NORA ANSWERED THE DOOR at number 24 quickly enough that I knew she’d been waiting for us. Mrs. Fetherton was hovering by the sitting room door. I could see her shadow against the hallway wall, even though she hurried away from the door as we entered so she was seated when Nora brought us in. I made the introductions.
“It was very kind of you to come, Miss Ferris, but I’m not sure what you’ll find.”
“Neither am I, that’s why I’m looking. Besides, I would hate for you to have a compromised lock on your ground floor. You’d be amazed how often people ignore one after they’ve been robbed, then the thieves return to steal all the lovely new things they bought to replace the old stolen ones.”
“But nothing was stolen here,” Mrs. Fetherton pointed out.
“All the more reason for them to return and complete their mission.”
I concentrated on keeping my expression neutral. Kate was doing a very good job of making her presence sound essential, and just about any homeowner would be begging her to check their locks about now.
Mrs. Fetherton still didn’t seem convinced, but she led us to the box room.
“That’s the window.” I pointed the correct one out to Kate. “She was found under the desk.”
Kate took her tools and crossed the room, careful not to disturb anything around the desk even though it seemed the police were done with it. I went to the far side of the desk in case Kate had any questions. I had hoped Mrs. Fetherton would leave Kate to work in peace—and me to investigate in peace—but she stayed in the doorway watching us. I was tempted to tell her that I could assist Kate and she didn’t need to stay, but that seemed too obviously a ploy to get rid of her, and I did hope to stay on her good side, so I kept silent.
Kate examined the wooden parts of the window just as I had, looking for any sign of someone forcing their way past, then she turned her attention to the mechanism. She climbed out the window and reached around to toggle the lock on and off, then had me do the same while she watched from outside with the window part-way open and then again with it closed. She tried to jimmy it from the outside with a variety of files and picks, then motioned for me to open the window and climbed back in. Things became very dull when she started going over the mechanism gear by gear, removing each, studying it, then putting it back.
While Kate worked, I wandered around the room, trying to figure out what Miss Hayes had been doing there. Mrs. Fetherton continued to watch from the doorway. I had the feeling she didn’t appreciate me looking around, and there didn’t seem to be anything to see among the covered furniture and stacked pictures. I did notice the bloody cloth was gone, but that was hardly surprising; Inspector Wainwright would want to examine it carefully. I looked at the other items I’d noticed that night. “Oh, you got the safes open?”
Mrs. Fetherton nodded. “You were right about Inspector Wainwright; he would have preferred I wait for him, but I found the combinations last night written on some scraps of paper upstairs, and I wasn’t certain if they were for these or something in my husband’s old office in the city, so I just tried them. They were filled with old business papers, just as I thought. I sent Nora to Scotland Yard with them this morning in case he wanted to see them. I have no use for them.”
I was tempted to lean over and have a look in case there was something she’d missed inside one of the safes, but Mrs. Fetherton never took her eyes off of me.
Kate gave a little grunt of frustration and put last gear back in place. “Nothing. I see absolutely nothing in the system that could have been over-ridden, picked, shorted, or otherwise tampered with.”
“So how could she have gotten through it?” Mrs. Fetherton asked.
“Either she was cleverer than you two think, or she didn’t come in this way at all, or someone unlocked the window from the inside. Do any of those sound likely?”
“This window is always kept locked,” Mrs. Fetherton replied. “I’m very careful, and Nora knows to keep all the ground-floor windows locked at all times unless someone is in the room. You cannot be too careful in the city.”
Kate turned to me.
I shook my head. “None of them sound likely to me either.”
Kate shrugged. “That’s all I can think of, though. I can research it a bit and see if I come across something.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Fetherton said. “I do thank you for your assistance, though.”
I recognized her tone as a “please leave now” suggestion. Apparently Kate did too. She started packing away her tools. “My pleasure. If you do find out how it was done, I’d love to know.”
“Of course.” But Mrs. Fetherton didn’t sound like she would be inviting us back. When Kate had her tools packed away, Mrs. Fetherton held the box-room door open for us and followed us all the way to the front door.
Back outside, Kate regarded the house from across the street. “I don’t see how it could be done, Cassie.”
“Someone must have been home, then.”
