Fifteen

When Billie knocked on the door at the end of the hall one floor up, clad in her peach robe and matching slippers, her hair tousled and the mascara of the night before smudged around one eye, it was Alma who answered. Such was the early hour, the baroness’s lady’s maid was not yet neatly put together. Her eyes were watery from the rude awakening, and she wore a quilted robin’s-egg-blue robe, hastily tied with a sash and buttoned at the neck. Alma’s hair was in pin curls, held under a brown net, and her thinly plucked brows were pulled high in surprise.

Billie pushed past her, aware from Alma’s expression that her countenance was alarming. She was aware, too, that her hair had not been brushed and had gathered on her head in something like a dark bird’s nest. That was unimportant.

“Can you lock the door? I need to see Mum right away,” Billie instructed urgently, forgoing niceties. Alma did as requested, unspoken questions on her tongue. “I’ll need you, too, I think,” Billie added. At this, Alma’s already wide-eyed expression exaggerated further. She moved off to Ella’s room without a word.

Her mother took some time to be roused. There was little doubt where Billie got her sleeping genes. Billie turned on some lights, then paced around the living room, trying to think the situation over. After what felt like half an hour but was probably closer to five minutes, the baroness emerged in hair scarf and curlers, a satin eye mask pulled up to her forehead and a belted black silk robe embroidered with flowers hanging from her slender form. Her feet were bare, black satin slippers in her hand, and her eyes were unfocused and bloodshot. She had no eyebrows to speak of, having plucked them away when it was the rage.

“Darling, you look a shocker,” Ella said automatically, looking her daughter up and down with astonishment and a fair measure of disapproval. Billie resisted returning the compliment. “Really, darling, you look pale as the moon. What time is it?” With a confused expression, she began searching the living room for a clock. “What’s all this about? I thought it was lunch we were having. It’s practically still dark out. What time is it?” she repeated. “You can’t go out like that.”

In her days as a war reporter, Billie had seen torn-up soldiers coming out of anesthesia talk with about as much sense as her mother was now. For her part, Alma observed the muddled exchange and walked off to the kitchen. The sound and smell of coffee being ground soon emerged. Wonderful, blessedly clever woman. Though Billie preferred black tea on most occasions, the aroma of strong coffee was quite appealing under the circumstances. She could use a bucket of the stuff at this hour.

“You’re wearing the necklace now, with . . . that?” It was still around Billie’s neck. She distantly remembered having been too tired to manage the clasp at three in the morning. “What do you need your gun for?” Ella continued, now with more clarity, and Billie realized she was still holding the thing at her side, gripped tightly in her right hand. She released her white-knuckled grip and placed the weapon gently on a table.

“Sorry. Mother . . . Ella . . . This isn’t about lunch today. I have to cancel that anyway. I have to attend an auction, I think . . . Well, never mind that for now.” Billie put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. “There is a . . . problem. I need your help.”

“Good goddess, at six in the morning?” Ella broke away from Billie’s gaze and rubbed at her eyes. “Alma, coffee, please,” she muttered, though Alma could scarcely have heard her from the kitchen and was well ahead of that thought process. “Are you okay?” She looked searchingly at Billie.

“I’m physically unharmed, Mum. Don’t worry. I think . . . Well, it looks like I’ve been set up, and we have scant time to fix the situation. I’m not sure we have time for coffee.”

She paused, the reality dawning on her in increments. She’d been drugged at The Dancers. Someone had followed her to the People’s Palace, or rather followed poor Con. “Someone is trying very hard to get me out of the way. It must be the new case. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

After sharing her life with Billie’s father for so many years, Ella was more aware than most—certainly most society women—of the situations people in Billie’s line of work might find themselves in. “Set up? How?” she asked, her eyes clearing and that old steely intelligence coming back into them.

“I think you’d better come down and see for yourself,” Billie said.

