“It’s true,” Margaret said shortly. She gave the faucet one last disgusted swipe and threw the towel on the damp heap on the floor. “She sent ’im a note by Richard, the footman, askin’ ’im to meet ’er at nine in St. Mary’s Square. I know, ’cause Richard read the note and told me about it.” Shaking her head, she hissed through her teeth. “The goin’s-on in this ’ouse are enough to make a good Christian girl ’ang ’er ’ead in shame, Amelia. And ’er a parson’s daughter, too.”
Taking her cue, Amelia patted Margaret’s hand. “It’s too bad ye ’ave to be privy to such terr’ble things, Margaret,” she said piously. “But ye’re to be praised fer ’oldin’ yerself above it all and stickin’ to yer standards. Ye’ll ’ave yer reward in ’eaven. The Bible says so.”
“Thank ye, Amelia,” Margaret said with a smile, her good humor partially restored. She picked up the damp towels. “Rose is doin’ yer mistress’s room. Let’s go down to the kitchen and fix ourselves a spot of tea.”
“Won’t Cook mind?” Amelia asked doubtfully. Discipline wasn’t overly strict at Bishop’s Keep, but the servants took their morning cup in the servant’s hall, where they didn’t distract the kitchen maids or get in Mrs. Pratt’s way.
Margaret shook her head. “Cook likes ’er bit of gossip, same as us. We’re safe so long as Mr. Williams don’t catch us. Come on.”
The kitchen was a large, gloomy room with damp stone walls and a stone-flagged floor, under the old part of the house. Only a little natural light was let in by the windows high up on the walls, at ground level, and gaslights burned around the room. Although it was only midmorning, the room was already quite warm, heated by the monstrous Royale range, a black iron giant that took up almost all of one wall. On the other walls were bins and shelves and cupboards that held dishes and cooking pots, and a solid deal table sat in the middle of the floor, its surface marked by years of vegetable-chopping and bleached white with many scrubbings.
The kettle was already boiling on the back of the range when Amelia and Margaret came into the kitchen. Margaret put tea in a china pot, while Mrs. Redditch, the cook, dropped a lid on the copper kettle on the stove and joined Amelia at the table. She was a large, jolly-looking woman whose good humor seemed to extend to everyone but the kitchen maid, who was sulkily washing up the breakfast dishes in the scullery.
Margaret was pouring tea into three thick china mugs when Mr. Bowchard, the gardener, came in with a bucket of fresh-dug carrots. With a nod to Amelia, who had been introduced to him at lunch the day before, he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Well, Bowchard,” Mrs. Redditch said genially, as Margaret fetched a fourth mug, “ye sart’n’ly look glum enough, and it’s not noon yet.” She chuckled. “Is the missus makin’ life ’ard fer ye agin?” Mrs. Bowchard, as Margaret had told Amelia the day before, was the laundress at Regal Lodge, as well as several other neighboring establishments, and was known to be a harridan.
Mr. Bowchard, who had the gray, bowed-down look of a henpecked husband, blew on his tea to cool it. “I just ’ad a word with the postman,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Seems as there wuz a killin’ in Newmarket last night.”
“That’s nothin’ new.” Margaret poured more hot water into the teapot and put on the lid. “Somebody’s allus gettin’ hisself killed in Newmarket.”
“It’s the rowdies, ye know,” Mrs. Redditch said to Amelia. “They come down from London fer the boxin’ matches and cockfights and ’orseracin’. The constables do their best, but they get drunk in the taverns and knock each other over the ’ead.”
“Far as I’m concerned,” Margaret said darkly, “it’s good riddance t’ bad rubbish. It’s gettin’ so Christian folk can’t walk down the ’ Igh Street without ’earin’ some ruffian’s crude language. Why, even Pastor Johnson-”
“Wud’n’t no ruffian,” Mr. Bowchard put in, with the air of a man who knows something important and is having a difficult time containing his knowledge. He put his mug down and leaned forward. “Wuz Badger,” he said in a low voice.
“Alfred Day?” Mrs. Redditch asked, surprised. “ ’E’s
“ ’E’s dead,” Mr. Bowchard said definitively. He leaned back in his chair. “Somebody shot ’im. Last night.”
Margaret let out her breath in a long whoosh. Mrs. Redditch sat staring.
“Badger the
“Right,” Margaret said grimly. “ ’E ’appens to be Mrs. L.’s bookmaker.” She narrowed her eyes. “When did ’e get hisself killed, Mr. Bowchard?”
The gardener gave her a meaningful look. “After nine and afore ten. Leastwise, that’s wot the postman said. ’E got it from ’is brother Tom, the constable.”
“After nine and afore ten?” Mrs. Redditch cried. “But that’s when Mrs. L. was supposed to meet-” Her hand went to her mouth and her voice trailed off.
“Eggsac’ly, Mrs. Redditch,” Mr. Bowchard said grimly. He put down his mug. “My thoughts eggsac’ly.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In 1835, Henry Goddard caught and convicted a murderer. Goddard was one of the last and most famous of those Bow Street Runners who were the antecedents of the London detective force. Goddard had noticed that one of the bullets in the victim’s body had a curious blemish. With this bullet in his pocket, he set out on his hunt for the murderer. In the home of one suspect he found a bullet mold with a flaw, a slight gouge. The ridge on the murder bullet exactly corresponded to this gouge. Confronted with this evidence, the owner of the mold confessed the crime.
The Century of the Detective Jurgen Thorwald
Following Jack Murray’s directions, Charles located Dr. Stubbing’s consulting room next door to the chemist’s shop a few paces off the High Street. Several people were hunched forlornly in chairs in the small room at the front, but when Charles handed his card to the stern-faced woman at the desk by the door, she rose and led him down a hallway. She rapped on a closed door, went inside, and almost immediately reopened the door, motioning to Charles.
The doctor was leaning back in his wooden chair, his feet propped on his desk, reading a newspaper. For a long moment, he didn’t stir, even when Charles cleared his throat. Finally, he put the newspaper down and Charles saw a paunchy man with an unruly mane of white hair and bright blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. He regarded Charles with a look of undisguised hostility, not bothering to take his feet off the desk or offer his visitor a chair.
“Chief Constable Watson was here earlier,” the doctor said, without preamble or introduction. His voice was raspy, with a slight Scottish burr.
“Was he?” Charles said pleasantly. “Then you know why I’ve come.” Unbidden, he pulled a chair around to the front of the desk and sat down, taking off his hat.
Dr. Stubbing narrowed his eyes. “Watson said that the Jockey Club had some sort of interest in Alfred Day’s murder. He said they’d brought some member of the Establishment in to take over the investigation.” The doctor’s tone clearly implied that he approved neither of the Jockey Club nor of its intervention in what was obviously a matter for the local constabulary.
Briefly, Charles wondered what else the chief constable might have said. He put his hat on the