“You’re certain they couldn’t have left it open when they went out?”
“They seem certain. One of them must have opened it, but none of them say they were at home.” I sighed. “I’ll have to look at alibis again, it seems.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“Well, if the lock wasn’t picked or over-ridden, then either one of them left it open, or was in the room and is lying about it, so that was helpful.” I felt I ought to offer Kate something in return for her help. “Would you like to get something to eat?”
“Is this some attempt to get me to investigate the lair of a poisoner or something?”
“Of course not, although now that you mention it, there is a tea room that’s connected to this case which I have been more or less ordered out of...” It really had not been my intention to drag Kate into alibi-breaking, but now that she had brought it up, it seemed like a good idea.
Kate grinned. “Tea it is, then.”
When we arrived at the Delphie, I looked through the window and saw the same maître d’ at his podium. Not that I had expected anything else. Kate leaned over my shoulder to have a look. “I’m going to guess that’s the one you’re avoiding?”
“That is.”
“It might not be that he doesn’t want you around; I think he looks at everyone like that. He hasn’t seen me before, though. Wait here, give me a few minutes to get a table, then come in, and we’ll quietly spy on the lot of them.”
I didn’t have any better plans, so I nodded and watched as Kate went inside.
I wandered to the end of the block in case the maître d’ spotted me through the window, and paced around until I thought I had given Kate enough time to get us a table, then went inside the shop. I wasn’t certain how I was going to get the maître d’ to show me to Kate’s table, but I didn’t need to. Kate had managed to secure a table that I could see from the entryway, so I waved to her to let everyone know I knew someone inside and went in without waiting to be shown the way. I was a bit surprised that the maître d’ made no move to stop me.
As I sat across from Kate, I inclined my head in his direction. “I wonder if he doesn’t remember me.”
Kate grinned. “When I asked for the table, I said I was waiting for a friend, and then I went on about how this friend had said it was such a charming place and we really had to have tea here and how absolutely right she was.”
“I see. Flattery. It does seem to have been effective.”
“It usually is.”
The waitress who came to our table was a disappointment as far as I was concerned. Serious and reserved, she looked irritated when I asked, “A friend of mine sometimes dines here. Miss Smythe.”
“Is this the same person the policeman was asking about? As I told him, we do not memorize the names of our guests. Were you ready to order?”
“Tea and sandwiches, please.” That would give me time to observe the room and the option to order a sweet if I needed more.
When our food arrived, Kate sipped her tea in silence, giving me time to scan the room. Almost every head in the place was grey. The few that seemed younger were all seated with older ladies, either paid companions or young relatives. Someone like Nora would definitely stand out here.
“Would you like some more tea?”
I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t realize it was a different girl leaning over my shoulder from the one who’d brought the tea until I’d already said, “I’m fine, thank you.”
The new waitress ignored what I’d said and leaned over, pretending to pour. “You were asking about someone?”
“That’s right. I’m looking for a friend of mine. She could be in trouble if I don’t find out where she was on Wednesday.” I thought I’d get more help if I gave the impression I was trying to protect Nora.
“Don’t remember a Miss Smythe, but I don’t really see names.”
I tried to think of any details that might help her remember. “She’s young, light brown hair. Probably wore a green coat. It would have been last Wednesday, but her employer pays for her to come here every Wednesday.”
The waitress shook her head. “No, I’d remember a young woman alone here, especially if she was a regular. The last one was Miss Bridely. She came in every week to meet her aunt. She waited for her for two hours week before last. No one had had the courtesy to tell her the old woman had died. And then the woman left everything to some wastrel nephew in Leeds. Can you imagine?”
“No gratitude at all,” I agreed. So Nora would have stood out if she’d been coming here as she said. So where had she really gone?
The waitress refilled my cup properly and left.
When she’d gone, Kate leaned across the table. “Well, it seems the reason you thought there was something odd about the story is that something was odd about it. It wasn’t true at all.”
I nodded. “Now all I have to do is find out where she actually was.”
