“She’s lying,” Lily said as they walked down the sidewalk away from Harriet’s boardinghouse.
“Most definitely,” Phil said. “Lying and frightened. I think it would behoove us to find a nice spot out of the way, say, at the window of that luncheon place over there, from which to watch the street. Perhaps we’ve inspired Harriet to seek counsel with someone else. She seemed about to succumb to her fear.”
They had just sat down at a table in the small restaurant when Lily looked up. “There she goes.”
Apologizing to the waiter, they hurried out onto the street in time to see Harriet running toward the corner.
They stayed well behind, though Lily was impatient and ran ahead, moving in and out of shadows and trash receptacles and buildings in a way that ran a chill up Phil’s spine.
Phil tried not to think too much about where her young protégée had learned those skills, but she was glad she had, because when Phil and Preswick reached the corner, Lily pointed to a taxi pulling away from the curb a half-block away.
“Rattled enough to take a taxi on her salary. Hurry,” Phil said, and the three of them ran to the next taxi in line, edging out a businessman who cursed as they closed the taxi door in his face.
“Follow that taxi,” Phil ordered.
The taxi driver turned around, surprised, but his expression turned to satisfaction when Preswick produced a bill and handed it to him. The taxi took off so fast that Phil fell backward against the seat.
They drove south, Phil, Preswick, and Lily all leaning forward, keeping Harriet’s taxi in sight.
Phil was beginning to think the girl was leading them on a wild-goose chase when the taxi ahead of them passed Union Square and turned left on Fourteenth Street, past the Theatre Unique. It turned right, and Phil pointed out the Cavalier Club, looking very different in the daylight, and the boarded-over storefront across the street, looking much worse as the full extent of its damage was displayed.
Harriet’s taxi slowed and turned left onto Thirteenth Street.
They turned after it. There was another boarded storefront on their right.
Farther down, Harriet’s taxi came to a full stop, and Harriet jumped out and raced out of sight.
The taxi drove off, and Phil’s taxi replaced it. While Preswick paid the fare, Phil and Lily looked for any sign of Harriet.
“Where did she go?” Lily asked, turning in a full circle on the sidewalk.
Phil shook her head. “I’m certain she got out here.”
They were standing in front of a three-story red-brick row house.
Preswick climbed the steps.
“What are we looking for?” Lily asked, nearly treading on his heels.
“A clue, Lily, to whomever Harriet is visiting,” Preswick said patiently.
They followed him into a dark vestibule. The light was broken, and he had to strike a sulfur match to read the names and apartment numbers.
Phil was hardly surprised to see T. GREEN printed on one of the tenant mailboxes. Harriet had definitely lied. She knew where Tommy lived and she’d hurried here. To do what?
Preswick blew out the match, took a moment to let the match cool, then slipped it into his handkerchief. The three of them had studied Dr. Locard’s theory that a person always left evidence to his identity wherever he went, including criminals … and investigators. They were always very careful not to leave anything obvious behind.
“Two B. It must be this one down the steps.” Preswick took hold of the wrought-iron rail and started down into the stairwell just as the door opened and an old man stepped out.
“Whatcha want?”
Preswick stepped back. “I beg your pardon, sir, I was looking for Mr. Green’s flat. I have something he wished to see and was told he lived here.”
The old man peered from Preswick to Lily and Phil.
He let out a rusty cackle. “This is the first time I ever saw girls come his way. Keeps to himself, he does. Works long hours. I never heard tell of him bringing any women here. Get on now.”
“I beg your pardon. These ladies are—”
“It’s his birthday,” Phil said. “You wouldn’t want to spoil his birthday, would you?”
“His birthday, huh? Guess I wouldn’t want to spoil that. His place is round back. You gotta go down to the alley to the back. It’s the black door, Two B.” He slammed the door closed, scurried past Preswick, and shuffled off down the street.
They turned in the opposite direction. Suddenly suspicious, Phil turned around: the old man was still making his way down the sidewalk.
Shaking off that all-too-familiar feeling that things weren’t always what they appeared, Phil hurried after Lily and Preswick.
They ducked into the narrow gap between two houses, picking their way carefully over the broken pavement until they came to a cleared area in back that must have been used for storage and dirt closets during the last century.
As they approached 2B Preswick held out his arm, stopping Phil and Lily. He crept forward to a narrow door painted black with a small window secured by bars. More like a jail than an apartment, Phil thought in a moment of compassion for the lonely life Tommy Green must have lived.
There was a light on inside, which Phil had expected.
Preswick cupped his hands in an effort to see through the dingy window, then carefully tried the door. “Locked,” he mouthed. Lily reached into her pocket and shooed him out of the way, then, lifting her skirts, knelt down to pick the lock.
But even after the click that meant the door was unlocked, Preswick held them back as he slowly opened the door.
Harriet Wells was standing with her back to them. She was surrounded by what had once been the tenant’s possessions but was now just a jumbled mess of broken picture frames, torn papers, and cans and jars of food, some broken and spilling their contents onto the threadbare carpet.
Harriet started and whirled around. “You followed me.”
Comment seemed superfluous, so Phil held her tongue.
Lily gave the girl her disgusted eye roll and began looking around.
Preswick closed the door.
“I take it you didn’t do this,” Phil said.
“Of course not. Someone has already been here. Those hyenas.” Harriet began to pick up cans and books at random and put them on the rectangular table that appeared to serve as both desk and dining table.
“Wait!” Phil ordered.
“Why?”
“Do you know who did this?”
Harriet shook her head.
“Well, there might be clues that will tell us who did.”
Harriet took a step back. “Oh.”
