Readying for his evening’s work was an agony. It was five in the afternoon; Layton had to be leaving. Normally, this was his favorite time of day; he looked forward going to the theatre, but now…
At the moment, Thomas Layton was sleeping soundly. Still agitated by their reception at Scotland Yard, his father had had a bad night, coughing up blood and wheezing like a bellows. Only Bayer Heroin, the cough suppressant Layton had fetched from the chemist, had stopped his spasms and enabled him to rest. Layton nodded at the little bottle of German-made medicine on the dresser; he’d have to get more for his father to take back to Dorset. Layton stood by the bed, looking down at his father. An overwhelming sense of sadness and dread threatened to overwhelm him, like a freezing-cold ocean wave knocking one down into the surf.
But he had to go. He’d told Cissie he was working late, that he had to finish two cloths for next week and would see her at breakfast at their digs. She had started house hunting for them and had a place in Kensington she wanted to show him.
With a heavy heart, he adjusted the blanket over his father’s shoulders and left.
• • •
It was going on three in the morning, and Layton was working on a cloth for Cliff & Kean, Comedy Artistes. He’d painted two huge caricatures of their heads, floating in a blue sky; the sun behind them had a smiling face, as though it were laughing at their jokes. It seemed silly to Layton, but that’s what the artistes wanted, and he never argued with specific wishes for a cloth.
He laid in the black outlines of the sun’s face and began infilling them with bright yellow. He began dabbing some orange over small areas of the yellow to avoid a flat impression.
“I heard you paid a visit to my aunt,” a jolly voice called out behind him. “A very grand lady, isn’t she?”
The voice didn’t startle him. He’d been expecting it tonight. Layton put the paintbrush down on the cart and turned. “I know you did it,” he answered. Though he was scared to death, his voice carried clear and strong, with nary a waver.
“I knew you did the minute I heard my aunt had a visitor who said he knew my late cousin,” Tom Phipps said. He was leaning casually against the door of the scene shop, hands thrust in his pockets.
“That was a wonderful portrait Sargent did of your family,” Layton said. “I envy you, old boy. You haven’t changed much in all these years.”
“Yes,” Phipps drawled. “I’ve been blessed with a youthful countenance. But your brain…” He gave a low whistle. “Puts mine to shame. You’re a clever dick, indeed. Once you found those bodies, it wasn’t long before you had the whole tangle figured out.” He paused, then added, “Except exactly who did it, of course.”
“You didn’t just happen to be at that tailor shop, did you?”
Phipps smirked. “No, old man. I use Henry Poole.”
Layton gave a knowing nod; Poole was the finest tailor in London.
“I had been in Nottingham on business and decided to check on my handiwork in the wall of the Grand gallery. You’re a damn fine plasterer, I must say. When I met your father and discovered your working-class roots, I realized who taught you the craft so well. My skills in that field weren’t as nearly good as yours, though I admit I was in a bit of a hurry. But your plasterwork was just the teeniest bit darker and hadn’t completely hardened. Only an architect would pick that up, of course, just like you picked up on the bulge in the wall. I didn’t bother to check on Browne’s body at the Queen’s. I knew the jig was up, so right then and there, I began following you.”
“Why didn’t you kill me and stick me in a wall?” he asked.
“Had to find out who you’d told your theory to first. Had you gone straight to Scotland Yard? I couldn’t take the risk.”
“You saw how they received my theory. They thought I was balmy.”
“Yes, our police force is none too intelligent and hardly fond of creative thinking.” Phipps was still smiling. He’d been smiling all the time they’d been talking, and that fixed grin sent a shudder down Layton’s spine. “But it could have been worse for you, old boy. If you’d persuaded them to go to the cupola of the Queen’s, well… I took the precaution of removing poor Browne’s bones.”
Layton chuckled. “I really would have looked like a horse’s arse, and a mad one at that.”
Phipps took a cigarette out of a gold case, sparked up, and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “But do you know why I did it, Doug?”
“To kill your cousin Trevor,” Layton said simply. “To get his inheritance, the shipping company fortune. I bet you provided him the ticket.”