~*~*~
When we’d finished our tea, I saw Kate off then got a cab of my own back to Rusham Street. I wanted to have a word with Nora. Now that I was fairly certain that she had not been at the Delphie Tea Room on that Wednesday or any other, the question was, where had she been? And I wanted to look into the combatants that had been there Wednesday afternoon. It was unlikely that they saw anything, but it seemed worth finding out who they were, if for no other reason than to officially eliminate them. Besides, it could give me a clue as to how the murderer got in. Perhaps the murderer was the one who let Miss Hayes in. That was something I hadn’t considered yet. Could she have known her killer? But that brought me back to Kate’s question—how did the murderer get in?
Back on Rusham Street, I went to number 26 and found the path again. This time, I followed it until I came to the four stairs leading down to the kitchen door. When I knocked, the door was answered by a maid of about Nora’s age. “Mistress doesn’t give to charities at the door, ma’am.”
She reminded me a bit of Milly, which meant she was the sort who would have gentlemen over when she wasn’t supposed to. I could see why that had been Mrs. Perkins’s first thought. If the men had been paying a call on the maids, it wouldn’t do to say I thought they might be mixed up in murder. “I’m not collecting. I was just wondering, you see, last week, there were two gentlemen in a cab, and there was a bit of an altercation, with blood spilled, and I wanted to be certain they were all right.”
“That’s very kind of you, but there weren’t any gentlemen callers here last week.”
“You’re certain? They came down the side of the house, towards the stairs here.”
She shook her head. “We didn’t have any callers but tradesmen. When did it happen?”
“Around two o’clock on Wednesday.”
“The day they found the body next door?” she squealed. This time it was fear, not excitement, which made sense considering how close she was to the events.
“That’s right. I’d have come to ask sooner, but when that happened...” I let my voice trail off to see what she would say.
“I wouldn’t have come back here after that, except I live in so there’s really nowhere else to go. I was so scared. You don’t think whoever it was will come back for us, do you?”
“I wouldn’t think so. She didn’t live there, did she?”
“The victim? No, she was the son’s young lady, or one of them. There were at least two. He had another one with him when he found the body. Maybe more that he didn’t bring around to the house.”
“So he’d brought her there before?”
“The one that was killed? Once or twice that I know of. But the gentlemen you saw, they definitely weren’t here that day. The mistress had several ladies over for tea and gossip, or the Improvement of Morals Society to hear them tell it. We wouldn’t have had time for callers.”
“Then I wonder why they went along the side of the house.”
“Maybe they were cutting through to get next door.”
“Who lives there?” I nodded to the house beside the yard.
“Not that house. It hasn’t been let in months. I meant Mrs. Fetherton’s. If you don’t go down these stairs, the yard goes around. It’s a bit of a squeeze, but you can make it through to the other side behind the fence. Maybe it was her maid who had the caller.”
A pair of secret gentlemen callers would be a reason for Nora to lie about where she was. “It very well could be. Do you mind if I have a look?”
She shrugged as if she didn’t understand why I would want to. “If you like.”
I thought it best not to tell her that that bit of information suggested the two men were involved in the murder somehow. “Thank you.”
I went back up the stairs and followed the route. I didn’t try to press myself through the gap in the fence behind the house, but I could see that it was possible to do so. I went back to the street and up the other side of the house, the one that bordered on Mrs. Fetherton’s. There was another gap in the wall that someone could squeeze through and arrive at the end of the path to the kitchen door stairs. But had anyone used it?
Yet another thing to check at number 24. I doubted they’d been calling on Mrs. Fetherton, and I didn’t particularly want to talk to Randall’s mother twice in one day, so I slipped around to the kitchen door and knocked. Nora opened it just enough to peer out, then apparently decided I was safe enough, as I was neither burglars nor the police, and opened it the rest of the way. “Good afternoon, Miss Pengear. Were you looking for the mistress?”
“No, I don’t need to bother her. I just wanted to ask you a few things. First, did a couple of men call here the afternoon of the murder?”
“I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. I wasn’t in, you see. I had tea at the Delphie Tea Room like I told you.”
I decided to tackle one thing at a time. “Could they have been paying a call on Mrs. Fetherton?”
“Oh no, she was out too. That’s her day for paying calls. That’s why I go out on Wednesdays; no one is in the house, so no one is inconvenienced.”
