by L. A. Nisula
When I got to the third floor, I did see an open door. I assumed Milly either had a surprising amount of luck and found someone who had an office on the floor or had persuaded someone to show her the broken window. I crossed to the office, planning to tell Milly we were late and ought to be moving on even though we had no place to be, and stopped as soon as I looked through the door.
The first thing I noticed was that the paper-covered window was the only one in the office, leaving very little light to see anything. So this was where the bird had crashed into. I tried to get a better look around, hoping if I told Milly there was nothing there, she wouldn’t want to come back. It was a small office, filled with a mismatched jumble of furniture that had probably been left by previous tenants. Except for the body in the middle of the floor. That was clearly new.
He was at the younger end of middle-aged, male, dark hair I thought but didn’t want to look too closely as he’d been hit on the head. Part of me thought I should check for a pulse in case a doctor might be of some use, part of me remembered all the trouble Milly had caused by walking around a murder scene. Of course, she’d touched the weapon, or what everyone had thought was the weapon. But how was I to know what the weapon was? Perhaps the best thing to do was go down to one of the offices that seemed occupied and get some assistance, someone who would know where the constable would be on his beat, at least.
I was still deciding what to do when I heard footsteps in the hall behind me and turned, ready to ask whoever it was to go for a constable or to yell a bit if it was Milly. Of course, there was always the possibility that it was whoever had killed the man, but I wasn’t quite sure what I could do about that. Milly’s problems had started because she’d touched a murder weapon. The best thing to do seemed to be to get myself in a position where I could run if I needed to, which meant I shouldn’t allow myself to be trapped in a strange office that, as far as I could see, only had one exit. I went for the door. At least, if I did encounter the murderer, I could make for the stairs or try banging on other doors.
I didn’t need to do either. I’d barely made it to the door when I saw that the footsteps belonged to two police constables who were being followed by a man I assumed was a police inspector up the stairs. As I had not been expecting that, I had no idea what to say. One of the constables hurried to block my path to the stairs as a second one went to have a look in the office. “This is it, sir.”
“You’re certain?” the one I assumed was the inspector asked. He was slightly taller than I was, putting him on the shorter end of average, with light brown hair and good quality brown tweed suit that had seen better days.
“The body on the floor seems to suggest it.”
“Indeed.” He turned to me and held out a wallet with his identification. “Inspector Arthur Burrows, miss. And why were you in there?”
“I was looking for my cousin.” That sounded ridiculous even to my ears, but I pressed on. “The door was open, so I looked in. I’ve only been here a minute or two. I was trying to think of the best way to summon you.”
“And that included running out the door when you heard us coming?”
“I didn’t know you were police. I thought you might be the killer coming back, and I didn’t want to be trapped in the room.”
“I see. And do you know him?”
“No.”
“So you were in the room long enough to have a look?”
I knew he was trying to see if I would contradict myself and was doing a good job of it. It didn’t help that even I thought the story of following Milly into the building over the bird was ridiculous. “I haven’t been in London long. I don’t know many people here.”
“I see.” He looked up from his notebook and was distracted by something over his shoulder. I turned and saw the constable who’d gone into the office was giving me an odd look. There was something familiar about him, and I ran through what I remembered of every constable I’d seen at Scotland Yard.
The constable realized he’d been noticed. “Inspector, could I have a word?”
“Stay there,” he said to me very calmly and deliberately then caught the constable by the arm and led him down the hallway to the staircase, blocking my way out if I had been thinking of using the opportunity to make a run for it.
I tried but I couldn’t hear anything they were saying. I looked around but didn’t see the second constable anywhere. As I was still standing in the doorway, I took the opportunity to look around the crime scene, trying to find anything that might help me. The office was small and on the shabby side. Not in bad repair, more neglected, as if it hadn’t had a tenant in a while. There was a mismatched jumble of furniture in the room of the sort that people moving out decide to leave behind. Not broken exactly, but well on its way there. The wallpaper was peeling; the floor had a faded spot where something square had sat for a long time and a few splintered floorboards. The window had a thick layer of dust on it. I forced myself to look down at the body. He was dressed well enough, but not in the way of an office worker. More someone who worked in the back of a place, a carpenter or tinkerer with a well-paying position, something of that sort. Struck from behind, I thought, as there was a good bit of blood in his hair. And not long ago, as it hadn’t really dried. That wasn’t good. That meant the murderer could still be around. It also meant I was in real trouble.
“Miss?” the inspector said as he came back. “Constable Lipson says he just saw you at the scene of another crime.”
“What? I think he’s mistaken.” I hadn’t really been at the scene of any crime during Milly’s ordeal, certainly not when there were policemen around.
“So you weren’t on George Street in the last half-hour or so?”
“Oh, I was. I mean, I didn’t go in or anything, but I did pass by there.”
“And tried to get inside with some story about a message?”
“That was my cousin.”
“The one who isn’t here.”
