Chapter 5
“Thank you,” I said to the sergeant, and received a curled lip from him in return.
The constable who led me off was at least more polite. “This way, Mrs. Holloway. Mind the steps.”
He took me into the courtyard and to the building that housed the CID. Months ago, the offices had been targeted by Fenian bombs, but fortunately, no one had been hurt.
Repairs were still being made to one of the walls, and we swerved to avoid scaffolding. The builders themselves huddled under a shelter out of the rain, passing around a flask.
The constable took me into the brick edifice, up a flight of stairs, and halted before a plain wooden door about halfway along.
I eyed the blank panels nervously. “This isn’t Inspector McGregor’s office.”
“No, ma’am.” The constable opened the door without further information and ushered me inside.
I found myself in an outer chamber very like the others I’d been in at Scotland Yard.
Four young men sat or stood behind desks, some noting things in ledgers, some reading sheafs of papers, one tapping on a clattering typing machine.
The walls were lined with cubbyholes, every one of them jammed with paper.
A door leading to an inspector’s private office stood on the opposite side of the entrance. The name on that door read Inspector Ferguson, but when the constable knocked on it and opened it for me, a tall, slim man I recognized rose from behind the desk.
This was not Inspector Ferguson. His name was Sergeant Scott, a thirtyish man with a sharp face and fair hair he slicked back against a narrow skull. He regarded me with light blue eyes that held keen intelligence and also annoyance.
“Mrs. Holloway,” he said in his cool tones. “Please, sit there.” He pointed a long finger at a hard chair in front of his desk. He said Please, but I knew a command when I heard one.
I thanked the constable who’d escorted me. Scott said nothing to him, and the constable retreated, his hurried gait betraying his relief to be out from under the sergeant’s gaze.
I smoothed my skirts and seated myself on the edge of the chair. “Did Inspector Ferguson wish to speak to me?” I asked, as the inspector was nowhere in evidence. “Actually, I am pleased to see you, Sergeant Scott, because—”
“Acting Inspector Scott,” he corrected me coldly as he sat down again.
“Oh.” I rearranged my thoughts. “Well done, Sergeant—I mean, Acting Inspector.”
“Only while Inspector Ferguson is away. You were brought to me, Mrs. Holloway, because you were seen fleeing the scene of a crime not an hour ago. I ordered constables to wait for you in Cheapside, but you have turned up here instead, I assume to report said crime.”
His chilly stare told me he knew all about Mr. Banks, his death, Daniel, my flight through the maze of warehouses, and perhaps Mr. Grimes. Also, that I had better not lie to him.
“I was seen?” I asked in a faint voice.
Scott inclined his head. “One of the constables who went to investigate recognized you as you ran off. Your constant interfering with police business has given you something of a disadvantage, as many of the men now know who you are.”
My indignation returned. Scott did like to behave as though I were beneath him, when in truth, my position in society and his were not much different.
“I have hardly committed a crime,” I said.
“Mr. McAdam more or less pushed me away, probably so your constables did not lock me in handcuffs and haul me to the local nick. I fully intended to tell the police everything, including the fact that Mr. McAdam could not have killed the man. I was with him when we stumbled across the body.”
“That remains to be seen,” Scott informed me. “Why were you and McAdam wandering about the docks in Blackfriars?”
“Can I not speak to Inspector McGregor?” I asked. The inspector was bluff and growly, but he’d learned to believe my explanations.
“Inspector McGregor is even now at the scene of the crime.” Scott’s tone became icy. “I am taking statements of crucial witnesses, of which you are one. Please answer the question.”
My heart sank, but I let nothing of my uneasiness show in my expression.
“Very well. What I am about to say is the truth, and I would appreciate it if you did not doubt me. We were, in fact, to meet Mr. Banks—the man who was murdered—at a nearby pub. When he didn’t turn up, we went searching for him. ”
Scott regarded me for a full thirty seconds without moving before he lifted a pencil and started scribbling on a sheet of paper.
“Why did you look for him at Puddle Dock?” He didn’t look up as he posed the question.
Because Mr. Grimes had whistled a signal to Daniel, but I decided to keep mum about Mr. Grimes as long as I could. One didn’t peach on one’s friend, especially when he’d saved one’s life.
“We searched for Mr. Banks all over the area,” I said.
