Chapter 15

H arry and I made it outside without being spotted by any of the tenement’s occupants. The moment we set foot in the court, however, he peppered me with questions.

“Did West kill Ruth?”

“I think so, but he didn’t act alone.”

“Who helped him? And why?”

Movement in the pile of firewood caught my eye. A rat darted out before disappearing among the broken crates and books. There was one piece of evidence that, if found, would be damning enough for prosecutors to use against Jack West. And I suspected it was hiding in the rat-infested pile.

Harry was growing impatient. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”

“I’ll tell you. But first, you have to fish out all the journals and notebooks you can find in there.”

He looked at the pile. He looked back at me. “You’re not going to help?”

“I would, but I have a mortal fear of vermin.”

“Mortal?”

I gave him a little shove toward the pile. “I will cheer you on from the sidelines.”

“And if I get bitten by something and catch a disease?”

“You’re wearing gloves. Besides, this is your chance to impress me with your bravery.”

He looked at the pile again. Then he sighed. “You modern women are hard to please. I remember when ladies preferred flowers.”

“I doubt you’ve ever bothered with flowers, Harry. A smile and a wink would have most women swooning.”

He tilted his head to the side and regarded me. “Do you want me to do this or not?” He didn’t wait for an answer but strode up to the pile with all the determination of a knight charging into battle. He didn’t ask me what he was looking for. He already knew.

He picked up some books only to discard them again after reading the first page. There were more books poking out from beneath some rags. He took a piece of wood and used it to remove the rags one by one. Something scurried out near his foot only to disappear again.

If it had happened to me, I would have screamed. Harry simply worked faster.

At last, he brandished a soft leather-bound volume.

“My hero,” I said, accepting it from him.

He threw the piece of wood back on the pile. The noise startled an entire family of rats that scurried out before returning to their home. “I deserve a kiss for that.”

“I’m not going anywhere near you, Harry. You’ve been inches from rat-infested rubbish.”

I flipped open the journal, thankful that I also wore gloves. Ruth Price’s name appeared in neat writing on the inside front cover above the address for The Evening Bulletin . She’d written the date at the top of each page and noted times down the side followed by an observation.

I continued to turn the pages. “It’s a timeline of her days and what she saw or heard in relation to her various investigations.” I stopped at the last written page. It was dated the day she arrived in Brighton, which was the same day Beecroft arrived. The following pages had been torn out.

I swore under my breath. “This was supposed to prove West’s guilt.”

Harry looked back at the tenement building. “West would have destroyed any pages with his name on them. Finding this here proves he took it from her. He’s guilty. Well done, Cleo.”

“Thank you.” I held the book out to him. When he didn’t take it, I added, “It was very sweet of you to look through the rubbish for me.”

He accepted the book with an arch look to say he saw through my attempt to charm him into holding on to the filthy journal.

A hard-faced woman with no teeth emerged from the tenement carrying a broom. She shook it at us. “Who’re you and what do you want?”

“Do you know where we can find Jack West?”

“I do not, but if you find ‘im, tell ‘im I want what he owes me for the room.” She shouted a colorful string of names for West, some of which were new to me.

We headed out of the court, and I finally told Harry my theory as we walked to the main road to catch an omnibus. “I think Jack West killed Ruth after she learned he’d been in jail. I think he did it because she learned he and Beecroft were in the same gang. If there’s a tattoo with five dots forming a cross on Beecroft’s forearm, we can prove it.”

“If there is, then Scotland Yard just need witnesses who saw Beecroft and West together on the train from London to Brighton to prove they met.”

Harry was following along without me having to explain that Beecroft must have caught the train to Brighton on which West worked as a conductor. “They may not have spoken on the train or at the station. It may have happened later. The hotel porter said Beecroft was worried someone was watching him. It must have been Jack West, having followed him from Brighton Station. Ruth saw and grew curious, so she investigated and overheard them talking like old acquaintances. Beecroft probably used his Cockney accent. Ruth probably saw West’s tattoo then and there, but only saw Beecroft’s when he went swimming. She knew it meant they were in a gang together, and telephoned Mrs. Scoop from the pharmacy to inform her.”

