wondered how the constable was faring. He was missing the reservations that Mulholland often brought to bear on their activities.
But on to present times. McLevy took a deep breath and rapped upon the object of Ballantyne’s caution and his own reckoning-to-be.
The door of Lieutenant Robert Roach.
‘Enter,’ said a voice within, and that he did.
Ballantyne pondered a little at his desk; the insects could fend for themselves this moment.
He had already been hauled over the coals by his lieutenant for unauthorised entry of a hotel room and given a severe flea in his ear as regards being party to any such events in the future. To his relief he was not going to be taken off the patrolling but partnered with a more sober, older constable to guide his wayward footsteps.
And yet. And yet. Ballantyne bent low so that no-one could see the grin upon his face.
He had stuck to the story McLevy had instructed in the hansom cab.
A fabrication, but he had stuck to it under Roach’s questioning. In a way it undermined authority but he had found an odd delight in doing so.
What a time it had been.
Now he knew what it felt like to be a criminal.
Worth its weight in gold.
Meanwhile in Roach’s office, strangely enough, other than official stricture, things weren’t going too badly.
McLevy, the previous night, as the raving Carlisle was shoved into the cells to sing hymns from then on for the salvation of the Moxey gang and Silver Samuel, had brought the lieutenant up to date with his doings.
In his version, however, he had merely
Roach did not believe a word of it but Ballantyne had backed the inspector up and, in truth, the lieutenant was not inclined to push too far.
The morning papers were full of the shooting of Sophia Adler and great play had been made of Roach’s capture of the madman. He was assuming heroic status and so was inclined to magnanimity as befits that assumption.
In any case, as he was forever saying to the inspector,
In fact the last exchange between him and McLevy the previous night encapsulated the matter.
‘You entered that room without approval,’ he had accused his man.
‘The woman’s dead. Murdered to boot. We’d have been in there sooner or later. It was jist sooner.’
Unanswerable, if flawed, logic.
Roach now looked thoughtfully at McLevy who sat opposite, hair combed neatly, hat placed primly on Roach’s table.
Indeed the lieutenant had now had a chance to reflect on all the facts of the case and had something up his sleeve for his all-knowing inspector from this very morning.
After delivering an expected and formal admonition, he sat back, while Queen Victoria still looked out sideways.
‘How do you think we should proceed with the Morrison case?’ he asked quietly.
McLevy blinked. The reprimand had been like water off a duck’s back but he had been anticipating more of the same.
‘Bannerman committed the killing and can be officially held culpable but that’s all,’ he answered. ‘We cannot prove Sophia Adler’s influence over him one way or the other. The father’s betrayal and the letters provide a motive, but with her own death we have nothing to offer a judge.’
‘My thought also,’ said Roach, who liked things neat, tidy, and filed away. ‘We have Binnie and the Countess coming up on trial for murder and the Moxey gang in the dock for aggravated assault and theft. Let sleeping dogs lie.’
He twitched his jaw to the side thoughtfully.
‘I am assuming that Walter Morrison will not make a fuss either?’
‘He was complicit in an earlier crime. Hard tae prove in court, mind you, but enough to keep his mouth shut.’
They nodded agreement on all of that.
The lieutenant had a strange expression on his face as if he were waiting for McLevy to ask something, and one item did come to the inspector’s mind.
‘I saw Mistress Grierson. Does she want her music box repaired?’
‘No. She does not.’
Roach had something between a smile and scowl upon his face. The smile on account that he was for once one up on his inspector; the scowl was because what he knew did not please him. Yet it would be a fine morsel for his wife, who was still trying to recover from events of last night, so back to the smile, though the scowl suited his face better.
Thus he continued with fractured delivery.
‘She will not press charges against Samuel Grant.’
‘Whit?’
‘She has admitted to a relationship between them and confirmed that he was acting on her behalf by trying to recover the brooch.’
‘Ye mean he confessed to save her name?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘And she’s confessing to save his bacon?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Wonders will never cease.’
While McLevy ruminated upon such, Roach admitted to himself at being impressed by the steadfastness of Muriel Grierson as she sat in his office and virtually ruined her reputation. She would have to testify at the Moxey trial and admit her liaison in open court.
Yet, after confounding him by dropping the charges against Samuel Grant, she had answered all his questioning succinctly and ended with a simple yet telling statement.
‘I believe Samuel to be an honourable man; it is not right that he should suffer and I do not care what the world thinks of me. That includes your spouse, sir.’
One in the eye for Roach, and he was tempted not to act as expected but then word would get round in any case and it would cheer Mrs Roach up no end; sudden death such as last night always depressed her, running as it did in the family.
While all this passed in a jumble through the lieutenant’s normally ordered mind, McLevy’s thoughts had been proceeding much the same minus the gossip.
She had a bit of ballast, this wifie.
Ye can never tell with human beings.
Especially women.
‘I saw her at the desk. Would ye believe it, eh?’
‘She will be waiting for Sergeant Murdoch to complete the papers of release.’
‘I’ll away and hurry him up; he’ll take forever.’
McLevy rose. In fact he was nosy to see the couple before they left, Silver Sam and wee Muriel…what a prospect.
Wonder what Big Arthur would think of that?
Roach knew full well what was on McLevy’s mind.
‘Oh, inspector?’
McLevy stopped, one hand on the door.
‘When will your Mister Doyle honour us with a visit?’
‘I’m sure he’ll arrive to make statement this day, sir.’
‘Let us hope so. He has much to state,’ said Roach dryly. Then something else came to mind.
