Chapter 16 #3
Wolfgang had been around for Florence Schlomsky’s kidnapping too, I remembered.
Including the conclusion of it. Not that he had had anything to do with it, but the details might have inspired him.
He had, as it happened, taken Christopher to the same empty house where Myrtle, Ruth, and Sid had kept Flossie.
“We should check the house in Thornton Heath,” I said, and both the boys turned to look at me.
“The place where he kept me?” Christopher asked, at the same time as Crispin said, “The place where they kept Flossie?”
I nodded. “He was there with us when Tom arrested the trio. He knew that the house was likely to sit empty. That must have been why he took Christopher there. Because he couldn’t take him to his own rooms, obviously. He lived in rented rooms at that point.”
And suddenly something else popped into place in my head, as well. “That’s where I remember Shoreditch from. It’s where he took rooms after he left the Savoy.”
“Wolfie? Took rooms in Shoreditch?” Crispin’s lips twitched.
“Indeed. Tom checked them at the time. After Wolfgang perished, I mean. Or didn’t perish, perhaps, but after we thought he’d died. He wouldn’t be using the same rooms again, of course. But he might have made friends in the neighborhood.”
“Like Leonid,” Christopher said.
“Exactly like Leonid. It may have been on Leonid’s recommendation that Wolfgang got the position here at Harrods.”
“Got it in one, Pippa,” Tom’s voice said from behind me, and we all three looked up. He glanced around the table—there was a teacup and saucer waiting for him on the empty fourth side—and he headed that way.
I waited for him to sit down and reach for the teapot before I said, “Truly?”
He nodded. “Leonid has been employed by Harrods for more than two years. A few weeks ago, when the sporting department installed the skiing slope, he recommended a friend of his for a position as instructor. The chap’s name was Ulrich Albrecht.”
The name hit me with the force of a fist to the stomach, and for a second I couldn’t catch my breath. Luckily, Crispin had no such problem. “I thought the chap’s name was Utz. That’s what Hansueli said.”
Tom eyed him. “Hansueli is…?”
“The bloke on the ski slope now. He said his colleague’s name was Utz.”
“I think perhaps you ought to tell me what happened from the beginning,” Tom said.
I supposed it made sense to start there. Or perhaps he simply wanted a chance to drink a cup of tea and eat a cream bun, and this would allow him to do so.
“Lady Violet Cummings was in the sporting department when we got there,” I began, and went through the conversation with Lady Vi. “The description sounded quite a lot like Wolfgang, and she did meet him at least once. If she said it was him, we thought we should at least look into it.”
“Vi might look like a ditz,” Crispin added, “but she’s not stupid. That’s not to say that she can’t be mistaken, but if she says the chap she saw was Wolfie, it’s a better than fifty percent chance it was Wolfie.”
Tom nodded. He swallowed the last of his cream bun and cleaned his fingers daintily with his serviette.
“Let me tell you what I know. Leonid Novikov has worked for Harrods for the past two years. He wasn’t a model employee, but there was nothing wrong with him, either.
He showed up mostly on time, did his work, and had no more than the usual complaints. ”
“Not enough of them to have Sir Richard fire him,” Christopher translated, and Tom nodded.
“He was shocked when I told him that Leonid had been murdered, and more shocked when I told him that he might be implicated in a kidnapping.”
He glanced at Crispin. “I took the liberty of telling him that Lady Laetitia is missing. He passes on his condolences, and says that Leonid has had no deliveries to Marsden House—or for that matter to Marsden Manor, or anywhere else in Dorset—in the past several months. That goes for Sutherland House, and Cummings House, and Fortescue House, as well. Nowhere in London where Laetitia would be likely to be found.”
Crispin nodded. “There’s no need to keep it quiet. Obviously I would prefer it if you didn’t run directly to the Daily Yell or Tatler—”
“As if I would,” Tom told him. “I would lose my job, I hope you know.”
“—but whether we find her alive or not, the story is likely to get out. Might as well be now, when it might do some good.”
Tom nodded. “I’m glad you can take a sensible view of the matter.”
“I am nothing if not sensible,” Crispin told him, which was so far from the truth as to be laughable.
“So Leonid would have had no contact with Laetitia in the week or two leading up to her disappearance,” I dragged the conversation back on track, “and I suppose there’s no reason to think that they would have known one another.”
“None at all,” Tom confirmed. “They didn’t travel in the same circles. There’s nothing to indicate that they had friends in common. And I think I’m probably safe to say that she would have had no romantic interest in him.”