She took her mother by the hand, unlocked the door, peered out, and led her down the staircase toward her flat. As they came out on her floor, she checked the corridor. Everything was unchanged, still dark, still silent, not a neighbor stirring. They crept down the carpeted hall in their slippers. Billie unlocked the door of her flat, looked both ways again, held her breath, and listened. No creaks. No breathing. It was as quiet as a grave. Once satisfied they were alone, she ushered her mother inside and locked the door behind them.

“There is a man in here,” she said in a whisper, and moved with her toward her bedroom. They stood at the open door and looked.

“Great Hera!” her mother said simply, eyes riveted to the form on the floor.

“I saw him last night, the same man. Con Zervos is his name. He was just like this, but in his own lodgings over at the People’s Palace.” The clothes were the same, even his shirt, still partially undone. The main difference was the increasing greenish-blue tinge of his skin. The past few hours had not improved things. “By the time the cops came he was gone and they tried to tell me I’d imagined it,” she continued. “Someone must have taken the body before the cops got there. Then I woke up this morning to find him. Someone switched it up so he’d be here in my flat. They moved the body in here while I was sleeping.”

She realized what she was saying. Someone had come into her room while she was passed out on her bed in her slip. Billie shivered and wondered fleetingly if she’d ever be able to sleep again.

“You are unharmed?” Ella asked, watching her daughter’s face carefully.

“I’m unharmed, just as I was when I fell asleep. Although I was slipped something that knocked me out. No one looted the place, either. Your sapphire earrings are right here . . .” She pointed. “No, they’re gone,” she realized with another layer of horror. Whoever was here had swiped them, the rat. “I was too tired to get the necklace off. That clasp is tricky . . . but it looks like someone took the earrings. I’m so sorry . . .”

Her mother shot her a look.

“There’s no time to worry about that now. We have to worry about him.”

Even without Alma’s coffee, the baroness was now wide-awake. She lifted her chin, her mouth set in a grim line. Her hands went to her hips. “I guess we’d best get rid of him,” she said matter-of-factly.

Billie nodded. “Agreed.”

“I think we ought to get Alma,” the baroness said.

“I think so, too. I’ll run up. Don’t you touch anything.”

The baroness took an exaggerated breath. “Trust me, darling, I have no intention of touching any of . . . this,” she said, making a circling gesture with an open palm. She backed out of Billie’s bedroom.

In a couple of minutes Billie returned to her flat with Alma and a thermos of fresh coffee. Billie poured it into three cups while Alma stared at the corpse on the Persian rug, blanching. Billie had forewarned the dear woman, but the shock made her dry retch and she ran to the bathroom. This was not a good morning for Ella’s lady’s maid. She liked order and quiet and doubtless didn’t like anything about this situation. There wasn’t much to like about it in Billie’s books, either, especially this close to home.

“Drink this.” Billie thrust a steaming cup at her mother. Ella sipped eagerly and seemed to grow a touch taller.

She heard the toilet flush and Alma returned, her face damp and ashen. Billie handed her a cup of black coffee, and after a few sips some color returned. The three women stood in a semicircle looking down at the corpse.

“He seemed a nice man,” Billie offered after a short silence. “I only met him twice. I think he was about to tell me something important.”

“I’d bet my finest pearls you’re right about that,” her mother replied. “You’ve been poking in the right fireplace, my dear.”

Billie’s initial jolt of adrenaline was subsiding, and now the reality was sinking in. Yes. She had been poking in the right fireplace. Probably the same one Adin Brown had been, which did not bode well for the boy at all. Someone very badly wanted Billie to go down. And they didn’t want her to find the boy. It was well past six now. There could be cops here any minute, and if they really wanted to put the nail in her coffin there would be a photographer as well, positioned across the street to catch her humiliating arrest for murder, as she was dragged out of the block of flats at sunup wearing little more than disheveled lingerie while the body of her would-be informant was stretchered out. A very dirty setup. Even if Billie was exonerated by the courts, could prove her innocence, having a corpse show up in her bedroom meant her name would be mud for a long time to come, and there were already too many people who wanted her out of this “man’s occupation.” Inquiry agents sometimes came across stiffs, of course, but not in their own bedrooms.

