“Do you know her?”
“Not really. Lots of ‘em go by here at allhours, luggin’ their stuff. I may have seen this one before and Imay not have.”
“She could be an important witness if she’dbeen anywhere near Devil’s Acre.”
“Well, I’ll rack my brains, such as theyare.”
“Thanks, Edgar.”
Cobb went back the way he had come. Heexamined again the spot where the bootprints vanished. The snow wasmessed up considerably just inside the alley. Had the killerlingered there? Strangely, Cobb had found no star-shaped print onthe Church Street sidewalk. It was as if the fellow had disappearedinto thin air. Cobb arrived back at the crime scene to find Wilkiestanding there with a nervous-looking, respectably dressed man athis side.
“This is Mr. Gavin Scott,” Wilkie said. “Hefound the body.”
“I’ll have the undertaker remove the body tomy surgery,” Withers said, pulling his scarf more tightly aroundhis neck. He nodded goodbye to Cobb and left.
“Now, Mr. Scott, tell me how you came to findthe body,” Cobb said.
“Well, sir, I was at the bootlegger’s at theother end of this alley and was on my way home when I almoststumbled — over her. Then I seen the blood.”
“This would be about an hour and a half ago?About ten-thirty?”
“That’s about right.”
“Did you check to see if she was dead?”
“Yes. I felt for her pulse. I didn’t turn herover, like she is now. I just reached down and felt her wrist.There was no sign of life.”
“Was the blood here still fresh?”
Scott thought about this. “I believe it was.It looked like it had just dropped into the snow. It wasn’tthickened or frozen or anything.”
“Then we can be sure she died shortly beforeyou found her. You saw no-one about?”
“No, I didn’t. I ran back to thebootlegger’s, and they sent a fella out to look for a policeman. Hecame right away.”
“I’ll need your address, sir, in case we needto talk to you again.”
“You don’t think I did it?”
“Not really. You’d hardly report it, thenhang about fer the police, would you?”
At this point Wilkie let out a gasp. He wasstanding beside the body, looking down at her face for the firsttime.
“What is it, Wilkie?”
“I know the girl,” he said.
“You do?”
“Yeah. It’s the little singer from MadameLaFrance’s place.”
Oh dear, thought Cobb. A woman of illrepute.
TWO
Cobb began walking back towards the brothel. At theend of the alley where Sally Butts had been brutally murdered, Cobbsaw something lying in the snow. He picked it up. It was a leatherglove, for the right hand. A gentleman’s glove, no doubt. Could itbe the killer’s? Dropped here when it was pulled off to allow abetter grip on the murder weapon? Cobb put it in his pocket.
He went up to the door of the brothel andrapped loudly. No-one answered his knock. He rapped again, moreloudly this time. Still no answer, though he thought he heardsomeone shuffling behind the door. Then he realized that thegentleman callers would likely have a coded knock to be let in.
“It’s the police, Madame LaFrance. Openup!”
After a brief pause, the door was easedopen.
“Whaddya want?” Esther La France barked.
“I got some bad news, I’m afraid.”
“A policeman in a brothel is always badnews,” she said, stepping back to let him into the warminterior.
“Yer singer, Sally Butts, was just found inan alley near here with her throat slit. She’s dead.”
Madame flinched. “Oh, my. I did warn herabout walking home alone,” she said, her face revealing both shockand anger. “I offered to let Johnny walk with her, but she said shefelt safer in Devil’s Acre than she did on King Street.”
“Well, somebody didn’t like her and wantedher dead.”
“She wasn’t carrying any money tonight,”Madame said, turning to spot Nell nearby in her kimono, her facewhite and her lip trembling. “She was sick and left early.”
“Oh, poor Sally,” Nell cried. “I’d better goand tell the other girls.”
“Break the news gently,” Madame said.
“I need to ask you some questions,” Cobbsaid.
“There’s nothing to tell. Sally was running afever. I let her go off about ten o’clock.”
“You didn’t see anythin’ funny goin’ on herebefore she left?”
Madame’s gaze narrowed. “Whaddya mean, funny?I run a respectable house here.”
“Did any of yer gentlemen do or say anythin’to her durin’ the evenin’?”
“They sat and listened to her sing — like abird — that’s what they did. And behaved themselves, as Iinsist.”
“Sally Butts was not one of yer regulargirls, I take it?”
“No, she wasn’t, though she had plenty ofoffers. She was a good girl who took her pay straight home to herparents.”
“Did anyone make an offer tonight?”
”They did not. We had the usual gentlemenhere tonight. They all knew her.”
“Did any of these gentlemen happen to leaveshortly before or after ten o’clock?”
The gaze narrowed further. “You don’t think agentleman killed her? Surely it was some cutthroat.”
“With what motive, ma’am? The girl wasn’tmolested. And she had no money, as you said.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know that.”
“But we have plenty of robberies in town andseldom does the victim get his throat slashed — from behind. Itlooks like murder was the motive here, by someone who knew who shewas.”
“Well, now, there were three of my gentlemenwho left just a minute or two after poor Sally.”
Cobb smiled and said, “Odd, don’t youthink?”
“Not odd at all. They had come to hear hersing, and when they knew she was finished for the night, theynaturally decided to go home.”
“Did they usually walk together?”
“I wouldn’t know that, would I? Though I oncesaw them split up after they left my stoop.”
“But you can tell me who they were?”
Madame heaved a big sigh. “You know perfectlywell I can’t do that. My gentlemen have wives.”
“If you know who they are, you’d better tellme.”
Madame LaFrance laughed, a coarse caw of alaugh. “You don’t understand, do you? I don’t even know or want toknow who these people are. Here we use pseudonyms or pet names. Thethree gentlemen who left at ten o’clock were called the Cavaliers — Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad.”
Cobb was taken aback. “Well, that ain’t muchhelp, is it, unless I can find me a Round Table somewheresnearby?”
“Well, that’s all I can tell you.”
At this point Nell came back into the roomwith Sarie and Blanche, all three of them crying.
“Quit your bawling,” Madame snapped. “You’llscare away our customers.”
“You don’t seem too broken up about losin’Sally Butts,” Cobb observed.
Madame took umbrage. “Of course I am. Wheream I gonna get another singer with a voice like hers?”
***
Cobb spent the first half of the next morningdictating his report to Gussie French, the police clerk. Abouthalfway through, Angus Withers poked his head into the constables’room that Cobb was using as an office, and announced that he hadcompleted his examination of the body and had sent someone toinform the parents of Sally Butts’s death.
“What’d you find, doc?”
“Well, the knife used had a serrated blade,”Withers said. “I’d hazard a guess that it was some kind of skinningknife. The slash was from left to right, so if the killer wasright-handed, I’d say he came up behind the victim, grabbed her tohold her steady, and then, quick and vicious, slit her throat.”
“I found a right-handed glove near thescene,” Cobb said, taking the written report from Withers, “so ifthe killer removed it to get a firmer grip on the knife, he wascertainly right-handed.”
“There were no bruises or blood or skin underher fingernails, so she didn’t put up any sort of struggle. Shedidn’t have time, poor thing.”
“Nothin’ else of interest?”