Chapter 6

The early morningsounds in the building wakened me—the creak of floorboards overhead, voices, then the slam of a door. Usual morning sounds that moved past the door, followed by silence as others in the tenement left for the day.

And then there was the hound, staring up at me, a paw on my arm as I struggled out from what little sleep I had managed after dozing off in the chair.

Waking up in a different place was always a bit confusing, those first moments as the brain gradually stirs disorienting. On my travels, my brain had quickly adjusted to different surroundings, with curiosity and energy to start the day and explore.

This morning my brain seemed to be somewhere else, possibly due to those two drams of whisky. I required another stroke of Rupert's paw to rouse me from the past few hours in the chair.

I sat up, wincing at the pain in my back from the chair and a dull headache. First things first, as Rupert went to the door of the flat and whined. I was much of the same opinion.

I checked the hallway, then went to the rear entrance to let him out.

"If you're not back in good time, I'm leaving you here," I told him as if I expected an answer. I opened the door and he bolted out into the alley.

When I would have returned to the flat, I encountered a stout woman with a stained apron. Her frown was surrounded by a faint mustache of the sort older women tend to acquire, and she clutched a broom in both hands.

"What ‘ave we ‘ere?" she demanded.

It is always best to stay as close to the truth as possible when conducting our investigations. Therefore, I explained that I would be staying in Sophie's flat while she was away. The larger truth was that I had no idea how long I would need to be there.

"Sent by one of the theater people?" she asked with a narrowed gaze beneath one long eyebrow where two should have been.

She would have made a great character in one of my novels.

I nodded, the headache beginning to throb.

"What might be yer name?"

Considering everything that had happened, it was obviously unwise, perhaps even dangerous, to give my real name. Nor was I willing to involve Templeton by mentioning her name.

"Emma," I replied.

After all, Emma Fortescue, the character in my novels, was my other self, according to my sister Linny, who declared that she had no idea why I bothered to disguise the fact that Emma was me.

"I'm Mrs. Peabody, the landlady ‘ere," the woman announced, "and the rents are due on the first."

I couldn't help it. It might have been the headache, too little sleep or the leftover effects of the whisky. My thought just naturally wondered if there was a Mr. Peabody?

I wondered if he had a mustache. Or possibly he was merely a figment of her imagination as I had discovered in our inquiries. The title ‘Mrs' was often used to create the illusion of respectability, or possibly keep unwanted men away. Although that didn't seem as if it would have been a problem in this case.

"The flat is paid up ‘til the first." She gestured to Sophie's door. "I know you theater people...I was once in theater meself."

That conjured up images of the roles she might have played, Dogberry from Much Ado, for instance. I glanced at that mustache, no makeup required for the part.

My upper lip twitched. I forced a smile, and thanked her for the information.

"This building is all I have," she continued as I returned to the flat. "If yer one day late, the door will be nailed shut and yer belongings in the street. And I don't abide creatures in the building."

She had obviously noticed Rupert as I turned him out. I thought of the other creature I had encountered the night before in the breadbox, and thought it best not to mention it, and gave the excuse, ridiculous as it was, that the hound had a part in the current play.

"A dog? In a play?" she replied. "You don't say. Does he do tricks?"

There was, of course, his ability to steal food, retrieve various body parts of a carcass, and attack unsavory characters, that included stalking police constables. I merely nodded.

"I s'pose there's no harm then," Mrs. Peabody continued. "As long as there's no mess and he doesn't frighten the other tenants. That will be an extra two shillings a month," she added.

So much for concern about any mess, as long as there was payment in it.

I assured her that I would pay the additional amount, then escaped back to the flat. I would very definitely use the character of Mrs. Peabody in my next novel, mustache included.

I had donned more suitable clothes that I had brought from the office on the Strand, then read back over the notes I had made the night before.

The hound had not yet returned as I was ready to leave, however, the warehouse for the Times newspaper was not far. I locked the door of the flat behind me and set off.

I had researched newspaper archives previously and hoped that I might find information about the murder of Stephen Matthews ten years earlier, that Abby Sutton had witnessed and had put her life in danger. Anything that might provide information that could be useful, since it was very obvious the two murders were somehow linked.

I hadn't worn the costume Templeton and Mrs. Finch had provided. I thought the disguise of a common laborer, and a man at that, might be a bit suspicious at the Times warehouse. Not to mention it would draw unwanted attention. I then left the building on Drury Lane, and kept a watchful eye on the street.

The Times archives were kept in the same building where the dailies were printed, and not far from the Strand. With the usual traffic on the street, it was far quicker to walk than wait for a cab, and less likely to draw attention.

I arrived at the main floor entrance to the Times, and Emma Fortescue signed in. I then took the elevator to the third floor, where the newspaper archives were kept. The newspaper ‘morgue,' as it was called, a somewhat morbid name—but oddly appropriate to the case.

