Death by the Book (13 page)

“Perhaps we ought to read through some of the plays again,” Nick suggested. “Might jar the old memory, eh?”

“Maybe so.” Drew considered for a moment. “What about Clarice? She hadn’t any profession at all.”

“Unless it was a terribly old one.” Nick raised his eyebrows, and Drew laughed grimly.

“Perhaps she wasn’t the most circumspect of ladies, Nick, old man, but I should hardly put her in that category. Though our murderer’s standards may have been rather more strict.” Drew sighed and squeezed Madeline’s hand. “It’s rather like your auntie’s lacework after Mr. Chambers has gotten hold of it. Lots of tangled threads and no pattern.”

Drew was just tucking into a nice plate of eggs, bacon, and mushrooms the next morning when Nick strode onto the terrace.

“Morning, old man.” Drew pulled out a chair next to himself. “You’re about rather early, aren’t you? I mean, for you, you know.”

“Have you seen this?”

Nick slapped the early edition of the newspaper down on the table, and Drew picked it up. He didn’t have to ask which article Nick meant him to see. Margaret Allen looked out at him from under a headline that blared
SOLICITOR’S MISTRESS
DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN HATPIN MURDERS
.

“Blast that Phipps. He told me he hadn’t mentioned her to
anyone.” Drew slung the paper into the empty chair. “I ought to go up to the Empire this minute and give him the thrashing of his life.”

“Phipps the lift boy?”

“Well, who else could it have been? The police? I couldn’t see Birdsong standing for such a breach of protocol. The girl wouldn’t have said anything herself, would she?”

“Maybe she wanted the notoriety.” Nick put the paper on the table and sat down. “Some do, you know.”

Drew considered for a moment. “That’s what Mrs. Montford said when I asked why the girl would claim an affair when there was none. She said maybe she wanted to be in the newspapers.”

“You don’t suppose Mrs. Montford was the one who talked, do you?”

“No. Couldn’t be. There hadn’t been anything more than the usual suspicion of this sort of thing in the news until now. It’s got to be a terrible embarrassment to her. No doubt young Daniel is in a fine state about it, too.”

Nick sighed. “Then we’re back to Margaret Allen.”

“No, look at her.” Drew pushed the newspaper back across the table toward Nick. The girl was looking back over her shoulder, her dark eyes wide and frightened, as she tried to escape having her photograph taken. “She’s terrified. It had to have been Phipps. He was paid off or some oily reporter weaseled it out of him. Either way, I’ll find out.”

Denny appeared at the door.

“Pardon the interruption, sir, but there is a young lady to see you—Miss Allen. I told her I would inquire whether or not you were at home.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Send her in. See if she’ll have some breakfast.”
Drew turned to Nick. “The poor kid, we’ll have to try to do something for her, though I don’t know what at this point.”

“She has had it rough, I daresay. Shall I stand by or would you like me to go speak rather sharply to Phipps at the Empire?”

“No, stay here. It may take the both of us to cheer her up.”

“Miss Allen, sir.”

Denny showed the girl in. Her face was blotched and tear-streaked.

Drew stood up. “Miss Allen, how lovely of you to come. May I introduce my friend, Nick Dennison?”

Nick nodded, standing. “Good morning. Will you have something? Eggs? Sausage? We have some lovely marmalade.”

She shook her head, looking like a fawn backed into the brambles by a pack of hounds. “I couldn’t. Not right now.”

“At least some tea,” Drew insisted.

She agreed to that, and Nick was quick to pour out.

“Milk? Lemon?”

“No. Nothing, thank you.”

He handed her the steaming cup, and she took a sip. It seemed to help.

“I’m sorry to come here like this, Mr. Farthering, but you said I might call on you if I needed to.”

“Certainly.” Drew gave her an understanding smile. “How can I be of help?”

The newspaper with her photograph was lying there on the table. She did no more than glance at it.

“Obviously, you know why I’ve come.”

