Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

We told him everything, starting with the telegram and Flossie’s reaction to it, and ending with the discovery of the body and Crispin going off to fetch the police. Along the way, Tom asked questions about anything that wasn’t clear, and by the time we got to the end of the recitation, he nodded. “Excellent, thank you.”

“Our turn,” I said. “Did the Schlomskys say anything last night?”

Tom’s lips twitched. “They said quite a few things.”

I huffed. “You know what I mean. Anything interesting?”

“They suspect you of being involved,” Tom said. “Or Mr. Hiram Schlomsky does. Mrs. Sarah Schlomsky seemed to believe your story about following the kidnappers to the house in Southwark.”

“Why wouldn’t Hiram believe us? It was the truth!”

“You have to admit it looked suspicious, Pippa,” the voice of reason—aka Christopher—said. “If he saw us—or saw you two, rather—on the church tower when he dropped off the ransom, it’s no wonder he thought you were involved.”

“Not to mention that when he walked into the shack in Southwark,” Crispin added, “and saw his daughter’s body, I was holding a tire iron and Kit an oversized torch.”

Ugh . Yes, when he put it like that, I suppose we did look somewhat suspicious.

“I had to promise him to test the tire iron for evidence,” Tom told us. “I’m going to have to take it with me, St George.”

Crispin waved a hand. “By all means. There’s nothing on it but my fingerprints and a bit of dirt and grease.”

Tom nodded. “I’m not concerned. While a tire iron is likely pretty close to the murder weapon, I don’t think either of you was wielding it.”

Good to know.

“Although while we’re on the subject,” Tom added, “I should also let you know that I stopped by Sutherland House this morning and spoke to Rogers. He assured me that there had been no young ladies in the house in the past week.”

He glanced at Crispin. The latter smirked. “No, I’ve been a good boy lately. Although what my usual habits have to do with any of this…”

“He’s talking about Flossie,” I said, “you prat. And where she was kept during the time she was gone.”

Tom nodded. “We also rang up Sutherland Hall, and Tidwell said the same thing. I hope he won’t feel the need to tell your father about the inquiry, St George, but I thought I ought to let you know, in case His Grace brings it up.”

“Much obliged,” Crispin told him, but didn’t sound like he was grateful. It’s hard to, when you’re speaking through gritted teeth. “Was that really necessary?”

“I’m afraid it was. Mr. Hiram Schlomsky was adamant that you be investigated thoroughly. Not only because you were holding a tire iron and standing over his daughter’s dead body when he first saw you, but because you were also the last person to see her alive.”

I watched the pretty pink color drain out of Crispin’s cheeks, and he swallowed. “Surely not the last. The body was still warm when we found it. She couldn’t have been dead more than an hour. I last saw her on Wednesday.”

“She was alive somewhere between then and last night,” I agreed. “And St George was with me on top of the church tower from about ten o’clock on. He couldn’t have killed her.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Hiram Schlomsky wouldn’t take your word for it, Philippa,” Tom said, “nor would I, to be honest. I know you’d lie for him if you felt it necessary.”

I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous, Tom. We were together. Hiram Schlomsky saw us himself.”

“He saw you,” Tom corrected, “and a young man with fair hair in evening kit. I have only your word for it that it was Lord St George.”

“Mine and Christopher’s. And Crispin’s himself. Besides, who else do you suppose was with me? The Graf von Natterdorff?”

Crispin huffed. Christopher grinned.

“I’m familiar with Lord St George’s feelings about his motorcar,” Tom said, with a glance at Crispin, “so I can’t help but be surprised that he allowed anyone else to drive it.”

“It was between staying in the motorcar by himself, or going in the tower with Pippa,” Christopher said, “and I’m sure I don’t have to explain why?—”

“Kit.” The warning was clear in Crispin’s voice.

“Never mind that,” I said irritably. “Nobody cares, St George. It was Crispin and myself in the church tower, Tom. Christopher was in the Hispano-Suiza. He was as shocked as you are that Crispin was willing to let him take the motorcar, and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass him by.”

Crispin rolled his eyes, and it was Christopher’s turn to smirk. I continued, “We stood on the tower and watched the kidnappers drive by, and then watched Hiram drive by, and then watched Hiram come back, and then watched the kidnappers come back, and finally we watched the kidnappers leave, with the ransom and with Christopher in hot pursuit. It took a half hour or so before he came back. For all that time, Crispin was with me at St Olave’s. He was in no position to kill anyone. Except me, at any rate, and as you can see, I’m alive and well.”

“And if you try to insinuate that Kit bludgeoned that unfortunate girl to death—” Crispin began, and Tom shook his head.

