Thomas Jackman listened to the rain falling outside his front room window, feeling as depressed as the weather. He was trying to sort out all the details of the Peters case as he knew them so far. It was a frustrating business. It seemed that everywhere he turned he was being obstructed. He was not allowed to speak to Alice Peters in Holloway prison. He was not allowed to interview the staff of the Peters household. His old colleague, Inspector Drummond, refused to consider any evidence but the most obvious. To Jackman, Joshua Peters and his odd valet, Albert, had to have been involved in some mysterious, if not illegal, activity. But what?
For the first time since he’d left the police force, Thomas missed having colleagues to discuss a case with. He needed someone to bounce ideas around with, and preferably someone who understood the issues involved and someone used to the criminal mind. When he’d taken on the investigation, he had never imagined it would prove so difficult to solve. Every time he thought about Alice Peters locked in her cell, he knew despair. She was so lovely, so innocent, and in such danger.
Three days ago, when he had followed the valet, Albert, to Shepherd’s Market, he’d thought that at last he was about to achieve a breakthrough in the case.
Everything about the man had suggested he was up to no good. His shiftiness at the docks, the way he had snatched the money Thomas had offered him, then hurried off. Following him, Thomas had been certain that the man would not be hiring a cab. And so it had proved. Without actually breaking into a run, the man was incredibly speedy on his feet. Thomas considered he himself was pretty fast but he found it difficult to keep up with the valet without betraying his presence. It did not seem, though, to have occurred to Albert that he might be being followed. Nor that he might spend money on some form of transport between the docks and Shepherd’s Market, a distance of several miles.
Once the valet had disappeared into the public house, Thomas had taken a brief look inside and seen him accost some toff with a fine head of prematurely white hair. Though the way Albert was received did not appear to be warm – there was no grasping of hands, no smile of welcome – the curt nod the toff gave indicated that the valet had been expected. The saloon bar was small and Thomas saw no way of escaping notice if he entered. So he waited round a corner where he had a good view of the entrance. Eventually the toff had emerged with Albert almost hanging on his sleeve. Thomas watched as the valet had been brushed off with what must have been hard words, judging by the way he turned almost puce with anger, and the man had strode off in the direction of Berkeley Square.
Thomas decided to follow him; he already knew where Albert lived.
Merging unobtrusively into a group of people moving in the same direction, Thomas to his great surprise saw Rachel Fentiman and Ursula Grandison handing out some pamphlet or other from a hessian bag labelled ‘Votes for Women’. Any other time he would have welcomed the chance of conversation but not now. Moving easily through the end-of-day crowds, he slipped out of the market into Curzon Street without attracting their attention.
The tall, aristocratic-looking man was an easy target to follow up the steps that led into stately Berkeley Square, its central green sward generously lined with trees. He crossed the square and walked up the short Hill Street, at the top turning left into Davies Street. As Thomas rounded the corner, he saw his quarry enter an imposing mansion. He allowed time for the front door to be properly closed, then walked past, giving an unobtrusive but comprehensive look at the brass plate that announced here was the Maison Rose.
Thomas continued walking towards Bond Street but felt for the jar of beauty cream in his trouser pocket. Its label had carried the words: Maison Rose. He stood still for a moment, then hurried back to Shepherd’s Market. Ursula and Rachel might well have some information on such a product. But the home-going crowds had dissipated and there was no sign of the two girls.
Back home and stting at his desk, Thomas sighed, turned his notebook back to the page where he’d written down the details of that day and, once again, read through the notes he’d made, though his memory was excellent and he hardly needed to remind himself of the unanswered questions he’d identified.
He reached for the jar of cream he’d placed on his desk and turned it around in his hand automatically as he recalled his activities during the past three days. The interviews he’d wangled with Millie and Albert had brought no clues as to what that couple of sharpsters Joshua Peters and his valet had been up to. He would not, though, trust either of them to clean a baby’s bottom without making off with the napkin. So he’d decided to look into the background of the Peters and Roberts import/export business. Whatever was going on, it was more than like something that had led to Peters’ death. Thomas saw in his mind’s eye the deep desk drawer, empty apart from a gun and that dratted jar.