“Yes.” Drew pulled out a chair for her. “Won’t you sit down for a moment? I promise you, things will look better after you’ve finished that tea. And our Mrs. Devon makes strawberry jam that can mend nearly anything, broken hearts included.”

She sat heavily, closing her eyes and trembling so much that he thought she would drop her cup. He sat down beside her and pushed the rack of toast and the jam pot within her reach.

“Just take your time, Miss Allen. I’m sure this must be difficult for you.”

“I’m ruined. I knew already that I was foolish, but now I’m ruined.”

“Surely it’s not as bad as all that, is it? I know a scandal is never easy, but they do blow over in time.”

“Mrs. Hirsch dismissed me after she saw that headline.” The girl gave Drew a trying-to-be-brave smile. “It’s hard enough to find a decent position these days and harder to keep one. I’ll never find another respectable place.”

“Perhaps there’s something I can find for you at my company.”

“No. I don’t want that. There or anywhere, I don’t want people staring at me. Talking about me. I couldn’t go anywhere in the whole country now and not be known.”

“I’m sorry your name came into it.” Drew filled the girl’s cup again. “I believe I know who might have leaked it to the newspapers, and I mean to have a word with the guilty party.”

“You know Mamie?”

“Mamie?”

Miss Allen nodded. “Mamie Blankensop. She has the flat next to mine and we’ve been rather good friends for a while now. She came over yesterday to borrow my rhinestone brooch when she was going out. I couldn’t help it, I told her everything. I had to talk to someone or I knew I’d absolutely die.”

“Quite understandable,” Drew murmured.

“She knew I was seeing someone already, just not who it was. Anyway, she came back first thing this morning, crying and saying she didn’t think this would happen and showing
me the headline. She had told her young man what I said, not thinking it would go any further, but he works setting type for the newspaper. He thought if he gave them the story, it would be a way for him to get into reporting as he’s wanted to for so long. Reporters have been calling at the flat and ringing up on the telephone ever since. It’s been horrid.”

“I can imagine.” Drew stirred more honey into his tea. “How did you manage to get over here without them following you?”

“Poor Mamie, she wants ever so much to help me now. She was talking to the reporters through the door of my flat, pretending to be me and telling them to go away. That gave me a chance to slip out my back window and into hers and out her door. I took a taxi over. I don’t know how I’ll ever pay for it.”

“Don’t you worry about that.”

Drew gave Nick a glance, and he was quick to excuse himself.

“Now,” Drew continued, “tell me how I can help.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I was just thinking about poor Mrs. Montford.” The girl looked up at him for the first time since she had sunk into the chair, her expressive eyes swimming in tears. “I wouldn’t dare call on her, but she doesn’t deserve this. It’s hard enough for her to lose her husband, but the scandal . . .”

Drew handed her a napkin, which she crumpled into her hands and pressed to her face. After a moment she calmed herself and sat upright in the chair.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Miss Allen.”

“I’m not sure how all this even happened. I wasn’t brought up this way.”

“No, to be sure.”

“I suppose it’s an old story, and I wasn’t clever enough to realize it until it was too late.” She managed a wan smile. “I guess
every girl likes to think she’s different, that a man’s talk of love to her must be sincere.” Tears again filled her eyes. “Oh, God . . .”

Drew patted her hand. “He wouldn’t be a bad place to begin, you know, if it’s forgiveness you want.”

She pulled away from him. “I didn’t come here for a sermon.”

“I didn’t think I’d offered one.”

The anger faded from her eyes. “You meant only to be kind. I know.” She swallowed hard. “I merely thought you could speak to Mrs. Montford for me. Tell her that her husband loved her. Tell her that I meant absolutely nothing to him.”

“Is that true?”

“I swear it is the truth. No use having her imagine things that aren’t true, even if I did.”

“It’s good of you to be so considerate of her.”

The girl shook her head. “If I had been considerate, none of this would ever have happened. I wouldn’t have had to . . .” She glanced at him and then looked away. “I wouldn’t have been so foolish.”

