by Alex Grecian
She had never, strictly speaking, been a full-time servant, which would have required her to keep a room in her employer’s house, but instead had returned to her own home every evening after tea. Upon her husband’s death, Mrs Dick had received fifty pounds from his life insurance policy and had paid off the mortgage on her house. She had the relative luxury now of working only a few hours a day for food money.
Perhaps surprisingly, her opinion of other women’s husbands had not been curdled by personal experience. Mr Dick could not have fallen further in her esteem, but other husbands were judged on their own merits, and Mr Day was considered too good for the pampered likes of Claire Day.
Claire spent the majority of her time that was not taken up with household responsibilities curled by the hearth reading novels. And not just novels, but mystery novels replete with scandal and murder and intrigue, all subjects a good wife ought to avoid at any cost. She never dressed for company until her husband was expected to arrive home, and she was clearly unable to budget the weekly stipend her husband set aside for the household.
She was fortunate that Mrs Dick had so much experience with parsimonious budgeting. Phillipa Dick still bought soap by the pound, soft and gritty and sliced from the end of a long bar by the grocer. It was more fashionable these days to buy individual paper-wrapped soaps, but Mrs Dick’s old ways saved the Day family two pennies a week. There were countless other ways that Mrs Dick scrimped and saved, and the total savings to her employers amounted to nearly a crown a month, but Claire Day seldom spared Mrs Dick a kind word. The younger woman avoided contact with her housekeeper unless there was some special skill she wished to learn so as to impress the master of the house.
Still, Mrs Day did not dog her servant’s heels the way that some employers did. She allowed Mrs Dick to carry out her duties without watching over her shoulder, and Mrs Dick was grateful enough for that.
The routine of the household had been unusual of late, with Mr Day working all hours, sometimes missing tea and supper, sometimes arriving home at dawn only to change his shirt and leave again. To Phillipa Dick, this could only mean that the man was keeping another woman somewhere, but she had limited experience with hardworking men and, anyway, she considered it to be none of her business. She had been given a key to the back door of the Day home, and she let herself in every morning before dawn. If Mr Day had left his boots by the kitchen door, she scooped them up on her way in and cleaned them as the fire drew up. She put the kettle on and, while she waited for it to boil, she gathered the previous day’s damp tea leaves, carrying them to the parlor, where they were strewn over the rugs to help collect the dust there.
She opened the curtains in all the rooms at the front of the house and started a fire in the parlor, then swept up the scattered tea leaves and returned to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
She changed into a clean uniform and put the breakfast things on a tray, which she carried up the stairs and set on a low table outside Claire Day’s bedroom. She rapped twice on the closed door and continued down the hall to Mr Day’s bedroom. The bed was untouched, which might mean that Mr Day was visiting his wife in her own room this morning, but Mrs Dick presumed that he had not yet returned home.
Nevertheless, she stripped the bed and hung the bedding to air. The Days had an indoor toilet and there were no chamber pots to empty, but Mrs Dick was of the old school and kept up the old ways of airing sheets and blankets to ensure that there was no buildup of unsavory emanations in them.
She swept and dusted the room, cast an experienced eye over the floor, and decided it would not need to be scrubbed yet. She returned to her mistress’s room and was surprised to discover that the breakfast tray was still on the hall table and had not been touched. It was true that Mrs Day’s appetite had not been strong lately, but the water had gone cold in the pot and the tea leaves were dry.
Phillipa Dick rapped on the door again and waited. Finally she turned the knob and cracked the door open.
“Forgive me, missus. I beg yer pardon, but is there somethin’ else you’ll be wantin’ to eat this mornin’?”
There was no response. The room was dim, the curtains still drawn over the windows. Mrs Dick swung the door open and entered.
The stench rocked her on her heels. She pulled the end of her apron over her nose and tiptoed to the window on the other side of the room. She pulled the curtains back and in the dim light saw Mrs Day on the floor next to her bed. The younger woman was lying on her stomach with her nightshirt hiked up so that a sliver of lace panties was visible. Ordinarily Mrs Dick would have been scandalized, but this was clearly not the time for shock or judgment. She bent over the body and turned her mistress faceup. A long tendril of spit and vomit snaked down Claire’s cheek. Her skin was grey and cold, but she was breathing. Mrs Dick put her ear to Claire’s chest and listened for a beating heart. When she was sure that Claire was alive, she made her as comfortable as possible, bringing pillows from the bed to put under her head. She covered her with a thick quilt, taking care to keep the edge of it out of the puddle of sick.
The carpet would have to be thrown out.
Mrs Dick hurried downstairs and threw open the front door. It was early yet and there was little traffic, but a young boy was walking a bicycle over the curb and Mrs Dick called him over.
“Go fetch a doctor. Dr Entwhistle on Cathcart. Do it quick and there’s a ha’penny in it for you.”
The boy studied her face and set his jaw. “Looks like you need ’im round here pretty bad, lady.”
“Just do as I tell you, boy.”
“Aye, I will. But not for less than a penny.”
“Why, you little demon.”
“Suitcherself.”