He had spent two days looking into Peters and Roberts Ltd. Searches into Company House had required the disentangling of a cat’s cradle of connected companies with no accounts lodged in recent years for any of them. Action was being taken against most and it looked as though the directors, both Joshua Peters, had he still been alive, and his partner Martin Roberts, were about to end up in court. ‘About to be bottled, they are,’ Thomas was told after he’d chatted up a clerk he’d once had dealings with while he was in the police force.
‘You mean arrested?’
The man sucked his teeth. ‘Well let’s just say they’re unlikely to remain in business.’
Chats with ex-colleagues in the dockland area identified a feeling that the operating company was deemed to be dodgy but nothing had occurred so far to bring them into real trouble, nor had anyone seemed able to explain exactly what ‘dodgy’ might mean. ‘We’re keeping an eye out,’ was a phrase used more than once.
Abandoning this aspect of his investigation, Thomas had turned his attention to the Maison Rose. This enterprise seemed above board. He had made contact with a sergeant in the Saville Row police station whom he’d worked with in the past. ‘Foreign gent has taken a lease on the first and second floors,’ said George Parker. ‘Lives on the second, as does his so-called partner, Madame Rose.’
‘So-called?’
‘They run some sort of beauty business on the first floor. She’s a good-looking woman,’ he added judiciously. ‘If a bit too much on her dignity. They maintain separate apartments but, behind closed doors …’ he leered at Thomas.
‘How come you know so much about them?’
‘Just after they moved in, there was a right old fracas in Davies Street, outside their front door. Party of toffs, all drunk as lords, which in fact some of them proved to be,’ he added with a cynical expression. ‘One of them took exception to something another said, words led to fisticuffs and the noise was something else. They was all arrested. The foreign gentleman, now what was his name?’ Sergeant Parker had scratched his ear, an action that Thomas remembered he’d habitually used to aid his memory. ‘Count he was. Yes, Count Meyerhoff. Well, he’d been returning home and seen the start of the fight. He refused to be a witness, said he didn’t want no trouble, but he did want to know how often that sort of thing took place. He said he’d thought it was a respectable neighbourhood.’
Thomas nodded. ‘Always has been. Very far from the East End in every sense.’
‘So I assured the count. Well, he wanted an inspection of his locks. Wanted to make sure he and his partner were safe in their beds.’
‘In their beds?’
‘Didn’t actually use them words but it was obvious what he meant.’
Trust George Parker to see innuendo in the most commonplace of situations!
‘No other trouble in the area?’
The sergeant shook his head and finished off the pint of ale Thomas had bought him in the police station’s local. ‘It gets regularly patrolled, as you’d expect, being as ’ow we don’t want no trouble there. And the Maison Rose property don’t seem to attract any suspicious night life, know what I mean?’ He winked meaningfully at Thomas. ‘Daytime they get a very good class of custom calling there.’
Thomas had returned home little wiser. But he was unable to rule the Maison Rose out of the investigation until he discovered what business Albert had had with the foreign count. Frustrated, he’d written up his notes then had shut his notebook with a decisive air and gone next door to the Bottle and Glass.
The pub was seething with drinkers. Exchanging greetings, Thomas worked his way through to the bar, where he was surprised and bothered to find Betty Marks serving alongside Schooner. Perspiration ran down the sides of her face as she pulled on the ale handle, sharply told one customer he must wait his turn and rejected the invitation of another to come outside. Then she saw Thomas and her face lit up. ‘Hey, stranger, where you been, then?’ The foaming beer was handed over, money received, and she automatically wiped down the surface of the bar as she smiled a welcome.
‘Didn’t know you were barmaid as well as cook,’ he said awkwardly, aware that she was the main reason he hadn’t frequented the Bottle and Glass the last few weeks.
She flicked him a saucy look. ‘Mavis is off sick and Schooner hauled me in from the kitchen, said drink was more important than food. What can I get you?’
‘Pint of the usual, thanks, Betty.’
‘You take it over there,’ she indicated a little table in the far corner of the bar. ‘It’ll soon quieten and we can talk. Eaten, have you? There’s a mighty tasty pie in the back; cut you a slice in a twinkling. And you know you like my pickled onions.’
Schooner gave him a welcoming nod and Thomas knew he was caught. He was also hungry.
Little Patty, the girl who worked at whatever was needed doing, brought over a plate of generously cut pork pie, a small dish of pickled onions and a doorstop slice of bread.
‘Got you in the kitchen today, have they?’ Thomas gave her a smile.
