“Mary’s never without the wretched creature. That’s the way with unnatural wimmen that don’t have kids as the lord intended.
I
have nine meself.” Five or six of them peered out from behind her skirts.
“Nine! You’re a wonder,” Black said, shaking his head. “Mary lives here full time, does she?”
She gave a suggestive leer. “I don’t know as I’d say that. She sleeps here when she can’t find no place better to lay her head.”
“You wouldn’t know where she’s likely to have spent last night?” Black said, still smiling.
“In some fancy bed, like as not. She asked for water for a wash up and had herself rigged out like a Maypole when she headed out of here yesterday afternoon. I’ve not seen her since. I figured she was making another try for Mad Jack. She’s mad for him, but she was out in her luck if that was who she was after. He likes his women fancy.” A large black cat crept out from behind her and emitted a loud howl as one of her kids grabbed its tail. She gave it a kick. “If she don’t come back soon and feed that cat I’m gonna drown it.”
Black had to consciously keep his voice normal at the mention of Mad Jack. “A friend of Mad Jack, is she?”
“Yuss, when
I’m
busy he’ll sometimes make do with her,” she said, and cackled like a witch at this prime jest.
“I see. Just your little joke, mother. Are any of Mary’s regular friends about? Anyone here she’s friends with?”
“No, I only house wimmen now. Men are too much trouble, drinking and fighting, busting up my chairs.”
Black asked Coffen for one of his cards, scribbled the name of the hotel on the back of it and said, “If she comes back, send a note here. There’ll be something in it for you.”
“So you say, mister. Let’s see the colour of your gold. I’d have to pay a lad to run the message along, wouldn’t I?”
Black handed her a shilling. “There’ll be more than that in it for you if you find out anything.”
She sneered as she dropped the coin down the front of her gown. “Don’t break your thumb, mister,” she said, and slammed the door in their faces.
Coffen took the blow like a man. “That’s it, then. She was lying to me.”
Black felt too sorry for him to say, “I told you so.” Instead he said, “You’re well rid of that lot, Mr. Pattle.”
“Aye, seems you’re right,” Coffen said reluctantly.
Black consoled him with the usual platitudes. “Plenty of fish in the sea. You can do better than Mary Scraggs.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to the others,” Coffen said. “Prance would make a meal of it.”
“Mum’s the word, Mr. Pattle.”
But the next development made it clear the Berkeley Brigade would have to be called in. Murder was their specialty.
Black had grown up largely unloved and unloving. He had a poor opinion of mankind in general, but he still felt the human need of an outlet for his affections. His former employer, Lady Luten, ruled supreme in the romance line. As Black grew older, Mr. Pattle was coming to fulfill that other emotional need, a surrogate son. His employer was a good man and clever enough in his own way, but a fool when it came to money and women. Sinfully generous in Black’s opinion. That came from always having more than enough money without having to work for it. He was a shocking naif with his servants, and soft as butter in the hands of a cunning woman.
In an effort to divert Mr. Pattle’s painful thoughts from Mary Scraggs, Black said in a bracing way, “Let us stop off at Nile Street and have a look about for clues.”
Little was dearer to Mr. Pattle’s heart than a clue, by which he meant something you could get your hands on, like a button or a note, and figure out how it came to be where he found it. “It seems pretty clear Mary was keeping you busy last night while her friends searched the house. I’ve a feeling ‘twas Flora did the searching. She may have left a clue behind. Now that we know what we’re looking for —”
“What would that be, Black?”
“Why anything belonging to her, a ribbon, a glove. We didn’t really take much of a look abovestairs.”
Coffen didn’t feel like returning to Nile Street. He didn’t feel like doing anything, even driving his new team. “As you like,” he said, but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and directed the hackney to Nile Street.
When they first entered, Coffen just sat looking through the dusty front window at two cats grooming themselves in the sunlight, but as Black wandered about picking up various items and mentioning who or at least what sort of person they could belong to, he became interested.