“Either Beecroft or West realized she was spying on them,” Harry went on. “Beecroft became anxious, since he has far more to lose. He knew his wife, Mrs. Scoop, wouldn’t print anything incriminating about him, but he probably worried Ruth would feed the information to another paper.” Harry lengthened his strides, only to slow them when he realized I couldn’t keep up. “It doesn’t quite explain everything, however. Having this journal in his possession proves West took it from Ruth, probably before pushing her out of the window. He likely strangled her until she lost consciousness beforehand, hence the mark on her neck.”

“But?”

“But why would West kill for Beecroft?”

“Money. Beecroft hired him as some sort of assassin.”

“It’s a risk.”

“Gang members can have a strong code of loyalty. Perhaps West wanted to protect his friend.”

“I agree he wanted to protect someone,” Harry said. “But I’m not convinced it’s Beecroft. It could be Geraldine. Or Mrs. Scoop. Perhaps he knew her well, too. Perhaps she was also in the gang. He might even have been in love with her.”

I shook my head. While I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Scoop loving anyone, that wasn’t the reason I dismissed her as West’s co-conspirator. “I think it’s Beecroft. He doesn’t smoke.”

“Pardon?”

“When I found out Beecroft was in fact Blaine, and married to Mrs. Scoop, I noticed she didn’t smoke around him, even though I could tell she wanted to. There was also no smell of cigarette smoke in their sitting room.”

“Ah. Now I see.” Harry shook his head and huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Jack West smokes. The day we first went to the Laneway Theater, Beecroft ran from the stage to his office when he saw us. When we caught up to him, he made up an excuse about believing us to be debt collectors. He started smoking. Correction. He was holding a cigarette. I don’t recall him actually taking a puff.”

“I don’t think he did either. He wanted us to believe it was his cigarette tin, because it was evidence that Jack West was in that office, waiting for him, and he knew it. He fled when he saw us, told West to hide in his closet because he knew we were on his heels, but West left the tin on the desk, so Beecroft took a cigarette from it to make us believe it was his.”

“West was hiding in there the entire time,” Harry added with a shake of his head.

An omnibus rumbled down the road. Harry took my hand and set off at a run to catch it. Once on board, we took our seats.

I flapped a hand in front of my hot face. “Is this even going in the right direction? I didn’t notice the sign.”

“I did.” Harry smiled. “It goes past the Laneway Theater.”

I smiled, too. “Excellent.”

The staff wouldn’t let us into the theater. It was a little over two hours before the actors were due on stage and they were adamant that we couldn’t enter without a ticket. Neither bribery nor charm worked, and the box office had sold out. There were no seats available for the evening’s production.

Harry tried to convince me it was for the best. “If we go charging in, Beecroft might flee. West certainly would if he was hiding here. We’ll contact Scotland Yard and tell Fanning everything we know. There’s enough evidence to encourage him to reopen the case.”

“You have more faith in Fanning than I do. Besides, it’s late. He has probably gone home for the day. We have to strike tonight. If West is still in the city, he won’t be for long.”

Harry indicated the two men guarding the closed theater doors. “And how do you propose we get inside?”

I sighed. He was right. It was hopeless. We had no choice but to rely on D.S. Fanning.

We found a public silence cabinet at a nearby pharmacy. Harry telephoned Scotland Yard, only to hang up the receiver without speaking to Fanning. “He has left for the day.” He picked up the receiver again and asked the operator to put him through to Ealing. Few homes were equipped with telephones, but Harry’s father, a former detective inspector, had wanted to be contactable at all hours so had one installed. It was very convenient.

I listened as Harry told D.I. Hobart why we wanted to speak to Fanning. After he hung up, he said his father didn’t know where we could find the sergeant. “But some of his former colleagues might,” Harry added. “He’s going to make some inquiries. My mother wants me to join them for dinner, so I’ll go there now and he should have an address for Fanning by the time I arrive.”