She placed the food carefully before him, tongue peeking from her mouth as she concentrated on making sure nothing fell to the floor. She was very thin, her shoulder bones almost cutting through the worn cotton of her dress, its original pattern long since lost through wear and washing. Say this for Schooner, he made sure his staff were clean, no easy feat in this area of London.
‘I’se cook today,’ she said proudly, large eyes anxious. ‘Missus Marks, she tells me to watch the stew and spoon it out for customers. I’se not to let pot boil. Keep it simmering; that’s the trick she says.’
‘You’ll soon be taking over.’
‘You want stew, Mister Jackman?’
‘This is fine, Patty.’
She gave him a wide grin and disappeared back to the kitchen.
Thomas looked around to see if there was someone whose eye he could catch who would take the other chair at the little table. But that night’s clientele studiously ignored him. He might no longer be a member of the law but there were many who would rather not lay themselves open to his attention. Then a rough-looking fellow approached him in a sideways movement.
‘Eli Martock, isn’t it?’
‘Get you a pint?’ the man offered, hovering, obviously anxious to have words with him.
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’ Thomas waved a hand at his more than half-full glass. ‘Take a seat.’ He nudged the opposite chair away from the table with his foot.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
Eli Martock placed his tankard on the table and sat down heavily. He wore battered and none-too-clean canvas workmen’s trousers and jacket. Having made the move, he looked down at his hands and seemed unable to state why he’d approached the ex-policeman.
‘Carter for Jim Stevens, ain’t you?’ said Thomas in an effort to move the conversation along. ‘Remember talking to you when Jim had stock go astray.’ Stevens was a wholesale ironmonger. It had been a simple case, one of the first Thomas had investigated after he’d left the police force; Stevens hadn’t wanted the authorities involved and Schooner had told him to have a word with Jackman. It hadn’t been difficult to establish that one of the other carters had been quietly slipping the odd item of this and that to a mate along his delivery route, reckoning they wouldn’t be missed.
Eli nodded, opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Thomas ate a piece of pie and waited for the other man to find his voice.
‘Dunno as ’ow you’d want to help.’
‘Won’t know if you don’t tell me what it is.’
A bit of heavy breathing before Eli looked at him, his weathered face creased with anxiety. ‘You ain’t a copper any longer, is you?’
Thomas shook his head.
‘It’s just, if I tells you sommat, you don’t ’ave to report it, does you?’ Eli looked around them, no doubt checking who was in earshot. But the little table was quite private.
Hands held up, Thomas said, ‘I can be as silent as any grave.’
‘It’s just that Mr Stevens fired Walker, you know? ’Im what ’ad been doin’ that stealin’, you know?’
Thomas nodded. ‘He was lucky not to end up in prison, as he would have done if he’d been charged.’
‘’E doesn’t think ’e’s lucky, an’ … an’ ’e reckons ’tis all my fault.’
Thomas put down his knife and fork, conscious they had arrived at the nub of the matter. ‘Threatening you, is he?’
‘Says ’e’ll tell the boss as ’ow I was in on it, too.’
‘And were you?’
A vigorous shake of the head. ‘Only the cart wot I drive ’ad a right tear-away driver crash into it the other day and while the mess got sorted some varmint scarpered off with several boxes of goods. I told the boss as ’ow it weren’t my fault, I’d ’ad me work cut out dealin’ with the ’orses, right state they was in, and there’d been witnesses, like. So ’e said as it were all right, though ’e’s dockin’ me pay until what was lost is covered, said I should ’ave bin able to guard everything better.’ The hands with their huge knuckles worked together. ‘Only Walker, ’e ’eard all about it and says unless I pays ’im, ’e’ll tell the boss as ’ow I was in on ’is scam. An’ then it’ll be me for the ’igh jump. An’ me and the missus, well, there’s a littl’un on the way … an’ if I lose me job, well, I won’t get a reference; Stevens didn’t give Walker one.’
‘And that’s why he’s asking you for money?’
Eli nodded miserably. ‘Reckon so. Can’t get no job without one.’
‘What makes you think Mr Stevens will believe him rather than you?’
Feet were shuffled unhappily. ‘Long time ago, there were an incident. An’ boss gave me another chance but said anything else an’ that would be it.’