“Of course not. Kit wouldn’t.”

“But I would, is that it?”

“No,” Tom said. “I don’t think you would, either. But Hiram Schlomsky suspects you, and told me as much, and for everyone’s sake, I have to investigate thoroughly, because that is my job.”

“Well, he has an alibi,” I said. “Unless I’m suspect, too, and you don’t trust my word?”

“Of course you’re suspect, Darling,” Crispin said irritably. “Didn’t you hear the man? You’d lie for me. Which simply isn’t true, by the way, Gardiner. Philippa wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire.”

“Of course I would,” I shot back, equally irritably, because really, why say something so stupid? “I’ll spit on you right now if you’d like. You wouldn’t even have to be on fire?—”

“Enough!” Tom’s voice cut through the squabbling like a knife through butter, and we both—all three, since Christopher was sniggering—shut up. “I’ll be taking the tire iron, St George. And the torch.”

“Just as long as you don’t take the whole motorcar,” Crispin said. “I need a way to get home. And I would like them back when you determine that there’s no evidence on them.”

Tom nodded. “In exchange, I would like official, signed statements from all three of you as to what happened last night. You can come by the Yard later today and do it. But before you do that, let’s go back to last evening. You saw Mr. Hiram Schlomsky deliver the ransom?”

“We saw him go into the church with a valise,” I nodded. “And come back out without it.”

“And it was the same valise you’d seen in the hotel room?”

Christopher and I exchanged a look. “I assume so,” I said.

Christopher nodded. “No reason to think it wasn’t. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Did you look inside it?”

We all shook our heads—when would we have had the opportunity?—and Tom continued. “Did you get the impression that he hadn’t been able to come up with the money? It’s a large sum, and not a lot of time to get it together.”

“He intimated that he hadn’t,” I said. “Remember, Christopher? When we were in their hotel room, and we asked about it, he said, ‘or as much as I could.’”

Tom arched his brows. “Kit?”

Christopher nodded. “He did say that.”

“Do you think the kidnappers opened the valise and found it short,” I asked, “and that’s why they killed Florence?”

Tom opened his mouth, but before he could say anything— “It makes sense,” Crispin said wretchedly. “Nobody does what was done to her without a whole lot of anger. Being stiffed the ransom might do it.”

Tom nodded. “When I have a chance, I’ll track down the bank and the money transfer and check the amount for myself. In the meantime, we’ll count it as a likely motive.”

He pushed to his feet. “And now I’d better get back to Southwark. With no electricity in the house, there wasn’t much we could do last night. Now we’ll start processing the crime scene and the body, and see what we can find.”

“How will you identify her?” I wanted to know, and winced when I heard the words that came out of my mouth. Nonetheless, I carried on. “With her face… like it is?”

Tom arched his brows. “Is there any reason to think she isn’t who we think she is?”

Of course there wasn’t. Not really. But… “We didn’t get a good look in the dark last night. I mostly saw the pink dress and assumed it was Flossie, since we expected it to be Flossie. And her mother hasn’t seen her in almost a year, and didn’t get a good look, either. I just thought…”

Tom sighed. “Do you just want an excuse to see the crime scene again? Or do you truly think there’s something else going on?”

“It’s not likely that something else is going on,” I admitted. “The theory about the ransom being less than the demand makes sense. I just thought it was…” I swallowed, “interesting that someone would take the trouble to obliterate her face like that.”

“And I won’t say that you’re wrong,” Tom agreed. “It’s just as well to make certain, I suppose.” He glanced at the clock ticking away on the mantel. “The body should be in the city morgue in three hours. Go there and look at it. I won’t have you interfering with my crime scene any more than you already have done.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Tom.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” His voice was grim. “I didn’t get a good look either, in the dark last night, but what I saw wasn’t pretty.”

No, it hadn’t been. And there was no part of me that wanted to see it again. But at the same time, the whole thing was niggling at me, and if going to view the body one more time would dispel that feeling of something being wrong—something other than the obvious—I was willing to put myself through it.

“I’ll see you out,” Christopher said and got to his feet. Tom nodded and did the same.

“Don’t forget to come by Scotland Yard and sign your statements.”

He nodded to the both of us before following Christopher towards the door.

“Am I free to go home after that, Gardiner?” Crispin called after him, and Tom turned to look at him, brows raised. “Before my father has an apoplexy and comes looking for me?”

“As long as you make yourself available for the inquest, should you be needed.”

Crispin nodded. “Of course. Anything for Scotland Yard.”

Tom huffed a breath and continued into the foyer. I shook my head at Crispin. “Are you simply constitutionally incapable of not being a prat, St George?”

