Nine Buck's Row (12 page)

I rushed outside to buy a copy. All up and down the street people were standing in groups, talking loudly, discussing the “'Anbury Street 'orror.” I took the sheet up to my room and read it, repelled by its crimson verses, yet fascinated at the same time. I was almost as bad as Millie, I thought, wadding the vile thing up and tossing it in the wastecan.

I took Scrappy outside to let him play in the courtyard. Sitting down on the soot-begrimed marble bench, I watched him frolic and fuss with a bit of ribbon I had found for him. The day was ironically beautiful, the sky a deep blue, cloudless, sunshine making dazzling silver pools on the flagstones. The trees in their large black pots afforded little shade, but the leaves were a vivid green, rustling crisply in the light wind. It seemed impossible that it could be so beautiful when just a few streets away police were combing a scene of incredible horror.

“Here you are,” Millie said, stepping outside. “Mrs. James told me I'd probably find you out here.”

“Millie!” I exclaimed, overjoyed to see her.

“I couldn't stay in that stuffy old flat one minute longer. Jamie took me by the arm and marched me all the way home and said he'd give me a thrashing if he caught me out again. Talk about brass! I told him I was free to go wherever I wanted to, and—”

“Back up, Millie,” I said. “Where had you been?”

I knew, of course. Millie couldn't have resisted it. She sat down on the bench beside me, the sunlight making her long curls glisten with burning copper highlights. She wore a tan and brown striped dress, the bodice tight and a shade too low, the skirt billowing over ruffled petticoats. Scrappy pranced over for an introduction, and she picked him up and rubbed him against her cheek. The kitten mewed happily, flicking her nose with his tongue, and Millie exclaimed over him, finally putting him down to chase after his bit of ribbon again.

“You went to Hanbury Street,” I said.

“Naturally. The crowd was unbelievable! A man was actually selling hot buns and coffee, and the neighbors were hawking window space—‘See the yard. Sixpence a head! Nice view from the third floor.' It was disgusting, but—well, I happened to have sixpence in my pocket. Suzy, she was still there, all crumpled up, and—I'll spare you the details. I thought I was going to faint when they covered her up and carted her off.”

She shuddered, genuinely upset. Her brown eyes were grave, full of remembered horror.

“I wish I hadn't gone. It's all very well to read about these things, but when you actually
see
—” She shook her head and reached for my hand. “I shouldn't be telling you this. After what happened to Marietta it must upset you something awful.”

“I'm as curious as anyone else,” I replied. “I wish I could forget it all, but as long as he's loose I—I want to know. I just read the broadsheet—dreadful.”

“Wasn't it? The man who composed it must have dashed to the printers as soon as he heard about the murder, thinking up the verses on the way. I guess he'll be a rich man tomorrow, the way people are buying it.”

“What happened after they took the body away?”

“Well, there was a lot of noise and confusion, of course, and people were shoving up against me. One old man practically pushed me out of the window! Terribly rude!—but I spotted Jamie immediately. He was one of the first ones there, snapping orders, shoving the crowd back, interviewing people who live at number 29. Poor John Davies was white as a ghost, stumbling about as though in a trance. In shock, he was. They finally had to take him away. The yard was brimming over with policemen, turning the place upside down, and then Sir Charles Warren arrived.”

“What time was this?”

“Around eight, I'd say. Took his time getting there! He had several men with him, and one of them was carrying a package. Suzy, this is what's so peculiar—Jamie said so himself later on. They had searched the yard—‘with a fine toothed comb,' to quote Jamie—and hadn't found anything really important, and then when Sir Charles' men searched it they uncovered the apron.”

“Apron?”

“A leather apron. Looked like it'd been freshly scrubbed, Jamie says. Found it under a heap of rubbish. Sir Charles was very excited, had his men bundle it up and cart it off, said it was the most important lead they had had yet. Hundreds of people saw them find it, but he refused to say anything about it to the newspaper men, like it was some kind of state secret. One of them challenged him. ‘Wasn't that a leather apron?' he asked. ‘You say anything in the paper about it and I'll have your job!' Sir Charles retorted. Suzy, here's what's so funny: they didn't find that apron until
after
Sir Charles arrived, and remember the man with the package? Well, I kept my eye on him, and he didn't have the package any more.”

