Chapter 2 #2
My thoughts remained somewhat scattered, but I told Harry I remembered seeing Mr. Bradbury crossing the hotel foyer that morning.
“The timing could be just a coincidence,” Harry said. “Or it could mean the motive for murder is tangled up with him writing Arkwright’s biography, and the location of Blackheart’s treasure. How ill is Arkwright? Could he come and go from the hotel, or is he bedridden?”
“I don’t know. I’ll pay him a visit after we take a look at the crime scene.”
Bloomsbury wasn’t far and we walked quickly, managing to reach the house in a mere ten minutes. A number of police came and went, including a detective I recognized.
I groaned. Detective Sergeant Fanning did not like me.
We’d last clashed when I was investigating the murder of a woman traveling from Brighton to London on the express train.
He’d refused to share information with me, and was quick to rule the death a suicide, despite evidence to the contrary.
Part of his disagreeable nature stemmed from his misogynist attitude, and part of it was a result of laziness.
If he could close a case quickly, he would, even if there were unanswered questions.
He put up a hand to stop me proceeding up the front steps, even though I hadn’t set foot on the lowest one. “What are you doing here?”
“Good afternoon to you, too, Sergeant,” I said. “Mr. Armitage and I heard there was a murder and wanted to offer his agency’s services to the victim’s family.”
“How did you hear?”
“Gossip. You know what this city is like.”
D.S. Fanning was a relatively young man, but that couldn’t account for his stupidity.
He accepted my explanation without question.
“There’s no need for your involvement. Either of you,” he added, peering past me to Harry.
He jerked his thumb at the open doorway behind him where a uniformed constable stood guard.
“An inspector’s in charge of this one. He’ll find the killer.
No need for either of you to solicit for business. ”
Harry held up his camera box. “I can take photographs of the crime scene. Tell your D.I. I’ll share them with him.”
D.S. Fanning scrubbed his sideburns as he considered the idea.
“Tell him he can trust us. You know my father, D.I. Hobart.”
A squat man with reddish-gold whiskers appeared on a balcony above. “Hobart’s son! Let him in, Fanning! Photographs would be useful.” The man disappeared back inside.
D.S. Fanning pointed at Harry. “Just you and your camera. Not her.”
I pushed the finger aside and marched past him. “Nobody likes a petty man.”
I heard the sergeant’s deep sigh, but I didn’t look back.
“That was easier than I thought it would be,” came Harry’s voice in my ear.
“Do you know the D.I?”
“We’ve never met.”
Harry’s adoptive father had been liked and respected during his time at Scotland Yard. He still had a number of friends working there including, apparently, D.I. Latimer who met us on the landing. Harry thanked him for allowing us into the crime scene.
“We don’t have a client yet,” Harry told him. “But you never know.”
D.I. Latimer was a robust man with ruddy cheeks and leonine whiskers.
No hair peeked out from beneath his hat, so I suspected he was bald.
He shook Harry’s hand heartily then shook mine, but only after I extended it.
He hardly looked at me and gave all of his attention to Harry. Or, rather, Harry’s camera.
“Unlikely you’ll be hired, Armitage.” The voice was as robust as the man himself.
“You’ve done well in the past, so I hear, but this one’s in hand.
Killer was seen leaving the scene. We just need to find him.
The description from the witness will flush him out.
” Hands on hips, he studied Harry’s camera.
“The Yard will pay you for your photographs. Got to get ourselves one of those. Expensive?”
“Not very.”
“Bloody bureaucracy means it won’t happen soon. Excuse my French, Miss Fox.”
D.S. Fanning came up the staircase and his superior led us to an open door only to stop. I tried to peer past him at the body, but he moved to block my view. “Just Armitage. Not a pleasant sight for a gentle lady. Wait here.”
As galling as it was, particularly when D.S. Fanning’s smug smile appeared, I acquiesced and remained in the corridor. But only until the men entered the room. Moments later, when their attention was on the body, I slipped in and looked around.
Goliath was right about the study. It must have once been a sitting room.
Although not as grand as Mayfair’s townhouses, the lodging house was quite sizeable and in a good area.
It could have once been owned by a well-to-do family.
I suspected the landlady had found herself in reduced circumstances and, like many women in that situation, she rented accommodation to respectable single gentlemen to keep herself out of poverty.
Despite the men blocking my view of the body, I could see that the desk was large.
To the side of it, French doors led to the balcony upon which the inspector had stood to call out to us.
Goliath thought it was a window, but it was likely the sheer curtain was closed across the doors when he was here.
The curtain now fluttered in the light breeze.
The rest of the room was just as a sitting room ought to appear with a small sofa and an armchair upholstered in garish yellow.
A potted palm added some fresh greenery, and a smaller potted plant occupied one of the occasional tables.
There’d been a fire in the grate, but it had burned itself out, leaving a mound of ash. The room was quite chilly, but that was probably because the doors leading to the balcony were open.
I stepped lightly toward the desk, wanting to get a better picture of the immediate vicinity before I was caught.
Although my view of the body was still blocked, I could see a fan of blood splattered across the vibrant green, gold and crimson floral wallpaper behind the desk.
Goliath had said the blood was everywhere, but I couldn’t get close enough to the body to see more.