“Let’s wrap him in the rug,” Alma said, breaking Billie’s spiraling train of thought. The resourceful woman put her cup down on the floor and got on her knees, her mouth set in concentration. She began to roll the edges of the Persian rug, tucking it around the body like a shroud. After a beat, Ella and Billie knelt down and joined her. “We’ll get him to the lift,” Alma added.

“Good thinking,” Ella said.

They kept rolling.

“He’s skinny, at least,” Billie said, hoping they’d be able to carry him all the way to the lift and wondering if indeed he would fit inside it cocooned in the rug, which added considerable stiffness and bulk. Her mind churned through the logistics as she worked. She left Alma and Ella to finish the job and roughly made up her bed, put the coffee cups in a cupboard, and tidied things so everything looked as it had the day before, apart from the empty space where the Persian rug had been. There was nothing to do about that, but she supposed anyone who didn’t know her flat wouldn’t see the difference.

“He looks a lot more like a body rolled in a rug than I was hoping,” Ella observed quietly as she and Alma inspected their handiwork. “Let’s hope we don’t run into any neighbors or the next residents’ meeting will be hell.”

---

At six thirty on a clear Sunday morning, the three women dragged a suspiciously heavy rolled rug out of the door of Billie’s flat, sliding it down the hallway of the second floor, Alma and Billie at the front and Ella taking up the rear.

“Shame,” Ella said, panting softly and taking a break from her efforts. “Your father picked up that rug for me at—”

“Not now, Mum. Please. We need all hands,” whispered Billie with some urgency.

“Of course,” she said and got to work again. “I must say, though, I’ve seen a dead man before, but I never realized they were so damn heavy.”

“Shhh.” Deadweight they called it, and it seemed to Billie to be out of all proportion, particularly with this fellow, who for all the world had looked like a featherweight. He’d been pure sinew, muscle, and ribs, the poor man. Billie and Alma were now walking backward. “Mum, you watch the hall behind us; we’ll keep an eye behind you. We have to be very, very quiet. No chatting. Okay, it’s not too far now. But there’s not much time left.” They put their backs into it as they moved down the hallway toward the lift. They were but a few feet from their destination when their burden shifted and a foot slipped out the bottom end of the rug.

“Blast!” Ella exclaimed.

“Shhhhh,” Billie reminded her. Maybe the stairs would have been wiser? No, too awkward, though the prospect of being seen would possibly be less. “I promise he won’t be in your flat long,” she whispered, thinking through her plan.

Ella dropped her end again. “My flat?”

“Yes,” Billie said calmly, in a low voice. “If we go down we risk running straight into the cops. We are going up . . .” The baroness might not have quite the clout she once did, but Billie felt confident the police wouldn’t dare burst into her flat without a very good reason and an ironclad search warrant. Billie, on the other hand, was not protected by a title or her mother’s impressive connections.

Ella stared at her daughter, then turned up her nose, closed her eyes, and crouched beside the bundled corpse, evidently having accepted the inevitable. “Do you think your father ever did something like this?” she whispered, stuffing the foot back in.

Billie sidestepped the question. She didn’t have an answer to that, though she felt sure her instincts had come at least in part from her father. He’d known a setup when he saw one, and there was zero possibility he would be sitting around waiting for a knock on the door after a body showed up in his room.

Reaching the lift, the three women encountered another problem. A horizontal Zervos wouldn’t fit in the lift. Billie, Alma, and Ella were now visibly perspiring, their hair disheveled, and looking suspicious in the extreme.

“We’ll have to drag him up the stairs,” Alma panted, and her employer’s face dropped.

“But—”

“There’s no time to argue,” Alma insisted. “We can carry him together.”

