Chapter 10 #2
I lifted my skirts and headed up, pushing open the door on the second tier.
I emerged into the dress circle seats. I peered over the balcony.
It reached my waist, and from what I could gather from Pearl’s clothes in her wardrobe, she was about my height.
No one could accidentally trip and fall over.
Pearl was either pushed or she jumped to her death.
I headed back to the hotel, my mind awhirl as I went through what I’d learned.
There were holes in all three stories I’d just heard.
Any one of them could have been upstairs in the dress circle, pushed Pearl over the balcony, and come back downstairs without anyone seeing.
Mr. Alcott was alone backstage but no one had seen him so he couldn’t prove it.
He’d also been the first to reach the body, although had apparently forgotten that fact when Dotty initially mentioned it.
Was that because he hadn’t wanted me to know that he was closest and so assume he was the killer?
In Dotty’s case, she hadn’t used the nearest door to the ladies privy. We’d passed the actress’s privy in the corridor and it was nowhere near the entrance she said she’d used. That entrance conveniently gave access to the dress circle and upper circle.
And I’d just proved the emergency fire exit also gave access to the upper levels.
It would have been very easy for Mr. Culpepper to push Pearl over the balcony and race downstairs upon hearing her scream.
Not only that, of the three of them, he had the strongest motive: jealousy.
It was hard to believe his claim that he wasn’t jealous of Pearl and Rumford.
No man liked to share his lover, and it must have galled him that Rumford could give her what she wanted when he couldn’t—a luxurious lifestyle mingling with the cream of society.
Instead of heading back to the hotel, I caught an omnibus to the Natural History Museum, partly so I wouldn’t have to lie to Flossy about how I spent my day and partly because I found museums both inspiring and soothing.
Walking around the exhibits gave me time to think.
It also filled in the rest of the day until it was time to meet Mr. Adams at The Nag’s Head.
“Don’t bother taking a seat,” he said as I approached his booth. “This won’t take long.”
I slid onto the seat anyway. From the look on his face, I guessed he’d been unsuccessful. “If you weren’t able to get into his office, I’d like my money back.”
“I got in.” He squared his shoulders, thrusting out his chest. “There’s not a lock in London that can keep Thomas Adams out.”
“Did you find the diary?”
“I did.” He sat forward, elbows on the table, and removed the cigarette dangling from his lips with his thumb and forefinger. Smoke billowed from his mouth as he spoke. “But the relevant page was missing.”
“Missing?”
“Torn out. Only a jagged edge remained. It wasn’t in the waste basket, drawers, nowhere.” He shrugged. “Sorry, but you’re not getting your money back. I did what you asked, at great risk to myself, and found nothing.”
“Thank you,” I muttered.
I left, but my despondency didn’t last all the way home. If nothing else, that missing diary page told me Lord Wrexham didn’t want me to find out where he was on the day Pearl died.
I tossed and turned for much of the night, unable to sleep.
All the clues I’d gathered so far jumbled together in my head until they began to make no sense.
At three, I gave up and threw on a dressing gown and headed downstairs.
The library would be unlocked, as would the sitting room through which one had to cross to access it.
I turned down the gas on my lamp so that the light wasn’t too bright, but bright enough for me to traverse the stairs safely.
The hotel was quiet, my footsteps sounding disembodied within the stairwell.
When I reached the third floor landing, I realized my footsteps weren’t the only ones on the stairs.
It sounded like several sets moving rapidly below me and going down.
“We want what we’re owed,” came a woman’s voice in a Cockney accent.
“We know you’ve got our money, you thieving prick, so give it,” said another woman.
“Let’s get out of here first,” a man said. “I ain’t hanging ‘round. Last time, we nearly got caught by the owner’s niece.”
I stopped and turned off the lamp. My heart hammered in my chest and I hardly dared move. Moments later, the footsteps receded altogether and I found the courage to continue, albeit in the dark.
When I reached the ground floor, I peered around the corner. The light was dim in the foyer, but I could discern three men. The one closing the door was the night porter, James, who did all the duties of the front-of-house staff overnight. He must have just let someone out of the hotel. The women?
The second man was Mr. Hirst. He accepted what appeared to be paper money from a third man whose face I couldn’t see. That man touched the brim of his cap and moved away. He also handed something to James before exiting the hotel. James had not held the door open for him.
