Chapter 2 #2
I heard two distinct clicks as I carefully worked the pin inside the lock, and voilà! The lock opened.
With a look about to make certain that I hadn’t been discovered, I pushed open the door and quickly stepped inside the office.
There was a shade on the inside window that looked out onto the hallway. I carefully pulled it down so as not to be seen, then turned to Burke’s desk.
It was covered with scattered papers—a torn-off calendar page from two days earlier, scribbled reminders to himself on a calendar on the desk pad, as well as notes he’d received, and others he’d made in a hasty scrawl.
At the risk of being caught, I turned on the desk lamp and started my search with the calendar pages, searching for any reference that might include that last evening at the Old Bell, as well as any reference to Adele DeMille.
More than once there was a sound beyond the door as someone passed by. I stopped, then began again.
Somewhat of a surprise, I discovered a receipt from Western Laundry Co., Fulham, among the scattered papers. It itemized several items of ladies’ garments!
Did the receipt have something to do with Adela DeMille’s disappearance?
To my knowledge, there was not a Mrs. Burke. And I couldn’t imagine a female ‘acquaintance’ otherwise.
Although, as Brodie had previously pointed out about an acquaintance of his own, Mr. Brown, a known criminal sort, there might very well be a female companion tucked away somewhere.
What followed was a question as to whether I might be part of that distinguished sisterhood. Tucked away indeed!
With that half-smile that always meant there was more than what was being said, Brodie had informed me that one would hardly consider me to be ‘tucked away.’ He had then added that I was not the sort.
All well and good, yet I did wonder what ‘sort’ I was.
“Bothersome, headstrong,” he’d commented. “Someone who can burn water and with the habit of taking herself off into places she shouldn’t.”
I had ignored the rest of it. There was no arguing with a stubborn Scot. It was an argument I could not win.
I continued my search of Burke’s desk and discovered a note on the desk calendar for a meeting at O.B. with M.F. Obviously a reminder of his meeting with myself at the Old Bell. I then searched the desk drawers.
One was filled with folders that contained copies of past columns he’d written, another, unsurprisingly, with two freshly laundered shirts. It seemed as though Burke might have lived at the Times’ office. That might explain his somewhat scruffy appearance.
Then, completely unexpected, in the bottom drawer...a book! While Burke was somewhat intelligent, I did not consider him the sort who would read a book of an evening before a warm fire.
I half expected some dry tome about battle campaigns or the history of London as I retrieved it. I stared at the title on the cover:
The Case of the Missing Children,
a novel by E. Fortescue
It was one of my novels, with Emma Fortescue as my main character! Written after I began participating in inquiry cases with Brodie!
To say that I was surprised was a vast understatement, particularly given Burke’s opinion of my writing efforts and what he had described as ‘woman’s drivel.’
I hesitated, then opened it and discovered something that was an even greater shock. He had made notes in the margins on several pages. The comments varied from criticism to what might have been considered reluctant praise—‘somewhat entertaining.’
I didn’t take the time to read further—there was too much risk of being discovered. I stuffed the novel into my travel bag along with the receipt and the desk calendar, with the hope that they might tell me more.
I then searched the cabinet behind the desk, yet found nothing there that might be helpful. I glanced at the wall clock. I had been there for more than half an hour, and by this time more staff would be arriving for their morning shift.
At another sound from the hall, I turned off the electric lamp and waited for any additional sound that someone lingered outside.
I heard nothing more and quickly gathered my travel bag, went to the door and listened again before stepping out into the hallway.
There was the faint sound of conversation from the reporters’ floor, only a handful of steps beyond. I glanced toward the stairwell.
Anyone at the gallery could easily see me as I left. I hesitated, then turned the opposite direction that led away from Burke’s office, past two other doors, and then to that single door at the end of the hallway.
More than once Burke had escaped meeting with me by the very same door that I knew opened out of the building to a set of iron stairs that led to the alleyway below. I had silently cursed him at the time.
However, I was now grateful for that escape as I stepped out onto the wrought-iron landing. I descended the steps to the alleyway below, where newsboys had gathered to collect the late morning edition of the newspaper to be sold on the streets.