“He’s too heavy, especially with the rug.” Ella stood back, frowning, and with the back of one elegant hand wiped the space where her eyebrows should be.

“Wait,” Billie said, bending, and unwrapped the rug as if it contained a grim present. She worked to sit the body upright. It was stiff, rigor mortis having begun, but she could still do it with some effort. When she was finished, Zervos sat with his back against the wall of the lift, legs slightly bent, arms unnaturally stiff at his sides. His mouth was gaping a touch, and the bruises around his neck had darkened to a deep blue. “There,” Billie said, and the doors successfully closed them in. Billie ignored the revulsion of her living companions and pressed the button for her mother’s floor. The lift came to life with a whir of gears. She had never been more grateful that the building had been designed with an automatic lift, one of the first blocks of flats to boast such a luxury.

A few agonizing minutes later, the women found themselves in Baroness von Hooft’s flat, breathless and staring at a suspicious-looking rug with two feet sticking out of it. Bodily decomposition had begun immediately upon death, and this poor soul had passed away at least five hours earlier. Things were not set to improve anytime soon. It wasn’t anything like the reek of a field hospital, but the inevitable stench of death was still unpleasant, particularly in such a domestic setting, bringing to mind the rot of putrid flowers and meat. Death, though, had its own distinct odor, and it wasn’t something one forgot.

Billie opened all the windows in the flat to let a breeze through, while Alma locked the front door and slid the bolt, then disappeared into the kitchen. Soon Billie was in her mother’s boudoir, pocketing the first bottle of perfume she saw and stalking back down the hall. Thankfully, the lift had not moved. She opened the doors, sprayed perfume inside, wafted the air around as much as she could, and closed them again. Truly, there was no dignity in death. She returned to her mother’s flat and locked and bolted the door again behind her. Her mother had not moved an inch.

Ella’s naked brow was uncharacteristically corrugated, deep lines running up her forehead. Billie offered her an apologetic smile, then accepted a cup of coffee from Alma gratefully, along with a couple of aspirin from the medicine cabinet. After a few minutes she felt the heaviness of her head lifting a little more. A plan began to form. “This will work,” she said under her breath.

Her arms were aching, she realized. Her mother and Alma, both much older, would most likely be hellishly sore after that lifting. Had the man been larger, like the portly Georges Boucher, for example, the task might well have been impossible, no matter the necessity.

Georges Boucher. The auction was today. She had to get there. She couldn’t let sleeplessness, or an interrogation with the cops, prevent her.

She moved to the telephone table and was rather surprised when Sam picked up on the fourth ring, sounding quite awake. “I didn’t expect you to be up this early,” he said when she greeted him down the line. His throat didn’t sound the best, but he seemed lucid enough.

“Trust me, neither did I,” she replied and cast a sideways glance at her still unmoving mother. She seemed to have frozen in place.

“Are you feeling okay this morning? You seemed a bit . . .” Sam’s voice trailed off.

“Yes, I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry to do this to you, Sam, but I need you to get dressed again in what you were wearing last night and pick me up in Quambi Place, the street behind Cliffside Flats, in about half an hour.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m afraid I need you to dress again and pick me up,” she reiterated. “I realize it’s inconvenient. I’ll spot you when you pull up in Quambi Place and I’ll get into the car. Don’t bother getting out, and whatever you do don’t cruise around the front of the building or down Edgecliff Road, as I think the flats are being watched.”

Sam took a moment to absorb her instructions. “Billie, are you okay?” he asked, concerned.

“Can you do it, Sam?” She held her breath while she waited for his answer.

“Well, my jacket is a bit crumpled now. It will take a while to press, and—”

“Don’t bother. Crumpled is fine. Just wear it, same as last night. Can you get here in half an hour, in your car? You know it’s important or I wouldn’t ask.”

There was a pause. “Yeah. I can get there in thirty minutes, or a touch longer.”