As I knew well, the newspaper had begun storing archives of past issues as far back as 1785 on microfilm. More recent issues had yet to be preserved on film, including issues from ten years earlier. These daily issues were stored in catalogue boxes.

Alex Sinclair had provided the date of the murder. I gave it to the clerk along with a request for the crime sheet from that same date and several subsequent issues. It was possible more articles would have appeared as the investigation continued into that previous murder.

The clerk eventually returned and handed me a pair of gloves to protect the pages as I read through the dailies. I went to a nearby desk, pulled on the gloves, and opened the issue from the date after the murder.

In the way that sensational crimes involving well-known or high-placed persons often made the front page as well, I found the complete article that had appeared in the daily about the murder reported on the crime sheet.

THE TIMES

11 January 1880

Members of the Metropolitan Police were summoned to the Clarendon Sports Club in the late evening hours, where the body of a prominent member was discovered in one of the gaming rooms.

The victim has been identified as Stephen Matthews, of St. James's, Westminster, and his death under suspicious circumstances is being investigated as murder.

Officers of the Metropolitan Police who arrived at the location of the victim's death, included Inspectors Angus Brodie and William Morrissey.

Those in the company of the victim throughout the evening were questioned, with reports of a witness to the murder. As the investigation continues, the name of the witness has not been provided to this journalist.

Others questioned at the club that provides a wide variety of sports, gambling, and social companions, include the club manager, as well as several prominent members who were present during the evening.

Stephen Matthews was the son of the Sir Edward Matthews, and heir to Argosy Trading Company.

Chief Inspector Abberline of the Metropolitan Police is in charge of the investigation and has vowed to find those responsible.

T. Burke

That original article provided valuable information including the name of the journalist who wrote the article, T. Burke.

None other than Theodolphus Burke, who had established himself as somewhat of an expert on criminal activities, including the more recent Whitechapel murders.

I had made his acquaintance when he attended my first book signing.

It was obvious from the outset of the event that ‘Teddy,' a name that better suited him, had considered coverage of a book-signing beneath his journalistic talent. Particularly a book written by a woman.

Then there was the comment I'd overheard in his conversation with a customer, that referred to me as the ‘author of fluff and nonsense.'

He had then mistakenly, or perhaps deliberately, referred to me as Emma, the protagonist of my travel novels. I might have excused it as an oversight.

Still, at the end of the afternoon, he dismissed me with a condescending smile, as ‘My dear,' along with the announcement that he was going to write a book one day about his own adventures, turning the conversation around to himself.

At that point I had seriously considered telling him precisely what he could do with his opinion of my book, his pretentious name, and his pathetic journalistic skills.

The only reason I had not was my consideration for the bookstore owner who had exclaimed that it was his best day ever for book sales.

Revenge was sweet with the success of that book and the others that followed. However, Teddy might be able to tell me more about that old murder that was never solved.

The next article I found provided information Burke received from someone within the police—most interesting—who was to ‘remain anonymous,' according to the article. That person had apparently informed him that the witness to the murder had suddenly disappeared.

In that article, Teddy had gone on to speculate the reason, then added that Inspector A. Brodie was being questioned in the matter.

‘It is this journalist's opinion that there is more to this horrible situation that has not yet been discovered. It is well known that there are those within the ranks of the police who have found themselves in questionable circumstances previously, and now possibly once more.'

It had continued:

‘An innocent man has been murdered. The family is now in the depths of grief and despair. One can only hope that the witness will be found and justice will prevail. At this time, Inspector A. Brodie has been removed from the case. Inspector William Morrissey will continue the investigation.'

As I already knew, the ‘witness' was not found, and Brodie had been threatened with formal charges for obstructing the case. Instead he chose to resign when Abberline was unable to make a case against him.

I requested the next several issues of the Times, but found nothing more regarding the case.

I reluctantly added Teddy's name to my notes. If he was able to provide more information from that old case, I was willing to endure the man's condescending arrogance. I also wrote down the name of William Morrissey, the investigator who had continued with the case.

Mr. Conner might know him, and then there was also the possibility that I might be able to speak with the Matthews family.

Questioning a family after a tragedy was always a delicate matter, even ten years later. I knew of some who continued to mourn long after a loss. They might see my questions as an intrusion, or they might simply refuse to meet with me.

And then there was the private men's club where the murder occurred. Even though it had been a decade since the murder, there might still be someone among the staff who remembered something that was heard or seen.

I assumed that everyone who was at the club that night had been questioned. Still, something might have been forgotten at the time, then remembered later, in that way that the memory works.

I returned the past issues of the dailies to the clerk at the desk, then took the lift back to the ground floor.

