Three Bodies in London

by L. A. Nisula

  “I think you would like to help.” I tried to make my voice as firm as possible. “You see, I was just on the detectives’ floor being questioned, and only just got out, and I could use the assistance.” I put a slight emphasis on detectives’ floor.

  “Oh, I see. Yes, all right. I’ll help you find a cab.” He got out of line and escorted me to the main doors. Once we were outside, he tried to sound casual as he asked, “Did you see anything going on on the detectives’ floor?”

  “Lace camisole?” I murmured.

  He went pale. “Oh no.”

  “He’s with a policeman who I think will be very fair. Give it a bit of time before you go running upstairs, in case he gets out of it on his own. I’d hate for him to get out and have to run right back up to try and get you out.”

  Henry chewed at his lip but nodded. “All right, I’ll give it a little bit anyway.”

  “Did you see the door at the end where I came out? That’s probably the one he’ll use as well. Good luck. I see a cab on the corner. I’ll be fine from here.”

  ~ * ~ * ~

  When I got back to the Nell Lane rooms, it was to find Milly had either just returned or was on her way out again, as she was wearing her coat and had her gloves in hand. That was both a bit of a relief as it meant I didn’t need to wonder if I ought to go looking for her or if I should have inquired about her at Scotland Yard, and a bit of an annoyance as what I really wanted was a bit of quiet.

  “Oh Cassie, there you are. I was starting to worry.”

  But not enough to go looking for me. The scales were definitely tipping towards annoyance.

  “I found a way into the building. This nice lady was bringing her shopping inside, and I helped her with it. I tried to get up to the floor where the broken window was, but it was all blocked off, so I left. I thought you’d be waiting for me outside since you didn’t follow me in, but you weren’t there.”

  “I was a little busy getting arrested.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “They think I murdered someone in the office with the broken window.”

  “Why would they think that?” She didn’t sound nearly as interested in another murder as she been this morning.

  “I found the body.”

  “You didn’t touch anything, did you? That’s a very foolish thing to do.” And exactly what she’d done when she found a body.

  “No, I was aware of that. I did have to leave my passport, though.” At the time, it had seemed a reasonable trade for getting out of prison. But now, not having it seemed somehow frightening, as if I expected to be tossed out of the country for not having the proper paperwork or need to rush back home for some emergency and couldn’t, although what emergency that would be I had no idea, other than the Farmington situation, of course, and they were on their own with that as far as I was concerned.

  “Oh, that’s right. They do ask for that.” Apparently, it hadn’t concerned her as much as it did me. “You wouldn’t mind being alone for a while after your ordeal, would you?”

  At the moment, being alone sounded like a very nice idea. “No, if you were going out, don’t worry about it.”

  “Wonderful. I’m not sure what Clive would think of me having a cousin who was arrested.”

  I was afraid to ask who Clive was. “What does he think of you being arrested?”

  She shrugged and pinned on her hat. I wondered if that meant he didn’t care or that she hadn’t told him. “If you get lonely, I’m sure Mrs. Fitzpatrick would like a chat.”

  I certainly wasn’t that lonely, definitely not after my arrest. I didn’t want to end up in her book of clippings. I waited until Milly had gone, then went to the pub down the street that had decent fish and chips and bought a paper of them to bring back to our rooms.

  While I ate, I considered my predicament. If I was going to keep myself out of prison, then I had to know what was going on. But none of it made any sense. The bird had gone to the site of a murder, but it had been programmed to go to the site of a robbery. I would have thought it was meant to draw attention to one of the crimes, but that didn’t make any sense either. The murder certainly had happened after the bird had crashed, and therefore after it had been programmed. And that had been the wrong address, the one the broken map gear had caused. But then, none of it made any sense at all. Perhaps, once it did, I would know how to clear my name.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  After breakfast the next morning, I went out to find a newspaper. I was hoping to find more details on the murder I was accused of and hopefully that whatever crime had happened on George Street was considered important enough to report on so I could get an idea of what had happened there as well. With that in mind, I bought one of the respectable papers and one of the more lurid ones that liked crime stories, the more sensational the better. The robbery did not make either paper, which was a pity as that was where the bird had been heading. The murder did make the more respectable paper, but only two paragraphs on the last page of the first section. I was not mentioned except for the line Scotland Yard is pursuing leads, which I assumed referred to my arrest. That was a relief. Milly had been hoping to be mentioned frequently enough for her arrest to be noticed back home; I was perfectly happy for no one to know I’d been arrested for murder.