“Take this now,” Black said, carrying a saucer bearing the chewed end of a small cheroot to Coffen, “I don’t recall seeing this here yesterday. That tells me there was a man here last night. Very likely Flora’s Henry. We can find out if he smokes cheroots. And there was a glass in the cellar with brandy in it. That don’t look like a woman either. That empty gin bottle in the sink, wasn’t it half full yesterday?”
“I didn’t notice.”
Black took a deep breath and forged on. “I mind Lady Luten saying so. I checked and the door locks haven’t been tampered with. I made sure the place was locked when we left, so how did they get in? I had them locks changed, so Flora can’t let on she got the key from her ma, who used to work here. And that’s odd too. Weir said Bolger only had a Mrs. Beazely who came in once in a while. I doubt Flora’s ma ever worked here at all.” He looked hopefully to Mr. Pattle, but still saw no reaction.
He pressed on. “We’ll ask Weir about that and we’ll find out where that Mrs. Beazely lives as well. What we have to do is think where we’d hide something if it was us.” He stared until Mr. Pattle was forced into speech.
“That’d depend on what it was,” Coffen said. “You could hide a paper anywhere. If it was something bigger, you’d need space.”
“Floor boards and wainscotting up — that don’t seem like paper, or gold or brandy. We’ve got to find out what Bolger might have been into. Weir might give us a hand there. Meanwhile why don’t we search for clues, begin with the bedrooms and keep going till we reach the cellar?”
“You looked there this morning,” Coffen said.
“I didn’t
search,
just took a peek in. ‘Twas dark with the blinds drawn. Everything seemed tidy enough at a glance.”
“All them stairs,” Coffen said, and drew a deep sigh. But he was always interested in clues, as well as in the habit of being led by Black, and followed him abovestairs. It didn’t take them long to find her. She was on a bed in a dark corner of the first bedroom they looked in. When Black drew up the blind, a body-sized bulge was visible under the counterpane. Black drew the coverlet back to reveal Mary’s mortal remains. In the stillness of death, she didn’t look like a hussy. She looked young and innocent, with her curls tumbling over the pillow.
Coffen thought at first that she was asleep and hurried over to her. It flashed into his mind that she had come here from the Albemarle after he left her there, and slept here rather than at that awful rooming house. She was wearing the same dress.
Then he saw the ugly stain on the pillow and the dark, gaping hole in her throat where she’d been stabbed, and felt as if he’d been stabbed himself. Shuddering and blinking back a tear, he gulped a few times. When he recovered enough to speak, he said, “Poor Mary,” in a quavering voice, then Black drew the coverlet up over her. After a moment’s silence, he added, “We ought to call in a constable, Black.”
Black had used that moment to assess the situation. They were obviously dealing with ruthless people. Mr. Pattle was the last person to be seen with the hussy. Leaving her body in his house with no sign of forced entry could very well be an attempt to tie him to her murder. The whole mess could end up in his dish. Black had learned the advantage of having a heavyweight gent like Luten in your corner when dealing with the law. “Let’s have a word with Luten first,” he said.
Luten and murder went together in Coffen’s mind. “You’re right,” he said. “A few more minutes won’t matter to her now.” Then he frowned, and with his old interest in murder stirring him out of his lethargy, he looked around the room. “I don’t see her bonnet here. She had on a handsome bonnet when I left her last night. Looked like a flower garden. There’s no reticule here either. She had a blue reticule with her. I wonder now if it was a robbery. I know she had ten pounds in her bag.”
This told Black that Mr. Pattle had given her the money, but he didn’t chastise him. “We’ll talk it over with Luten,” he said, gently but firmly leading him out of the room, downstairs and out of the house. Neither of them said a word during the trip to Marine Parade.
Luten and Corinne, relaxed and smiling, were just returning from a drive in the countryside when they arrived at the mansion. It seemed a shame to interrupt their pleasant holiday. “Something’s come up,” Black said. Luten knew by their expressions it wasn’t something good, and with a sinking heart, he led them into the house.
“What’s the matter, Coffen?” Corinne asked. “You look as if you’d lost your best friend. I hope you haven’t lamed that team of grays.”
Coffen was never one for the long-winded speech. “It’s Mary,” he said. “She’s dead. Murdered, in my house.”
