He turned on his heel and went back to his office. The door closed behind him.
Tiffany looked over at Day, his jaw set and his eyes narrow. Day knew there was a chance Tiffany would never recover from being embarrassed in front of him. Day was still too new on the job to want enemies, even someone like Jimmy Tiffany. He looked over at Blacker, who was politely pretending to be very interested in the scissors they’d brought in with the dancing man. Day walked to his desk and opened the top drawer. Inside, there was an ink bottle and three new pens that Claire had sent with him on his first day. He chose his least favorite of them and took it to Tiffany’s desk.
“This might be better than the one you’re using.”
He set it there and walked away. At Gilchrist’s desk, he picked up the bindle again and snuck a glance at Tiffany. Tiffany looked up. He didn’t smile, didn’t nod, but he was using the pen.
40
They sat outside Euston Station waiting for the crowd to clear out, but the stream of commuters, in and out through the tall arch, remained steady. At last Cinderhouse gave up. If they loitered outside the station too long, he feared they might draw attention. It would be hard to explain the contents of the trunk under his feet if a curious bobby asked him to open it.
He passed a note up to the coachman to take them round to St James’s Park. They were sure to find a deserted path there.
He patted the trunk.
“Don’t you worry, Mr Pringle,” he said. “We’ll find a place for you yet.”
41
When Penelope didn’t return, Hammersmith began to worry. He stood and paced unsteadily about the drawing room. A shared chimney connected all the floors of the house, and there was a fireplace here directly above the one downstairs where the dead boy had been found. An embroidered cloth covered the mantel and a large mirror was fastened to the wall directly above it. The mirror was surrounded by gold filigree and two narrow cases with tiny shelves where porcelain ballerinas posed. A gas ceiling lamp hung above the central table, and there was a daybed under the only window in the room. Sunlight danced across the rills and glens of its tatted cushions. Glancing at the bed, Hammersmith realized he felt dizzy. The daybed was too inviting. He couldn’t wait here any longer. There was work to do and he needed to keep moving or he might fall asleep.
He moved to the staircase and looked up to the floor above. He couldn’t see or hear any movement there.
“Mrs Shaw?”
No response.
He pulled his nightstick from under his arm and held it ready in his right hand. With his other hand on the banister for balance, he took the steps two at a time at first, but he stumbled and set out again more slowly. A green patterned runner extended up the center of the staircase and softened his footfalls. His feet felt heavy and his knees came up with each step as if he were moving underwater. He stopped and took inventory of his body, realized he could no longer feel any sensation in his fingers or his face.
The hall at the top of the stairs was dark and silent. He leaned against the wall and called again. “Mrs Shaw?” he said.
After a long moment, he heard something rustle off to his left and her voice floated toward him down the long hall.
“I’m here.”
“I can’t see. Where are you?”
There was no answer this time. He turned to his left and held on to the wall, shuffling forward in the dark. Diffuse light formed a halo in the air a few feet from him, but when he moved his head, the halo moved, too. He thought he was still gripping his nightstick, ready for anything that might jump out at him, but he couldn’t be sure. His arms were deadweights. He knew he wouldn’t make it to the downstairs door, and he had come too far into the house to do anything now except keep moving forward for as long as his legs continued to respond.
The halo around his vision grew brighter and resolved itself into a vertical line somewhere in front of him. He moved toward it and put out his hand. With the tip of the nightstick, he pushed out and a door swung open.
Penelope Shaw stood in a floating rectangle of light. He wasn’t sure her feet were touching the floor.
“What was in the tea you gave me?” Hammersmith said.
Penelope smiled at him and dissolved into a beautiful swirl of pink light. Hammersmith reached out toward her, stumbled, and fell. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was Penelope Shaw’s bare ankle.
He did not notice the soft hands unbuttoning his shirt.
42
So we’re agreed then that the scissors are the murder weapon?” Day said.
“I don’t think there’s much question of that.”
“Nor I.”
Day and Blacker looked at the meager evidence on Detective Gilchrist’s desk. They had only a pair of shears and a button. Day had once more decided that Gilchrist’s desk was fair game since Patrick Gilchrist wouldn’t be showing up to claim it. Besides, it made it look as if the absent Gilchrist was contributing to the case.
“It’s progress, I suppose, but there’s no way to connect them to anybody.”
“Not yet. Anyone could have access to scissors, but that thinking leads us nowhere.”
“The dancing man might tell us something about them.”
They had escorted the dancing man to the empty storage closet behind the squad room and left him there for the moment.
“He might,” Day said, “but he’s hardly reliable. He can wait. I’d like to have a better grasp of the evidence so that we can guide him and possibly get better answers, if he has them. I think we have to continue to act as though the scissors have to do with the killer’s profession. The ferocity and strength required to follow through with the murder rules out the possibility of a woman, agreed?”
“Of course. No woman could have done this.”
“So we need not look at seamstresses, nurses, or the ordinary London wife.”
“And that leaves us with…?”
“Tailors, doctors, perhaps a cobbler.”
“Or anyone else in the city who happened to pick up his wife’s scissors.”
“Yes.”
“Can we connect them with the button?” Blacker said. “Does that lead us back to the upholsterer?”
“I don’t think so. I have a theory about that, and if I’m right, it’s entirely disconnected from the case itself.”
“A false clue?”
“Perhaps.”
“In what sense?”
“I’d like you to take another trip out to Little’s place with me later, if you’re up for it. I’d like to talk to his widow one more time.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Nor I.”
“But if it’s unavoidable…”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“So do we rule out upholsterers, too?”
“Not necessarily. But probably.”
“So then there’s the trunk itself.”
“Kingsley’s got that. And the needle and thread, too. He says the needle used was probably an ordinary one, and I don’t see how that helps us much. Except inasmuch as the needles used by an upholsterer are apparently of a different sort entirely, which may be another reason to rule out that occupation as suspect. The thread…” Day shrugged. “I suppose a thread is a thread.”
“Unless we find a length of it covered with blood in someone’s pocket,” Blacker said.
“That would be convenient.”
“Time’s running out and we still don’t have much to go on. If we don’t catch this one soon, it’ll be another Ripper case.”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“The widow.”
“Didn’t I just say no to that?”
“Not specifically.”
“Damn it.”
43
What on earth is that frightful odor?”
Sergeant Kett looked up at the man standing in front of his desk. He was dressed in an immaculately tailored black suit accentuated by an aquamarine cravat and matching pocket square. He had a tall black hat with an aquamarine hatband, and the lines around his eyes and mouth suggested that smiling was something other people did. Kett recognized him as Geoffrey Cinderhouse, official tailor to the Metropolitan Police. Cinderhouse was holding a pair of navy trousers on a wooden hanger. He removed his hat with a flourish, revealing a perfectly smooth bald head that gleamed in the sunlight from the open doors.