Chapter 14

H arry moved to step between me and Alistair McAllister, but the click of the gun cocking stopped him in his tracks. My heart stopped, too, only to restart with a frenzied pounding.

McAllister bared his teeth. “I said, don’t move.” I knew it was McAllister by the crumpled skin on the left side of his face. His left hand also bore burn scars, but they would have been hidden beneath a glove on the train. His right hand, the one that gripped the gun, was steady, the knuckles white. His gaze was equally steady as it fixed on Harry.

Harry raised his hands. His movements were slow so as not to startle the gunman. Despite his initial reaction to protect me, he was now at ease. The tension had left his body, and his face softened as much as it ever could with those strong cheekbones of his. Even his stance seemed less threatening somehow. I suspected he planned to disarm McAllister by lulling him into a false sense of security.

My nerves were already on edge, but realizing Harry was going to bear the brunt of McAllister’s ire shredded them completely. “Don’t shoot.” My quavering voice made it sound more like a plea than a demand.

It was so weak, I hadn’t even attracted McAllister’s attention. Harry, however, swallowed heavily. He wasn’t used to me being so tentative.

“If this is a hostage situation, then I ask you, as a gentleman, to let Miss Fox go.”

Behind us, McAllister’s colleague murmured an agreement. “Good God, man. What are you doing?”

McAllister continued to glare at Harry. “I didn’t murder that woman. She killed herself.”

“The cause of death is being questioned by several parties,” Harry said. “No one is accusing you of murdering her, however. You’re a potential witness, that’s all. We merely want to ask you the same questions we’ve asked all of the other passengers who were on that train.”

McAllister’s gaze flicked from Harry to me to his colleague then back to Harry. “I know how it seems, with my disguise, but I did not kill anyone. Do you understand?”

“We do,” Harry assured him. “Lower the weapon and let’s have a productive conversation to get to the bottom of a few things. The only way you can truly exonerate yourself is by helping us find the real killer.”

It was that final statement that got through to McAllister. He lowered the gun to his side.

The sound of pent-up breaths being released filled the office. McAllister’s colleague approached him cautiously and put out his hand for the weapon. McAllister placed the gun on his palm, and the colleague headed for the door.

“I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Leave the door open,” Harry said.

The man nodded, then disappeared into the outer office. Harry, McAllister and I remained standing, even though there were enough chairs. I gripped the edge of the desk behind me to steady myself. My legs felt a little weak from relief.

Thankfully, Harry conducted the interview. If I spoke, my voice might tremble, and I’d already shown enough weakness in front of our suspect. “You boarded the express from Brighton to London that day specifically to speak to Ruth Price. Did you wear a disguise so you wouldn’t be recognized?”

Mr. McAllister angled himself so that the smooth right side of his face was presented to me. Thomas Salter had told us the engineer didn’t like to be photographed from his left because he was sensitive about the scar. It seemed that sensitivity extended to in-person meetings, too. “I became a well-known figure locally after the Thousand Mile Trial. I wanted to speak to that woman privately, without anyone speculating about the reason.”

“Can you tell us why?”

“I wanted to find out what she knew about me, and what she was going to do with the information. Even if she’d lived, it was for nothing,” he added bitterly. “The article was printed anyway.”

“Not by her paper. It was printed in The London Tattler , but Ruth Price worked as assistant to a gossip columnist at The Evening Bulletin . Another journalist was investigating you, not Ruth.”

McAllister pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. He rubbed a hand over his scarred cheek and jaw. “When I heard about the article, I presumed she sent her information back to London before boarding so it reached the paper despite her death. Are you telling me there was another journalist spying on me?” He blinked up at Harry. “I didn’t see anyone.”

Thomas Salter truly had learned to blend in. He was probably right in that his distinctive appearance fooled everyone into thinking he was a moronic thug, not a capable journalist.

McAllister lowered his head. “She was telling the truth,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“I confronted her in her compartment. I demanded to know what she knew about me and why she’d been spying on me. She said she hadn’t; that she’d been following someone else.”

Jack West had told us he’d seen the ‘mannish woman’ entering Ruth’s compartment, but Geraldine Lacroix claimed she’d only seen Thomas Salter moving about the carriage. After confronting the conductor about his evidence, we now knew he’d lied and that Salter hadn’t got up, which meant Geraldine had also lied. It seemed she’d lied about the movements of her compartment companion, McAllister, too. She’d claimed he hadn’t left, but he’d just admitted he had. Was she trying to protect him? If so, how were they connected?

