She turned to see Bainbridge pointing towards the front of a nearby jeweller’s store with the end of his cane. The legend on the sign read FLITCROFT amp; SONS, FINE JEWELLERS. There were wooden shutters over the windows and the door was shut. There were no lights on inside the premises.
Veronica had heard of them by reputation, of course, but she’d never had reason to pay a visit to the store. Indeed, she suspected most of the items for sale inside to be well beyond her means. Shops like this one catered to the lords and ladies of high society, and whilst she could never be considered poor-she had a small allowance from her parents that she supplemented with her income from the Crown-neither could she afford to squander her money on elaborate and unnecessary trinkets.
“This is the place.” Bainbridge approached the door and tried the handle. It was locked.
Veronica studied Newbury. He was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun, staring down the street. He looked slightly more himself following their visit to his Chelsea home, but the dark bruises beneath his eyes and the pallor of his skin said a great deal about the general condition of his health. This was not the Newbury she had come to know. Even now. Even with the fire of a case in his belly. There was something else at play, and she had yet to discover what it was.
Bainbridge rejoined them. “Right, when you’re ready.”
Newbury searched the other man’s face, puzzled. “Are we not going inside?”
“Round the back. I want to show you how he got in.”
Newbury nodded and trailed after Bainbridge.
The rear of the shop was as featureless and nondescript as the rest of the buildings in the long row, save for the two uniformed bobbies who were loitering outside, kicking their heels, deep in conversation. One of them was smoking a cigarette. He swiftly cast it away when he saw Bainbridge coming, but was unable to hide the riffles of smoke that still curled from his nostrils. He quickly adjusted his posture and stood to attention, wearing a guilty expression. His companion fought to contain a wide grin.
“Hardly surreptitious, Peters,” Bainbridge said as he approached the pair, clearly attempting to hide a chuckle at the uniformed man’s expense.
“No, sir, not surreptitious at all, sir.” The man looked utterly crestfallen.
Bainbridge leaned in close to him, lowering his voice. “A little tip for you, Peters. If you’re going to have a sneaky smoke while on duty, try not to get caught.”
The man, Peters, looked visibly relieved at Bainbridge’s leniency. Veronica thought he might even grab the chief inspector by the hand. “Yes, sir. Sound advice, sir. I’ll remember it well.”
“See that you do, Constable.” Bainbridge patted the man firmly on the shoulder, then motioned the two of them aside with a wave of his cane. He pointed it at the rear door of the shop, which was down a short flight of stone steps and across a small yard. “So here we are, Newbury. Take a look at that. See if you can’t spot anything the rest of us might have missed.”
Newbury nodded politely at the two bobbies then crossed the street, taking the steps two at a time, and dropped to his knees in the yard, examining the flagstones along the approach to the door. Veronica followed him at a reasonable distance, keen to see what was going on without disrupting his train of thought.
From his pocket, Newbury withdrew a small magnifying lens, about the size of a penny piece. He held it up to his right eye, clutching it between his thumb and forefinger. From where Veronica was standing, it made his eye look suddenly enormous. She stifled a laugh.
She sensed Bainbridge moving to stand beside her and looked over at him. He stood watching Newbury with interest. “Remarkable,” he said without the slightest hint of irony.
Veronica grinned. Bainbridge was a traditionalist. He did things the old way. That wasn’t to say that he was outmoded-far from it-but simply that his thought processes had been worn into familiar grooves over many years of policing. In most instances, this read like a shorthand that could sometimes seem like arrogance to those who didn’t know him better: He would arrive at the scene of a burglary or murder and immediately suggest the means by which the crime had been committed. It was a kind of insight, Veronica mused, a way of seeing the world through the criminal’s eyes gleaned from years of experience and many hours spent cogitating on the motives of the men he sent to the gallows, prisons, or asylums. He could walk into nine out of ten crime scenes and immediately put his finger on the solution. It was the reason he had risen so swiftly through the ranks at Scotland Yard, and the reason he was such a trusted agent to the Queen. But sometimes, on those rare occasions when his intuition failed him, when he found himself flummoxed by circumstances outside his realm of experience, he called on Newbury.
Newbury had a knack for turning things on their head, of being able to take any situation and see it in a different light. He offered a perspective that often seemed obvious with hindsight, but represented a logical leap that many people would find unimaginable. And that made him a truly remarkable detective. He was able to glean insight from the slightest fragment of a clue. And his experience reached beyond that of the traditional detective: Newbury was an anthropologist and an expert in the occult. His work for the Queen had tended to centre on this latter trait: Newbury was the man she called in when something unusual or otherworldly was suspected, or when all of her other agents were confounded.
Veronica watched as he scrambled around the yard on his knees, ruining his fresh suit, bowing his head so low that his nose was nearly touching the ground. He continued in this manner for some time, moving from the foot of the steps right up to the shop door and then back again. Then, suddenly imbued with energy, he leapt to his feet, pocketed his magnifying glass, and ran over to the two bobbies, who were watching all of this with growing confusion.
“Show me the soles of your left feet,” he said, the urgency in his voice enough to cause them to both turn around and do just as he said. Newbury ran a hand through his hair, bent low to examine the proffered shoes, and then proclaimed “Ha!” before bounding back over to stand before Bainbridge. Veronica was taken aback by this sudden alteration in his behaviour, but was gladdened by it; it was more energetic a display than she had seen from him for many, many months.
“A man, Charles. He was here late last night, after the light rain. His stride was confident and purposeful, and his shoes were flat-soled size nines.” He eyed the chief inspector triumphantly. “What size shoes did the dead man wear? Sykes?”
Bainbridge smiled. It was clear he was relieved by Newbury’s sudden outburst of enthusiasm. Vindicated, too, she suspected, since it had been his idea to involve Newbury in the case. Although Veronica knew there was more to it than a simple desire to help Newbury find a reason to drag himself away from the opium dens, she also believed he was utterly perplexed by the mystery and in need of his friend’s assistance.
“Size nine,” Bainbridge conceded. There was a glint in his eye. “Take a look at the rear door, Newbury.”
Newbury was like a bloodhound that had suddenly got hold of a scent. He turned and made a beeline for the door. Veronica followed him, curious to see what he would do next.
The door itself was a heavy wooden affair, unmarked and unremarkable, and clearly designed to keep people out. It was at least an inch thick-she could see this because it was now standing ajar-and was lockable from the inside by virtue of a large dead lock and two thick iron bolts. It had been crafted from a dark hardwood, possibly mahogany.