“We were to meet him at a pub in Upper Thames Street, the Friar and Hound. We reached the pub about eleven—the clocks were striking the hour as we entered—which was the agreed-upon time. When Mr. Banks hadn’t arrived by quarter past, we went out looking for him in the streets nearby. Puddle Dock was only one of them.”
Scott continued writing. “How did you know this Mr. Banks?”
“I didn’t. Never met him.” Before Scott could give me one of his derisive stares, I hurried on. “Apparently, he is an itinerant builder, resident of Holland Street in Southwark. Mr. McAdam probably already has told Inspector McGregor all about him.”
Scott’s mouth flattened at my repeated mention of Inspector McGregor. “What was McAdam’s interest in an itinerant builder from Southwark?”
I wanted to say that it was Mr. McAdam’s business, but by Scott’s expression, he might decide a night in a lockup would loosen my tongue. He was that sort of policeman.
I bravely met his gaze. “I will tell you what little I know. Mr. Banks claimed he had information about Mr. McAdam’s parentage.
Whether he truly did or was only swindling Mr. McAdam out of a few coins, I have no idea.
I was to attend the meeting, at Mr. McAdam’s request, because he wanted my opinion on this very question.
As Mr. Banks came to grief, very likely at the hands of a footpad, I never had the chance to decide whether he had genuine information or was trying to dupe Mr. McAdam. ”
Scott flattered me by noting all this down without interrupting. While he was a brusque man who brooked no fools, he did at least take down witness statements without disparagement or mockery.
“How long were you with McAdam today?” was his next question. “Did you meet him at the pub, or beforehand, and at what time?”
“He came to me at my friend’s house in Clover Lane,” I answered dutifully. “This was not long before eleven. We walked from there to the pub, and as I said, waited for about a quarter hour before setting off to search. I’d say we came across Mr. Banks at half past.”
I watched Scott neatly note the times, setting them as headers to columns. Under Just before 11 he wrote Met McAdam at Clover Lane, then under 11 o’clock, he wrote Friar and Hound Pub. Under Approx Half Past 11 he jotted the words Found Banks deceased.
“Did you see anyone else in the area?” Scott asked when he finished writing. “Anyone at all? Either running away, skulking about, or going about their own business?”
“No one,” I said. This was true, apart from Mr. Grimes. “There were men unloading a barge at one of the docks, but they weren’t moving among the warehouses. I heard no one running away, though it is a noisy area—trains were rattling by overhead—so I might not have noticed.”
Scott looked up from his notebook and gave me a beady-eyed stare. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” I stated.
Scott knew I was lying about something, but I would hold firmly to my loyalty to Mr. Grimes as long as possible.
“Mrs. Holloway, if you saw anyone, or anything, even if it seems unimportant, you must tell me. If the detectives find no one else to pin it on, McAdam could go down for this murder. What you say could save him from the noose.”
I hid a wince. He didn’t have to put it so bluntly.
“I have told you,” I said. “I believe Mr. Banks had probably lain there dead a little while, as the blood was starting to dry. Likely whoever did it was long gone before we stumbled upon him.”
Scott gazed at me an impatient moment before he went back to his writing, jabbing his pencil so hard to the paper that I feared it would break.
He looked up again to make his next abrupt point. “If the man proves to have been killed before eleven o’clock, McAdam still might have done it. Before he came to you at your friend’s home.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. Mr. Grimes had seen Banks alive and well at a quarter till, but that still gave Daniel enough time to follow Banks, stick him with a knife, and then hurry to Clover Lane.
“But why on earth should he? Mr. McAdam was very curious to hear what the man had to say and upset when we found him dead. Besides, Mr. McAdam had no blood on his clothes whatsoever when he came to fetch me at Mrs. Millburn’s. ”
“He might have changed them before he came to you.”
“I doubt he’d have had the time,” I pointed out.
“Besides, he wasn’t wearing fresh, clean clothes.
He’d been doing his morning deliveries, by the looks of things.
He lets rooms in Southampton Street, but it would have been a bit of a dash to get there and back to Cheapside in time to meet me before eleven.
He’d have been winded, at the very least.” Daniel rarely looked as though he made any exertion, no matter what the circumstance, but a run to Southampton Street and back might have been an exception.
“How do you know McAdam didn’t have all the time in the world?” Scott asked me sharply. “Do you know exactly when the man was killed?”
“Of course not.” I chided myself for my slip. “But it could not have been that long. Not more than half an hour, maybe three quarters, surely. The blood wasn’t completely dry, which would take some time, would it not?”
“It was raining.”