He grinned. “I must be. Although I’ll accompany you to the morgue before I go. Wouldn’t want you to have to go through that without my bolstering presence.”

I scoffed, and he added, more seriously, “In some ways, I’ve been closer to Flossie than you have. It won’t hurt me to take another look, either.”

It probably would, actually, him having been closer to Flossie than me. It wouldn’t be pleasant for him to see her like that. But if he was willing, I wasn’t going to turn down the support, nor the extra set of eyes.

“I would appreciate it,” I said.

“Anything for you,” Crispin answered.

And so it was that three hours later, we presented ourselves at the city morgue in Golden Lane. By then, we had taken the time to put ourselves together properly, as well as have a hearty breakfast, which we needed after our late night, but which I regretted as soon as I walked into the mortuary. The sickly sweet smell of death and decomposition mingled with the vinegary burnt-match scent of formaldehyde, and my stomach did a quick flip-flop and threatened to turn itself inside out.

“Steady on,” Christopher said, looking worried. I must have turned the color of old porridge, I suppose. Or a day old corpse, which seemed more appropriate for the occasion.

Crispin, meanwhile, put a steadying hand on my back. “There, there, old bean. Stiff upper lip.”

“That’s easy for you to say—” I began, and then I remembered who I was talking to. This couldn’t be easy for him, either. “Sorry, St George.”

“Never mind, Darling.” But he didn’t drop his hand from my lower back. “Let’s just get it over with, shall we?”

We got it over with, and I have to say that it was one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. One look at the corpse’s head, and it was obvious that nobody would be able to identify her that way. It looked as if all the bones in her face had been broken, and there was nothing whatsoever there that anyone could recognize. Even her hair—that of it which wasn’t sodden with blood—looked limper and more drained of color than usual. Florence had always had shiny, bouncy curls, and it was sad to see them lay limp and dirty.

The coroner’s assistant, the one who had drawn the short straw and had to work on Sunday, mercifully covered the head as soon as we’d had a chance to look at it and shake our heads. But then there was the rest of the body to identify, of course. There was a strip of linen covering Florence’s breasts, much as a brassiere would, and another strip covering her hips, but other than that, she was naked.

The violence had been almost entirely confined to her head. There were bruises around her wrists, where she had either been bound or someone had grabbed her, and also a few scratches on her legs and upper arms, but nothing apart from that.

I did my best, but it was almost impossible to reconcile the Flossie I had known, upright and vivacious, with the dead and mutilated husk of a woman on the table before me. I shook my head. “It looks like Flossie, but at the same time it doesn’t.”

Christopher nodded.

“I’ve never seen her nude,” Crispin said, gaze distant as he looked at the body. “Her face, yes. I could have identified that…”

“Yes, me too. But you never got her out of her clothes?”

The assistant looked a bit shocked as his eyes flicked from Crispin to me and back, probably taken aback at my modern attitudes.

“No,” Crispin said. “A snuggle or two in the lift, and in the front seat of my motorcar when I dropped her off places, but that was all. I’ve seen her all of four times, I think. Maybe five.”

“I’ve seen her a lot more than that,” Christopher said, “but never without her clothes.”

He glanced at me. “I agree with Pippa. It looks like Flossie, but then again, it doesn’t.”

I nodded. Crispin tilted his head and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the bell outside in reception rang. The mortuary assistant looked at the door, and at us, and at the body, and back at the door.

“Go ahead,” I told him graciously. “We won’t touch anything.”

Indeed, there was no part of me that wanted to touch any part of Flossie at all.

His eyes did the circuit again, from me to Crispin to Christopher to Flossie, and then back to the door as the bell rang again. After another moment’s thought, he seemed to reach a conclusion and told us he’d be right back. He left the door open when he left, and that was how I heard the Schlomskys arrive.

Hiram’s voice was a lot subdued from his usual American boisterousness when he informed the assistant that he was here to see Miss Florence Schlomsky. There was a pause, during which I assumed the morgue assistant debated as to whether he should ask them to wait, and then ask us to leave, or whether it would be a good idea or not to put all five of us in the same room with Florence’s dead body at the same time.

Sarah must have read it as indecision, because she said, “Listen, my good man. That’s my daughter you’ve got back there, and I want to see her.”

She sounded strident, but she also sounded stuffy-nosed, as if she had been crying all night. And that was probably what did it. The next second, there were multiple footsteps coming down the hallway towards us.

“Damnation!” Crispin’s eyes flicked over the room from side to side, searching for a way out that wasn’t the door into the hallway. Barring that, I’m sure he would have been happy to spot a hiding place. When he saw neither, he squared his shoulders and faced the doorway like a little soldier.