The journalists who wrote for the Times worked at another location, at the newspaper offices near London Bridge. If I was to speak with Mr. Burke regarding that old murder, I would need to go there.

Two murders, ten years apart. A coincidence?

In the inquiry cases I had assisted Brodie, there were no coincidences, most particularly when it came to murder.

What had the woman who called herself Ellie Sutton seen the night Stephen Matthews was killed? The murderer?

Who would threaten her? And why?

She disappeared and had lived anonymously for almost ten years—why had she returned? And who had killed her?

I refused to believe that Brodie had anything to do with her death. Yet that raised the question, what was he doing at the scene of Ellie Sutton's murder? I pushed back other questions that came with that.

The hound was waiting for me as I left the building and grinned up at me from the sidewalk. I shouldn't have been surprised. He had proven himself to have remarkable tracking skills in the past.

A headache reminded me that I hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. I supposed that food was in order. Rupert needed no persuasion as we found a street vendor nearby who provided sandwiches on long rolls of bread with slices of ham and cheese.

The hound finished his in two bites, then the rest of mine.

According to the information Munro had provided, Ellie Sutton had worked at Brown's Hotel, which was very near Mayfair.

I had passed it often, with that imposing Georgian fa?ade on Albemarle Street that was actually eleven town houses that also included employee rooms. Just a year ago, it had been connected to the St. George's hotel at the back, with a throughway between the two buildings.

I assumed that officers of the MET and perhaps even Abberline himself had already been there after the woman's death. I wasn't certain what I might learn. It was a place to start with my own inquiries.

I waved down a cab and climbed aboard. I didn't wait for the cabman to inform me that he didn't take animals. I simply handed him the full fare with additional for the hound and gave him the name of the hotel.

Many of the finer hotels about London provided rooms for their maids and clerks, so that they were always available when their work day, or night, started. However, Ellie Sutton had lived apart.

Perhaps her position as floor manager was that above a maid or clerk, and had allowed her to afford her own flat. And then, of course, there was the boy Lucy Penworth had spoken of. It was doubtful that children were allowed in the employees' quarters at the hotel.

Another complication was the fact that I was not dressed in the manner the hotel was undoubtedly accustomed to seeing in their guests—visiting dignitaries, and those of society that included visiting royalty.

The clothes I wore were far more practical, since our inquiry cases might take us anywhere about London or beyond. And there was the issue of not wanting to draw attention to myself.

It was obvious that Abberline had sent the constable to have me watched. Perhaps to apprehend Brodie if he had gone to the town house? I wanted to know where Brodie was as well, still I was not about to make finding him any easier for Abberline.

And it did seem that my best hope to learn something about Ellie Sutton would be with the maids and other staff she had worked with.

I had the driver continue around to Dover Street when we reached the hotel, where I hoped to find a service entrance where I might enter the hotel. He pulled up at a carriage park where other cabs and coaches waited for their next fare from the hotel.

I made certain there were no constables patrolling about the park or Dover Street, then stepped down from the cab. I gave the hound instructions to stay at the carriage park, then crossed the street.

Luck was with me. A row of delivery vans sat waiting to be unloaded at the service entrance.

I had found a way inside the hotel and had stepped into the middle of a shift change for hotel staff. Wait staff, maids, clerks emerged from an adjacent hallway and moved past me as another group arrived from the previous shift.

They were a of variety ages, from young maids in uniforms to men in shirts and trousers with the hotel logo, chatting each other up with an occasional mention of sore feet or an aching back.

"There was just meself, and the gentleman wanted me to hoist the trunk into the lift…" followed by an invitation to one of the young women who was dressed in a simple but fine-quality dark blue gown, to join him at the local pub.

"That's two straight shifts for me today," she replied, "what with being short-staffed after what happened to Mrs. Sutton. I'm going straight to bed."

"There was gossip up on the third floor about that…" a maid commented. "Poor thing."

"Mr. Prewitt was in another meeting with the MET today…" another young man commented. "I took tea into ‘em. Heard one of the constables ask about any men who might have come round asking for her..."

"I don't think there were any men," another woman replied. "Kept to herself, she did. And I don't believe for a minute that she was married. There was never a word about a husband."

"She might have been a widow," another commented.

"I heard there was a boy," I commented as I removed my hat and joined the conversation. In for a penny, in for a pound as the saying goes.

"And who might you be?" the young woman who had worked two shifts asked.

"Emma Fortescue," I replied.

"You're the new one," she replied.

I smiled in return.

"You're a day early."

There was obviously a new employee expected.

"I wanted to get settled in before I start," I replied.

"Yer a tall one, ain't you. Mrs. Mayweather will have a bit of work with the uniform. I'm Maisy. Come along then, you'll be sharin' a room with me." She turned and headed down an adjacent hallway.

