Death of a Stranger (29 page)

“How do you do, Mr. Robinson.” Rathbone did not offer his hand. “Mrs. Monk tells me that your previous partner in business met with an unfortunate accident, and therefore the position is now vacant. Is she correct?”

Squeaky licked his lips. His indecision was palpable. Whatever answer he made, there was risk attached. On one hand he might give away too much about himself, on the other he might lose Rathbone’s interest, and thus the new partner necessary for his survival.

The silence was heavy in the room. The building seemed to sag and creak as if settling itself deeper into unseen mire beneath it.

Rathbone glanced at Hester impatiently and frowned.

Squeaky saw it. “Yes!” he said abruptly. “He died. Suddenly.”

“A euphemism, surely?” Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “Was he not murdered?”

“Ah!” Squeaky gulped, his throat jerking. “Yes. Nothing to do with his investment here! A purely private matter. A quarrel… his own… appetites. Most unfortunate.”

“I see.” Rathbone looked as if he did, although Hester knew he had not the slightest idea. “Well, that will not affect me. I have no desire to avail myself of your services. I mean simply to invest money and reap the reward. But I would prefer to think that you did not have many clients who meet with accidents. It attracts the wrong kind of attention. I am in a position to ride out one term of police presence due to murder, but not two.”

“Oh, it won’t happen again!” Squeaky assured him. “It’s never happened before, and I’ll take care of it. The woman’s gone, I assure you.”

“Good!” Rathbone almost smiled. “Satisfactory so far. But naturally I require to know rather more about your business-for instance, the financial side of it, the incomings and outgoings, the general history-before I commit myself.”

“Of course… of course!” Squeaky nodded vigorously. “Anyone would. It needs a careful man.”

“I am a careful man,” Rathbone said with the barest smile.

Hester had a sudden suspicion that part of him was enjoying playacting the role. There was a casual elegance in the way he stood, and his hands by his sides were relaxed, his fingers loose. She might tease him about this afterwards, when it was all over. He would probably never admit to it.

“It’s a good business,” Squeaky assured him. “Very profitable, and strictly legal, mind. Just a matter of lending a little money to people who need it. Could almost be viewed as a charity.” He saw the look on Rathbone’s face and amended his expression. “Well… there’s no matter what anyone thinks, is there, ’cos nobody’s going to know.”

“Not from me,” Rathbone replied dryly. “And if you are wise, not from you either.”

“Oh, rest easy, sir!” Squeaky nodded vehemently, his eyes wide. “Rest easy!”

“You won’t get any money until I do,” Rathbone promised him. “How did your deceased partner become involved?”

Hester shot a quick look at him. It did not matter how Baltimore had started in this. In fact, she really no longer cared who had killed him, if it was one of his own victims, and not only for the money but for his appetites as well. A certain kind of justice had already been served.

“Some gentlemen have different tastes,” Squeaky said with a wry leer. “He was one of them.”

“And you take all such men into your confidence?” Rathbone said with disgust. Hester saw his hand clench by his side. She was afraid now that the answer Squeaky would give would make it far harder for him to remain as an investor. He had pushed too far. Should she say something to help? But what?

“You set up the business with him?” she interrupted. “I daresay it was his idea?”

“No, it was not!” Squeaky said angrily, his voice rising alarmingly in pitch. “It was already a very good concern when he came in.” He resented her intrusion.

“That’s hard to believe,” she said scathingly.

Squeaky pointed his finger at her. “Look, miss, you just keep to your good works in Coldbath and leave the business to them as know about it. I had a very good thing going here before Mr. Baltimore ever came along. I was just unlucky. My partner then, Preece, his name was, was a greedy man. He tried to blackmail one or two of the better-off customers. That’s a fool thing to do. Kill the goose that way. Enough’s enough.” He sliced the air with his stringy hand and its ink-stained fingers. “Anyway, Baltimore got very angry and they set at each other like prizefighters.” His lips pursed in a gesture of disgust, but he looked a little pale at the memory. “Preece was a big fat bastard, and he took an attack. Went all colors and fell down on the floor, clutching his chest. Died right there.” He looked past Hester, directly at Rathbone. “Heart!” he said savagely. “Too much belly and no brain. His own fault.”