She had another idea. “Also, do you have a mate you can borrow a motorcar from this afternoon? Someone trustworthy and not prone to gossip?”

“I don’t like gossips,” Sam said simply, then paused again, evidently thinking. “Stevo isn’t driving much on account of having his touch of shell shock. His missus doesn’t like him behind the wheel. I could borrow his car, I think.”

“Is the car reliable?” Billie ventured.

“Oh yes, his missus drives it. It’s solid.”

“Good. I’ll explain more when I see you.”

“Got it, Ms. Walker.”

Billie hung up and looked down at herself, then at the clock. “Mum, I’m going to have to borrow some of your clothes. I don’t think I ought to go back to my flat now.” They’d been lucky to get Zervos out before seven. But if she was right about what her unknown nemesis had in mind, the police would come knocking very soon. They could be there already, searching her place.

The baroness led her daughter into her luxurious, burgundy-painted bedroom. She indicated the double robes with a raised eyebrow, and Billie opened them up. Either from a strong bond with her past or from her current state of relative impecuniosity, Ella’s closet was dominated by 1920s haute couture and ready-to-wear fashions. Billie frowned.

“You don’t have anything more . . . fashionable?” she asked, somewhat foolishly. She realized her mistake as soon as she’d spoken. “I mean . . . newer?”

Her mother’s eyes flared angrily. “That is Schiaparelli, I’ll have you know,” she said icily, nodding at the exquisite dress Billie had pulled out.

Billie closed her eyes and took a breath. “You’re right, Mother. This will be fine.” She took off her peach dressing robe and pulled the beaded gown on over her crushed, slept-in slip. The gown did fit beautifully, even if it was a touch shorter on Billie than it was designed to be. It would do.

“Schiaparelli will always be fine,” Ella retorted.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Mum. I meant that it has to look like my clothing, not yours.”

“And you are more fashionable, I suppose?” Ella responded. “With your mannish clothes and your shoulder pads?”

The baroness crossed her arms tightly as she watched her daughter continue to raid her things. “You know, you used to do this when you were six,” she said, softening slightly. Her mother’s shoes were a bit tight, but Billie got them on over a pair of dark silk stockings, then assessed her reflection in the mirror. The back of the gown had a lovely plunge. The overall effect with the stockings and slightly tight shoes wasn’t perfect, but it would do. She pulled a fox fur over her shoulders.

“I owe you one, Ella. Thank you. You do have the most beautiful wardrobe,” Billie said placatingly. She looked around. “I’ll need that steamer trunk, too, I think.” She indicated the Louis Vuitton double wardrobe trunk stored in a corner alcove.

Ella’s eyes followed her daughter’s gaze. “Yes, you may borrow it,” she said. “But I want it back in good condition,” she added primly. Her voice had become a touch stiff and formal, in that irritating way it had sometimes when she had spoken to underlings, back when she’d had them.

“Are you sure?” Billie murmured, deadpan.

Ella gasped, horrified, suddenly comprehending Billie’s intention. “Oh no, you don’t! You can’t put him in there! I’ve had that trunk for nearly two decades. Haven’t you any idea of the value? You could buy first-class passage to London and back for the price of that trunk!”

Billie shrugged, being deliberately naughty now. “We have to get him out of this flat somehow. I suppose we could use your hatboxes, but I dare say it wouldn’t be very pleasant. And we’d need to find a saw.”

The baroness paled, one delicate hand to her mouth. “You wouldn’t really . . .”

“I suppose not,” Billie conceded. She had a strong stomach, but, no. She hoped not to add too much more indignity to Zervos’s untimely end.

“Okay,” Ella said in a resigned voice, looking at the trunk sadly. “Do what you want with the thing. Levi gave it to me. Burn it if you like.” Levi had been her first husband. “Thank goddess that poor fellow is skinny,” she added.

Billie put a hand on her mother’s shoulder, conveyed her gratitude with a look, then got to work.