I ignored their curious stares and continued around the corner to the street and returned to my waiting coach.
“Good to see you, miss,” Mr. Jarvis greeted me. “Had a constable pass by a while ago and tell me that I would need to move on when he came back round.”
I climbed aboard and gave him the address of the laundry company in Fulham.
“Not a proper area for some,” he commented. “And some distance this late in the morning.”
Nevertheless, I insisted.
Along with Mr. Cavendish, it did seem that Brodie might have something to do with Mr. Jarvis’s comment. Not a place for my sort!
With the usual street traffic found across all of London, it was well past midday when we finally arrived at Broughton Road.
It teemed with the usual traffic of wagons and carts, along with vans with the company name painted on the side that arrived as others departed, no doubt for afternoon deliveries.
Mr. Jarvis maneuvered the coach through the congestion, cutting off another driver in the process with a colorful exchange of words as he refused to move the coach, and the other driver was forced to wait for traffic to open.
More comments followed, along with a V-gesture of the fingers, as the other driver finally moved past.
“Apologies, miss,” he said as I stepped down from the coach. “There’s some blokes that ain’t got no manners. If you want me to come along...?”
With a smile to myself at the encounter, I assured him that it was not necessary.
“I’ll be right here if there’s a need.”
The laundry was in a working-class area of London near the river, a large cut-stone building with signage at the entrance that indicated both laundry and dry- cleaning services for the Grand Hotel and Brown’s Hotel, as well as business professionals across London.
A woman appeared at the front counter.
“I’m hoping you can help me with some information.”
I caught the look of surprise along with obvious curiosity. I showed her the receipt and asked if she could tell me where the laundry was to be delivered.
“We don’t get many personal orders. Most come from the hotels and professional sorts. This was from a customer in the business district, Fleet Street.”
She retrieved a ledger, found the receipt number, and looked up.
“Is there some problem with the order, miss?”
She appeared to assume the order had been for myself. I made up the excuse that I was concerned that it might have been lost.
“Can you tell me where it was to be delivered?”
“According to the customer’s instructions the woman’s clothes was to be delivered in Southwark, at Borough High Street. That would have been an extra run across the river, but the customer paid extra for it.
“The customer claimed the woman was not able to get out and about. The extra fee he paid more than covered the driver’s time to have it delivered.”
“Is the driver here now?”
“That be Tommy Noonan. He’s not here now. Out on delivery to the hotels. They go through a lot of laundry with guests comin’ in.”
I wanted very much to speak with him. What might he be able to tell me about that delivery of women’s clothes in Southwark?
“When will he return?”
“Not ’til the mornin’, miss. He stays over in Holborn with a young woman, then picks up a wagonload full of dirty laundry early next day at the hotels.”
“Do your records show when he made that delivery?”
“Two days ago, according to the delivery log. It woulda been before he made his first mornin’ run. Is there something wrong with the order, miss?”
I thanked her for the information and returned to where Mr. Jarvis waited with the coach.
An address in Southwark. What did that mean?
It hardly seemed likely that Burke kept a flat there, when it appeared that he might very well live out of his office at the Times.
Was it merely a coincidence that the order included woman’s garments?
Anyone else might assume the garments were for a lady friend. However, knowing Burke, I thought that highly unlikely.
He was the most aggravating, insulting, disgusting sort of man I had ever met. I could not imagine any woman who would put up with him. At one point, I had even questioned whether he had a mother.
As for a ‘lady friend,’ as the woman at the laundry suggested...
My imagination simply could not conjure that up.
Or did it have something to do with Burke’s murder and what we had already discovered at St. John’s Wood?
I inquired if Mr. Jarvis was familiar with Borough High Street in Southwark.
“I can find it, but it’s a good distance across the river, and not a place for a lady to be out late in the day, if you get my meanin’,” he replied. “And Mr. Brodie would not want you goin’ there alone.”
“You did say that you wanted to go to Sussex Square as well?” he reminded me. “There’s enough time yet for that.”
The day was rapidly fading as lights gleamed from the windows of the laundry, and there were long shadows on the street as daylight faded.