Chapter 6 #2
“We’ll see what we can do, Mr. Watson,” Harry said. “But you heard Sir Ronald. As far as he’s aware, there’s no one here by the name of Arkwright.”
Mr. Watson spat on the pavement near Harry’s feet. “He’s got until the end of the week.”
We watched him go until the crowd of pedestrians swallowed him up.
“Do you believe him?” I asked Harry.
“I’m not sure.”
“I’ll ask Mr. Arkwright later if he’ll meet with him.”
I didn’t feel any particular urgency. Mr. Watson had given Mr. Arkwright until the end of the week, so we just needed to speak to him before then. While the existence of Bill Watson raised a number of questions, none seemed to relate to the murder of Bradbury, and that must take priority.
Harry was no longer thinking about it, however. He touched my elbow. “Are you all right, Cleo?”
“Fine, thank you. I want to check on Frank and collect an umbrella, then we can head off. I presume you saw the article about Chester Bradbury?” I nodded at the newspaper.
He wedged it under his arm again. “And the sketch. It doesn’t look too much like Goliath. Hopefully no one will identify him.”
“I think the staff will. They already know he didn’t go home last night.”
Harry pushed open the front door to the hotel, since the doorman was busy assisting a guest into a waiting hansom. Frank was nowhere in sight. “I want to go to Scotland Yard this morning.” Harry removed the newspaper and showed me a large envelope between the folds. “The photographs are ready.”
“No wonder you were holding it tightly.”
Most people wouldn’t find anything amiss in the foyer of the Mayfair Hotel, but to anyone familiar with the routines, it would be obvious that there was a situation unfolding.
From only one doorman on duty to the absence of both Mr. Hobart and Peter in the foyer, as well as the tension on the faces of the staff, the hotel was out of sorts.
The check-in desk was busy, as were the porters, so I asked Terence at the post desk when I went to collect a spare umbrella if he knew where Frank had gone.
He suggested I look in the staff parlor.
“Is Mr. Hobart with him?”
Terence leaned both elbows on the counter and lowered his voice. “Sir Ronald called a snap meeting with all the department heads. They went up to his office. He looked cross.”
Harry and I found Frank seated in the staff parlor, one hand holding a cup of tea, the other pressing a damp cloth against his jaw. He was alone, since it was too early for the staff to be taking their break, although I thought someone ought to be sitting with him.
“Did they arrest the bruiser?” he asked.
“He was sent on his way with a warning,” Harry said.
Frank clicked his tongue in irritation. “He should’ve been arrested. Fellow like that shouldn’t be roaming the streets. He’s a menace!’
I pulled up a chair and sat beside him. “Let me see.”
“Hurts like the devil, it does.” He removed the cloth and watched my reaction. “How’s it look, Miss Fox? Black and blue, I wager.”
“It’s just a little red.”
He pressed the cloth back to his jaw. “Bruises take time to develop.”
“Shall I send for a doctor?”
He shook his head. “I’ll manage. Tough as old boots, I am.”
Satisfied that he was all right, I rose and indicated to Harry that we should leave.
“This is all Goliath’s fault,” Frank grumbled.
“Why?” Harry asked with a sideways glance at me.
“Because it’s his picture in the paper today.” Frank indicated the newspaper under Harry’s arm. “You’ve seen his likeness in there. I know you have. As have most of the staff.”
I sat again. “There’s talk about Goliath murdering Bradbury amongst the staff?”
“There is, Miss Fox.”
I looked at Harry. He looked worried. With so many staff in the hotel, it was bound to get out sooner or later that the main suspect worked here. It was impossible to keep something like that a secret. It wouldn’t be long before the police came.
Frank lowered the cloth from his jaw and studied it, as if inspecting it for blood. “This is all Goliath’s fault,” he muttered again. “That bruiser only came here because he read about the murder in the newspaper.”
“A murder that Goliath did not commit,” I pointed out.
Frank grunted.
“Frank! You know he didn’t do anything wrong.”
He grunted again. “Don’t suppose you can pass me the biscuit tin, Miss Fox.”
I got to my feet. “Get it yourself.” I swept past Harry and left, but he didn’t immediately follow. I paused at the parlor door to listen.
“Goliath is your friend,” Harry told Frank.
“One of few who can see through your gruff manner to the good man underneath. He defended you on more than one occasion when I worked here. Now it’s time for you to defend him.
