“Won’t that look suspicious?” asked Clara. “After claiming he’s the main suspect, why would he let him out and give him the chance to escape?”
Mr. Clemens chuckled. “Oh, I reckon Ed will be handcuffed to a guard, or maybe he’ll be wearing a pair of leg irons, to allay any suspicions on that ground. It’ll do my heart good to see the old scoundrel properly trussed up. Then again, he’ll probably raise enough ruckus about it to make me wish he would escape, but I reckon I’ll just have to harden my heart.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.
I pointed out, “The remedy to that is to remind him that, but for your efforts on his behalf, he’d probably still be languishing in an English jail—if not actually dangling from the end of a hangman’s rope.”
Mr. Clemens toyed with the coffee cup. “It’s a shame, in a way,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Here’s one of the best chances I’ll ever have to rid the world of that nuisance, and I’m committed to saving him—at least, if he’s innocent, which I’m starting to think just might be true. Of course, it’d be a sight more useful to get rid of a few other scoundrels in the same line of work—a few kings, for example. But Ed would be a start, and I reckon a good preacher could work him up as an example to the rest. Still, I guess I’ve given my word to try to find the truth, and that’s what I’ve got to do. It’s a blasted inconvenience having principles, sometimes. But I guess there wouldn’t be any virtue to it if it was always easy.”
“You’re always such a wonderful example to us, Papa,” said Clara, a twinkle in her eye. “It’s a shame we won’t get to see you bring the murderer to justice. I’m sure it would inspire us to ever so many brave deeds of our own.”
Her father gave her a wary look. “You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t trying to butter me up,” he said. “The answer is still no. Your mother and your sister have to go because they were witnesses to the real murder. The whole plan depends on all the witnesses being there. But you’re going to stay home, and be good girls.”
“You will look for the missing book, won’t you?” said Clara.
He made his fiercest face at the two girls and said, “Yes, and I’ll make sure the chairs are all arranged exactly the way they were, and that Slippery Ed doesn’t steal anything more, and that nobody is wearing a hollow wooden leg with a cannon inside it. And that’s the last I want to hear about it.”
Of course, it wasn’t, but in the end Mr. Clemens got his way—although he might have thought the price in aggravation was far too high.
26
As Mr. Clemens had hoped, Chief Inspector Lestrade’s invitation to a reenactment of the séance at which Dr. Parkhurst had been shot was accepted (if not necessarily with good grace) by all parties who had been at the original. Not that the Scotland Yard man hadn’t had to twist a couple of arms. Lestrade told us that Cedric Villiers had at first pled a previous engagement. The doctor’s widow had also begged to be spared such an emotion-wrenching scene. I think I would have understood it had he made an exception for that poor woman—but Lestrade had stood his ground, and Mrs. Parkhurst had given in more easily than he had expected.
The atmosphere as we all gathered in Martha’s parlor was far different from our first meeting, barely a week ago. To begin with, Lestrade had scheduled this meeting for the late afternoon, rather than after sunset. (This was primarily to allow his men to keep the place more easily under surveillance—both to prevent outside interference and to intercept anyone who might attempt to escape, once the purpose of the meeting became clear.) But more significantly, the events of our previous meeting had cast a cloud over everyone’s mood. The minute I stepped into the parlor, I found my gaze drifting toward the table where we had sat that night—where the doctor had sat when he was struck down by his assassin.
Mr. Clemens, his family, and I had been the first to arrive, except of course for Martha, who still occupied the apartment. I was surprised that having a man murdered under her roof had not driven her to seek other lodgings, and told her so. She looked at me with incomprehension. “Why? We’ve paid for this apartment to the end of the month. We’d lose the entire rent, and still have to pay for the new place, if I moved out now.”
“Perhaps the landlord would make an exception, under the circumstances,” I said.
Martha shook her head. “Under the circumstances, I consider myself lucky the landlord hasn’t thrown us out,” she said. “It’s just as well. I don’t think I need to add apartment hunting to my list of troubles, right at present.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, thinking of her husband still in police custody—in a foreign jurisdiction, no less.
Mr. and Mrs. Clemens had only just taken their seats when Inspector Lestrade arrived, along with his assistant, Sergeant Coleman and two other officers. Apparently others were stationed in the street below and in the back alley. Also with them was Ed McPhee, under the close attention of a stalwart constable. “Hello, Martha,” he said, smiling sheepishly. She gave him a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek, which the constable (to his credit, I thought) did nothing to inhibit. Then McPhee turned to my employer and nodded. “Sam, it’s good to see my pal here. I hope you can help straighten these birds out about old Ed McPhee.”
“Ed, if I told them the truth about you, they’d never let