Rathbone nodded. “Apparently,” he agreed.

Hester saw him relax so very slightly it was barely perceptible. She shot a glance at Margaret in the shadows behind him, and read the relief in her face also.

“Anyway,” Squeaky resumed, “I needed someone to take his place, and Baltimore needed the business to continue-in his own interest, like. We were the only ones offering exactly the service he wanted, otherwise he’d have to start all over again, looking from scratch, as it were. Worked out very well all ’round.”

“Until he died as well…” Rathbone observed.

“That was his own fault too!” Squeaky said immediately. “He got stupid, and thought just because he had a share in the place that he could go as far as he liked with the girls.”

“One of them killed him?” Rathbone said very softly.

“Yeh. But she’s gone. Too wild, that one. Pushed him out o’ the window. Top story, an’ all.” He winced. “What a mess! It’s all right, though, the police don’t even know it happened here.” He grinned. “We put the body in old Abel Smith’s place, like he fell down the stairs.”

“Very tidy,” Rathbone observed. “You have a gift for making the best of bad luck.”

“Thank you.” Squeaky bowed.

Margaret drew in her breath sharply.

“Now all I require is to look at your accounts, if you please,” Rathbone asked.

Squeaky hesitated, staring at Rathbone as if to hold his attention while he deliberated. He glanced at Hester, then Margaret in the background, barely moving, then at Rathbone again.

Rathbone understood his meaning instantly. “Miss…” Then he changed his mind. “I cannot enter a business unless I have a financial opinion upon the books, Mr. Robinson-one that I trust.” He smiled very slightly, hardly more than an easing of his features. “I do not care to consult my usual bankers in this particular matter.”

Squeaky grinned, then nodded slowly, satisfied. He turned and went to a cupboard on the far side of the overcrowded room. Taking a key out of his pocket-although it remained attached to him by a chain-he opened one of the doors. He lifted up a large ledger, relocked the door, and carried the ledger over to the table.

Margaret stepped forward. “I shall require a quiet place to study the figures.” She said it coolly, but Hester knew from the tension in her shoulders and the slightly higher pitch of her voice that she was desperately aware that everything hung on this moment. “Alone, and no interruptions, if you please,” Margaret added. “Then, if it is satisfactory, you can make the arrangements.”

Squeaky regarded her with curiosity. It was perfectly plain that she was nothing he had expected, and he was confused. She did not belong in any preconceived part of his world.

She waited. No one interrupted the silence.

Rathbone moved from one foot to the other. Hester all but held her breath.

“Right,” Squeaky said at last. He offered the ledger for Margaret, who took it with very slightly trembling hands and clasped it to her.

“Through there,” Squeaky said, pointing to a corner of the room where another doorway was partially concealed by a curtain.

“Thank you,” Hester accepted immediately, and to Squeaky’s fairly obvious relief, she and Margaret left him alone with Rathbone.

The next room was small and enclosed. The turning up of the gaslight revealed one square, uncurtained window overlooking rooftops almost indistinguishable against the night sky.

There was one chair and a table on rickety legs. Margaret sat down and opened the ledger, and Hester leaned over her shoulder and read with her. It was written in a very neat crabbed hand, all the figures sloping backward a little.

Even at a glance the profits were plain to see, if the entries were honest. But it was the IOUs they needed. Whatever this proved was immaterial. It was not illegal.

Margaret started to turn the pages more hurriedly, then picked up the whole ledger and held it upside down. Nothing fell out.

“They’re not here!” she said with a note of desperation.

“Give it a few moments more, as if we had read it all,” Hester replied. “Then I’ll go and ask for them. I’ll say you need to get an idea of the future, as well as the past.”

Obediently, Margaret returned her attention to the columns and perfunctorily added them up.

“Baltimore was turning a very nice profit on this,” she said bitterly after another few moments. “This looks like Alice’s repayments here.” She pointed. “Stopping about the time of Baltimore’s murder. Actually, there are hardly any repayments after that, only this one.”

“Right,” Hester said firmly. “That’s all I need. I’ll go to see Mr. Robinson.” She went straight to the door and, without knocking, back into the room where Rathbone and Squeaky were sitting facing each other in what seemed to be earnest conversation. Squeaky looked excited and anxious, leaning forward so the gaslight threw his seamed face into heavy relief, and Rathbone relaxed back in his chair, half smiling.