Christopher and I exchanged a glance, and stepped towards him: one on each side, slightly in front.

Sarah Schlomsky came through the door first, and rocked back on her heels when she saw us.

Or perhaps when she saw the body. Or a combination of both.

At any rate, Hiram came through the door next, and ran into her. The morgue assistant had the sense to stay outside in the hallway instead of getting involved.

“You!” Hiram snarled. He was staring at Crispin, but then his eyes flicked to Christopher and back, as if he wasn’t entirely certain which of them he was upset with.

“We’ll go,” I said, sidling towards the door on a trajectory that ought to take us past them without actually requiring anyone on either side to step out of their way. Behind me, Christopher nudged Crispin into motion as he brought up the rear.

“Not so fast,” Hiram said, lowering his brows. “What are you doing here?”

He hadn’t moved out of the doorway yet, and perforce, we had to stop.

“Attempting to identify the body,” I told him, which might have been a bit cold-blooded on my part, but it had the benefit of being the truth. “Detective Sergeant Gardiner asked us to stop by.”

Hiram looked from me to his daughter’s body and back. And flushed. “This is outrageous.”

The morgue assistant looked guilty, but didn’t move to cover Flossie’s body any more than it already was.

“There isn’t enough left of her face to identify,” I explained, even as I fought back a shudder. “We have to look at the rest.”

“And do either of you know what my daughter’s body looks like?” Sarah pinned both Christopher and Crispin with a fulminating stare. They both shook their heads, Christopher looking very chastised indeed, and a bit nauseated, while Crispin’s face bore a preternatural solemnity that indicated that he, at least, had seen plenty of women’s bodies in his life, but wasn’t about to admit it right now.

“We’ve seen her bare arms and legs before,” I pointed out. “Although I will say I never noticed the scar.”

“Scar?”

I pointed. It was on Flossie’s lower arm, at least three inches long, and it was recent enough that both the injury itself, and the stitches that had held it together afterwards, were clearly visible, like a white millipede traveling up Flossie’s arm from her wrist to her elbow.

Sarah pulled the tip of a finger down it, tears gathering in her eyes. “She got this in the kidnapping attempt at Vassar a year and a half ago. This is my daughter.”

She turned to the morgue assistant and repeated it. “This is my daughter.”

He nodded. “Thank you, madam. And may I express my condolences on behalf of the City of London. We are sorry for your loss.”

Sarah inclined her head. “Thank you.”

There didn’t seem to be much we could say after that, and we were intruding on a private moment anyway—the farewell between Florence and her parents—so I tugged on Christopher’s sleeve and nodded to the door. He snagged Crispin and then all three of us sidled sideways. The mortuary assistant saw us go, and gave us a brief nod in acknowledgement, but neither of the Schlomskys reacted.

It wasn’t until we were practically out of sight, that Sarah Schlomsky’s voice reached us. “Miss Darling?”

I stuck my head back into the room. “Yes, Mrs. Schlomsky?”

“We’re only here in England for a few more days. We could postpone our departure, but…” She swallowed, “London is no longer a place we want to linger.”

No, that was perfectly understandable.

“We’ll stay until we can make arrangements to take our daughter home with us—” She glanced at the morgue assistant, who nodded, “but I could use some help packing up Florence’s belongings. Since you were friends…”

She trailed off suggestively.

“Of course,” I said, since it was the right thing to do, and furthermore, it was the only thing I could do. It wasn’t as if I could refuse. “I would be happy to help.”

“Thank you.” At least she sounded grateful. “I’ll call on you sometime this afternoon, if that suits.”

“Please do,” I said politely.

So that was that. Sarah turned back to her daughter’s body, and we turned into the corridor and out of the mortuary into Golden Lane.

We walked in silence for the first minute or two, just enjoying the summer heat and sunshine after the cloying coldness of the morgue. And when we reached the Hispano-Suiza, parked in the lot beside the mortuary, we stopped for a cigarette and to enjoy the sunshine a bit longer before getting in.

“Was it me,” Crispin asked, offering his cigarette case around, “or did something about that not feel right?”

I plucked a fag out of it and nodded. “The fact that Flossie is dead, and we can’t even look at her face and recognize it? Yes, St George, I would say that something about that felt very much not right.”

He rolled his eyes and turned to Christopher, who took a cigarette with a nod of thanks. “That’s not what I meant, Darling, and you know it.” Crispin dropped the case back into his pocket and pulled out a lighter.

“What did you mean, then?” I leaned forward so he could light up for me.

“Well…” He hesitated, with the flame two inches from my nose. “The scar, for one thing.”

“The one on her arm?” I pointed to the cigarette.