“You think they brought the apron?” I asked, appalled.

“Jamie does, although he wouldn't
say
so. I asked him about it and he looked bewildered and said he'd looked under that heap of rubbish himself a short while before. That yard was so crowded and there was so much activity going on they could easily have planted it there in the midst of the confusion.”

“But why should they want to do a thing like that?”

“I don't know. Scotland Yard hasn't been very
efficient
, and people are grumbling about it. Maybe they wanted to ‘find' something to convince the public they had a lead, however false it might be. Or maybe the apron was a red herring to divert attention away from something else. Sir Charles has acted very strangely from the first, almost as though he didn't
want
to catch the fiend. Jamie said that himself. There have been several leads he hasn't followed up, like Marietta's bracelet, for example. It's very puzzling.”

It was indeed, I thought, mulling over what Millie had told me. It was all supposition on her part, of course. She could have been mistaken about the man with the package, and the apron might really have been there under the pile of rubbish, yet it seemed odd that the killer who had been so careful to leave no clues on previous occasions should have left such a whopping big one in this instance. Leather aprons were common in this part of London. Cobblers wore them, as did butchers and the men who worked at the slaughterhouse. The murders had been extraordinarily bloody. Perhaps the killer wore a leather apron to keep the blood off his clothes. I remembered that Polly Nicholls' body had been discovered right across the street from Barber's slaughterhouse here on Buck's Row.

“They'll make a big to-do over that apron,” Millie said. “You just wait and see.”

“Then why did Sir Charles refuse to let the newspapers know about it?”

“Clever of him. As I said, hundreds of people saw it, including several journalists. By being secretive about it, he aroused their interest even more and gave it an extra importance. Everyone's talking about it already, and rumors are buzzing all over London. Anyone who wears a leather apron is going to be under suspicion. If I had one I'd burn it for sure!”

We were both silent for a moment, thinking about the repercussions all this could have. The mobs of people were growing more and more unruly, dissatisfied with lack of police action. Foreigners living in the East End had already been molested and tormented by suspicious crowds, and if the leather apron rumors took hold, any poor workman who normally wore one might actually be in physical danger.

“You say Jamie took you home?” I asked.

“Yes, and he was
furious
! I had already given up my place at the window and was standing in front of the street, listening to the rumors, and he came out of number 29 and saw me! Walked me all the way home, told me I had no business being out. He was all pale and shaken and upset by what he had seen, and I made him come upstairs for a cup of tea. He hesitated, but I insisted. I pumped him shamelessly, and that's when I learned about the apron.”

She smiled, brushing a wisp of hair from her temple. I could visualize her serving tea to the bewitched Jamie Caine, plying him with questions as she poured yet another cup.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Suzy—”

“Yes?”

“There was something else. Something—most peculiar.”

“What?”

“I saw your guardian.”

“At Hanbury Street?” I asked, startled.

“As we were leaving. I looked back, and I saw him coming out of the house with Sir Charles Warren. Sir Charles looked livid, and your guardian had a tense, angry expression, his mouth all tight, his eyes fierce. They were arguing about something. I could see that much, although I was too far away to catch any of the words.”

“You're certain it was he?”

“How could you be mistaken about anything like that? He was wearing a black frock coat and a gorgeous blue waistcoat, and there was that silvery streak of hair—oh, it was him all right, as big as life, arguing with Her Majesty's Police Commissioner. I had no idea he knew such important people.”

“Neither did I,” I replied. “I—I suppose it had something to do with the report he's making. He's writing about living conditions in the East End, and I suppose crime is part of it. Perhaps he's covering the murders for his report.”

“That report is going to be
some
thing,” Millie said. “I can't wait to read it!”

Unable to sit still for long, Millie jumped up and began to play with Scrappy. Her skirt swirled over the fluttering petticoats, and Scrappy was fascinated, leaping after the elusive garments and trying to catch the hem with his paws. She swayed back and forth, teasing the kitten.