Thomas remembered Jim Stevens very well. A fair but tough man. He hadn’t wanted to prosecute Walker, said it would only give rise to a host of claims against him for goods that hadn’t disappeared at all, but he’d never be able to prove it because his paperwork wasn’t bang up to rights. Walker had been told the evidence was against him and he was to go without that essential piece of paper every working man or woman required, the reference that stated their abilities and their honesty.
‘Have you given Walker any money?’
‘’E said it was only the once, to tide ’im over like. But …’
‘He’s come back for more.’ Thomas sighed. ‘You should never have given him anything. He thinks he’s got you now.’
‘Reckon that’s it. I’m that worried. And then, when I saw you tonight, well, I thought as ’ow you might …’
‘Might what?’
Eli put his hands beneath his armpits and looked more miserable than ever. ‘Dunno, really. Only, that time it was you wot caught Walker, and I thought, maybe …’
Thomas took a good look at him. Early twenties, strong in arm, weak in head. With a missus in an interesting condition and disaster staring him in the face. By the time Thomas had finished his investigation into the missing goods, he’d been certain Walker was the only carter involved in the scam. The man was an unpleasant type, quick to see where any advantage might lie.
‘You know what you should do, don’t you, mate?’
Eli looked at him helplessly.
‘Go to your boss and tell him everything. Then there’s nothing left for Walker to threaten you with.’
Consternation filled Eli’s face. ‘But suppose as ’ow the boss gives me me marching orders.’
‘Stevens is a fair man. More like he’d report Walker for extortion.’
It took a little longer but eventually Eli Martock nodded his big head with its untidy thatch of dark hair. ‘I’ll do that, Mr Jackman. Right after tomorrow’s rounds.’
Thomas made a mental note to call on Jim Stevens first thing the next morning. No need for Eli to know anything about it but best to make sure Stevens understood just what a rat he’d been employing with Walker. He watched the carter walk out of the pub, his shoulders held back.
Nobody else joined him and he’d finished the pie by the time the drinkers had thinned out and Betty came over to his table, pushing back damp curls, a little sparkle in her eyes.
‘Supper all right, then, Tom?’ She settled down into the other chair with a little sigh of tiredness.
‘Excellent, Betty. Best I’ve had in a long time. And you seem to be training young Patty in the ways of cooking.’
She gave him a smug smile. ‘Cook a decent meal and you’ll find a job or a husband, maybe both,’ she added coyly, looking up at him through her thick dark lashes.
Once again Thomas was conscious he was passing up an offer most men in his situation would feel grateful for. Unable to think of anything safe to say, he finished the last piece of pie.’
Betty waved over Patty, now clearing dirty glasses left by departed drinkers. ‘Take Mr Jackman’s plate and bring him that last piece of apple pie I told you to save. You have still got it?’ she added sharply as the girl hesitated.
Patty nodded. ‘But Mr Marks said he wanted it.’
‘Then he must have it,’ Thomas said quickly, happy to go without one of his favourite dishes if it meant he could escape back home.
‘I’ll make another tomorrow; he can have some then,’ said Betty dismissively.
So Thomas had to remain a captive. Betty asked if the meeting that had interrupted her visit with the oyster stew had gone well. Soon he found himself telling her a little of the Peters case. No names were mentioned, of course, nor any detail that might reveal identities. He concentrated on generalities. ‘And tomorrow I must try and get hold of another of the servants and see if there is anything they can reveal of what has been going on.’
‘You should talk to the cook.’ Betty had followed everything he’d said with keen attention.
‘Really?’
‘Kitchen is the heart of the house. If someone isn’t home for meals, or is off their food, the cook knows. If there are valued visitors, cook knows. If money is short, cook knows.’
Thomas looked at her with new eyes. He had not thought she was capable of such perception, and immediately felt guilty. He should have known she was not lacking intelligence and what she said was only common sense.
* * *
Now, listening to the rain as he finished going through his notes, Thomas reckoned Betty was right. It was time he turned his attention back to the Peters household and the cook was an obvious target.
He closed the notebook and took himself off to Jim Stevens in High Holborn. It hadn’t taken long to put the wholesale ironmonger in the picture regarding Eli Martock.
‘Daft bugger,’ Jim Stevens said. ‘If only I could get my hands on Walker. I was wrong not to prosecute him and I don’t mind saying so. I’ll put out the word that if he tries anything on Eli, I’ll have his guts for garters.’
Thomas left the ironmongery confident that Eli’s problem was more or less solved. The rain looked as though it was clearing and the ironmonger’s depot wasn’t a million miles from Montagu Place.