It was the best we could do, but felt woefully inadequate given our main suspect could already be beyond reach.

We parted, with Harry heading for a railway station to catch a train to Ealing, and me walking back to the Mayfair Hotel. I couldn’t stop thinking about Harry’s theory that something was amiss. West had no reason to kill Ruth. Beecroft did. Yet we’d found the journal at West’s place. Was Beecroft trying to implicate West? If so, he must have assumed we would find out about West’s past and look there.

I was so distracted by my thoughts that I barely registered that Frank wasn’t manning the door until it closed behind me. His shift must have finished. Goliath’s, too, as he was nowhere in sight. Peter was still on duty, however, as was Mr. Hobart. The manager handed something to a couple I recognized as having arrived the day before from Russia. They thanked Mr. Hobart for finding them tickets to a popular play. The lady even called him a miracle-worker considering the production was due to start soon.

I smiled to myself. Harry and I had overlooked one of our greatest assets.

When the guests departed, I approached Mr. Hobart. “Please, please tell me you can get tickets for tonight’s production at the Laneway Theater.”

“Beecroft’s latest? Of course. How many do you need?”

I could have hugged him. “Two.”

His lips curved into a slow smile. “Is the second ticket for Harry?”

Oh dear. He was making an assumption that everyone who saw Harry and I together at the theater would make. It wasn’t an assumption I wanted made. “Can you get me four tickets?”

Mr. Hobart’s smile slipped a little. “Of course, Miss Fox.”

“Are my cousins in the hotel, do you know?”

“I believe so. Shall I send the tickets up to your suite?”

“Thank you. Oh, and can you also telephone your brother? Harry is heading there now. If you could pass on a message, telling him I’ll leave his ticket at the box office.”

Mr. Hobart performed a shallow bow.

“You’re a marvel,” I said.

I took the stairs to the fourth floor and knocked on Flossy’s door. When she answered, I told her to dress for the theater.

“But I’ve sent my maid away,” she whined.

“I’ll help you dress and you can help me. I’ll return in a few minutes. I have to find Floyd.”

She pulled a face. “Is he coming with us?”

“We need a chaperone, and I don’t think your mother is up to it.”

“Can’t you be my chaperone? You’re old enough and…” She waved off what she was about to say.

“No one is interested in a bluestocking who has been on the shelf as long as I have?”

Flossy bit the inside of her lip and gave a little shrug.

If I wanted to find a husband, I would have been offended. Instead, I laughed. “You need a chaperone because I might not be with you the entire time. Floyd will do nicely.”

“Why?”

“Because he—” I cut myself off before I blurted out that he would keep my secret if I kept his. Flossy would insist on knowing what those secrets were. “Because he’s family,” I said instead.

I found Floyd in his suite with Harmony. She sat at the desk, a ledger open in front of her. Floyd lounged on the sofa, yawning. Harmony looked relieved to see me.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your meeting,” I said.

Floyd sat up, swinging his feet to the floor. “You haven’t.”

“She has,” Harmony corrected him. “But you might be able to help us, Cleo. Mr. Bainbridge is refusing to speak to Mrs. Hessing about the supplier problem, and the wedding is tomorrow!”

Floyd sighed. “The suppliers have all supplied, Harmony. Everything is in place. They won’t back out now. I don’t see the problem.”

“The problem is, they’re furious their prices haven’t been agreed upon by Mrs. Hessing. They know she won’t pay. I know it, too. She’ll leave the country, and we’ll have to foot the bill or see the hotel’s reputation ruined. They won’t work with us again if we don’t.”

“There are always other suppliers who will.”

Harmony looked like she wanted to say more, but I suspected she held herself back. She appealed to me with a flash of her eyes.

It was time to pull out all the stops, and I knew something that might convince Floyd to act. Something Harmony would never dare say to him. “Your father won’t trust you to take on another event again, Floyd. Is that what you want?” For one sickening moment, I thought that might be his plan.