I supposed it made sense in a way, and it had been too much to hope that she’d seen the men. I moved on to the real reason for my visit. “You said you were at the Delphie Tea Room all afternoon?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been there three times myself. No one remembers you.” I gave Nora the same glare I often gave Milly when discussing her gentlemen callers as I asked, “Where were you really that afternoon?”
Nora stared at me for a moment. I could see her considering how to answer. I glared harder so she would know I wasn’t going to put up with another lie. She sniffed a little then answered, “All right, all right. I lied. I’ve been lying for months. I don’t go to the tea shop. I go to the Imperial and use the money to see the matinee show.”
That explained why she told Inspector Wainwright she used the name “Smythe”; it made the story almost impossible to prove or disprove. If I hadn’t been so annoyed, I would have been impressed with the ingeniousness of it. As it was, I sighed and asked, “Why didn’t you just say so? Inspector Wainwright is wasting all sorts of time trying to prove where you were so he can clear you.”
“But if the missus finds out...”
“That will be the end of your holidays. You still need to tell Inspector Wainwright so he can verify it and clear you.” And get on to investigating something that would clear Milly, but I didn’t think that would motivate her as much as self-preservation. “If he discovers you weren’t at the tea shop on his own, it’s going to make him suspicious.”
“But the missus....”
“Maybe he won’t have to tell her.” I didn’t think Inspector Wainwright would go out of his way to inform any of the suspects of anything. He certainly never did for me. “In any case, you have to tell him where you were before he finds out you lied on his own. It will go better for you if he hears it from you directly.”
“I’ll consider it. Did you want to see the mistress?”
I could tell she was trying to change the subject and had no intention of telling Inspector Wainwright where she’d been. If it hadn’t been for Milly I might have given her a chance to think about it, but under the circumstances, I didn’t think I had the time. “No need to bother her. I hope you make the right decision on Inspector Wainwright.” I turned and made my way back to the street.
At least I had a start on Nora’s real alibi, unless she was lying again, but I hadn’t made any progress on the men in the fight. I looked around, but there were no cab stands nearby. That would have been too simple. The cab driver would have seen the two men and would know what the argument was about. It was possible they weren’t involved in anything and had simply wanted a quiet place to stop the bleeding, but it did seem odd. I started for the Underground station wondering if I should take that bit of information to Inspector Wainwright along with Nora’s new alibi. He would have ways of finding the cab, I was certain, but would he listen: that was the question.
As I consulted the Underground map to find my way home, I noticed that I could pass quite near the Imperial Theater with very little trouble. It wouldn’t hurt to stop and see if I could verify Nora’s new alibi. If it did prove important to Milly’s case, I doubted Inspector Wainwright would share his findings with me.
When I arrived at the station, I realized I should have asked Nora what was playing when she was there. It would have been a simple way to know if she had at least been to the theater on the correct Wednesday. Still, I could get a look at the theater, time how long it took to walk there—I’d already timed how long the Underground took—and see what show might have been playing and how long it lasted. It would help me get an idea of when she had gotten home that day and what time periods were unaccounted for. Surely she would have heard Miss Hayes breaking in, so both the break-in and the murder must have occurred before she returned home. I glanced at my watch to note the time and started walking.
As I approached the Imperial Theater, I noticed a sign set-up on the pavement. “Tickets exchanged here for make-up performance” with an arrow directing people to the far window. That seemed curious. No one was in line, so I went to the indicated ticket window.
The man seated behind the glass didn’t look up as I approached. “Do you have the old tickets, miss?”
“I wasn’t here, I was just wondering the make-up performance was for. My friend...” That was always a good excuse for needing information without knowing what it was about.
“From last Wednesday when the water pipe broke.”
“The water pipe?”
“For the steam engine that runs the effects. Flooded the stage. We couldn’t do the show. If she was here that day, tell her to bring the ticket with the date on it, and we’ll exchange it.”
“I see. Thank you. I’ll let her know.”
A flooded stage. So Nora hadn’t been at the Imperial either. Really, Inspector Wainwright should be pleased that I had saved him the bother of checking out that lie, although I had the feeling he’d prefer to be annoyed that I hadn’t brought it straight to him. Nora had some more explaining to do, though. I marched back over to the Underground and retraced my steps back to Rusham Street.