See that the rest of the staff stay silent about him working here.
No one is to go to the police or the press and say Goliath is the man in the sketch. Understand?”
Frank grumbled a response I couldn’t hear but must have satisfied Harry because he joined me. Once we were out of earshot, I told him his reaction to Frank was a better one than mine.
“I should’ve been more diplomatic, but instead I stormed out.”
“Frank can be difficult,” he conceded. “Until you learn how to manipulate him.”
I glanced up. “How did you manipulate him just now?”
“Goliath never came to me defending Frank. They used to bicker like schoolboys.”
I laughed, but it only lasted as far as the foyer. There were so many guests coming and going, many of them regulars. Even if none of the staff went to the police, Goliath had been a porter here for years. His height made him recognizable. How long before one of the guests turned him in?
“How is he?” I asked Harry, not daring to mention a name in case we were overheard.
“Holding up well.” Harry nodded a greeting to the handsome dark-haired guest who I suspected was Mr. Janson, the man Floyd and my uncle wanted me to meet. He had a woman on his arm, but it wasn’t one of the two women I’d seen him with the day before.
“Do you know him?” I asked Harry.
“A little, from my days as assistant manager. People used to say we look alike.”
“You’re much more handsome,” I said, somewhat absently. “I’ve noticed he’s always with a different woman. Or women.”
“They’re courtesans.” Harry’s pace slowed and he frowned at me. “You’ve noticed him before?”
“Oh, I, uh…” I didn’t want him to know my family were keen for me to meet him.
I didn’t want Harry to think any less of them than he already did.
“His likeness to you was pointed out to me, too.” It wasn’t a complete lie, since I was sure that was why Floyd thought I’d like Mr. Janson.
It was typical of him not to see past appearances, and thought that was all that mattered to others, too.
Outside, a misty rain was heavy enough for me to raise my umbrella, but it didn’t bother Harry.
He simply hunkered down into his coat and tugged his hat brim lower.
Although we could have walked to Scotland Yard, we decided to take a taxicab in case the rain got heavier.
Once seated in the cabin, I told Harry that I’d met Mr. Arkwright.
“He isn’t bedridden, but he is frail. We can’t rule out the possibility that he went to Bradbury’s lodging house after he left the hotel yesterday morning.”
Harry placed the folded newspaper with the envelope of photographs on his lap. The article showing the sketch of Goliath was face up.
“Did Goliath see that?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t get it until I arrived at my office this morning, then I came directly to see if anyone at the hotel had seen.
” He covered his yawn with one hand. “Apologies. I had a late night. After seeing you, I went to my parents’ house and retrieved my old copy of the Blackheart biography.
Goliath and I stayed up into the small hours reading and discussing it. ”
“Was it as you remembered?”
“Somewhat, although it felt less credible now that I’m older.”
“In what way?”
“Blackheart’s adventures became increasingly more daring and dangerous, and he always came out best.”
“He may have decided to leave out the failures.” I could imagine a pirate with a swashbuckling reputation to uphold not wanting his failures included.
A biography was only as good as the information fed to the author.
The biographer couldn’t necessarily be accused of making it up.
I tried to recall what I knew about Blackheart Watson, and realized it wasn’t much.
“He operated in the Gulf of Mexico, didn’t he? ”
“That’s right. He had a blacksmith shop in New Orleans as a young man, from about 1800 to 1810.
It was a front for his smuggling operation.
The United States had trade embargoes on several countries at that time, so Blackheart took advantage and attacked passing ships, including those captained by other pirates, stealing their cargo and smuggling their goods into the country.
Then in the War of 1812, he took advantage again and got official letters of marque from the United States government, which allowed him to call himself a privateer and legally capture enemy ships in their waters.
It’s during that time he built up his fleet, so when the war ended, he was too powerful for the government to stop him.
He raided ships, mostly Spanish, from his fortress on Galveston Island.
Over the next few years, he amassed a fortune, which, according to his biography, he gave some of away to the poor and hid the rest. It’s not clear whether he hid it on the island or elsewhere, but according to Goliath, the island has been thoroughly searched since the book was published sixty years ago and it hasn’t been found. ”
“But you no longer think it’s a real account?”
“Hard to say. Blackheart existed. The history books are clear about that. Most of what I just told you is also recorded by sources of the time, so the broad strokes are certainly real.”
“But?”