"You don't snore, do ya?"

Not according to the person who would know that, I thought, as I followed her.

"Where's yer bag?" she asked as we reached the room.

"There's just this," I indicated the carpet bag.

"Well, come on, then," she opened the door. "That poor woman, Mrs. Sutton. And I heard she had a boy?"

"It was in the dailies…" I replied.

"Gossip, and there's plenty o' that around here. Some didn't like her ‘cause she kept to herself. Not one to talk yer head off, but she was kind. She didn't stay here. Had a room some other place," Maisy continued.

"But we got along. She was the floor matron in this building, although I gotta admit, she seemed a bit young. But she had the experience for the job from some other place." She pointed past me.

"That will be your bed over there," she continued, indicating the one against the wall. "And the bottom two drawers in the chest as well. The loo is down the hall. We share it with the rest of the girls."

"I imagine the police were here," I commented.

She nodded. "I heard they were, but not interested in the likes of me or the other girls that worked under her. I heard they met for several hours with the hotel manager."

"How long had she worked here?" I asked, since Maisy seemed to be the talkative sort.

She was thoughtful for a moment. "Must be goin' on two years now. She arrived about the same time I came here."

"Did she say where she was from?"

"Not outright, but London for sure. I could hear it in the way she talked. You can tell them that are from outside London. Not like yerself, of course. You talk real proper."

I set my bag on the bed with the pretense of staying.

"It's sad about the boy," I commented. "Did she speak of him?"

Maisy shook her head. "She was real secretive about him. The only way I knew anything, she was late one morning and upset. Said it was on accounta the boy was sick and she had to leave him alone."

"What about the boy's father?"

She shook her head. "She never talked about no one. I got the feeling he wasn't around. As far as any other men," she shrugged.

"There might have been someone before, but not now. And she was real dodgy lately about someone who came round. She took to having one of the lads at the dock in the alley check before she left of a night, like she thought someone might be there waitin' for her. Maisy frowned. "And I got the feelin' she was afraid."

"Did she say who that man was?"

She shook her head. "Like I said, she kept to herself."

"What about the man? Did she say what he looked like looked like? If he should come back," I added. "The other girls should be warned."

Maisy didn't seem to think anything unusual about my curiosity.

"The way she described him, he weren't no fancy high-class dresser like some of the guests that have too much of the drink and then return to the hotel of an evenin'. But fine enough, more than you and me. She said he wore a plaid jacket, trousers, and boots, like one of those City gents.

"I saw ‘im once, then he disappeared. He wore one of those hats that City gents wear," she added. "Round and funny lookin', if you ask me. And he had a piece of paper tucked in the band, like those who go to the betting parlors."

"A bowler hat?" I suggested.

"That's it, and he smoked cigarettes—lots of them. Them brown ones that have a sharp smell. I saw a half dozen or more crushed out by the fence at the carriage park across the way one night, where the drivers wait to be called round for a guest."

A description that might be found on any street in London, I thought. A man with a bowler hat with a piece of paper tucked in the band.

"Was she able to see his face?"

"She said he had a full beard, and he was the short burly sort. The top of his hat reached just over the top of the fence at the yard."

I went over the description in my head. Stocky of build, a full beard. A man of some means, with a penchant for bowler hats, though not a fancy dresser. He smoked cigarettes, Turkish blend perhaps, by the description.

I thought of that aromatic fragrance that engulfed the office on the Strand when Brodie lit his pipe.

I came back around to the present as she asked, "Where did you work before?"

"Privately," I replied. That seemed the best answer.

Not that I had performed a maid's duties other than picking up the paperwork at the office on the Strand after Brodie had scattered it about, or swept chunks of mud left by his boots, or brought him coffee, or...

How was it that I missed the small things between a man and woman—his clothes scattered about, the touch of his hand on my cheek, the sound of his voice no more than a sleepy mumble early of a morning...'Come here, lass.'

Good heavens, I was beginning to think like some pathetic, dithering female who had lost all sense. I pulled my thoughts back to the matter at hand as Maisy moved about the small room. She had undressed down to her shift and drawers. She hung her uniform on a hook on the wall.

"I get first go at the loo," she said with a cheerful smile. "If ye hurry, ye might get there before the other girls who just came off shift. You have to move right quick before the hot water runs out." Then she was out the door and headed down the hallway.

Maisy had been an enormous help with the information she had provided. I now had a description of a man who had apparently been stalking Ellie Sutton. But I needed more if I was going to be able to help Brodie.

The shift-change over, I slipped out into the empty hallway, then left the hotel. I walked across to the carriage park where the man whose appearance she had described had been seen on more than one occasion.

Someone who had frightened Ellie Sutton. And then murdered her?