, spying on our meeting. Realizing they had been caught, they boldly threw open the door and stepped inside. “You will help her, won’t you, Papa?” said little Jean, running up to her father and throwing her arms around his neck.

  “I don’t see how I can get out of it now,” he said. Then he looked at me, with a half smile. “Let this be a lesson to you, Wentworth. Beware of the ladies, because they’ll surely run your whole life if you let ’em.”

  “Why, of course,” said Mrs. Clemens. “Why shouldn’t we? You men are very bright in your way, but you’re perfectly hopeless when it comes to practical matters. You can hardly expect us to allow you to stumble along all by yourself when we know perfectly well what you ought to be doing.” She smiled, and her two youngest daughters giggled.

  “I guess it’s settled, then,” said Mr. Clemens, in a resigned tone. He reached over to his desk and picked up a pipe. “Now, do any of you oh-so-practical ladies have any idea how we poor men should go about catching this murderer?”

  9

  It did not take us long to decide where we ought to begin our inquiry into the death of Dr. Parkhurst. Martha McPhee suggested that Mr. Clemens and I return to her apartments and make our own inspection of the scene of the crime. “The police were quite thorough up to a point,” she said. “But once Mr. Lestrade decided to take Edward into custody, that was the end of his search for clues. I think it’s quite possible they left something unexamined.”

  “I am surprised you suggest that,” I said. “Scotland Yard has the reputation of being very meticulous in their investigations.”

  “Having the reputation for something isn’t the same as doing it,” said Mr. Clemens. “I once got out of a duel by convincing the other party that I was a crack shot, which was about as close to the truth as Illinois is to China. But it served the purpose just fine. Now, I wouldn’t put it past Lestrade to convince a judge that he’s done a more complete search than he really has, and found all the evidence there is. So we’d better go over the place with a fine-tooth comb, and maybe a brush and a pair of scissors, too. Livy, do you think the girls have a magnifying glass we can borrow?”

  “I have one!” cried little Jean Clemens. “I’ll let you use it if I can come along!”

  “Certainly not!” said Mrs. Clemens. “I am surprised that a young lady would be so anxious to visit a place where something so terrible has happened.”

  “Oh, Mama, the dead man won’t be there anymore,” said Jean, putting on her most persuasive manner. “And neither will the murderer, unless it’s Mrs. McPhee here, and I don’t think Papa would be helping her if she was. There’s nothing in that place that can hurt me. You know that, Papa! Tell Mama I can come with you . . . please?”

  Mr. Clemens frowned. His bushy eyebrows made his disapproving expression even more dramatic, although his eyes belied the attempt at severity. “Well, little angel face,” he said, “I certainly appreciate the loan of your magnifying glass. But I reckon this won’t be anywhere near as much fun as you’re looking for. You said yourself that the dead man won’t be there, and neither will the murderer—so we won’t be catching anybody and turning him over to the police. We’ll just be looking at the furniture, and the floors, and all the other truck in the place. You’d be bored before we’d been there twenty minutes.”

  “No I wouldn’t!” said little Jean, pouting. “It’s not fair. Susy was there last night, and she saw the whole thing—she told me and Clara all about it. Why can’t I go see where it happened?”

  “Because I forbid you,” said Mrs. Clemens, with an expression that made it clear she expected no contradiction. “I shall have to speak very severely to Susy. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gave you and Clara nightmares, telling you such stories. Murder is not a fit subject for young ladies to dwell on.”

  “It’s not a fit subject for anyone to dwell on, but it looks as if somebody’s been doing it,” my employer said, laying his hand on his pouting daughter’s shoulder. “Your mama’s right, though, Jean. This isn’t a game. If the man who killed Dr. Parkhurst figures out that I’m trying to catch him, I might be in danger myself—and anyone who’s with me will be in the same fix. I can ask a grown-up like Wentworth to take that risk, but I’m not going to bring my little angels along for
some villain to shoot at. Not even Susy, and she’s a lot older than you. But you can help me, if you’ll go find that magnifying glass. I promise to tell you if I find anything with it—that way you’ll know you had a hand in solving this case.”

  Having determined that she had gotten all the concessions she was likely to get, little Jean nodded solemnly and went to her playroom to retrieve the magnifier. After a few minutes, she returned with the instrument. After getting our coats and hats, Mr. Clemens and I accompanied Martha McPhee down to the street, where we mounted into her carriage and her driver Jimmy took us off to see the scene of the crime again—this time in daylight.

  Martha’s building looked considerably more ordinary in the afternoon sun than it had in the rain and mists of the previous evening. Then it had seemed uninviting, even a bit gloomy. Now it appeared little different from the buildings on either side, a blocky brick edifice that could have been transplanted to New York or Boston without attracting much notice. Jimmy pulled the horses up in front of it, and I hopped out to reach a hand to Mrs. McPhee as she descended.

  Mr. Clemens stepped out and peered up at the windows of the apartment where the murder had taken place less than twenty-four hours ago. I thought he must be sharing my reflective mood, until he said, “The room we were sitting in is on the other side of the building, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s in the back,” said Martha. “Did you want to see it from the ground?”

  “Probably don’t have to,” said Mr. Clemens. “I was trying to figure out if anybody from outside could have seen into that room last night—maybe the shooter wasn’t in the room at all. But I can look out the upstairs window and get as good an answer to that as I could from ground level.”