“Ruth was following Lord Pridhurst,” Harry said. “You met him in Brighton, and I assume it was he who pointed Ruth out to you.”

McAllister nodded.

“Did you see anyone else moving about the carriage on that journey to London?”

“No.”

“Did Geraldine Lacroix leave the compartment?”

“Who?”

“The woman who shared your compartment. She’s an actress. She works with one of the other passengers, Clement Beecroft, but they didn’t travel together.”

McAllister pointed a finger to his chest. “And you think I’m guilty? That sounds like a guilty act to me, not traveling together when they know each other. But no, she didn’t get up until we arrived at Victoria Station.”

“Are you sure?” Harry pressed. “You didn’t fall asleep at any point?”

“I was awake the entire time.” McAllister stood. “Are you finished?”

“Sit down,” Harry growled. McAllister sat. He was a slender man and not very tall. He knew he was no match for Harry. “We weren’t entirely honest with you. Ruth Price didn’t write that article exposing you as a cheat, but she was being courted by the man who did.”

McAllister’s eyes widened. “So, she was spying on me on his behalf?”

“He was acting alone. As I said, she was there to spy on Pridhurst. What can you tell us about him?”

“He’s an investor in the company. He’s wealthy and well-connected.”

“Why did he meet you while he was holidaying in Brighton with his family?”

“He wanted to check on his investment.” McAllister shrugged. “I showed him around the factory. We discussed expansion plans.”

“Did he know that you’d cheated in the Thousand Mile Trial at that point?”

McAllister shot to his feet. “I did not cheat. I’m going to sue The London Tattler for slander. They’ve ruined my reputation.”

Harry straightened and McAllister took a step back. “If Pridhurst didn’t know about the scandal then, he must have been very upset to learn about it a few days later when he read that article. His investment is now worthless.”

“We’ll survive and he’ll get a good return.” McAllister folded his arms over his chest, tucking away his scarred left hand. “What does any of this have to do with that woman’s death?”

“You confronted her on the train because you thought she was about to expose you. Perhaps you weren’t the only one.”

“You think Pridhurst confronted her, too? I didn’t see him pass my compartment.” He frowned. “I suppose he could have ducked down, or crawled past. Very undignified, but he was desperate for the company to succeed. I got the impression he was relying on a quick return on his investment. When I showed him around the factory that day, he kept asking how soon we could move to bigger premises and increase production. Reading that slanderous rubbish about me in the Tattler must have come as a shock to him as much as it did me.”

Harry had no further questions and thanked him.

I’d found my voice, however, and had one more. “How did Ruth Price seem to you when you confronted her in her compartment?”

“A little on edge,” McAllister said. “She jumped when I entered but looked relieved to see me and not someone else. Relieved then surprised when she realized I was a man.”

So, Ruth was worried. She had an inkling she’d upset someone and expected a confrontation. The question was, who?

“That woman was alive when I left her. You must believe me.” McAllister removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the droplets of sweat on his brow. “Everything is falling to pieces. My reputation is in the gutter. Investors are pulling out. My wife will leave me if she finds out I borrowed her clothes. I can’t have murder pinned on me, too.”

He was a broken man, all because of one poor decision. I hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for him after he threatened us with the gun. He was also still a suspect and had lied and cheated in the race, so there was reason to believe he would lie again to save himself. Even so, I didn’t want to pile more problems on top of the ones he already had.

“Mr. Armitage and I will find the killer, Mr. McAllister. You can be certain justice will be done.”

My words had no effect, and we left him in the office, the picture of misery.

As we ate haddock pies purchased from a cart at the market on our walk back to the station, we tried to untangle truth from lies. Harry and I both came to the same conclusion. Clement Beecroft and Geraldine Lacroix were in the thick of it. Almost every line of inquiry led back to them.

“McAllister admits he left his compartment to speak to Ruth,” I said. “So why didn’t Geraldine Lacroix notice him leave? Why did she lie about seeing Thomas Salter, yet not mention McAllister moving about?”

Harry agreed she was guilty of one lie, at the very least. “It’s time we have another chat to both her and Beecroft.”

