Arthur stopped at the foot of the steps. He looked back toward the open closet: What in the world was this mean Whitechapel charwoman doing with a dress like that? Arthur planted his feet, refusing to ascend the stairs after the woman.
“Where did you get that?” he asked quietly.
The woman turned. She appeared confused. “Get what, now?”
“You have a sparkling white wedding gown in what I presume is your bedchamber. Forgive my impoliteness, but it is considerably too small for you to wear. Whose is it?”
Suspicion flashed across the woman’s face.
“And what’s it to you?” she asked, with a note of anger in her voice. Arthur decided that in this instance the truth might serve his case better than a fresh lie.
“My name is Arthur Conan Doyle. I am investigating the murder of Morgan Nemain, and as of this moment I am also investigating the murder of one Sally Needling.”
“And what’s that to do with me?”
“Sally Needling stayed here on the night that she died, didn’t she? She was one of your tenants.”
The woman matched Arthur’s deep stare as the seconds ticked by. Neither blinked. The woman’s brow became cross as she emitted a low snarl.
“Get out, you rotting pego!”
“How did her corpse get from your boardinghouse to the alley behind? I don’t believe you killed her-a man did. But you were here when it happened.”
“I don’t care who you are or what business you’re on. The door is thataway. Make use of it.”
Arthur was in need of some means to compel this woman to talk. He thought of her strangeness at the door. She had treated her boardinghouse as if it were clandestine. As if she did not want anyone to know what she did in this house.
“You’ve been keeping lodgers here against the wishes of someone nearby, haven’t you? Someone who frequents this very block, I’d wager. Hmmm, now…” Arthur broke eye contact, rubbing his palms together and humming as he pieced together the most likely possibilities.
This woman did not appear to share his regard for the cause of justice. He would have to be more firm.
“Quite a large place, isn’t this?” he said. “For a woman such as yourself to possess? You’ve no ring on your finger… You don’t own this house, do you? You’re looking after it for someone else and renting out rooms on the side for an extra few shillings a week. But your little business would be shut down if the house’s owner became aware of what you’re doing, would it not? I would hate, of course, to be the one to have to tell him.”
Arthur adjusted his overcoat and puffed out his chest.
“I won’t give it back,” said the woman after a long moment, her face falling as she became resigned to confession.
“I truly couldn’t care whether or not you do,” said Arthur. “But I need to know what transpired here between you and the murdered girl.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“I know,” said Arthur. “Who did?”
“I hardly got a look at him, he came by so quick. He came in with the girl-Sally, you say? And she was wearing that dress. When was the last time you’ve seen a dress like that? It sparkled in the light, shined like electricity. The man had on a black cloak, black hat, nothing much out of the ordinary. He kept his head ducked down a lot, hiding his eyes. The girl paid for their room. I showed them upstairs, and that was that.” The woman sat down on the staircase, folding her bosom over her knees and holding her legs into her body. It seemed to Arthur as if she were cocooning herself.
“Well, I thought that was that,” she continued. “The next morning I go to their door, to ask if they want their breakfast. I’d some porridge, and even some ham from the butcher’s across the way. There was no answer, so I opened the door. She was… The girl, you see, she was… And the dress, crumpled up in the corner like it was trash… Hell.” In the darkened stairwell, Arthur could not tell whether the woman was crying. He suspected that she was.
“You found Sally’s body,” said Arthur. “She was stark naked. She’d been strangled. The man was gone. The dress was by her side.”
The woman said nothing, but she nodded, first once, then many times, as if she were confirming the truth for herself as well as for Arthur.
“Isn’t it such a beautiful dress?” she said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“You didn’t want it to go to waste. To have the police take it away. You thought that maybe you’d sell it, or maybe you’d keep it for yourself. It must be quite valuable, a dress like that. So you hid it away in your closet. But you had to do something with the body, didn’t you?” The woman was definitely crying now. Arthur took the first few slats of the staircase in small steps, ascending foot by foot. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to the woman. She used it to smear the tears across her cheeks.
“You took the body and deposited it in the alley just beside your home. You must have brought her down these very stairs-she was heavy, wasn’t she? She must have hit every step on the way down. That’s why the body was so bruised when the police found her. You realized that a naked dead girl would attract rather more attention from the police than a clothed one, so what did you do? You took some skirts from your own closet, didn’t you, and wrapped them around her? A fair trade, I suppose, for her lovely white dress.”
The woman continued to cry as she buried her head between her knees. Arthur wanted to sit beside her, to give her an arm. But there was no room on the narrow staircase. He was forced to stand above her, looking down while her tears dripped onto her soiled shoes.
“You may keep the dress,” he said as he walked backward down the stairs. “And the kerchief.”
CHAPTER 18 Pleasure Reading
“Altogether it cannot be doubted that
sensational developments will follow.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
“The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”
January 9, 2010, cont.
After Alex Cale’s answering machine clicked off, there was silence in the cluttered Kensington flat. As the lead detective on the case, Harold felt it was his duty to say something.
“Well then,” he said. “That happened.”
“What the bloody hell?” said Jennifer incredulously.
“Let’s not overreact.”
“Do you know who that was? Do you know that man?”
“Yes. I’m sort of working for him, technically.” Harold was treated to a look of stunned horror from Jennifer.
“His name is Sebastian Conan Doyle,” chimed Sarah. “He had been fighting with your brother publicly.”
“We knew he’d been threatening Alex,” added Harold, “though in more of a legal, trading-angry-letters sense. We didn’t know that he’d been really threatening Alex, in, like, an I’m-going-to-kill-you sense.”
“Let’s sit down,” said Sarah. “Perhaps we should back up for a minute.”
The three sat, and Harold and Sarah spent the next fifteen minutes trying to explain everything they knew about Sebastian Conan Doyle and his fight with Alex. They talked about the angry letters back and forth, about Alex’s fear of being followed, and they even explained that they had come to London on Sebastian’s dime. Though, Harold was quick to add, they had no allegiance to his side in the argument. They simply wanted to find the truth. And the diary.