  Still, none of that helped me figure out what had really happened. The bird had been sent to the scene of a robbery but had crashed into the scene of a murder. It had to mean something, but I wasn’t quite certain how it all fit together. I knew just enough about tinkering to make several guesses, but not enough to know if any of them were possible. I didn’t know any tinkerers in London, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could walk into a random shop and ask without an explanation. But I did know Miss Shepard, and she did work in a tinkering shop. Perhaps that would be enough. It wouldn’t hurt to go and talk to her. As we’d met during a murder investigation, at least I wouldn’t have to worry that she would think me poking around the edges of the case strange, or be overly put out by the fact that I had been arrested.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  The tinkering shop was located in Mayfair, not terribly far from Milly’s rooms, but without a convenient Underground stop, making the trip more complicated than it had to be. Miss Shepherd had been running the shop since the owner had been murdered while the family figured out what they were doing with it. She’d made a few improvements since she’d been put in charge, including adding a selection of yarns and sewing notions that might attract the young ladies shopping in the area or give them a bit of cover if they wanted to slip in and buy some tinkering things. When I entered the shop, she was with a pair of customers who were typical of their clientele, one of the wealthy gentlemen who had a London house somewhere nearby and a young woman who was most likely his daughter. Miss Shepherd glanced at the door as I entered. I gave her a small wave, and she nodded in return then turned her attention back to her paying clients.

  I moved further into the shop so I could have a better view of what she was doing and pretended to be interested in a display of mitten patterns. The girl was looking at some quite complex tool kits. If she was serious about them, this wasn’t her first trip to Miss Shepherd’s shop.

  “Now, my dear, I don’t know why you would want something like that,” the father said, staring at the bundle she’d gathered.

  “But Papa, they’re just the thing. Annie St. John has been working on a project with just these things.” I seemed to have come in the middle of a long-running argument.

  Miss Shepherd reached out and took the set of tools from her. “I’ll go see if we have something more appropriate in back.” She tipped her head slightly towards the back room, which I took to mean she wanted me to follow her. I waited until the father and daughter were engaged in conversation—she explaining how copying Miss St. John was vital to her social success and he trying to point out that the spanners weren’t really appropriate and wouldn’t she rather have some nice ribbons or new shoes—then slipped behind the
counter.

  Miss Shepherd was among the storeroom shelves, poking through boxes. “Hello, Miss Pengear. I was assuming you came for a chat, but if you just wanted to look around...”

  “No, I needed some tinkering advice.” I could tell she was busy, and it was really something I would rather discuss without customers around, so I skirted the main subject. “It looks like business is good.”

  “It is indeed. The heirs are leaving me in charge while they figure out who gets what, as murderers can’t inherit if they’re convicted and no one’s sure what the father is going to do, although it sounds like they’re planning on selling as much as they can. I thought I might as well try out my idea to add a haberdashery section while I have the chance.”

  “It seems to be working.”

  Miss Shepherd smiled as she reached into the box and pulled out a spanner that looked identical to the larger one she’d brought back with her then consulted the tag on the smaller one. “This is in A24. It’s on the shelf right behind you. Would you grab it? I’m always worried if I just wrap the originals and don’t bring them back out, they’ll realize what I’m doing. Not that any of them have yet.”

  I turned and found the box labeled A24 and pulled out another spanner while Miss Shepherd located the small wrenches and something that seemed to tighten some sort of bolts. I watched as she wrapped the handles together in pink paper and a lace bow, rather like a bouquet of flowers and added a little tulle packet of nuts and bolts and a few printed project sheets. “I don’t know why the family is planning on selling this place. It’s already turning a profit on the tinkering things, and the haberdashery isn’t far behind.”

  I glanced at the tag she was filling out to attach to her bouquet of tools and realized she was charging a good bit more than the pieces had been marked when they were hanging on the pegboard. “I think I can see why.”

  She smiled. “This is the annoying parent price. He can afford it. He owns the big spice warehouse down by the river. He never thinks she should get any of this, even though she has a real talent for tinkering. I put a bit of the money on account for her, in case she stops in without him.” She must have guessed what I was thinking as she added, “If they seem to think the tinkering is a perfectly acceptable activity for a lady, I make up a different sort of bundle at a different sort of price. And they can always just agree to buy them off the shelf out there to begin with.”

  It seemed she’d found an underserved niche among the wealthy and constricted ladies of Mayfair. “Have you considered making an offer on the place?”

  “Yes, quite seriously, but we don’t have the capital, not enough anyway, and can you imagine one of the banks agreeing to a loan on a ladies’ tinkering shop? But that wasn’t what you came here to ask me about.”

  “Once you’ve seen to your clients.”

  “Gotten rid of them, you mean. That sort of tinkering problem, then. Go have a poke through the yarn and tell me what you think of the selection while I manage them.”

  I gave Miss Shepherd a moment to get back to her customers then followed her out to the sales floor. As I wandered towards the shelves of yarn, I heard Miss Shepherd say, “Here, I’ve found just the thing for her.” I glanced back and saw the father agree readily to the ridiculously priced set of tools. I went back to contemplating the different colors of Shetland wool Miss Shepherd had in stock, quite surprised at how easily some people were fooled by a bit of pink paper.

  It didn’t take long for Miss Shepherd to complete the sale and send them on their way, the father clearly thinking he’d come out ahead on the whole thing and the daughter looking through the project sheets, quite pleased with how she’d managed him. Miss Shepherd waited until they were out the door to ask, “Do you want me to put the Closed sign up?”