The door to Geraldine Lacroix’s dressing room was slightly ajar, and her voice could be clearly heard through the gap. The accent was a cockney one, not cultured as it had been the first time we met her.

Harry and I glanced at one another, then I barged inside. He stayed in the corridor, in case she wasn’t decent. She was fully clothed, however, a dressmaker kneeling beside her, adjusting the hem of her gown. I called Harry in.

Geraldine’s spine stiffened. “How dare you enter without knocking!” Her accent was all plummy vowels and prim indignation. “Get out!”

I ignored her and began the interrogation with a question that I’d wanted to know the answer to ever since meeting her. “What is your real name?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Where are you from?”

She tossed her head. “Fetch someone,” she ordered the dressmaker.

The dressmaker quickly tied the end of her thread and snipped off the excess. “I’ll get Mr. Beecroft.” She slammed the lid on her sewing kit closed and glared at me as she passed.

“He’s not here,” I told her. “We already checked.”

Harry closed the door behind her. “You were born within the sound of the Bow Bells, if I’m not mistaken.”

I’d heard about the cockney dialect only being spoken in the areas of London where residents could hear the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside. Outside of that five-mile radius, the accent was slightly different. As a non-Londoner, I couldn’t detect the nuances. I doubted most people could, and that’s why the word cockney had come to encompass the accent of the entire East End. But a true cockney speaker knew the difference.

Geraldine looked surprised that Harry identified her accent so precisely, but I wasn’t. He had lived in all sorts of areas and knew the slums equally as well as he knew Mayfair.

“I lied about my origins,” she finally admitted. “If that’s against the law now, the police will have to arrest almost everyone on the stage.”

“Including Beecroft,” I added. “We know his name is Clement Blaine and he was brought up in Bethnal Green. We know he’s married. We also know you and he both lied about seeing Thomas Salter moving about the first-class carriage the day Ruth Price died.”

Geraldine pressed a hand to her stomach and drew in a deep breath. She let it out slowly then lifted her gaze to Harry’s. She blinked long lashes at him. “If you can pick a Bethnal Green accent, then you too must have humble origins, Mr. Armitage. You understand why I lied, don’t you?”

“I understand the need to reinvent yourself.” Harry invited her to sit at her dressing table. “But lying to us only makes you look guilty. I don’t think you want anyone to accuse you of murdering Ruth Price.”

Her flirtatious blinks turned to startled ones. “I didn’t do it!”

“Did Ruth know about your past?” I asked.

She looked irritated that I’d resumed the interrogation, instead of Harry. “I don’t know.” She reached for his hand. “I never met that woman, and I certainly didn’t kill her. You must believe me, Mr. Armitage.”

Harry patted her hand before letting go. “Tell us why you claimed you saw Thomas Salter passing your compartment on that fateful trip.” At her blank look, he added, “The man with the flat nose sharing Beecroft’s compartment.”

“Clem told me to say it. He said if we don’t blame someone else, then you’ll blame us because that woman was spying on us in Brighton.”

“Did you see her watching you?”

“I didn’t. I assume Clem did.”

“Why blame Salter specifically?” Harry asked.

“Of all the passengers in that carriage, he looked likely.”

“You blamed him because he looked like a murderer?” I asked, incredulous.

She shrugged a shoulder. “He certainly looked like a ne’er-do-well.”

“Do you not see the irony, Miss Lacroix? Or whatever your name is?” Perhaps my tone was harsh, but I was astounded someone from the slums would judge someone else by the way they looked. Not to mention I was a little tired of her flirting with Harry while being curt with me.

She sniffed and turned back to Harry. “Clem and I have reputations to uphold. He thought the best way to deflect your attention from us was to point the finger at someone else. I think he chose wisely. I’m sorry we lied, and I’m sorry that woman is dead, even though she was assistant to a gossip columnist and probably deserved it. You ought to look at other people she was spying on for her employer. I’m famous enough, and loved enough by my audience, that I could weather my past being exposed, as well as my dalliance with Clem.” With another sniff, she studied her reflection in the mirror. “Perhaps someone else couldn’t.”

“Do you know she worked for Beecroft’s wife?” Harry’s words had her whipping around in her chair to stare at him. “Her professional name is Mrs. Scoop, and she’s the gossip columnist at The Evening Bulletin . Have you noticed she never writes about her husband in her column?”

