Wouldn't It Be Deadly (20 page)

Without giving himself time to change his mind, Higgins ran up the carpeted stairs two at a time. He stood for a moment in the upper hallway. Only two bedrooms on this floor, and a quick glance at the narrow dark stairway to the third floor suggested it probably led to the servants' quarters. Peeking into the nearest room, Higgins dismissed it as a rarely used guest bedroom, devoid of decoration or decor. They may as well have covered up the few pieces of furniture with a sheet.

Higgins entered the remaining bedroom filled with well-polished mahogany furniture. It was an imposing masculine room with not a hint of the frivolous about it. If Higgins liked Kollas, he may have allowed himself a moment of appreciation for the fellow's taste. But he had no time to admire the Oriental rug or the maroon bed coverings.

He headed for the largest wardrobe and flung it open. Over a dozen neatly pressed suits hung inside. He glanced at the labels. All carried the mark of Savile Row tailors, except for three suits hidden in the back. After examining them, Higgins raised an eyebrow. The labels on the three jackets claimed they had been made by “HSM, Chicago, Illinois.”

Next Higgins yanked open bureau drawers, not caring if he left the contents noticeably askew. In one drawer, he pulled out a silver cigarette case buried beneath expensive ascot ties. The case was empty, and its tarnished state indicated it had not been used for some time. However, the initials inscribed on the front of the case were “TR.” Inside was another inscription: “Congratulations, Dr. Richards. From your proud father.”

Now he began to look in earnest, under the bed, beneath the plump pillows, even behind the potted ferns along the bay window. In a smaller bureau of drawers, Higgins discovered a book tucked away among a careless jumble of leather gloves and cashmere mufflers. The well-thumbed volume contained essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Higgins fluttered the pages and came upon one whose corner had been turned down. Someone had underlined the quote: “It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.'”

Curious, Higgins fanned the other pages and stopped when he saw a folded piece of paper. Taking it from where it had been tucked away—or hidden—he quickly read what turned out to be a newspaper article. After reading it twice, he stepped over to the window to make out the date.

“October 10, 1912,” he said aloud. “And a Chicago paper, too.”

“What in hell do you think you're doing?” Kollas stood glowering in the doorway.

Damnation, how could he not have kept track of the time? Sensing the man's fury, Higgins was grateful he had insisted that Eliza question the young Mr. Nottingham while he tackled the more intimidating Kollas. And although Higgins was a good four inches taller, Kollas had the physique of a boxer, and a temper he suspected easily turned violent. He'd have to proceed with care if he wanted to exit this room unbloodied.

“I asked you a question, you barmy excuse for a man!”

Higgins shuddered at the labored imitation of a Cockney accent. “Drop the dialect, sir. You obviously needed a few more lessons with Nepommuck to school you in how the people of Clerkenwell speak.”

“Bollocks! I find you in the bedroom, handling me property, and you 'ave the piss to challenge me!” His expression grew more menacing when he saw the book and newspaper article in Higgins's hands. “Give me that, or you'll be wishing you were skagged on a rocky cliff.”

Higgins folded the article and replaced it in the book. He tossed it at Kollas, who caught the volume.

“I apologize for the intrusion, but I may be thrown into prison for a crime I did not commit. I need to discover if anyone else had a reason to murder the Hungarian.”

“You're a meddler, you are. And the sooner I call the police and tell them how you broke into my home—”

“But I've done no such thing.” Higgins sat down on the bay window's cushioned seat. “Your maid let me in. You may ask her if you like.”

“I already have. She told me a Professor Higgins was waiting to have a word with me. Thought you'd done a runner when you weren't downstairs.” Kollas shook his head. “Instead I catch you going through my things like the Artful Dodger 'imself. Yes, the police would like to get an earful about this.”

Higgins gave a careless shrug. “Don't know what they'd find so interesting about it. I needed to use the water closet. Not wanting to disturb the servants, I came upstairs in search of it. I've always been a bit too curious for my own good, so I couldn't resist a little poke about your bedroom. Rude? Certainly. But hardly criminal.”