He finally did as he was supposed to with the lighter, and nodded. “I didn’t recognize it. And I swear I must have seen Flossie’s arm before.”

“She does wear opera gloves most of the time,” I said, thinking back, “with her evening frocks. Although not always, and not with everything. And I’ll admit I never noticed it either.”

I blew out a cloud of smoke, and felt my nerves settle.

Christopher shook his head in agreement. “Thanks, Crispin. No, it’s not the sort of thing you overlook.”

No, it wasn’t. Any more than you could overlook the Mensur scar on Wolfgang’s face.

Crispin dropped the lighter back into his pocket, and we stood in silence a moment and let the nicotine do its job.

“Perhaps she tried to cover it,” I suggested. “With sleeves and gloves if she could, and with makeup if she couldn’t. Maybe that’s why we never noticed.”

Christopher nodded and Crispin shrugged, even as they both looked dissatisfied.

“I know it has been a few days since I saw her,” Crispin said after another moment, “and she has perhaps not been fed a lot in the interim, and the opium may have taken a toll, even in just a few days of smoking it…”

I nodded for him to go on.

“—but did she seem a bit… diminished to you?”

“Smaller, do you mean?”

“Ye-e-e-es,” Crispin said, dragging it out doubtfully. “Just… less, do you know?”

“Less alive, certainly.” I took a drag of my cigarette and blew it out before I continued. “And you’re right: they probably didn’t feed her a lot, just kept her supplied with enough opium that she wouldn’t care. So I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d reduced a bit.”

Crispin nodded. “And her hair… did it seem a bit— well, dull?”

“I didn’t get the impression that they gave her a bath before they gave her back,” I said dryly. “Five days of opium smoke probably didn’t help, either. She was dirty. So was her hair. It’s possible that that’s why it looked limp and duller than usual.”

Although I had noticed the same thing, so I couldn’t say that he was wrong.

“What are you suggesting?” Christopher wanted to know, looking from one to the other of us. “That it wasn’t Flossie?”

“Of course it was Flossie,” I said. “Her mother identified her.”

“From a scar neither of us have seen before.”

There was a beat. Then?—

“Why would her mother lie?” And if the dead girl wasn’t Flossie, who was she?

“Insurance reasons?” Crispin suggested. “Perhaps there’s some sort of payout on the ransom?”

“Perhaps. So how would that work? Hiram comes to London and kidnaps his own daughter?” Having gotten the idea from the attempted kidnapping a year and a half ago in New York, perhaps?

“Perhaps,” Crispin agreed. “Then he sends a ransom demand to himself. He puts the money in the valise and drops off the valise, but he also gets the driver to pick up the valise again, and then he puts in a claim with his insurance company.”

“But he’s already a millionaire,” Christopher pointed out. “Is he really going to break the law and put his own daughter in danger for a measly fifty thousand dollars?”

“In this scenario, his daughter wasn’t in danger. She was in on it.”

“And the dead girl is…?”

“Some random waif they picked up off the street?” Crispin suggested. “Someone with a surface resemblance to Florence who would be happy to spend a few days in a Southwark flop with as much free dope as she could smoke or sniff or otherwise use?”

“Or perhaps it’s Ruth,” I said. “The missing maid. She has to be somewhere, after all, and if Flossie’s in on it, maybe they decided to murder the maid. Maybe the whole thing was a setup from the start.”

There was a pause.

“Or maybe we’re all mental,” Christopher said, “and it’s Flossie who is dead, and her mother knows her better than we do, and we simply never noticed the scar, because she took pains that we wouldn’t.”

Well, yes. That was possible, too.

Crispin tossed what was left of his cigarette to the ground and put his shoe on it. “If the excitement is over, I think I’d better head back to Wiltshire before my father sends out a search party. Or worse, drives up to Town himself.”

“Has he done anything to replace Wilkins?” Without a chauffeur, I didn’t think we had to worry, since His Grace wasn’t about to motor his own car to London.

Crispin grimaced. “One of the grooms obliges when Father wants to go somewhere.”

“I’ll take a lift home,” I said, “after we stop by Scotland Yard and sign our statements. I want to be there when Mrs. Schlomsky arrives.”

Crispin nodded. “I know you’d never pass up an opportunity to sneak and pry, Darling.”

“Naturally not. As if you wouldn’t do the same, St George. I haven’t forgotten the secret passage, you know.” And all the secrets he had learned, eavesdropping on his grandfather’s conversations with everyone else back in April.

“But of course.” Crispin opened the car door. “In you go, Darling.”

I went, and a moment later, so did all of us, in the direction of Whitehall and Scotland Yard.