As I looked around, I listened to the answers the inspector gave to the questions Harry fired at him while he took photographs. “I don’t see many notes on the desk, just the typewriter and pages of the manuscript he was working on. Have your men removed any from the scene?”
“No, they have not,” D.S. Fanning said, defensively.
“What sort of notes do you expect to see?” D.I. Latimer asked Harry.
“It’s our understanding the victim was writing a biography about Louis Arkwright, so I’d expect to see notes from interviews he’d conducted.”
“Who’s Arkwright?” D.S. Fanning asked.
“The author of a book about the pirate, William Blackheart Watson.”
“Didn’t you read it as a boy?” D.I. Latimer asked.
The sergeant shook his head. “I don’t read novels.”
“It wasn’t a novel. Blackheart told Arkwright his life story, including where to find his famous buried treasure.
Arkwright put clues to the location in his book, but it was never discovered.
Clues were too hard to work out. Rollicking adventure story, though, and all true.
You’re right, Armitage,” D.I. Latimer said, thoughtfully.
“There should be a notebook with his interviews and other things an author needs about his subject. There’s nothing like that here.
Killer must have taken it. But why? What do you think, Fanning? ”
D.S. Fanning wasn’t thinking about an answer to that question. He had one of his own for Harry. “How do you know the victim was writing a biography on this other author, Arkwright?”
“I’m a detective, Sergeant,” was all Harry said as he peered into the camera’s viewfinder to take another photograph.
I moved back to the doorway until I was a respectable, ladylike distance from the dead body at the desk. “Did you open the doors to the balcony?” I asked D.I. Latimer.
“Already open when we arrived. Speaking of… Armitage, when you’ve finished here, I want you to photograph something on the balcony. Fanning, got a measuring tape?”
D.S. Fanning removed one from the leather satchel the police had brought with them and handed it to his superior.
Harry took one final photograph of the blood splatter on the wall and followed the two detectives through the French doors to the narrow balcony bordered by a black iron rail.
The two detectives seemed to think I had no interest in seeing the gruesome sight, and paid me no more attention, so I followed them.
A mere glance in the direction of the body gave me all the information I needed—Bradbury was covered in blood and there was some on the desk and floor, too.
My own blood chilled and I shivered, but I was glad I didn’t feel nauseous. I must be getting used to seeing death.
On the balcony, I drew in a deep breath of smoky London air, then peered down at the imprint of a shoe in the soil of a rectangular pot. The person who’d left the print had crushed one of the purple pansies.
My gaze connected with Harry’s. I could tell he was thinking the same thing as me—Goliath’s feet were larger than the imprint.
While Harry took photographs of it and the measuring tape D.S.
Fanning positioned alongside, D.I. Latimer gave us his thoughts.
“The killer arrived at the house not intending to murder Bradbury, merely talk to him. Landlady let him in. He came in here, had an argument with Bradbury, grabbed the nearest weapon in a fit of anger—the letter opener—and stabbed Bradbury. He went to escape this way but decided against it. Too exposed in broad daylight. He’d be seen, maybe even break a leg getting down.
Decided to try his luck and get past the landlady instead.
He was bigger so could just push her aside. ”
“And risk her identifying him?” Harry asked. “Surely only an innocent man would take that risk.”
The inspector merely shrugged.
“You said he was tall,” I said. “How tall?”
“Landlady says he had to duck under the doorway.”
I pointed at the boot print. “That doesn’t appear big enough for a tall person. D.S. Fanning, could you place your foot alongside it?”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed, and he seemed to be about to refuse when D.I. Latimer ordered him to do it. The imprint in the soil was smaller than Fanning’s.
“Not all tall people have big feet,” the sergeant said.
D.I. Latimer stroked his whiskers, but didn’t comment. He then indicated I should go ahead of them through the sitting room-turned-study to the corridor beyond. The inspector instructed one of the constables to organize the removal of the body to the morgue then he turned to Harry.
He clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Good man. Get me those photographs as soon as they’re developed. And give my regards to Hobart.”
“We’d like to speak to the landlady before we go,” Harry said.
“No need. We already interviewed her. She gave a thorough description of the killer. She was upset so is in the drawing room with the other lodger, having a cup of tea.”
I couldn’t think of a believable lie that would convince him to allow us to question her. Our best option was to linger awhile then sneak off to the drawing room when the detectives were distracted.
D.S. Fanning was wilier than I’d given him credit for, however, and seemed to know what I had planned. “Miss Fox is looking a little peaked. Perhaps she should leave before she faints.”
“I don’t feel faint,” I shot back.
“Better get her home, Armitage,” D.I. Latimer said, his voice still at bombastic level. “Can’t have a fainting woman at the crime scene.”
Not at the crime scene, no. But another room would be quite acceptable. I touched a hand to my forehead. “On second thought, I do feel a little faint. I think I should sit down. Not too close to the body, you understand. Perhaps the drawing room.”
D.S. Fanning smirked. “Nice try.”
“Fanning!” D.I. Latimer barked. “Make Miss Fox a cup of tea. Armitage, escort her to the drawing room.”
The sergeant’s lips pinched. I managed not to smile triumphantly back at him as I left on Harry’s arm to go in search of the woman who could identify Goliath.