Hoping Mrs Trenchard had not decided on calling on the Peters’ house that morning, he knocked on the basement door. Young Sam opened up. The production of a sixpenny piece ensured his willing co-operation.
‘I need to speak to Cook, but not in the house. Best would be to run into her outside. What are her shopping habits?’
Sam picked his nose and stared at him.
‘I mean, will she go shopping for food today?’
‘Hasn’t been for several days,’ he said gloomily. His hair needed washing, his collarless shirt bore various stains and there was a decided lack of polish on his shoes. Joshua Peters would have had a fit if he could see the youngest member of his staff so neglecting his appearance.
Suddenly Sam’s expression lightened. ‘We’re to have a proper meal today. I heard Cook tell Mrs Trenchard yesterday it were a disgrace there weren’t no money for food. Credit’s all used up, she said. We’ve been living on the store-cupboard for weeks and now its empty. But this morning she told us we could look forward to dinnertime.’ He looked expectantly at Thomas.
‘So you think Mrs Trenchard has given her some money and that Cook will need to do some shopping before she can produce a proper meal for you all?’
Sam nodded vigorously. ‘Last few days we’ve been starving. Never thought I’d be serving in a gentleman’s house what couldn’t afford to feed its staff.’
‘When do you think Cook will be going out?’
‘Dunno. But she went upstairs ’bout five minutes ago.’
‘Thanks, Sam.’ Thomas thought of something else. ‘Millie around?’ he asked in an offhand manner.
‘Nah! Went off early this morning, dressed in one of Mrs Peters’ best gowns and with her hair done all la-di-dah. She thinks now she doesn’t have to look after her mistress, she can come and go as she pleases. If you ask me, she’s a disgrace.’
‘And you don’t know where?’
‘Found a fancy man, must ’ave.’
Thomas wished fervently that that would turn out to be true. ‘Better go back in, Sam,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait around the corner and see if Cook comes out. Now not a word about this to anyone.’ He slipped Sam another sixpenny piece.
With amazing speed it vanished into an invisible pocket.
Thomas had already reconnoitred the local shops. Unless the Peters’ cook was adventurous, there was everything she needed by way of fresh produce within a ten-minute walk. He took himself off to hang around the butcher’s that seemed to offer good quality at a reasonable price. It wasn’t long before a lanky female in a serviceable jacket and remarkably plain hat and carrying a basket came along. He folded the newspaper he had pretended to peruse and shoved it behind a crate conveniently sitting on the pavement.
‘Mrs Firestone, isn’t it?’ he asked courteously, falling in beside her. ‘What a piece of luck meeting you.’
‘Well, Mr Jackman as I live and breathe. And what, pray, do you do here?’
He looked at her. The dour features were unsurprised, the eyes disillusioned. ‘Why, waiting for you, Mrs Firestone. I hoped you would welcome a strong arm to carry your basket.’
‘And in return?’ She stood with feet seemingly anchored to the pavement proclaiming her unwillingness to co-operate with him.
‘Mrs Firestone, Cook, you were there when Mrs Trenchard announced to all the staff that I was investigating the death of Mr Peters …’
‘I know that she has forbidden you the house.’
‘Has she told you all never to speak to me?’
‘Forbidding you the house cannot mean anything else.’
‘Did Mrs Trenchard tell you why I was forbidden the house?’
‘Not my place to ask.’
‘I think Mrs Trenchard believes I might uncover something unpleasant about one or more of the inhabitants. She thinks I should concentrate on contacts Mr Peters had outside his household.’
‘So why aren’t you doing that?’ But a little of her belligerence had leaked away.
‘Why don’t we proceed with your shopping.’ Thomas took her basket and she made no move to object. ‘Might you, perhaps, be visiting the butcher?’ He indicated the shop a few doors away.
She looked down at the ground. ‘Not there.’
Thomas looked around but there wasn’t another. ‘Then where?’
The cook squared her shoulders and set off down a side street, Thomas following with the basket.
A number of streets later, they entered another butcher’s.
A large joint of topside was requested and shown for inspection.
‘Too fresh! I’ll not be your customer if that’s the sort of meat you try to pass off on them.’
The butcher seemed unmoved by this remark. He went into the rear of his shop and returned with what seemed to Thomas an almost identical piece of meat, except it looked darker than the first. It was held up for scrutiny.