“He kept that secret well hidden.” She frowned. “There you are then. If what you say is true, Clem didn’t have a reason to kill that woman, because the paper she worked for would never print anything about him, and therefore I have no reason to kill her either.”

“Unless Beecroft discovered she knew something else about him,” Harry pointed out. “Or you did.”

“Now you’re just grasping at straws, Mr. Armitage.” Her flirtatious tone was back, and a smile, too. “I’m sure you can do better.”

Something that had niggled at me since our first outing to Brighton together snapped into sharp focus. “A witness told us that Beecroft arrived at the hotel looking worried. He thought someone had followed him, presumably from the station. As you say, he wouldn’t be worried about Ruth. Do you know who made him anxious? Did he talk to you about it?”

Part of me expected her to snap at me and tell me to mind my own business. But she turned thoughtful. “He was fine when he left London. We caught the same train to Brighton, although we didn’t sit together, and he looked cheerful. But when I saw him again at the hotel, he did seem anxious.”

“Was anyone on that train who was also on it coming home?”

“I don’t think so. No one seemed familiar, but I don’t know if I saw every passenger, on either journey.”

There was someone who might remember. Someone who was on every express train that ran between Brighton and London.

Harry must have had the same idea. He checked his watch and gave me a brief nod. We had thirty minutes to make the arrival of the last express from Brighton.

The conductor who farewelled passengers alighting from the first-class carriage of the express from Brighton wasn’t Jack West. We asked the fellow if Mr. West had the day off, but he shook his head.

“West doesn’t usually work the express. His shifts cover the regular service.”

Harry and I exchanged glances. “But he was on the express a few times recently,” Harry pointed out. “Most notably when Ruth Price died over the Ouse Valley Viaduct.”

The conductor touched the brim of his cap as a passenger arrived. “I was ill, and he filled in for me. Then he asked another time or two because he said he liked the express. I reckon one of those times was when the woman threw herself off. Now he’s back to the regular stopping all stations service.”

Again, Harry and I exchanged glances.

“What can you tell us about him?” I asked the conductor. At his shrug, I added, “How long has he worked for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway company?”

“Not long. About a month.”

“And before that?”

“He worked for another company. I don’t know which one. I reckon it was years ago, though, not recent.”

“Why do you say that?”

The conductor checked his watch then tucked it back into his waistcoat pocket. “He was experienced, but was surprised at how fast the journey is. There’ve been improvements in the tracks and locomotives these last couple of decades, you see. It means we can get to Brighton in just over an hour on the express. Real surprised by that at first, was West.” The conductor touched the brim of his cap again and greeted a couple who climbed on board. “Strange thing is, West denied being out of the railways for years when I pointed out that the improvements weren’t new or limited to the Brighton line. Denied it strongly, I might add. He seemed offended that I doubted him. I suppose he needed the work and didn’t want our superiors to find out he lied about having recent experience. Poor cove must have been desperate if he had to lie.”

Desperate for work? Or desperate to work on the Brighton line? Something wasn’t right about Jack West.

Harry knew it, too. “Do you know where we can find him? Does he live in London or Brighton?”

“London. I don’t know where he lives, but he drinks at The George in Lambeth.”

Lambeth wasn’t far, but we caught an omnibus anyway. The afternoon heat made any kind of exertion uncomfortable work, and it had already been a long day that was likely to feel even longer by the time we finished questioning Jack West. Harry agreed with me that there was something very suspicious about him, but we couldn’t agree whether he was guilty, an accessory to another’s guilt, or merely unlucky.

While I leaned toward guilty, Harry was at the other end of the spectrum. “He doesn’t have a motive for killing Ruth,” he pointed out.

“That we know of, yet.”

“He also covered the express shift because the regular conductor was ill. West couldn’t orchestrate that.”

“Not the first one, that’s true. But he did orchestrate the other shifts, including the one during which Ruth died. I don’t believe in coincidences, Harry.”

The George Inn was the sort of place where generations of local men had gathered after long shifts in neighboring factories. Its black and white Tudor facade was a little crooked, and the wooden bar inside bore scratches that no one had bothered to polish away. Harry had to duck to enter and keep his hat in his hand. Even so, the low ceiling beams were mere inches from the top of his head.