He began to turn away, but Mrs Dick grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Very well, then, you’ll get your penny, but if the doctor’s not here within the hour I’ll not be givin’ you a thing, you hear?”
“You bet, ma’am. I’ll get ’im round here right away, you wait and see.”
He hopped on his bicycle and rode off, pedaling furiously. Phillipa Dick watched until he was out of sight and then turned back inside, shut the door, and waited.
64
St James’s Park was quiet and cool. The gas lamps along the footpath pulled their yellow light in close, jealous of the rising sun, ignoring the police who tramped through the grass with their lanterns held low. Day stood next to Hammersmith in the darkness under the lime trees. He couldn’t look at the constable. Instead he watched the bobbing lanterns as every available police in the city searched the park for evidence, going over the same ground that a hundred other men had already scoured.
“Here?” Hammersmith said.
“Yes,” Day said. “Another trunk, same as with Little.”
“We should have caught him already. We should have caught him after Little.”
Day nodded. The fresh tang of limes stung his nostrils. There was nothing to say. It was barely two days since Little’s body was found, but Hammersmith was right.
“What about his face?”
“Sewn shut, same as before.”
“Colin would’ve hated that.”
“I doubt he felt it. He was probably already gone by the time the sewing started.”
Hammersmith was silent so long that Day finally looked over at him. Hammersmith was gazing at the rectangle of flattened grass.
“Where’s the body now?” he said. “Where’s the trunk?”
“Kingsley’s got him at the laboratory.”
“When he’s done, Colin will want a new uniform. He wouldn’t want to be in something wasn’t clean and fresh.”
“I’m sure that will be arranged.”
“Do you have a lead?”
“There was a little girl playing by the water who said her friend’s father deposited the trunk here.”
“Her friend’s father.”
“I know. It’s a slim clue, but there were no other witnesses.”
�
�So there’s nothing else?”
“We’re working it. Kingsley thinks his finger patterns will narrow the suspects down for us.”
“You said it happened yesterday.”
“I think so.”
“He was awfully tired yesterday. Colin was. Up all night on a case.”
“None of us have slept much these last few days.”
“No. But if I hadn’t pushed him so hard … And on a thing that … on a case that nobody wanted me working, anyway. He did it, though, he came along and he helped and he was tired and probably distracted.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“But I didn’t help him. I wasn’t there when he finally needed me. He was always there when—”
Hammersmith’s voice broke and Day looked away into the trees and pretended not to notice the constable’s grief. There was no sense in embarrassing the man.
They stood like that for a long time, and then Hammersmith took a deep rattling breath, and when he spoke his voice was soft and low. There was something deadly behind his words.
“We’ll get him.”
“We will,” Day said.
“Do you think Kingsley’s still up and about?”
“I imagine he’s worked through the night on this. One murdered police is a disaster, two police is a war.”
“Then let’s get to his lab. If there’s news, if he finds something, I want to know about it immediately.”
“You should get some rest, so as to be ready when there is news.”
“I’ve had some rest.”
“Then we’ll go.”
The two of them headed up the footpath to where a fleet of wagons waited at the street. Behind them, the lanterns of the police bobbed like fireflies over the park’s tainted meadow.
65
Kingsley slid one of the jacket sleeves down Pringle’s left arm and dropped the empty sleeve in a bin. He did the same with the left shirtsleeve. He set the bare arm on the table next to the constable’s body and used a long metal skewer to pin it in place against the left shoulder. He dipped a rag into a basin of cold water and washed Pringle’s torso, dipping the rag in the basin again and again. The water in the basin turned pink, then red, then black, and Kingsley dumped it out, refilled it. Bits of blue and white thread from his uniform had been embedded in the constable’s skin by the force of the murder weapon. Kingsley bent over the body with tweezers and pulled out each thread.
He stepped back and bent his head, first to one side then the other until his neck popped, then went back to work separating the man from his uniform.
“Father?”
Kingsley turned and blocked his daughter’s view. “I don’t need you for this yet,” he said.
“You don’t need to hide it from me. I’m sure I’ve seen worse.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen similar horrors, but you needn’t see everything that comes through here.”
“Is it another policeman?”
“Why would you guess that?”
Fiona pointed to the shredded jacket on a nearby table and Kingsley nodded.
“Yes, it’s another policeman.”
Fiona’s hair was mussed and her nightshirt was too short. Her ankles showed beneath the hem. She’s still growing, Kingsley thought. Still a little girl.
“Let me get my sketch pad,” she said.
“I’ll sketch this one.”
“You can’t draw, Father.”
“True, you’re much more skilled than I am with the charcoal, but I can still mark out the positions of these injuries.”
“Not as well as I can.”
“Have I done the wrong thing, Fiona?”
“What do you mean?”
“All the horrors you’ve seen, all the death and murder and evil. I recently met a man named Henry who was driven mad by it all, and I’m…”
He couldn’t think how to phrase the doubts he had. The same doubts that had been with him since he’d first decided to include his daughter in his work.
“Death is there whether I see it or not, isn’t it?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Then I’d rather see it and know it. I’d rather not be ignorant of it.”
“But I think you’re supposed to be ignorant of it. I think your mother would have kept it from you.”