When I arrived at Rusham Street, I fully intended to go to the front door and demand to see Nora, letting Mrs. Fetherton know that her maid was not using the money for tea and serving lessons as intended and had lied about it twice, but that would mean I’d need to explain to Mrs. Fetherton why I was there again, and after she all but threw me out over the window examination, I didn’t want to risk her wrath again, in case I did need access to the box room one more time. Besides, I didn’t have any news from Kate, and I didn’t want to tell Mrs. Fetherton that my friend hadn’t been able to figure out how the window lock had been breached, even if the lock’s own maker couldn’t do the same. So Nora was lucky as I made my way along the side of the house again and down the back stairs to the kitchen door.
When Nora opened the door, I could tell from her expression—which must have been similar to the one she gave Inspector Wainwright on his visits—that she did not immediately appreciate my more-favorable-than-planned appearance.
“If she sees you’re here again, I’m going to be in so much trouble, miss.”
I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself. It didn’t work. “If you would have told me the truth to begin with, I wouldn’t have to be here again! Now, there are two options: you can either tell me exactly what happened the day Miss Hayes was found dead in your house, or I can go to Inspector Wainwright and tell him I know you were lying, twice. He will think it is suspicious that you don’t want to tell us where you were, as he should, and will come here, either to arrest you or to question you. And he won’t sneak down the tradesman’s stairs. Now, are you going to tell me the truth about where you were or not?”
Apparently I could look quite fierce when properly aroused. At least Nora gave me the same sort of look she gave her mistress and sobbed out, “I was here. I went out, but I knew she was going out too, so I came back.”
“And why didn’t you just tell me that instead of lying about the Imperial?”
“Because I wasn’t here alone.”
I sighed. I had suspected something like that. “What’s his name?”
“Do I have...”
“Yes,” I snapped. “I’ve wasted time—time my cousin has been sitting in jail—sorting out your lies. A woman is dead. Now tell me everything, or you can tell Inspector Wainwright. Don’t think he won’t track you down.” Of course she’d have to repeat all of it to him when I sent him over to get her official statement, but I considered that just punishment for wasting my time.
Nora tried looking hurt and near tears. I continued to glare. It was the same trick Milly used when she wanted to convince me to do what she wanted. Nora finally gave up. “Jacob Graham.”
If Nora used Milly’s tricks, maybe some of the ones that worked on Milly would work on her too. “And how did you get involved with this wastrel?”
Nora leapt to his defense. “He is not a wastrel. He has a proper job at Sternwell Financial. He even has business cards. He gave me one.”
“And was last week the first time you brought him here?”
“It was...” She saw I wasn’t backing down and slumped in defeat. “...n’t, no, it wasn’t. We have gone to the Imperial once or twice, and the park. But she said she was going visiting, and she had her large handbag, so I knew she’d be gone for a while, so I suggested we come here.”
I sighed. “Did you ever go to the tea shop?”
“When she started to give me the money. But it’s such a boring place. They’re all about a hundred. Then I had the idea to go someplace fun with the money, but before I could start, I met Jacob and we started coming here.”
“So you’re here every week?”
“Almost.”
“And when did you meet him?”
“Three months ago, at the Laughing Goat. He was sitting at the bar, and I was at a table with some friends, and he waited until I was leaving and stopped to talk to me.” She seemed very excited about telling this story.
“Who knew about these meetings?”
“I haven’t told anyone.”
“None of your friends? No one?”
She shook her head. “I was afraid it would get back to Mrs. Fetherton.”
“And him?”
“He wouldn’t tell a soul.”
I doubted that, but I doubted saying that would get me anywhere. “And what actually happened the day Miss Hayes died?”
Nora burst into tears. “It’s all my fault!”
I sighed. It was getting worse than talking to Milly. Really, Inspector Wainwright should reward me for sorting through all of this for him and saving him the dealing with the lying and the bouts of hysteria. “Begin at the beginning, please.”
“Like I said, I knew she was going out visiting, so we thought we’d just come here instead, and have a nice visit. We were looking for some refreshments...” She looked at me to see if I was believing the story so far. She saw I wasn’t, so she went on, “and Mrs. Fetherton keeps a good bottle of gin in the box-room cupboard.”
That I believed.
“And the lock is easy to open with a hairpin.”