‘That’s better. I’ll take it and start an account.’
The butcher was a man of mature years with a sour expression. He shook his head. ‘You may know your meat, missis, but I knows customers. It’s cash or nothing until I knows where I am. I’ll take the address details, then we’ll be able to deliver should it be needed.’
An address was spelled out; not the correct one. Mrs Firestone’s back seemed to dare him to comment. Thomas said nothing but took the wrapped packet of beef together with one of suet that had also been requested. He placed both in the basket, watched cash handed over, a gracious farewell given the butcher, and followed the cook outside.
She said nothing but went in the direction of a greengrocer’s, where vegetables were purchased, then a grocer’s for eggs, a small packet of sugar and an equally small one of currants. In each case cash was handed over.
Outside the grocer’s the cook gave a sigh that sounded one of relief. ‘Beef is a little extravagant but we deserves it and it will last the week being as it will be served with Yorkshire pudding. Milkman is still delivering milk; well, he’s my sister’s husband’s nephew so he needs to keep in. Then roast tatties and carrots, and they’re new season’s, followed by dead baby’s leg.’ She gave him a challenging look.
‘Steamed currant roll is one of my favourites, Mrs Firestone; and I suspect it will be served with custard?’
She nodded. ‘Bird’s, none of that fancy cream unglaze.’
Thomas felt his tummy rumble. ‘Wonderful! I am only sorry I cannot be invited to join you all. Tell me, what was your performance with the butcher all about?’
She checked the items in the basket and seemed reluctant to speak. Thomas waited. Finally she gave him a straightforward look. ‘Look, if I’d gorn to my usual butcher, the one you was waiting outside, and he’d had a sniff of cash, which he would as he wouldn’t have served me without, our account being so adrift, and I don’t mind telling you that me housekeeping money’s been short a long time. When the master asked me to do special buffets for his friends during the time the mistress was away, I told him I had to have extra cash, which he give me. Made it help with feeding the staff as well. Now, if our regular butcher had got a sniff of cash, I’d’ve been forced to hand over all the money Mrs Trenchard give me to put against the Peters’ account. Which would have left nothing for nothing else.’
‘I understand. But a false address?’
Now her look was distinctly shifty. ‘You never knows how pally these tradespeople are. I may have to go back there next week. Who knows how long this state of affairs is to last.’
Thomas had been given the opening he’d been waiting for. ‘It’s to sort things out that I’ve been hired. Mrs Firestone, do you believe that Mrs Peters murdered her husband?’
Her face flushed and she clasped her hands in their brown cotton gloves tightly together. ‘Think that little angel would do any such thing? What do you take me for?’
There was no doubting her sincerity.
‘Do you suspect anyone else in the house?’
‘Indeed not! We’re a respectable household.’
‘I’m sure you are. My visits to Mr Peters suggested nothing else. But I wanted to hear it from you. I am sure as cook you must have your finger on the pulse of everything that goes on there.’
Mrs Firestone looked gratified but started to walk back the way they’d come. ‘That’s as maybe but as cook, as you say, I declare it’s time dinner was started.’
The basket was heavy but Thomas was happy to bear it. ‘How about Albert? Would he have had reason to want Mr Peters out of the way?’
A loud snort. ‘Albert? Far as ’e was concerned, the sun shone out of Mr P’s trousers, if you’ll forgive the phrase. Not that he isn’t a sneaky sort. None of us trusts Albert.’
‘He seems to have been involved in Mr Peter’s business life. If, for instance, he had decided to, as you might say, freelance, and Mr Peters suspected as much, and challenged him, maybe even warned him that he was thinking of calling in the police, might Albert not then want to remove him from this life?’
Mrs Firestone stopped dead and turned to look at Thomas. ‘My, what a mind you’ve got, Mr Jackman.’ She appeared to give the matter some thought. ‘Do you think that accounts for why he has upped and left?’
Thomas stared at her. ‘Left? Albert has left Montagu Place?’
‘Took ’is case and one that looked mighty like the one Mr Peters used to carry ’is papers in. Sarah remarked on it.’
‘Sarah?’
‘Albert came in this morning as we was finishing breakfast. Dumped the two bags on the floor, drank his tea and ate his toast. Then said he knew he wasn’t favourite with any of us and that we wouldn’t be sorry to see the back of ’im but not as pleased as he was to see the back of us. Then he picked up his bags and left. We was all gobsmacked. All right, there wasn’t no job for him with Mr Peters gone but Mrs Trenchard has promised us all our wages – whatever ’appens, she said.’ Mrs Firestone’s voice trailed away as though she did not put full faith in those words.