Fiona nodded.
“I could have sent you to school with your sister,” Kingsley said.
“I didn’t want to go.”
“I know.”
She stood there in the doorway until he relented.
“Get your tablet,” he said. “I’m a tired old man and this city seems to get worse every day.”
“I like this city, Father. And you shouldn’t worry so. For all the bad we see, you’ve shown me how to look for the good.”
There was the faint sound of a bell and Kingsley snapped to attention. They had early visitors.
“Thank you,” he said. “Now go put on a proper dress. That will be the police, come to see their friend.”
66
I’ve brought tarts,” Blacker said.
He came through the railing and into the murder room, holding a brown paper parcel done up with string. Day looked up from his report. Blacker set the parcel on Day’s desk and unwrapped it. A dozen tarts lay on the grease-soaked paper.
“I missed breakfast and thought the same might be true of you,” Blacker said.
Day smiled his thanks and went back to the report he was writing. Hammersmith didn’t look up from his own paperwork or acknowledge Blacker in any way. Blacker shrugged and bit into a tart. Inspector Oliver Boring wandered over from his own desk. He was a large man and moved like a horse with an overburdened cart.
“Are those for all of us or just for you and Day?” he said.
“Anyone, I suppose.”
“Fantastic. Many thanks, Blacker.”
“Don’t mention it. These two haven’t.”
Boring took a tart and returned to his desk, passing Sergeant Kett along the way. Kett stopped at Day’s desk and folded his hands in front of him.
“Don’t mean to interrupt, Inspector,” he said. “It’s nothing important.”
Day looked up again and set his pen down. “What’s that?”
“All the excitement, I forgot to mention you had visitors yesterday. While you were out, I mean. Your wife was one.”
“I never had a chance to speak with her last night. She was asleep by the time I got home. And I was hardly there long enough to change clothes. I’ll have to look in on her today.”
“And the tailor dropped by. The supplier we use for uniforms and the like. Seems to want to help with your investigation.”
“Good of him. Perhaps we’ll drop by and get his opinion, then. Is he reliable?”
“Odd bloke, but friendly enough.”
“This the strange bald fellow we’re talking about?” Blacker said.
“He’s the one,” Kett said.
“Rubs me the wrong way.”
“Still, good of him to offer his assistance,” Day said. “We meant to talk with him yesterday, but it slipped my mind in the excitement. Thank you, Sergeant.”
Kett nodded and left by the gate. His shoulders were slumped and the life appeared to have gone out of him.
“Poor Kett,” Day said. “I think he feels like a father to some of them here. Pringle’s death has hit him hard.”
“Any word from Kingsley’s laboratory about that?” Blacker said.
“We’ve only just come from there. We were with him all morning. There’s very little to report, but we do have a few promising leads. There’s the witness, of course, the little girl in the park. We’ve determined her identity, but we don’t expect much from her.”
“Is that all we’ve got?”
“No. Kingsley found a multitude of clues on the body. There’s the thread used to sew poor Pringle’s mouth and eyes shut. It matches exactly the thread used on Little. So we’re dealing with someone who has a fair supply of thr
ead at hand.”
“I suppose that narrows things down a bit. But not much.”
“It’s something. Particularly since we’re assuming a man did this. We’re not going to be looking for a seamstress or a homemaker here. It also appears, from the force and depth of the blows, that the killer worked in a sort of frenzy. It’s likely he took Pringle by surprise the same way he did Little. Both police probably knew their murderer well enough to trust him.”
“Well, we have Hammersmith here to help us narrow down that list.”
Hammersmith finally looked up at Blacker. “That’s what I’m doing now, sir. Writing up my impression of Constable Pringle’s daily routine and acquaintances.”
“There’s also the matter of the finger marks,” Day said.
“Finger marks,” Blacker said. He rolled his eyes.
“I know your feelings on that matter,” Day said. “Nevertheless, the doctor feels they may be helpful, and Sir Edward himself concurs.”
“He doesn’t.”
“But he does.”
“I’m astonished. He’s such a reasonable sort.”
“Kingsley kept the trunk from Little’s murder and is comparing the two. He’s been keeping a shed full of evidence from previous cases that he thinks might be revisited one day. He suggested that we do the same here.”
“Why would we keep old evidence?”
“I think it’s a good idea. In a case like this, evidence from one murder may reflect on a later case.”
“It would accumulate until it toppled and crushed us.”
“It would require a lot of space.”
“Not to digress, but speaking of valuable space and the scarcity of it, we need to take up the matter of your dancing gentleman. He’s spent the night in our cell and we’re going to have to decide soon what to do with him.”
“I know it.”
“Fair enough. He’ll keep for the moment. So then Pringle’s murder…”
“Right. Finger marks on Little’s trunk, on Pringle’s trunk, and on the shears found by the dancing man, all the same. There’s another, unidentified set of markings that belong to someone else. Those are on both of the trunks and may be those of an accomplice. Someone probably helped carry the trunks, which would have been too heavy for one man. Marks matching those of the possible accomplice weren’t found on the shears. So the markings found only on the shears have to be those of the killer.”