Clearly, I needed to invest in more hairpins.
“We were just going to borrow a little, but then she came back early.”
I could hear the start of another crying spurt coming on, so I distracted her before she could get started. “I see. So how is it your fault?”
“Well, we had to get out before she saw us, and then she’d know I wasn’t going out to tea and that we’d taken the gin, so we climbed out of the window in the box room and ran through the yards to the high street and went to the pub until it was time for me to go back. And I couldn’t lock the window from the outside, and that’s how the girl got in. If we hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have been there.”
I rubbed my forehead. Kate had said the window had to have been unlocked from the inside, and it seemed that it had been. “She probably would have found another way in. Did you see her when you were running away?”
“No, miss.”
And she hadn’t been there when they went out the window. Surely they would have noticed stepping over a dead body. So she had arrived some time after they left. That made sense. If they left before the storm and she came after, it would explain why there was only one set of footprints in the snow. But if they left because Mrs. Fetherton was at home, why hadn’t she heard Miss Hayes entering, or the murder for that matter? “You said she came home earlier than you expected?”
“Yes, miss. She doesn’t visit all afternoon. When she has her big handbag, she goes for most of it. If it’s the small one, she only goes out for half an hour. I almost got caught twice before I figured that one out.”
“Why the two bags?”
“I don’t know. They’re both usually empty when she puts them away. Maybe she steals biscuits at one of the houses?”
“I suppose.” But why didn’t she tell Inspector Wainwright she’d been home? Or had she? I realized I had to go and see him sooner rather than later. If he didn’t have this information, he should. “Tell me about this Mr. Graham.”
“He couldn’t have anything to do with this. I’m sure you see he couldn’t have been involved. He didn’t know Miss Hayes.”
“Nora, everyone in this case has said they don’t know Miss Hayes, and then I find out that they did.”
“But if you’d talk to him, then you’d see.”
“I’m sure Inspector Wainwright…”
“I don’t trust him one bit. Here’s Jacob’s card. Just go and meet him. You’ll see he couldn’t possibly be involved. Please, just go hear his side of it.”
I sighed and took the card. It would help Inspector Wainwright find him, in any case.
Nora seemed pleased that I had taken it. “You’ll hear him out, then.”
“All right, Nora, I’ll try to see him, but I’ll have to tell Inspector Wainwright all of this.”
“I know. Do you think you could ask him to not tell Mrs. Fetherton?”
“I’ll see.” I didn’t think there was any reason for him to, but I was too annoyed to tell her that.
“I’d be ever so grateful.” She was using the same voice Milly did when she was trying to get me to do something against my better judgment. I harrumphed at her and went back to the street to find a cab.
Since I had more or less told Nora I would at least give Mr. Graham a chance to tell me his version of events, I gave the driver the address on the card she’d given me. The driver gave me a look that seemed to say if that’s what you really want as he nodded me inside.
When I saw the premises of Sternwell Financial, I understood why the cab driver had looked so dubious. While it might have sounded like an accounting firm or a bank, it was a warehouse that was clearly some sort of front for criminal activity, complete with a look-out stationed at the door. I still hadn’t recovered my temper from my talk with Nora, so I decided to use that to my advantage and told the driver to wait. He looked dubious, but I walked away before he could ask for his fare, meaning he had to wait if he wanted to get paid.
I went up to the man standing at the door. “I’m looking for Jacob Graham.”
“And why do you want to find him?”
As I didn’t want to damage Inspector Wainwright’s chances of finding Jacob Graham and I wasn’t in the mood to think things through, I decided that was more than enough effort to fulfill my promise to Nora and gave the man what felt like a rather nasty smile and said, “Absolutely none of your concern,” then flounced off. Hearing a woman had been looking for him hopefully would not scare off Mr. Graham. If Nora’s taste in men was anything like Milly’s, it would probably flatter and intrigue him.
The man laughed and called after me, “Jacob Graham. Lives at 59 Clink Street, third-floor flat.”
“Thank you.” I walked away before he could ask who I was.
The cab driver was waiting where I left him and not looking pleased about it. I was in no mood to deal with Nora’s Mr. Graham or him, so I snapped, “Scotland Yard,” and climbed in. No one ever argued with being told to go to Scotland Yard.