We all flicked a look at Crispin, who made a face. “I didn’t expect her to stay faithful,” he said. “Certainly not before we were married. But I wouldn’t have thought he’d be her type, no.”
Tom nodded. “And then there’s Ulrich Albrecht. Sir Richard confirmed the description his secretary gave—”
“Tall,” I recited, “blond, blue-eyed, pity about the scar.”
“Precisely. We all know who that looks like.”
We all did, indeed. “In your opinion,” I said carefully, as he had been there too, “what are the chances that Wolfgang survived diving into the water back in October?”
Tom looked at me steadily for a moment, perhaps to judge my mental state.
It was shaky, to be fair. I’m sure he could see it, but in justice to him, he didn’t pull any punches.
“Given current evidence,” he said, “I’d say they’re reasonably good.
At the time, I didn’t think he had done—it was October, the water was cold, and there was no sign that he had made it back onto the freighter—but right now, given the name and the description, I’m more than happy to take his survival as fact. ”
That was what I’d been afraid of. If Tom thought it was likely, my imagination wasn’t just running away with me, as it was wont to do.
“You said he had rooms in Shoreditch,” I said.
“Two months ago, yes. We went through them after he… or rather, after we thought he’d drowned. They were mostly empty. He had taken his clothes and personal belongings with him to the boat. There was some of the Savoy stationery left. A fountain pen with his fingerprints on it. Not much else.”
“He didn’t write the notes,” I said. “The new ones, I mean. The ransom note and the one that was left at Battersea Park. But if he had Leonid to help him, I suppose Leonid did it.”
“The chaps on the ski slope wear gloves,” Christopher added, “so I don’t suppose you’re likely to get fingerprints off the poles.”
Tom shook his head. “I don’t think he would have gone back to the same rooms in Shoreditch. Not after what happened. But it explains the ransom drop in Arnold Circus.”
Yes, it did. I hadn’t known the place existed until last night. I’d been surprised that Crispin did.
“Scavenger hunt,” he told me when I mentioned it now. “We were all over London a few years ago. One of the clues was in Arnold Circus.”
Of course. The Society for Bright Young Persons and their infamous scavenger hunts.
“How far from there to the rooms he kept?” Christopher wanted to know.
“No more than a mile,” Tom said. “We’ll look in again and make certain he hasn’t been in touch.”
“Someone should check the house in Thornton Heath, as well,” I offered. “He’s not likely to use it again, I suppose. That would be mad. But we ought to check anyway.”
“After what happened there,” Tom said, “the constabulary in Thornton Heath is on alert. They’re supposed to stay on top of it. No one wants a repeat of what happened to Florence Schlomsky.”
No, indeed. Although staying on top of it didn’t necessarily mean that they couldn’t have missed something. Like a couple of days’ occupation by another kidnap victim.
“I’m with Darling,” Crispin said with a nod my way. “I know it’s most likely a fool’s errand, but I’d feel better if we motored down there and looked.”
Tom nodded. “You three do that, then. There’s nothing else you can do here.”
“I can check in with Rogers, and with Tidwell, and perhaps with Maury and Effie, and make certain that there’s been no other communication from the kidnapper.”
“Do that,” Tom said. “Then go to Thornton Heath. You’ll feel better if you do. Meanwhile, I’ll go back to Shoreditch and see if I can get a lead on our old friend Natterdorff.”
He was silent for a moment before he added, “One good thing about it is that he’s a fairly distinctive-looking individual. If people see him, they remember.”
“Take reinforcements,” I told him. “If Wolfgang is back, and resorting to kidnapping and murder, he won’t quibble about killing you too.”
Tom nodded. Christopher sank his teeth into his bottom lip, and I could read the concern on his face. “May I come with you?” he asked Tom. “I don’t want to go back to the house in Thornton Heath.”
Tom eyed him for a second before he nodded. “Of course, Kit. Just make sure you stay out of our way.”
I opened my mouth to object—if Christopher went with Tom, I would either have to go to Thornton Heath with only Crispin, or I would have to send him there on his own, neither of which seemed like an optimal solution—and closed it again without saying anything.
Christopher had spent several days on a soiled mattress next to a corpse in the house at Thornton Heath; it was not surprising that he didn’t want to be reminded of it, and I wasn’t going to be the one who forced him to go back there.
Certainly not over something as silly as preferring not to be alone with Crispin.
“We’ll be on our way, then,” I said instead.
“After we ring up Sutherland House, and Sutherland Hall, and the Marsdens,” Crispin reminded me, and it was my turn to nod.