“Liar.”

“That's a strange thing to hear from a man pretending to be both a Greek and an Englishman. By the way, if you insist on posing as a Greek diplomat, you should keep up to date on what is actually occurring in Greece. For example, the Greek king died in March. At some point, even the insular English will notice that you have never donned a black armband in mourning.”

“You'll regret this, you arrogant blighter.”

“Like Nepommuck did?”

Kollas narrowed his eyes. “Last I heard, the Yard was looking at you as the bloke who done him in.”

“That may change when the police hear about your activities in America. You are American, aren't you? I should have discerned the occasional flat vowels in your speech. And I am certain Inspector Shaw will be fascinated to learn about your colorful past. Or were the Chicago papers mistaken when they claimed that you killed your father?”

After a long tense moment, Kollas closed the bedroom door. Higgins noticed with misgiving that he also locked it.

“You
are
the man mentioned in the article,” Higgins went on. “Dr. Thaddeus Richards, renowned surgeon of Chicago. The journals and medical books downstairs were the first clue.”

“Are you playing detective now? If so, it's a poor imitation. Although in some respects, you are like all detectives in that you lack imagination.” He paused. “And compassion.”

Struck by the abrupt change in Kollas's speech, Higgins raised an eyebrow. Now that the man had dropped all pretense, it was clear that Kollas was a highly educated man from the American Midwest.

“You expect compassion for doing in your own father?”

“What do you know of it?”

“I only know what I just read in that newspaper article. It stated that railroad magnate Ambrose Joseph Richards was found dead at his home of an overdose of morphine in October 1912. A dose administered by his only son, a doctor.”

“That is true.”

Higgins didn't know what to say to this. Had the fellow just confessed to murder? “So the papers were right, Dr. Richards?”

He flinched. “Do not call me Dr. Richards. My old name and the life that went with it are as dead to me as my father. I am Dmitri Kollas, at least for now.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

Kollas leaned back against the bedroom door. “Did I murder my father? No, I did not. I did, however, end his life.”

“I don't understand.”

“My father was a good man who deserved a more fitting end than the cancer that ravaged him for two years. He wanted only me to treat his illness, and why should he not? His son was a celebrated surgeon, a superb diagnostician, the recipient of numerous fellowships and honors. And through my work I had saved so many lives. Except I couldn't save his.” Kollas grew silent for a moment. “I couldn't.”

Higgins felt uncomfortable and a little ashamed. He had trespassed on something private and deeply painful.

“I had been giving my father morphine in increasingly stronger doses,” Kollas said in a voice so soft, Higgins strained to hear him. “But the pain was unrelenting, I could barely stave off even an hour of it. At the end, he begged me to set him free of the agony. Jesus only suffered for three hours upon the cross, Professor. My father and so many like him suffer for months, sometimes years. As a physician—as a son!—I did what my conscience dictated. I gave my father peace. I gave him eternal rest. Some may call it murder. I call it mercy.”

Neither man spoke for a time. “How did you become involved with Nepommuck?” Higgins finally asked.

“When my father died, his sister suspected I had given him a fatal dose of morphine. Aunt Hortense was his last surviving sibling, and I his only living child. A great fortune would be divided between us, but Hortense is as greedy as she is heartless. She wanted it all. So she went to the police with her suspicions. I was arrested within a week of his death.”

“Was there a trial?”

“I was in the middle of the trial when I made my escape. It seemed obvious I would lose, and the sentence would have been thirty years in prison. But I needed a new identity, and time to fashion a new life.” He shrugged. “Ironically, I had made enough money on my own that my father's fortune was negligible to me. And with enough money, Professor Higgins, one can buy many things. Not least of which is information.”

“Someone told you about Nepommuck?”

He nodded. “I needed to lose my American accent and become someone else as fast as possible. I was put into contact with Nepommuck, who suggested that I pretend to be a retired Greek diplomat. He schooled me first in how to speak like a Greek who had a poor command of English. But the more important aspect of the charade was to teach me the speech patterns of a fellow from Clerkenwell. This way people who were dubious about my Greek identity would hear traces of Cockney dialect and think I was hiding a lower-class English past.”