But he flinched as if the notion pained him. He rubbed his jaw. “All right. I’ll pay the suppliers from the hotel’s account first thing in the morning. That will tide them over and ensure they don’t speak ill of the hotel.”

“And then you’ll convince Mrs. Hessing to pay back the hotel?” I prompted.

“I’ll try.” He did not sound confident.

I checked the time on my watch. I needed to get ready. “Floyd, you’re coming to the theater with Flossy and me tonight.”

“Is something good showing, or is it a musical comedy?”

“I’ve heard it’s excellent.”

He pushed himself to his feet. “All right, then. I’ll order something to eat and meet you in the foyer in an hour.”

Harry didn’t slip into the spare seat beside me until after the curtain had risen.

“You made it,” I whispered.

“It was a scramble. Luckily my mother kept some of my old clothes or I would have had to come in what I’ve been wearing all day. They still fit although there’s a small moth hole in the jacket sleeve.” He removed his top hat so the person behind him could see. “I borrowed this from my father.”

Seated on my other side, Floyd cleared his throat.

Harry leaned forward to peer past me and nodded a greeting. Floyd responded in kind. While Harry had helped Floyd escape a difficult situation that started Floyd on the road to cleaning himself up, he still didn’t like Harry overmuch. The employer-employee divide was too wide. Harry had worked at the hotel for so long that Floyd couldn’t take the leap across the divide and accept him as an equal. They probably wouldn’t get along anyway. Floyd oozed privilege from every pore. He was lazy and irresponsible. Harry was his opposite in almost every way.

“I see you brought the cavalry,” Harry whispered to me. “Worried about being alone with me in a dark theater?”

“That is not appropriate talk from a gentleman. And shhh. I want to watch the show.”

Harry settled into his seat and remained silent, but Floyd did not. “You shouldn’t have invited him, Cleo.”

“We’re working,” I whispered.

“I don’t care. It’s sending out a certain signal.”

“To whom? I don’t recognize anyone in the vicinity.”

“Not to anyone in the audience. To Armitage.”

“He knows where I stand on that particular matter.”

“That won’t stop him from trying. We’ll swap seats at interval. I’ll sit between you.”

We didn’t swap seats because I didn’t return to my seat after the interval and neither did Harry. While Flossy and I took care of the necessaries in the lady’s room, I informed her that I was meeting one of the actresses backstage to discuss my investigation, and Harry was helping me. She was tasked with telling Floyd. I suggested she wait until the curtain rose on the second act to give him as little opportunity as possible to protest.

It was remarkably easy to enter the backstage area. The crew were too busy to notice us, and the cast were either on stage or in the wings. The locked door of Beecroft’s office gave Harry no difficulty. He had it unlocked in moments.

Inside, he wordlessly indicated I should stay back. He then opened the door to the closet. It was empty except for costumes. There was no sign of Jack West. There was no sign of cigarettes, either, not even a lingering smell. If West had been there recently, he hadn’t smoked.

We sat and waited. When we heard the audience applause, Harry took his position against the wall near the door, so that when Beecroft entered, he didn’t see Harry until Harry had blocked the exit.

Beecroft was trapped. “What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed.

Before I could answer, Geraldine Lacroix appeared. She was breathing heavily after her exertions on the stage, but smiled, too. Performing made her happy. Her smile disappeared when she saw Beecroft looking so anxious.

Before Harry could send her away, I invited her inside. I had a notion that she might prove useful.

“Is everything all right, Clem?” she asked.

“No, it bloody well isn’t. Go and fetch a couple of toughs to get rid of these two.”

“You’ll want to stay,” I told her. “You’ll want to hear how your lover is an accessory to murder.”

She gasped and clutched her throat. “Clem?”

“I didn’t murder that woman!” Beecroft cried. “She jumped off the train.”

Harry closed the door. “Miss Fox said you’re an accessory.”

Beecroft removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his sweating forehead. He smeared the stage makeup in the process, getting some of it in his hair. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“You were involved,” I said. “We can prove it.”