“Oh, that’s only part of it,” Phipps said. He’d begun to walk steadily toward Layton, but the other man held his ground. “But more than that, I wanted to destroy you, old chap.”
Layton’s brow furrowed—and then he began to laugh. “That’s bloody absurd!”
“You’re a damn good architect, Doug, but I’m a far better one. Remember when you won the competition for the Royal Post Office? Back in ’99?”
“Yes,” said Layton. The puzzled look on his face was genuine now. Phipps’s whole murderous scheme had been aimed at him?
“My design was far superior to yours. I saw both, and I know. But because of your wife’s family influence, you got the commission. Lord Litton’s close friend, Sir Herbert Pryor, ran the Royal Mail, and he steered the work your way. I’d lost two buildings to you before: the Corn Exchange and the Colonial Affairs Office. Both prestigious, both projects you got that I should have won. I just couldn’t stand by and let it keep happening.” Phipps’s lip twisted in disgust. “I needed that building—I wanted that building.”
“You’re having me on. I don’t believe a word of it,” Layton said incredulously.
“You should,” Phipps shot back. “You stood in my way, Doug. The construction of the post office was postponed for over a year because Parliament wouldn’t appropriate the funds. In that time, I resolved to ruin you.”
“And you certainly succeeded,” Layton breathed.
“When you were sent away, the government awarded the post office project to the second-place finisher: me. They weren’t going to use a murderer’s design. And that commission was the catalyst. My career skyrocketed.”
“You give ‘ambition’ a completely new definition, old boy,” Layton said, inching closer to the paint cart, where he had hidden a knife. All those afternoons they’d spent together, trying to unravel the mystery…and all the time, it had been a ruse. His head spun; he fought to stay calm.
“To be ambitious, one has to be a bit unscrupulous.”
Layton laughed. “And you’ve given the word ‘unscrupulous’ a whole new meaning.”
“I’m England’s best architect,” said Phipps with quiet pride. “Better than Lutyens even.”
Layton crossed his arms against his chest and smiled. “You might be, but you’re also an incredibly evil man and mad as a hatter to boot,” he said. “But as an architect, I really am impressed by your ingenuity. It wasn’t just the inferior rivets, but the way you brought the balcony down with Doyle’s song. You have a keen sense of engineering for an architect.”
“That was a last-minute decision.” Though they were discussing murder, not architecture, Phipps still seemed to bask in Layton’s praise. “I was afraid the loaded balcony wouldn’t give, so I put Tommy Towers out of action and substituted Doyle.”
“Brilliant,” Layton said, shaking his head.
“But you’re absolutely right on one count: I killed Trevor to get my inheritance too. An architect makes a healthy wage, but he doesn’t become rich. You of all people should know that. If all those people were to die, why not add another to the list, put some money in my pocket?” Phipps shrugged and added casually, “Besides, I never liked him. Such a pompous ass. But then, I suppose all barristers are.”
“As the male cousin, you were next in line for the inheritance.”
“That’s the way of English inheritance law, thank God,” replied Phipps with a big grin.
“Well,” Layton said, staring at his former friend, “you achieved everything you wanted. You destroyed my life and career and won yourself riches and professional success.”
“As you know all too well, being an architect means getting bossed about by the rich. Now I have a hundred thousand quid in the bank. It’s a wonderful feeling to be on an equal footing.”
“Now you’re getting ideas above your station.”
Phipps laughed. “That’s interesting coming from you, a Dorset country lad a thousand miles above his station.”
“Yes,” Layton said baldly. “I was a fraud. I admit it. But I never killed to move up the ladder.”
“Some marry to move up,” Phipps said with a silky shrug. “Some kill.”
“So Clifton, Glenn, Shaw, and Stockton had nothing to do with this,” Layton said.
“Not a thing, old boy. Pure coincidence about those others, I’m afraid. But let’s be fair: some of those chaps had it coming, like Rice and that poof, Hardy. World’s a better place without them.”