Higgins admired Nepommuck's capacity for deviousness. “It was a double blind. Quite brilliant. Two false identities hid the truth.”

“Exactly. It gave me time to separate myself from who I was.”

“And who you will become next.”

Kollas hesitated before replying. “Yes.”

Higgins thought a moment. “But on the morning Nepommuck was found dead, you had an encounter with Miss Doolittle. She claims you were furious about the newspaper article exposing Nepommuck, and that you had gone to confront him. Why were you angry to learn the truth?”

“That blackmailing creature was living as secret a life as I was. I can only guess how many of his other students were like me, desperate to hide their past and living under constant fear that Nepommuck would reveal our dirty secrets. He made us pay quite handsomely. All the while, he made us feel like scum. It wasn't enough to take our money, he took what was left of our pride as well.”

“It must have been galling to learn of his own dark past.”

“Of course it was. I only put my father out of his pain and misery. But Nepommuck was a repulsive fellow from birth. The papers claim he raped a young cousin when he was seventeen. Three years later he and his blue-blooded friends beat a fellow university student insensible. The poor man is still confined to a wheelchair. Then there was the fire he drunkenly started at a party in which at least five guests were severely burned. But no matter how vicious his actions, his father the Count always saw to it that he was never punished.” Kollas paused. “Until he cheated a Hungarian prince at baccarat.”

No need to explain further. They both knew that Nepommuck's downfall came when he crossed the son of a man even more powerful than his father.

“A pity he was only kept in prison two years,” Higgins said.

“When I read that article about his unsavory past, I wanted to kill him. He acted as sanctimonious as Queen Victoria, claiming he dirtied his hands by giving me instruction. How I hated the hypocritical bastard.”

“You said that you wanted to kill him. Did you?”

Kollas surprised him by laughing. “If I was bent on that, do you think I would go banging on his door the day he was killed, yelling his name at the top of my lungs? Indiscreet behavior for a murderer, wouldn't you say?”

“Men do reckless things when they're in a rage.”

“I am not reckless, Professor. I never have been. Besides, I don't have a strong enough motive.”

“Blackmail? One of the stronger motives, I'd say.”

“I am not the only one the Hungarian was blackmailing.”

“No doubt Scotland Yard will be interested in all the students who were being blackmailed.” Higgins paused. “Even the ones who are not reckless.”

A thoughtful look crossed Kollas's face. “Yes, I imagine they will be. Lucky for me I have an alibi.”

“But you were at Nepommuck's apartment the morning of the murder, noticeably upset.”

“Yes, I was. And while I shouted outside his apartment door, one of the law clerks on the first floor came up to tell me to stop. The solicitors sent him to discover what the racket was about. He escorted me out of the building. Since there was no corpse lying in the hallway when he came upstairs, obviously I had not just plunged a dagger into Nepommuck's back.”

“Damn,” Higgins said under his breath.

“Exactly.” Kollas smiled. “Are we done with the interrogation?”

Embarrassed, Higgins felt fortunate that Kollas hadn't called the police. He got to his feet. “Forgive me for intruding on your privacy.”

This time Kollas looked surprised. “I know what it is like to be under threat of the law. I am not unsympathetic to your plight. I hope that you are as sympathetic to mine.”

“You have nothing to fear from me. I may be arrogant, but I am not malicious. Whatever happened in America had nothing to do with Nepommuck's murder. I have no reason to say a word about your past to the police.” Higgins gestured toward the locked door. “However, if we remain in here any longer, the servants will begin to wonder. There are enough rumors circulating about me at the moment. I don't need another.”

Kollas unlocked the door. As Higgins moved past, he said, “You weren't wrong to want to question Nepommuck's students, Professor.”

“I suspect there are many of us who have a motive for wanting him dead. The trick is finding the person without an alibi for the morning of the murder.”