He snorted, but the flicker of fear in his eyes gave him away. “This is absurd. I want a solicitor.”

“You can have one when you talk to the police. They’ll be here soon.”

“You have nothing on me. Nothing!”

I turned to his lover. “Geraldine, I once told you that his name is really Clement Blaine, not Beecroft.”

She lifted a bare shoulder. She still wore the costume of a rather scantily clad temptress that revealed quite a lot of décolletage. “What of it?”

“Clement didn’t change his name and accent to start a new career. He changed his name because of a criminal past.”

Geraldine’s eyes flared, before she shrugged again. “I know he’s not a saint, but he never hurt me. He’s been a thorough gentleman.”

I finally turned to Beecroft, who was now sweating profusely in the warm office. “You know Jack West. You recognized each other on the London to Brighton express.”

“Who?” Geraldine asked.

“The conductor who threw Ruth Price out of her compartment after rendering her unconscious.”

Geraldine paled as a shiver racked her.

Harry removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders.

Beecroft lifted his chin. With his nose in the air, he sniffed. The confident, aloof pose was put on for our benefit, but the sweating betrayed him. “I don’t know anyone by that name. I don’t recall the conductor.”

I ignored his denials. I’d expected them. My explanation was partly for Geraldine’s benefit, anyway. I suspected she had information that would prove useful. It was also partly to stall until the police arrived. If, in fact, Harry’s father had convinced D.S. Fanning to come.

“Jack West followed you to your hotel in Brighton,” I went on. “Ruth Price happened to be staying there, too. That was most unfortunate for you, because she had a nose for a good story. She recognized you upon your arrival, and noticed you anxiously glancing around. She then spotted Jack West and became curious as to why he followed you, and why you were worried about him.”

“This is absurd,” Beecroft muttered. “You have no way of knowing any of that.”

“That’s because you know Jack West destroyed the evidence in her journal. But I’ll get to that in a moment. Ruth discovered you and West knew each other by listening in to your conversation over the telephone and when you met him.”

Beecroft scoffed. “You have nothing on me.”

“After discovering the truth about your past and your connection to a convicted felon, Ruth telephoned Mrs. Scoop in London to tell her she had an incredible story for her to print. But when Mrs. Scoop heard it involved her husband, she wasn’t interested.”

Geraldine flinched ever so slightly at the mention of her married lover’s wife.

“Mrs. Scoop couldn’t expose your past in her column,” I went on. “She told Ruth to forget what she’d seen and heard, but Ruth knew the story was too big to simply let go.”

“What story? That I came from an East End slum and once knew a convicted felon named Jack West?” Beecroft dabbed his handkerchief across his forehead. “There’s nothing in that, Miss Fox.”

“I agree. It’s not enough. Not for Ruth Price to say she had an incredible story that must be printed, nor for Jack West to murder her on your behalf. That’s why we believe there’s more.”

He laughed, loudly. Too loudly. I must have been on the right path.

“You hid Jack West in here.” I indicated the closet. “He was hiding in here that first day we spoke to you. You pretended to smoke, but it was his cigarette. You don’t smoke.”

Geraldine didn’t correct me, so I assumed I was right.

“Why would I hide him?” Beecroft cried. “I wouldn’t hide someone simply because we knew each other years ago.”

“Perhaps he told you that you owed him,” I went on. “He’d murdered her for you, after all, to stop her selling the story of your shadowy past to another paper.”

Beecroft merely scoffed again, but Geraldine’s attention was now riveted. “What past? Clem, what did you do?”

“He was in the same gang as Jack West.” It was a leap, but not a very large one. Beecroft confirmed it with the slight pinching of his lips, followed by a vehement albeit belated denial.

I was prepared to let him rant, but Harry wasn’t.

“Enough,” he growled. “If you weren’t in West’s gang, roll up your sleeves.”

Beecroft spluttered an excessive refusal. He had a tendency to overact when he was trying to hide something.

Geraldine clutched Harry’s jacket tightly closed at her throat. “Why do you want him to roll up his sleeves?”