I sighed. This wasn’t getting any better for me. “I think she’s downstairs. She was helping a woman with her shopping when I followed her in.”
“Constable Jones hasn’t found anyone downstairs.”
So that was where the second constable had gone, probably as soon as I’d mentioned Milly.
The inspector pulled out his notebook. “What is your full name?”
I realized everything was getting much worse. “Cassandra Alice Pengear.”
“Address?”
“I’m staying with my cousin at 84 Nell Lane. Yes, that cousin.”
The inspector smiled slightly as he wrote that down. “You’ll need to go with Constable Jones. We’re going to bring you to Scotland Yard for questioning.”
So I was being arrested, and not for murdering Milly, which was seeming a more likely occurrence by the second. “Would you let my cousin know where I am?”
“I’ll send someone to Nell Lane.”
That was something, at least. Milly could explain how she had gotten into the building and that I had been with her all day so couldn’t have killed anyone. If anyone would listen, of course.
~ * ~ * ~
They were nice enough when they arrested me. I had casually asked Milly about her arrest in case she had wanted to talk about it, but all she’d said was, “They were nice about it,” and now I saw what she meant. When the inspector brought me downstairs, Constable Jones had a cab waiting and motioned me inside. He sat across from me, but all he said was, “Keep your hands where I can see them,” so the ride was very quiet. He brought me into Scotland Yard through a back entrance I hadn’t seen on any of my earlier trips to see Milly and up a back staircase to one of the interrogation rooms. I had seen those quite a few times when I’d been visiting Milly, and I hadn’t liked them any better then. He collected my handbag, gloves, and hat and put them in a box, then had me turn out my pockets to make certain I didn’t have anything useful, like lock picks, I suppose.
“Inspector Burrows will be here soon. If you
need anything, someone will be stationed outside. Just bang on the door.” And then he left, taking the box and locking the door behind him. The lock sounded quite loud and final, although I’m quite certain it was no louder than it had been when I’d been locked in with Milly.
Thinking of Milly led me to wonder where she had gone to and if I ought to be worried about her, but mostly if I could count on her to come and help me. After all, I had gotten her out of a murder charge, it was only fair she help me when I was in the same mess, particularly as it was her fault I was.
Inspector Burrows kept me waiting, which I expected, but not as long as I expected him to. He came in carrying a folder, a notepad, and a small writing kit, which he took his time arranging on the table in front of him. When he’d finished, he looked up and gave me a bland, pleasant sort of smile. “Sorry for the delay, Miss Pengear.”
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say something or not. As I knew he wasn’t at all sorry for the delay, I suspected anything I might decide to say would most likely come out rather rudely, and kept quiet.
He didn’t seem surprised by my silence. “Now, you said you were in the second-floor office looking for your cousin, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And her name?”
I was surprised that I didn’t feel the least twinge of guilt giving Milly’s name. Perhaps because they already had all her particulars from her arrest. Or perhaps because she’d gotten me into this. “Milly Prynne. Mildred.”
He wrote a short bit in his notebook. “And you said you’re staying at 84 Nell Lane. What is your permanent address?”
I gave him my address in Cleveland.
“You’re quite a ways from home.”
I supposed that was merely something to say, so I merely said, “Yes.”
“And how long have you been in England?”
“One week exactly.” It seemed longer.
“In London the entire time?”
“Since I took the train from Southampton shortly after my ship arrived.”
He nodded again and did a bit more writing. The first bit was the same sort of note-taking I’d seen him do before, then it changed into something more random. I realized he was scribbling in his notebook while he waited for something. I couldn’t tell if he was waiting to see if I would say something else, or waiting for something else to happen. I stayed quiet and waited to see how long he would wait.
It wasn’t very long. Only a few minutes had passed when the constable who had stayed behind at Hopp Lane came in with a folder I recognized. Milly’s folder from her murder arrest. Somehow I didn’t think the fact that she hadn’t done it either was going to help me much. Inspector Burrows opened the file and looked over the first page. “Miss Pengear, why did you and your cousin come to England?”
I sighed. “Milly was trying to get away from her mother’s fiancé. I came to check on her.”
“Didn’t try to kill him though?”
I knew it was an attempt at a joke. “No, other way ’round. He was trying to kill Aunt Lydia. Or I thought he was. Now I think he was trying to kill me.”
Inspector Burrows looked up from the file. He stared at me for a moment, then seemed to decide I was joking too and put the file aside.
“Did you get to the part where she was innocent?” I asked, more to emphasize the fact than anything.
“I did. But that isn’t this case.” He opened the file he’d brought with him and took out a blank sheet of paper. I could tell he was settling in to take copious notes. “Miss Pengear, how did you get into the building?”
“I followed my cousin. She was helping someone with their shopping and the door didn’t latch properly when they went inside.”
“We asked Mrs. Russell in the flat below, and she said she’s never seen you and she asked specifically if the nice girl who helped her needed to let her friend know where she was going, and the aforementioned nice girl said, and I quote, ‘That’s not my friend.’”