I was suddenly aware that someone was watching us and turned around to see Daniel Lord standing at the back door. He waved and stepped outside, a smile curling on his lips. He was wearing high brown boots, light tan doeskin breeches and a white silk shirt open at the throat, the sleeves full gathered at the wrist. He had a rather Byronic look, dark blond hair tousled, silk sleeves billowing in the breeze, and he looked far more the romantic artist than he had in the tweed suit and starched collar he had worn before.

“Mr. Lord,” I said, rising.

“Daniel. I thought we'd settled that.”

“Daniel,” I repeated, smiling.

“I just woke up a little while ago and peered out my window to see two charming nympths. Naturally I pulled on my clothes and dashed down to join you. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“This is Millie,” I said. “Millie, Daniel Lord. He's the artist I told you about.”

Millie smiled her pixie smile and stepped forward. She had adjusted the bodice of her dress and it was now a good inch lower than before, an immodest amount of bosom revealed. “You didn't tell me he was so good-
looking
,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. Daniel Lord smiled that disarming smile, his dark blue-gray eyes filled with amusement.

“You've just gotten out of
bed?
” Millie inquired.

“I'm afraid I'm a very lazy creature, nothing I like so much as a good long sleep. I'm the kind of chap who'd love to be waited on hand and foot, just haven't found the woman willing to indulge me.”

“You paint pictures?” Millie asked.

“I try to,” he replied lightly.

“And people
buy
them?”

“Sometimes. Not very often.”

“That's fascinating,” Millie said, dimpling prettily. “I read a book about a painter once, only he had black hair and lived in a garret in Paris. He never did
paint
very much, but he drank a lot of wine and courted all the girls. Everyone thought he was starving, but actually he was a nobleman in disguise, trying to fit into the artistic life.”

“Sounds like an interesting book,” he said, “although I'm afraid an artist's life is hardly that dramatic. There's quite a lot of hard work involved and a deplorable shortage of wine and women.”

Millie had a saucy reply ready, but she held it back, studying Daniel Lord with appraising brown eyes. I felt quite sure that she had momentarily forgotten that Jamie Caine existed. Daniel Lord folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head to one side, the smile lingering at the corners of his sensuous pink mouth. The doeskin breeches clung tightly to his long legs, the white silk shirt tucked carelessly into the waistband. He did indeed look like the hero of a romantic novel, in spite of the too long neck and the deep shadows under his eyes. Millie was entranced.

“Mr. Lord—Daniel—has done some very nice things,” I told her. “He paints those ladies on the inside lids of the cigar boxes.”

“Really?” Millie cried. “Why didn't you
tell
me. I have a whole collection of those pictures. I cut them off the boxes as soon as my father buys them. I've
always
wanted to look like one of those women. You must be famous.”

Daniel Lord chuckled, giving Millie the look an older man might give a charming but slightly naive little girl. We chatted for a few minutes more, and then he said he had to go do his weekly shopping. Millie said that she, too, had to be going and asked him where he intended to buy his groceries.

“The shop on the corner of Wentworth and Osborn.”

“That's just beyond where I live,” Millie replied, pleased. “You can escort me home.”

It was bold of her, much too forward to be quite proper, and I hoped Daniel Lord didn't misinterpret it. He smiled that same disarming smile, wide mouth curling pleasantly, but his eyelids drooped heavily as he looked at her, and his manner altered ever so slightly. He was no longer seeing her as merely a charming little girl.

“I'd be honored,” he said lazily.

Millie kissed me on the cheek and promised to see me soon, and the two of them left, going down the narrow passageway between number nine and number ten that led from the courtyard to the front of the house. I gathered Scrappy up in my arms, frowning, just a little worried. Millie flirted with all the men. It was second nature with her, and most of them took it for what it was: a combination of vivacity and natural friendliness. She didn't really mean anything by it, and most of the men understood this. They were generally amiable lads as adept at flirting as she was herself, but Daniel Lord was far more sophisticated, and there was an indolent sensuality about him that made me apprehensive. I hoped Millie wasn't out of her depth.