“Members of a particular gang have a tattoo on their forearm,” Harry said. “Five dots, arranged in the shape of a cross.”

She gasped, only to slap a hand over her mouth to smother it.

Beecroft gave a quick shake of his head at her. He tried to be subtle, but I saw it. If she saw it, too, she chose to ignore him. Geraldine was no longer his ally. She realized his downfall was imminent and it would be spectacular. She didn’t want to be dragged down with him. “He has the same tattoo on his left arm. My god, Clem. You lied to me. You told me you had nothing to do with her death, and that the police were simply overreacting to her suicide.” She sidled closer to Harry. “He asked me to lie for him and tell you I saw that thug pass my compartment window. I didn’t! I didn’t see anyone.”

“Because you fell asleep,” I said. She’d not even noticed Alistair McAllister leave.

She nodded. “Clem told me people would try to blame either him or me, because we’re famous, and the press would love knocking us off our perch. We couldn’t vouch for each other, because we weren’t in the same compartment, but we could throw suspicion onto someone else.”

“An innocent man,” Harry growled.

She edged away from him, blinking in surprise at his harsh tone. “He looked the most likely,” she muttered.

Beecroft folded his arms, as if he expected Harry to force his sleeves up to expose the tattoo. “You’re making all this up. If the conductor is guilty, it’s nothing to do with me. You can’t prove anything.”

“Perhaps not yet,” I said. “But when West is found, he’ll talk. He won’t want to take the entire blame for you.”

“For me! Ha!” He snapped his jaw shut and turned away.

Had he been about to tell us that West had murdered Ruth for more selfish reasons, perhaps to protect himself, not Beecroft?

That niggling feeling that we were missing something grew stronger.

Someone pounded on the door. “Scotland Yard! Open up!”

Harry opened the door. “It was unlocked,” he told D.S. Fanning.

Fanning threw back his shoulders and marched inside. “Armitage, isn’t it? Hobart’s son? He telephoned me and told me to come here and arrest a suspect.” He glanced between Geraldine and Beecroft. “You’d better tell me what’s going on.”

Fifteen minutes later, the constables D.S. Fanning had brought with him locked Clement Beecroft in their vehicle.

Fanning tucked the journal Harry had given him into his pocket and asked us to join him the following morning at Scotland Yard. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Tell us now,” Harry said.

“My wife will murder me. It’s our anniversary. Besides, it can wait until tomorrow.”

“It has to be early,” I told them. “I have a wedding to attend.”

Speaking of being metaphorically murdered by one’s family, Floyd glared daggers at me while Flossy sat in one of the chairs lining the wall, studying her fingernails. Except for two cleaners sweeping the floor, the foyer was otherwise empty. The show had finished some time ago and the audience had vacated the theater.

Floyd approached us, frowning. “Cobbit is waiting.”

“Don’t be frosty,” I said. “We’re coming.”

Floyd pointed at me. “Just you.” He pointed at Harry. “Not him.”

“Don’t be childish. We’re giving Harry a ride home.”

Harry put his jacket on, having accepted it when Geraldine returned to her dressing room. “It’s a pleasant evening. I’ll walk.”

Floyd continued to scowl all the way to the carriage, where he assisted Flossy then me up the step to the cabin. “You should have told me the reason for coming tonight, Cleo.”

“You wouldn’t have approved. In fact, you probably would have tried to stop me.”

“I’m not my father. If you want to investigate a murder, go ahead. Just be careful.”

“It’s not the investigation you wouldn’t have approved of. It’s Harry’s presence.”

He climbed in after me and closed the door. “He’s not suitable for you.”

I lurched with the forward momentum of the carriage. “Would you rather come with me when I confront a potential murderer? Or shall I do it alone?”

He turned to the window, ending the conversation.

I turned to the other window and released a long breath. My part in the investigation was over. Now that Scotland Yard were involved, they could search for Jack West. First thing tomorrow morning, I’d hear what Fanning had to say. Then I’d enjoy the wedding. It was going to be a marvelous day.