‘And Sarah commented on the briefcase Albert was carrying?’
‘It was after ’e’d gone up the basement stairs, whistling like there was no tomorrow. “Why, that looked like the one Mr Peters always carried,” she said.’
Thomas thought about the empty drawers in the study desk. ‘Did it look as though it had a lot of papers in it?’
‘Don’t know about that. I wouldn’t know if it had anything in it. But as I said, that Albert’s a shifty sort. None of us trusts him far as we can see him – and that’s too far.’
‘Where has he gone?’
‘Now there’s a thing!’E wouldn’t say. I reckons ’e didn’t know. Said if anything came for him, to forward it to the master’s company, he’d be in touch with them. And that, he said, included the wages he was owed.’
Thomas wondered how closely the valet was, or had been, involved with the import/export company.
‘What about Millie, Mrs Peters’ maid?’ Thomas shifted the basket from one hand to the other as they made their way back to Montagu Place.
‘That too heavy for you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not at all, but I’ll say you must be strong, Mrs Firestone.’
‘All cooks is. We ’ave to be, ’eaving heavy pots around, wielding choppers and such.’
‘Do you trust Millie?’
The cook sighed. ‘There’s another you never knows where you are with. Sweet as anything when she first comes. On her dignity, of course. Well, a lady’s maid always thinks she’s above the rest of us staff.’
‘Why should that be, Mrs Firestone?’
‘’Cause she’s in such close contact with the mistress. Knows everything that goes on, she does.’
Fleetingly Thomas wondered whether Betty knew anything about the position a lady’s maid held in the household.
‘And did she tell you about Mrs Peters’ friendship with Daniel Rourke?’
Mrs Firestone shook her head. ‘Nor she did! And I wouldn’t have believed it if she had. Another sneaky one, Millie is. Though when she went for the master after Mrs Peters left, well, you could have knocked me over with a basting spoon.’
‘She did, did she?’
Mrs Firestone made a face as they crossed Marylebone High Street. ‘Sweet as sugar, she was; couldn’t do enough for him. Those evenings what I told you about when the master had his friends round, well, it was Millie what acted as hostess. Course I didn’t see what went on above stairs but Emily reported to me.’ Mrs Firestone stopped. She hesitated for a moment then said in almost a whisper, ‘She saw Millie slip into his bedroom! And she was dressed in a gown belonging to the mistress. Well, I didn’t know what to think.’ Though it was obvious that she did. ‘Of course, when the mistress returned, all that stopped. After Mr Peters died and the mistress had been arrested, Sarah wanted to know if we should tell Mrs Trenchard what had been going on.’
‘And you said?’
The cook sniffed. ‘Spreading gossip like that isn’t any part of our jobs. Ten to one, she wouldn’t believe us, and if she did, what could she do? The master’s dead. Nothing can harm him now. Millie’s a silly girl what will get her comeuppance sooner or later. If she’s fired now, what will Mrs Peters do when she comes ’ome? Better she should find out about her in her own good time.’
‘I don’t suppose Albert was too happy with Millie making up to Mr Peters?’
Mrs Firestone sniffed derisively. ‘I’ll say not. Thought the master and all his affairs was his, if you ask me. Look, is there anything else you want of me or can I get back to my kitchen? They’ll all be wanting their lunch.’
Thomas saw that they had reached Montagu Street. He handed over the basket and doffed his hat. ‘Thank you for your courtesy, Mrs Firestone.’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘If anything I’ve said is of help to Mrs Peters, I’m right glad. The idea she could have anything to do with the master’s death is …’ She huffed and puffed, trying to find words for her outrage. ‘Well, any who thinks that should be in a lunatic asylum. We shall ’ave to rely on you, Mr Jackman, ’cause that policeman ain’t no good, and you can tell him I said so. Mrs Peters in prison!’ She carried her basket down the basement stairs, her straight back expressing how ridiculous it was.
Thomas watched her go for a moment, then walked rapidly away, anxious not to be found in the vicinity should Mrs Trenchard suddenly appear. He thought that he now had a very clear idea of matters in the Peters household. It was time to move the focus of his investigation.