If only I’d seen his face. While he’d dressed like the beak-nosed man I’d seen a few days ago, and had a similar build, it was impossible to know if they were one and the same.
I was quite sure it wasn’t Mr. Clitheroe, the guest Mr. Hirst had claimed I’d seen that time and who also had a prominent nose.
For one thing, he’d checked out, and for another, I’d never heard a hotel guest speak with a Cockney accent.
Mr. Hirst disappeared into the senior staff corridor and James roamed the foyer. I thought about asking him who’d just left but decided against it. The stranger had given him something, and if it was money in exchange for turning the other cheek, James wouldn’t tell me.
I abandoned my plan to get a book and headed back up the stairs, feeling my way with a hand on the rail.
The women and man had emerged onto the stairwell on the second floor so I walked along that corridor.
All was silent. If they’d been in one or more of the rooms, those occupants were most likely asleep now.
Unless the rooms had been empty.
I managed to finally get a few hours sleep, only to be awoken by Harmony holding my breakfast tray at eight. I let her in and crawled back into bed.
She followed me into the bedroom. “This was waiting for you in the corridor.” She set the tray down on the dressing table. “Why haven’t you eaten yet?”
“Because I couldn’t sleep and now I’m tired.”
“You won’t solve the case by lying in bed all day.”
“I don’t want to lie in bed all day, just for another hour.”
“I have to do your hair before I get on with my chores.”
“I’ll do it myself today.”
She stood with a hand on her hip. “I’ve got something interesting to tell you.”
“Write me a letter and leave it on the desk. I’ll read it later.”
With a shake of her head, she reached for the curtains.
“Don’t!”
She wrenched the curtains back letting in the dull light of a wintry London morning. It could have been the sunniest day as far as I was concerned. I pulled the bed covers over my head.
Harmony jerked them down. “Come on, Miss Fox. You’ll feel better once you eat and splash water on your face.”
“If you throw water over me I’ll never share my breakfast with you ever again.”
She smiled. “I know it’s hard to get up when you haven’t slept much. Believe me, I do. But you really need to hear the gossip I have to tell you. It will wake you up.”
I sighed and sat up. “You know there’s no better way to get my attention than the promise of juicy gossip. So what have you heard?”
She picked up the breakfast tray and positioned it across my lap then sat near my legs and helped herself to a cold slice of toast. “Goliath told me that his friend at the Savoy Hotel said he’d overheard a guest gossiping about seeing Lady Rumford at the theater.”
“That’s a rather tangled grapevine. Should we trust the information?”
“The woman claimed to be a friend to Lady Rumford. You would think she’d know what her own friend looked like. It’s worth following up, which is why I told Goliath to tell his friend to find out more.”
“Excellent idea. That leaves me free to follow up other clues.”
“Such as?”
I sighed as I peeled the shell off a boiled egg. “I don’t know yet. Perhaps inspiration will strike by the time I finish breakfast.”
Inspiration did indeed strike, and I left the hotel feeling buoyed. This investigation might prove complicated, with so many suspects compared to the last one, but it was better to have too many than none at all. That’s what I told myself, anyway.
The events of the previous night also occupied my thoughts.
Indeed, they were getting in the way of the murder investigation.
There was only one way to stop that—pass the information onto someone else.
It was fortunate that the person I planned to see could help me with that as well as give advice on what to do about the sightings of Lady Rumford who, according to her husband, should not be in London.
I poked my head into the Roma Café and smiled at Luigi and his two regular customers.
“He’s not here,” Luigi told me.
I headed up the stairs next door and knocked on Mr. Armitage’s office door. He beckoned me in, looking somewhat disappointed to see me and not a potential customer.
“How is business coming along?” I asked cheerfully as I took a seat.
“I’m run off my feet.”
A newspaper was spread out in front of him but his desk was otherwise neat. His jacket hung alongside his coat and hat on the stand by the door, which meant he wasn’t expecting anyone. “Quite,” I said, trying not to let him see that I knew he was lying.
He folded the newspaper and set it to one side. “Do you require my services to accompany you to The Nag’s Head again?”
“No, thank you. I’ve already spoken to Mr. Adams twice since we last met.” I spread out my arms. “As you can see, I came to no harm.”