“Oh no!” Corinne put her arms around him to comfort him, and led him to the sofa.
As soon as they were all seated Luten turned to Black. “Tell us what happened,” he said, and Black told them everything, beginning with how and exactly where they had found her, that Mrs. Filmore was a local trollop called Mary Scraggs, that she had been at pains to keep Mr. Pattle busy while the house was searched last night, and that after talking to Flora he believed she and Henry had been searching the house for something, and not found it.
Luten listened carefully, then said, “The three of them working together then?”
“Or Mary trying to beat them to whatever’s hidden in the house.”
“How would Mary know about the hidden treasure? Did she have some connection to Bolger?”
“Not that we know of yet, but there’s no saying who a woman like that might know,” Black said. “I mean to have a word with Weir.”
“This seems to indicate that Flora and Henry killed her. Do you think she was killed there, or taken there after she was dead?”
“From the blood on the pillow, I’d say she was killed right there. Flora and Henry found her there searching, they got into an argument and ended up killing her.”
“Any idea how long she’d been dead?”
“Well, she was cold. The blood had dried.”
“Was the body rigid?”
“Looked like it,” Black said, frowning. “I didn’t touch it. She was dead, that’s all I can tell you for certain. She lives here in town but she didn’t go back to her own place last night. Mr. Pattle had the notion she was meeting someone.”
Coffen had been listening and spoke up. “She kept asking me what time it was last night on the beach. It could have been Flora and her fellow she was to meet. It’s possible they had joined forces. Flora knew about the treasure, might have made a bargain with Mary when she learned she had rented the house. I don’t know how she knew that, but she might of seen me and Mary about town. We were up and down the main street a few times that afternoon.”
Luten considered this a moment. If that was how it happened, then the deal had been made after Coffen left Mary at the Albermarle. That was possible. He said, “It would make more sense if they’d found what they were looking for and were fighting over sharing it. You don’t think they did find it, Black?”
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Flora all but asked me if we’d found it, whatever
it
is. Mr. Pattle says Mary’s bonnet and reticule are missing. She had ten pounds with her, so that could account for the missing reticule. The bonnet might be about the house somewhere, though I didn’t see it.”
“If it was money they were after, why take the reticule?” Corinne said. “Flora couldn’t use it in case it was recognized, and it would be dangerous to have it found in her house.”
“It might be still in the bedroom,” Black said. “Under the coverlet, or under the bed.”
“I’ll have a look at the house before we call in the police,” Luten said. “No need for anyone to go with me. Who has the key?” Black handed it to him. “I shan’t be long.”
After he had left Corinne served wine and they continued discussing the matter. When the first shock and rush of sympathy for Coffen had worn off, it occurred to her that their nice holiday was at an end. Murder had found them again.
Black said, “I keep thinking how they got in without breaking a window or lock. I had new locks put on and checked that everything was locked up right and tight when I left.” He turned to Coffen. “Did you mention you took Mary back to the house after dinner, Mr. Pattle?”
“I did, but I locked up when we left and she didn’t ask me for the key. She was so excited about being able to bring the kiddies here she wanted to go back and look about the place to see how her belongings would fit in.”
“Were you with here all the time?” Corinne asked.
“I got a bit tired of scurrying about. After a while I sat in the drawing room and waited for her.”
Corinne and Black exchanged a meaningful look. “While she went to the kitchen, perhaps?” she suggested.
“She did, yes. She wanted a look at the stove. Mary is — was interested in cooking.”
“That’s when she took the lock off the back door so she could get back in after you left,” she said. “Well, there’s nothing we can do until Luten returns.”
While they were awaiting Luten’s return, Prance was shown in. “Well, strangers,” he said with a jaunty bow. “Why are you all sitting indoors like Patience on a monument on a fine day like this? I thought you’d be out terrifying the town with that team of grays, Coffen. I made sure that was why the constable was looking for you at our hotel.” He was amazed when the three of them turned and stared at him as if he’d announced the sky was falling. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s happened?”
“Mrs. Filmore’s dead,” Coffen said. “Murdered.”