We couldn’t see Jack West. Harry asked the landlord where we could find him, but he wouldn’t answer. He slammed a tankard of ale down in front of a patron, all the while glaring at Harry.

Once the landlord’s back was turned, the patron signaled to Harry that he’d talk in exchange for money. Harry settled some coins on the bar. The patron gave us an address for Jack West. He laughed as he pocketed his earnings.

Harry had been about to walk off, but stopped. “Is something amusing?”

The man chuckled into his tankard. “West cleared off this morning. You won’t find him. He’s long gone.”

If Harry doubted West’s guilt before, he didn’t anymore. We left the inn and headed for the address the man had given us. Perhaps a neighbor could tell us more about him, including where he may have gone. I wasn’t hopeful, however. The residents in places like Lambeth didn’t trust strangers. We had to rely on bribery, but without a client to pay our fee, we were reluctant to spend more.

Harry came up with a solution once he saw that West’s lodgings were located in a quiet court in a building where no one locked their doors, probably because they had nothing worth stealing. “I’ll sneak in. You keep watch outside.”

I didn’t want to wait outside, and I knew just what to say to make Harry change his mind without making it seem like I was refusing to cooperate. “You think it’s safe for me out here?”

He looked around. The houses were old and tired, with peeling paint and broken windows. A rat darted out from beneath a pile of broken crates, splintered pieces of wood, and books that must be there for the residents to use to fuel their stoves. My stomach tied into a small knot at the sight of the books, some with their spines bent, and others missing their covers altogether. While the court was currently empty, if a resident returned and saw me unaccompanied, they might think me fair game. I wore a nice day dress that marked me as someone worth robbing.

“We’ll go in together,” Harry conceded.

He pushed open the door while I looked up at the windows of the buildings surrounding us on three sides. Nobody watched on.

We slipped inside. Women’s voices came from the depths of the building. A baby cried and another took up the same tune in response. The noise covered the sound of the creaking steps as we climbed the stairs.

If the patron in The George was telling the truth, West had rented the first room off the landing on the second floor. The door was unlocked. Harry checked inside before ushering me through.

The man at the pub hadn’t lied about Jack West leaving. The room was empty, except for a stained mattress on a rickety bed, a dirty washbasin on a stand, and a dented kettle sitting on a portable gas stove. The acrid smell of smoke filled the small room, and perhaps explained why the wall near the bed was stained brown. A chipped bowl on the windowsill overflowed with cigarette butts. It was the only evidence that someone had lived there until recently.

Or so I thought.

Harry spotted something on the floor under the bed. He reached under and drew out a photograph. It must have fallen out of a pocket and been left behind. The photograph was taken at the beach, and all six men in it wore trousers and shirts with their sleeves and trouser legs rolled up. Their feet were bare, as if they’d just dipped their toes into the water. All the men, aged in their early twenties, scowled at the photographer.

Harry pointed to the man standing in the middle. “West.”

Closer inspection proved him right. It was Jack West, without his beard. The photograph must have been taken years ago. I didn’t recognize any of the other men, but something struck me about their forearms.

“They all have the same markings on their skin,” I said, pointing to West’s forearm. “Is it a rash? Scars?”

“A tattoo. Five dots arranged in a cross, one dot for each point and one in the center.”

“You seem quite familiar with it. You’ve seen it before?”

“I have,” he said, sounding ominous. “There was an infamous criminal gang from the East End where every member got a tattoo like this on their forearm. I was young then, but I knew to steer clear of them.”

“What happened to them?”

“I think they disbanded. Some members probably died, others went to prison. That’s most likely what happened to West. The conductor told us he suspected West hadn’t worked on the railways for years. What if the reason for that was because he’d been in jail?”

“And just came out,” I murmured.

Harry tucked the photograph into his pocket. “I don’t see how this relates to the murder of Ruth. Even if she somehow learned about his past, she wouldn’t care. It’s hardly newsworthy. Neither she nor Mrs. Scoop would bother writing about the criminal past of a railway employee.”

I looked past him to the windowsill and the bowl filled with the used ends of cigarettes. “You’re right. Ruth wouldn’t care. But she would be interested in his associate who did have a reputation to lose.”

“You know who it is, don’t you?”

“Not for certain, but I have a strong inkling. Come on. It’s getting late and we still have a lot of work to do.”