Chapter Fifteen #2
“The suspect swears he was acting alone, yet several witnesses at the property report observing a second man running from the scene, leading us to deduce that his accomplice remains at large.”
Mickey tucked his clammy hands underneath his thighs to hide the trembling. He swallowed thickly. Even that felt like a struggle; he felt as if he was being pulled downwards in a spiralling descent.
“Forgive me,” responded Rossingley, employing his iciest tones. “I’m not entirely sure that answered my question.”
Very few men were impervious to Rossingley’s haughty disdain.
Harold Pearson, once again studying Mickey as if he could see all the way through him and out the other side, was one of a rare breed.
“You appear to have sustained an injury, Mr Maurice,” he observed. “May I enquire as to the nature of it?”
“A boxing injury,” said Tommy dismissively. “Mr Maurice still hasn’t quite mastered his bob and weave, especially when tackling larger adversaries.” He gave a hollow laugh. “And I’m afraid Sidney here doesn’t take the smaller stature of his opponents into account.”
“Yet no blackened eyes or bloodied nose.” Pearson nudged his eye glasses. “A peculiar sort of boxing injury.”
“Mr Maurice tripped,” Tommy shot back.
“And lost his tongue in the process,” countered Pearson, dry as ash.
His stomach churning, Mickey squared his shoulders, trying to look like a man hardy enough, or foolish enough, to step into the ring with Sidney.
He was unravelling, the whole thing was unravelling.
Valentin was behind bars, and at this rate, Mickey would soon be sharing a cell alongside him.
He stole a nervous glance at Rossingley and Ashington, both following the exchange intently.
“Your hands show recent wounds. I noticed them when I entered the room. You don’t wrap them when you box?
” Pearson pointedly looked to where Mickey’s knuckles, scratched and reddened from charging through the undergrowth, were guiltily concealed under his thighs.
“I thought that was the fashion amongst gentlemen these days.”
“Strictly speaking, he’s not a gentleman,” Tommy pointed out. “Neither am I, and neither is Sidney.”
A menacing note crept into Tommy’s tone, not that the man from Bow Street seemed to care. But then, in the face of a crime on such a scale as this, Pearson must have been chosen as one of their finest.
“You.” Pearson turned sharply to Sidney. “Show me your fingernails.”
Obediently, Sidney held out a hand, though he took his time about it.
It was like a slab of stone, rough and unyielding, each scarred, knotted knobble a story of a fight survived, a bone broken, a door forced open.
His nails, however, were clean and disappointingly blunt.
“As luck would have it, I trimmed them only this morning.” With his other hand, Sidney delved into his pocket.
“Using this knife. Getting ragged, they were.” He dangled the unsettling blade between his finger and thumb.
“Hmm.” Pearson took a cautious pace back, pushing his eyeglasses up his beaky nose.
“Mr Maurice. You attended the Talybridge ball yesterday evening, did you not?”
“Yes,” Mickey managed to confirm.
“A man fitting your description was seen running from the scene of the crime.”
“A man in evening dress, you mean?” scoffed Tommy. “Why, that could have been anyone!”
“A shortish, slim man with mid-brown hair, wearing a plain dark evening coat. He was limping.” Pearson glared at Mickey’s leg, resting on a stool.
“It was not me,” Mickey insisted, his voice wavering.
“I also wore a plain coat,” Tommy interjected, unruffled. “As did half the chaps I played faro with.” His lips thinned as he folded his arms. “What exactly are you suggesting here, Mr Pearson?”
“Nothing at all.” Pearson smiled blandly. “At this stage, I’m simply ruling out”—he shot Mickey a searching look—“the most likely suspects.”
The muscles in Tommy’s jaw tightened, drawing the whole of his face into something hard and unforgiving.
The face of a man who had survived the stews and was now protecting one of his own.
“Mr Maurice has been in my employ for five years, Mr Pearson. He is also my cousin and a close friend. Needless to say, I trust him with my life. If he insists that he was not involved in this theft, then I assure you, he was not involved.”
“The theft occurred at just before eight o’clock,” Pearson continued, as if Tommy had never opened his mouth. “Could you apprise me of your movements, Mr Maurice, at approximately eight o’clock?”
“I was…there was a ruckus in the ballroom.” Mickey stalled.
“I was in the card room and…and I heard it.” Who had Pearson already interviewed?
Any of the men in the card room might vouch that he left just before then, even though the lights flickered on and off.
He might have been seen at the back of the ballroom, too, by a servant or another guest. “I…”
“He was with me.”