They both turned as Hester came in.

“What is it?” Squeaky demanded.

Rathbone frowned, his eyes searching hers.

“It all looks very profitable, Mr. Robinson,” Hester said smoothly. “There is just one matter to sort out.”

“Oh?” Squeaky asked abruptly. “And what’s that, then?”

“There has been almost a complete stop in repayments lately-over the last three weeks, to be exact,” she answered.

“Of course there has!” Squeaky exploded. “Gawd sakes, woman, there’s rozzers on every bleeding footpath! How d’yer think anyone’s going to earn anything? Where are your wits at?”

Rathbone stiffened.

“At wanting to see your paper proof that there are still debts owed,” Hester answered perfectly levelly, avoiding Rathbone’s eyes. “No one wants to buy a business that has nothing coming in on a permanent basis.”

Squeaky shot to his feet. “I have!” he said furiously, jabbing his finger in the air. “I’ve got lots o’ money coming still, but nothing’s forever! What do you think I need a partner for? When these run out, we gotter get more!” He went back to the cupboard where he had found the ledger and pulled the key from his pocket and opened the door. He poked his hand inside and fished around for a few moments, then withdrew it holding a sheaf of papers. He ignored the wide-open door and came back to Hester, holding them out. “There! All debts!” he said, waving them at her.

“So you say,” she agreed, resisting the impulse to snatch at them. “We will add them up, deduct a little for… accidents, and come to a figure to present.” She inclined her head at Rathbone, but carefully avoided using his name.

Squeaky still held tight onto the papers.

Hester looked at Rathbone again.

Rathbone pursed his lips and started to stand up.

“All right!” Squeaky thrust the papers at Hester. “But only in that room, mind. They’re worth a lot of money.”

“Of course,” Rathbone agreed. “Or I would not be willing to put my own money into the venture.”

Hester took the papers from Squeaky’s reluctant fingers and walked straight over to the doorway, expecting any moment to hear Squeaky’s footsteps behind her. She reached the door with relief and opened it, then closed it again behind her. Margaret looked up at her, her face pale and tight with tension. She gulped when she saw the papers in Hester’s hand, and relaxed a fraction.

Hester looked at them just long enough to be certain that they were the original signed IOUs, not copies of anything in Squeaky’s own hand. When she was satisfied that they were, she looked up and nodded to Margaret.

Margaret took them and went to the fireplace. She put a taper to the gas flame in the light, caught fire to it, then, sheltering it with her hand, bent down and set it to the papers, all in absolute silence.

Hester stood with her back against the door, her heart pounding.

The flames caught and flared up. Margaret watched until there was nothing left, then took the tongs and crushed the blackened pieces. She turned around to Hester, a smile of triumph on her face.

Hester picked up the ledger. “Do you want to?” she invited her.

Margaret shook her head. “It’s yours,” she replied. “But I want to watch.”

Hester made a little beckoning gesture, then opened the door with her free hand and went back into the room with Squeaky and Rathbone.

Squeaky looked up. “Well?” he demanded. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“You did,” Hester agreed, putting the ledger down on the desk in front of him. “There was a lot of money owed. But since I have just burned the IOUs, you will not be able to collect it.”

Squeaky stared at her in incomprehension. It was too terrible for him to grasp.

Even Rathbone seemed startled. He had expected her to leave Squeaky to find that out for himself when they were well outside the place. He looked a trifle taken aback.

“You… you fool!” Squeaky screeched as the truth of it dawned on him. “You… you…”

“Not a fool, Mr. Robinson,” Hester said calmly, although her hands were sweating and she knew she was trembling. “It was precisely what I intended to do.”

“I’m ruined!” Squeaky’s face was red, his eyes bulging. He held out his hands as if he were thinking of actually grasping hold of her and strangling her.

She took a step backward just as Rathbone stood up. “No you won’t,” she said chokingly. “I have an idea how you could use this place… really quite well.”

“You what?” Squeaky said with total disbelief. She was monstrous! Beyond credibility.

“I… I have an idea,” Hester repeated. “We need new premises, better than we have now, and cheaper…”