“Milly meant I’m her cousin.” Although at the moment I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that either. “This Mrs. Russell didn’t see me go in because Milly ran off to help her and left me standing on the sidewalk, so I had to follow her inside.”
“To get into the second-floor office?”
I sighed. That was precisely why Milly had done it. I’d followed her to keep her out of trouble. But saying that wasn’t going to help at all. “Can I begin at the beginning?”
“It would probably make more sense that way, don’t you think?”
I knew it wouldn’t, but I let him keep that illusion as long as he could. “This morning, I went to the local aviary to send a letter home.”
I told him the whole story, starting with the bird at the aviary, going back to the flat and telling Milly about it so she wouldn’t ask about what I’d written, her wanting to see where the bird had been going, our failed attempt to get into the building, distracting her with the other address, losing her at the other address, and I was just describing finding the body again when Constable Jones opened the door to the interrogation room.
“Sorry, Inspector, but there’s been a raid. They’re looking for help processing everyone.”
“I’m with a suspect at the moment.”
“All right, I just thought you might...” But he didn’t leave, just hesitated in the doorway. “It’s just some little place, not really near Cleveland Street, but in the general vicinity.”
The inspector looked up. “Where, exactly?”
“Porchester Square.”
The inspector sighed. “You weren’t leaving town, were you, Miss Pengear?”
“Not until my name is cleared.”
“Very well. Your story is just ridiculous enough to be true.”
“Thank you,” I said with as much contempt as I could manage.
Inspector Burrows smiled at my tone. “In light of that, I’m going to let you go, provided you agree to stay in London and hand over your passport. Do you have your passport with you?”
“In my handbag, which was confiscated.”
“Then I won’t have to send someone home with you to get it. Constable?” The constable left and returned with the box he’d taken away and put it down in front of me. Inside, I found my handbag, gloves, and hat just as I’d left them.
“Passport?”
I didn’t want to give him a chance to change his mind about letting me go, so I dug out my passport and handed it over quickly.
Inspector Burrows tucked the passport into his pocket. “Write down any address where I might find you, all of which will be in London, I’m sure, and leave them on the table, and then you can go. I’ll want to see you again. And check your bag before you leave. If anything’s missing, take it up with Constable Lipson. He’ll be in the lobby area. Constable Jones?” He made a motion I took to mean Constable Jones was supposed to accompany him. I checked the contents of my bag quickly while he maneuvered his way out of the room and into the hallway. When he was gone, I grabbed a pen from the table and wrote out Milly’s address. I gave him enough time to start whatever processing the arrests involved, then went to find the stairs and the way out.
I remembered the way out from my visits to Milly, so I managed to find the main lobby area of the detectives’ floor without having to ask for directions. When I got there, the room was filled with nervous-looking men trying to find someplace to stand that would make them less conspicuous than the others around them. The subjects of the raid, no doubt. At first, I thought it had been a raid on some sort of brothel, but as I made my way through the group, I realized there were no women, which seemed to complicate that theory. Also, they all politely moved aside to let me pass, which was not what I had expected of the recently arrested. Perhaps an illegal gambling operation, I speculated, then told myself that I had more pressing things to worry about, like my own impending arrest, and that this was Scotland Yard’s problem. But I couldn’t help noticing that everyone was slightly disheveled, as if they�
��d dressed in a hurry.
“Sorry,” whispered one of the men as he backed away from the wall and nearly ran into me.
“It’s all right.” He was young, blond, blue-eyed, dressed as some sort of clerk or other low-level job in the City, except for a bit of lace poking out of his collar. Now quite a few things made sense, including I suspected, Inspector Burrows’s hasty exit. “Your camisole is showing.”
He hurried to shove the fabric back under his shirt. “Thanks. It’s my first... I mean, Henry said... I mean... Thanks.”
I looked around until I spotted Inspector Burrows taking a group to be processed. He must have felt my gaze as he looked up and met my eyes. “That one in the brown suit’s all right. If I were you. I’d grab this Henry and try to get in his group.”
“Thank you. If this gets out, I mean we... I mean Henry got out. And I know he’s trying to find a way to come in and get me, and if he does... But you’re not interested in that. Thank you.”
I waited until I saw him make his way across the room and hover near Inspector Burrows. Almost as soon as he was at the edge of the group, Inspector Burrows pointed at him and motioned for him to join the others and follow him into an interrogation room. He gave no sign that he was inclined to be sympathetic, so I hoped I’d been right. But there wasn’t anything else I could do, so I made my way downstairs.
In the lobby, I hurried for the main doors, ready to leave before someone decided I really did belong in jail. But as I passed through the lobby, I spotted a young man standing in line for the reception desk looking frantic, nervous, and as if he desperately wanted to be anywhere but there. I went up to him and asked, “Do you know a good place to find a cab?”
“Miss, I’d like to help, but I’m a bit busy.”
“Henry?”
He gave me a shocked look that told me I’d guessed his name.