“So you knew he was married from the very start?”

She sighed. “I wasn’t sure. I knew he had a son and at first assumed he was a widower. Every time I mentioned the loss of his wife, he said he didn’t care to talk about her. After a while I realized she was alive. By then I had convinced myself that we were in love and deserved our happiness. When I finally told him I knew he was still married, he told me he was going to leave her and marry me. He said it, even if he didn’t mean it.”

“How do you know he didn’t mean it? You told us earlier that he had come to the Empire that day to tell you he had told his wife he was divorcing her.”

“Yes, well.” She laughed softly, bitterly. “I’ve had my eyes
opened since then. I was the one who was deceived, not Mrs. Montford. I want you to tell her that. Tell her I’m sorry that all this has come out in the papers. She didn’t deserve that.”

He nodded. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“Nothing but that.”

“What are you going to do? Are you sure I can’t help you find a new position somewhere?”

“No. I have family in America. They have a farm out away from anywhere, and their family name isn’t Allen. I won’t know anyone and they won’t know me.”

“Times are rather bad in America these days too, you know. Are you sure you will be all right there?”

“I telephoned my aunt this morning. She said as long as they have a garden and a cow and some chickens, they’ll be all right, and that I should come. She didn’t even ask why I wanted to come, which is so like her.”

She laughed again, but now most of the bitterness had lifted. He smiled, too.

“That’s grand. And perhaps it is best. Can you manage the passage money?”

“I pawned what I could. Actually, Mamie did it for me so I didn’t have to try to get past the reporters. I have enough for steerage. I’m going to ask if I can’t do some sort of work on the way over so I’ll have something left for getting out to the farm.”

She told him the name of the ship on which she had booked passage, and he nodded.

“That’s a good line. They’ll have you across the pond in a jiffy. But I say, have you discussed this with the police? You don’t think they’ll mind if you leave the country?”

She bit her lip, her dark eyes uncertain. “The chief inspector knows I haven’t killed anyone and that I don’t know who
did. I’m just no help in the investigation. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be all right for me to go now.”

Drew lifted one eyebrow. “Perhaps we ought to ring him up just to be sure. I know you’ve been through rather a rough time of it, but if you try to go before he’s ready for you to, it won’t get any easier.”

“Would you . . . ?”

“I’d be happy to speak to him for you. Why don’t we go through to the telephone.”

They went into the study, and a moment later a constable connected Drew to the chief inspector’s office.

“Birdsong here.”

“Good morning, sir.”

Drew made sure to put a sufficient amount of good cheer into his voice to provoke the grumbling reply he received.

“Isn’t it a bit early for you to already be meddling in police business, Detective Farthering?”

“I’m afraid the morning newspapers have left me little choice in the matter.”

“Ah. So you saw that bit about the Allen girl, did you?”

“If I hadn’t, Inspector, I imagine I’d be one of perhaps three people in the entire country.”

Miss Allen’s brows were drawn together as she listened, and Drew gave her a reassuring nod.

“Look here, sir,” he continued, “I’ve got the young lady at Farthering Place right now. These reporters have given her rather a bad time, and she’d like to know if it’s all right if she goes to stay with her aunt. At least until this has all blown over a bit.”

“Aunt, eh?” Drew could almost see Birdsong purse his lips as he mulled over the idea. “Not a bad idea, I suppose. Where is this aunt of hers?”

“Ah, well, that may just be the most infinitesimal fly in the ointment.”

“Where?”

“In America.”

Drew held the telephone away from his ear until most of the shouting had died down, and then he brought it close once again.

“I’ll take that as a no, shall I?”

For a long moment there was a fierce silence at the other end of the line. When the chief inspector finally spoke, it was with infinite and exquisite patience.

“As Miss Allen is a person of interest in at least one and possibly all of the hatpin murders, we at the county constabulary would prefer that she remain nearby until our investigation has been completed. If of course that does not inconvenience the young lady to any marked degree.”