“If you didn’t tromp all over them already,” Lily groused. “Go stand over there, out of the way.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Ladies,” Phil said. “This is not the time.”
“I was just looking for his briefcase or … I thought maybe…”
“All in good time. How did you get in?”
“The door was unlocked.”
“Did the mail boy, Eddie, have a key?”
“No,” Harriet said indignantly. “Anyway, Eddie wouldn’t do this. Besides…” She paused. “He said the door was locked.”
“Then how did you get in?”
“It wasn’t locked. I—I locked myself in.”
So this could have been done anytime and there was no way to know. If Eddie was telling the truth.
Preswick had moved back to the door to look for signs of forcible entry. He stood up and shook his head. Lily systematically began peeling back the blankets and sheets and checking under the mattress of the narrow iron bed. Phil went to the table and began to riffle through a stack of paper, half of which had fallen to the floor.
Preswick perused the walls, three of which were unfinished red brick and the fourth plaster. Anything that had been hanging there before was now on the floor. Still, he checked for loose bricks that might be used as hiding places.
It was slow going, since their winter gloves were thicker than the butler’s gloves they usually wore for just such circumstances. But gloves wouldn’t leave prints and they kept their fingers warm. The only heat in Tommy’s bedsit was a small radiator in the corner of the room.
Preswick peered behind it, reached beneath it, came up empty-handed.
Phil picked up a picture frame that had broken on the floor. She turned it over. Saw the grainy photograph of a young girl accepting a trophy from a bald dignitary wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit. It seemed an oddly sentimental thing for a seasoned reporter to have.
Phil knew better than to remove evidence from a crime scene, but as far as she knew, the only crime had been committed at the Theatre Unique.
She turned the frame over, opened up the cardboard backing, slipped the photo out, and slid it into her handbag. A quick look around the room revealed several other photos smashed on the floor.
Phil quickly picked them up and relieved the frames of their occupants. She would have to study them in better light and without Harriet looking on.
Preswick searched the drawers of the dresser, rummaged through the items on top, and slipped something small into his pocket. Lily had finished her search and turned back with empty open palms.
Phil looked around. No briefcase.
Harriet was still standing in the same place, picking up cans of food and putting them back in the cupboard.
Phil picked her way across the room to a small sink. Above it, a narrow wooden shelf held a mug with a toothbrush and powder and a safety razor and a jar of shaving cream.
Phil turned away, turned back, as a memory of catching a particularly nosy governess reading her diary rose in her mind. She’d consequently begun hiding her key in the one place that lady wouldn’t think of looking: her freckles cream. The trick had carried over to Madame Floret’s finishing école, where the jeune filles had hidden small contraband in their jars of cold cream.
What would prevent a journalist from using the same technique? She took the opaque jar off the shelf, twisted open the top, and peered inside. Almost full, smooth across the top, not like it would normally be after someone scooped out a shave’s worth.
It was worth a try. Making sure that Harriet was occupied, Phil jabbed her finger into the cream and hit something that shouldn’t be there.
She hooked her finger around it and pulled it out of the jar. A quick wipe on a not-too-clean face towel draped on the side of the sink showed her exactly what she’d been expecting.
A key.
It was too small for a door but too large for a diary. She slid the key into her pocket.
“Harriet, you said Tommy had a briefcase.”
“Yeah. An old beat-up one.”
So where was the briefcase?
They’d looked under the bed, under the carpet for loose floorboards, checked the small closet, took a look into a small bathroom, evidently shared with the front apartment, and found nothing more.
“We should be leaving, my lady.”
“You’re absolutely right, Preswick.” The key to investigation was to never take longer than you needed. Less time to leave your own evidence and less time to get caught.
Phil insisted on dropping Harriet off at her boardinghouse. There was nothing she could do to prevent the girl from acting irresponsibly once she was back at her lodgings, but they could at least see her home safely.
Harriet was eighteen, if she was telling the truth. At her age, Phil had been married for a year and had already learned that fate had no happy life in store for her and the earl.
As they reached Harriet’s boardinghouse, Phil noticed a man huddled on the stoop. Phil grasped Harriet’s arm. “Do you recognize him, or shall I have the taxi drive on?”
“I’m not afraid of them.” The quiver in her voice said otherwise.
“Well, you should be.”
Harriet peered out the side of the taxi. “Oh,” she said with relief that quickly changed to annoyance. “What’s he doing here?” She turned to Phil. “It’s all right. It’s Eddie from the mail room. He keeps asking me to go to tea. He just won’t take no for an answer. He’s such a boy.”
“Well, don’t confide in him—or anyone else,” Phil said.
“In Eddie? He only works in the mail room.”
“That we know of.” Really, Phil couldn’t think of a profession Harriet was more ill-equipped to pursue than journalism. “Just stay mum with everyone. Everyone. Understand?”
“Yes, everyone, but what do we do next?”
Phil just managed not to grit her teeth. “You will return to work, mind your own business, trust no one, and leave a message with the hotel concierge if you have news to tell. The less you are seen in my company, the safer you’ll be.”
“But—”
“We will find the murderer sooner if you just do your part. We … uh … need an inside man at the paper.”
Harriet nodded. “Oh.”
The taxi stopped.
“Is it safe to leave you alone with him?”
“Oh sure, he’s harmless … and awkward and not terribly bright, but he’s loyal, I guess that’s something.”
Phil could have told Harriet that loyalty was everything, but she just wanted to be rid of the girl.
Harriet got out of the taxi, and Eddie stood up. Tall and lanky, swimming in a heavy tweed coat, he snatched off his cap when Harriet got to the steps, and he followed her inside.
“She is such a ninny,” Lily said.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Phil said. “Now, if she can just stay out of trouble until we solve this case…”