Layton smiled at Phipps. “You know, Tom, I’m a bit of a graphologist. Interested in handwriting analysis. You have one of the most distinguished architectural lettering styles I’ve ever seen in my whole career. So much so that I matched those Ss in the fake appointment book you planted in Peter’s desk with the one on the envelope of the greeting card you’d sent your aunt, Mrs. Stanton,” said Layton. “Along with the painting, that sealed your guilt.”
“An architect’s sharp eye,” replied Phipps with genuine admiration.
With tiny, barely noticeable steps, Layton had reached the paint cart. Idly, he picked up a jar of paint and turned it back and forth in his hands.
“You had some nerve,” Layton said coolly. “Hiding the bodies in plain sight, so to speak.”
“Oh, not really. Construction sites are most convenient places to hide bodies, if you have the architectural know-how. You could have done the same thing.”
“I suppose Beverly tried to blackmail you about the rivets?” Layton cocked an eyebrow.
“He did indeed, so that blackguard needed to be taught a lesson,” Phipps said airily. “I was a bit careless about his final resting place.”
“You made it look like Browne’s wife hanged herself,” Layton said.
“I regretted that, but she might have been a problem. I couldn’t take the risk. Peter, you see, wasn’t actually in on the collapse, but he suspected Reville. After the accident, he began asking lots of questions about the structural design… Most inconvenient. I pretended to be a prospective client to lure him to the West End, where they were finishing up the Queen’s. I didn’t want to kill the poor thing when I snuffed Peter, so I let her live. Then you started poking around, and I had no choice. What if his wife had known something? Put yourself in my position, old man.”
“I can’t,” Layton said flatly. Alice’s pretty, innocent face flashed before his eyes—shadowed by the horrible, swollen face of her corpse. “I can’t imagine doing that.”
Phipps just shrugged his shoulders. “In a way, you’re responsible for the poor woman’s death.”
Layton set down the jar of paint.
“You know the really unfair thing about this whole affair?” Phipps was pacing back and forth now like Sherlock Holmes, just as he’d done in Layton’s digs, only he’d turned out to be the evil Moriarty. “I most enjoyed your friendship, Doug. You’re witty, charming, and you’ve a ripping sense of humor. I still burst out laughing whenever I recall some of your jokes, especially the one about the whore and the Irishman. We had many a good architectural talk too. ’Tis the God’s own truth: I’m going to be very sorry for having to kill you.”
“And I wager tuppence to a pound,” said Layton, keeping his hand on the cart, “that after you kill me, you’re going to kill Cissie too.”
“Of course, of course.” Phipps waved his hand casually. “She knows too much—and she’s hardly one to keep quiet. When you both disappear, people will assume you’ve eloped. Very romantic indeed. I plan to send the theatre postcards from Blackpool, where you’ll be honeymooning, as the Americans say.”
With the utmost care, Layton placed his hand on the knife on the cart. The jars of paint in front of it blocked Phipps’s view of it. He stared into Phipps’s face and thought how fascinating it was that such incredible evil could reside in the handsome exterior of such a truly talented man.
“And to prove I’m not a total shit, I won’t kill your father. He’s a topping fellow, plus he probably has just a few weeks to live.”
Layton blinked at this last remark, and in the next instant, there was a revolver in Phipps’s hand. This late at night, no one would hear the shot. Layton picked up the knife from the cart. He wasn’t scared in the least, he realized. In fact, a surge of energy had shot through his body, electrifying his limbs.
Phipps smiled, began to raise his gun—and froze suddenly, in midmotion. His eyes bulged; his face drained of color; his mouth gaped.
Layton’s gaze moved down the man’s face to his throat and the protruding, blackish-looking shape where Phipps’s Adam’s apple should be. Blood trickled down his neck. With the gun still clenched in his hand, Tom Phipps fell face forward onto the floor, landing with a dull thump. Extending from the back of his neck was a familiar long, brown-colored stick.
Layton heard the clomp of footsteps and looked up to see Mangogo, in his greatcoat and hobnail winter boots. Instead of his usual toothy smile, the Pygmy was frowning. He grabbed hold of the spear lodged in Phipps’s neck and yanked it out, muttering, “Bloody rotter.”