  I didn’t want her losing any business on my account. “I don’t think it will take that long.” I considered the shortest version of the story I could tell her. “I was at the aviary near Covent Garden yesterday, and there was an issue with a mechanical bird. It had crashed into the wrong address because a mapping gear had been reversed. I was trying to figure out how that could happen.”

  Miss Shepherd considered the question for a moment, then she pulled one of the shop’s advertising cards from the tray by the counter and scribbled an address on the back. “I know someone who should be able to tell you more than I could. She works at the main post office tinkering rooms. If you tell her what happened with the bird, she should be able to figure it out. And you can trust her completely, or as completely as you can trust me, I suppose. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how much that is.” She held out the card. “Go there and ask for Miss Ferris. If you show her that, she’ll be happy to help.”

  I took the card and looked at the address written in her neat hand. It was in the City, so easy enough to get to on the Underground. Miss Shepherd had signed the card with only her first name, Ada, with a long swoop from the last “a” to sweep around the first, a bit of a flourish that didn’t seem to fit with anything else. “Thank you. Should I come back and let you know what I find out?”

  Miss Shepherd smiled. “I’m sure I’ll hear about it. But do come if you decide to tell me about whatever case you’re working on.”

  I didn’t bother asking how she knew there was a case involved.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  The main post office was easy enough to find, being a large building not far from St. Paul’s with several sets of Classical pillars trying to look like something, or several somethings, plucked out of ancient Athens. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get into the workshop to find Miss Ferris, or even find the tinkering department, particularly when I saw how large the building was, but it proved easier than I thought. Inside, it was so noisy and filled with steam from the various machines being used and people rushing around sorting mail, moving mail, and generally hurrying about, that nobody paid much attention to me, and I found my way to the workshop by simply asking rather loudly. No one bothered to see who was asking or to ask if I had a reason for going there, just pointed in the general direction I wanted. After asking at three or four different points, I found myself in a basement area that seemed to be set up as a kind of holding area for broken things. No one was there, but there was a door marked “Offices,” so I tried it, found it unlocked, and went in.

  The back room of the workshop was more crowded and cluttered than the front, if that was possible. There were bits and pieces of mechanical birds everywhere, rows and rows of little bins filled with gears, three large sets of screwdrivers and pliers across one wall, all identical except for the different patterns of wear, and a table covered with a wide assortment of the faceted glass eyes and thin copper and pewter feathers used to decorate the birds’ heads and categorize them by distance and place of origin. I heard a metallic sort of hammering coming from further down the hall, a pinging sort of sound that meant whatever was being hammered wasn’t particularly thick or heavy. Hopefully, that meant the person could be disturbed. I followed the sounds and found a series of small workrooms, each with a name on the door, most seemingly occupied. It seemed an odd place for workrooms, as most tinkering needed good light, but there probably wasn’t room for them anywhere else. I found the door marked Ferris and knocked.

  “Yes?” a female voice called from inside.

  I took that to mean I could go in, and opened the door. “Miss Ferris? I’m Cassandra Pengear. Miss Shepherd said I should come and see you.” I pulled the card Miss Shepherd had given me out of my handbag and held it out.

  Miss Ferris looked up from the bird she was repairing. “Pengear? Are you the one who was helping the police when Mr. Hilliard was murdered?” She stood and took the card from me, glanced at it, and smiled when she saw the signature. “What do you think of the improvements at the shop?”

  “It looks much more prosperous since the last time I was there. The haberdashery section seems to be working.”

  “I hope the heirs are suitably grateful to her. They
’re getting ready to sell it out from under everyone.”

  “She said she’d considering buying it herself if she had the capital.” Then I remembered she hadn’t said she was considering but we. “Are you the person she would be going into business with?”

  “That’s right, if we had the capital to buy it. Probably silly for her to add the haberdashery right away. Better to let the place go downhill and try to buy it cheap. But it was already over what we could afford before she did that. The heirs want every penny they can get. Probably spent a bundle on Hilliard’s defense. And it would be so convenient too. The flat upstairs is included, you see. Ada’s in a perfectly nice boarding house not far from the shop, but they’re all one-person rooms, and the landlady notices everything. I’m in a wonderful building in Marylebone, but the room is tiny. The landlady only let it to me because she felt sorry for me trying to find someplace, and the only way I can afford it on my salary is by doing some tinkering around the place for her. It’s probably the most secure residence in London at this point, so she has gotten some benefit out of it. But the place is cramped when Ada comes to visit. I don’t know where I’d fit her if she brought so much as a hatbox with her. Your cousin was accused in the Hilliard murder, right? How is she doing? No more police, I hope.”

  So Miss Shepherd had told her all about the Hilliard case. “Milly’s fine. I’m the one having problems now.”

  “And that’s why Ada sent you to me. I assume it’s a tinkering problem?”

  “Partly, yes.” I told her about the aviary and the bird with the reversed gear, and about the two crimes near its destination.

  “So it was your turn to find a body? I hope you didn’t touch anything.”

  So Miss Shepherd had given her all the details. “Not a thing, but the police found me there, so it didn’t go any better for me.”

  “Well, you’re not in prison. That’s an improvement. Let’s see if we can keep you that way. Which aviary did you say it was at?”