The Vice Society (6 page)

‘Can you smell something, Inspector?’

Mr Newsome sniffed. ‘Nothing unusual. What is it?’

‘I don’t know . . . just the faintest . . . I don’t recognize it.’

‘I cannot smell anything. Have the chamber pots been used?’

Mr Cullen gingerly pulled them out from under each bed. He held out the one from the bed where they had found the hair. ‘Yes. Look.’

‘I have seen the contents of a pot before, Constable.’

‘No, sir. It is something else.’

The two peered inside the gleaming white interior at the small brown mass inside.

‘The pith and pips of an orange,’ said Mr Newsome blankly. ‘Perhaps it is that you could smell.’

‘But there is no skin. Just this one chewed mouthful spat into the pot.’

‘So what are you saying? That our case rests upon a missing fruit? Are we to alert the police constables of the city to keep an eye out for an injured orange?’

‘No . . . but Sergeant Williamson—’

‘Sergeant Williamson is no longer with us. We will have to do without him and his superhuman detective vision. I will admit, however, that there is a mystery here: the four glasses, the single strand of hair, the reason for Mr Sampson’s leap. There are people we must speak to, and we can begin with Mrs Colliver.’

The two investigators ensured that the room was secure and returned downstairs to the private quarters of the landlady, where the air was close and hot from the fire. No matter what the temperature, Mrs Colliver did not remove her bonnet, nor loosen the cords that held it stubbornly to her head. The two policemen had already removed their coats before sitting at the bare table in the centre of the room.

‘Do you want coffee?’ asked Mrs Colliver.

‘That would be very nice,’ said Constable Cullen.

‘We will not, thank you,’ said Mr Newsome. ‘Let us get straight to business. I know, madam, that you have recounted the facts before, but I may understand them differently. I am a member of the Detective Force.’

‘What’s that, then?’

‘It is a lot of trouble for you if you don’t moderate your tone. Now – you have said before that you admitted the deceased, Mr Jonathan Sampson, at ten o’clock in the evening.’

‘To his room, yes. But he arrived about an hour earlier.’

‘Was he alone when he arrived, or with the other gentleman?’

‘I cannot be sure. I do not see every customer. My impression is that he arrived alone and was joined shortly after by his friend.’

‘What makes you think they were friends?’

‘Mr Sampson seemed to know and like the other fellow.’

‘I dare say I know and like the Queen, but she might not term us friends.’

‘I mean, they had quite a lot to say to each other. They sat close and spent the time in discussion.’

‘Discussing what?’

‘How could I know, sir? The house is noisy at that time of the evening. There is food to be served.’

‘Well, did they frown? Were they serious or jocular? Did they argue? Did they laugh?’

‘They seemed contented enough, I suppose. Their heads remained close as they tried to make each other heard.’

‘Or not heard by others. And you have said that they did not drink.’

‘Only coffee.’

‘Tell me about this other man. What was his name? What did he look like?’

‘He did not pay for the room so I did not take his name. He was well dressed. A jovial enough sort.’

‘Like myself, then.’

‘Rather better dressed. And more jovial.’

‘How old was he, do you think?’

‘Quite young, I suppose. Twenty something.’

‘An unusual friend for a man of Mr Sampson’s years.’

‘A man might have any friend he likes.’

‘Indeed. Have you seen him here before or since?’

‘No.’

‘More, Mrs Colliver. You are withholding information from me.’

‘I am not.’

‘Then why do you shift in your seat and twitch so? Anybody might think it was you who committed the murder.’

‘Murder? What are you saying? I don’t want anyone talking about a murder at my coffee house. Can you imagine what they would say? “Go to Colliver’s for a coffee and get murdered.” He jumped!’

‘How do you know? Were you in the room? I thought you were asleep when the incident happened.’

‘I was. That is what I have heard. I do not know what happened in the room.’

‘More of that in a moment. You told the inquest that the men went to the room at ten o’clock. They were both quite sober, you said. And yet we found four used glasses that smelled of sherry in that room. Can you explain that?’

‘Might not they have brought their own drink in a bottle?’

‘And four glasses? Nobody reported seeing the young man carrying a bottle.’

‘You would be surprised what I have found people bringing to those rooms.’

‘I am sure. So the glasses do not belong to you? I could take them and smash them if I wanted to?’

‘If you like.’ But Mrs Colliver’s tone said that she would be happier if he did not.

The inspector scowled and looked at his colleague. ‘Mr Cullen – have you any questions, or are you going to just sit there?’

The constable cleared his throat. ‘Did either of the gentlemen have an orange with them, or buy one from a girl while here?’ he asked, extracting a notebook.

‘No. No orange,’ replied the lady, forgetting for a moment the hair about to spill from her bonnet.

‘And I would like to ask about a long blonde hair that we found on the bed nearest the window. Might it be yours?’

Mrs Colliver’s hand went reflexively to her bonnet. ‘It could well be. I clean the rooms myself.’

‘Would you take off your bonnet for us?’ asked Mr Newsome.

‘Why?’

‘Why not? Have you something to hide?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, then . . .’

Mrs Colliver looked from one man to the other, then at the tabletop as if making up her mind. Finally, with a grimace, she extracted the bonnet cord from between her chins and unleashed a mop of loose blonde hair over her face. But it was not the hair that the policeman noticed – it was the bloody contusion just above her forehead, the hair about it still caked and sticky.

‘Who did that to you, madam?’

‘Nobody. No one. I fell while cleaning the hearth last evening.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Well, I . . . I was bending to rake the ashes and I slipped.’

‘Slipped on what?’

‘My dress.’

‘I see. Because it looks to me like the mark was made by a blunt instrument of some sort being struck upon your head.’

‘Wouldn’t I have called the local constable if that were the case?’

‘Yes, I am quite sure you would. I want you to provide us with a list of the other people who were staying in your rooms the night of the unfortunate event.’

‘All gone.’

‘That may be true, but I am certain you took their names – genuine or false – before you took their money. If I can locate them, I will speak to them to see what they heard. Have you a girl here cleaning or serving?’

‘Only in the coffee house. I alone attend to the rooms.’

‘Convenient. I will speak to the girl anyway. Now – you say you were awoken at two o’clock by someone moaning? Not by a man frantically kicking at the wall and trying to hold on to a window ledge?’

‘By the moaning.’

‘It must have been quite dramatic moaning.’

‘Terrible. I thought at first it was the spirit of my dead Harold: Mr Colliver.’

‘How do you know it was two o’clock?’

‘It was my impression. I did not see a clock.’

‘Could it have been three?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘What did you see when you looked from the window?’

‘The poor man lying on the ground. The constable was bending over him.’

‘And you recognized the man on the cobbles as your tenant despite having been rudely awoken, despite the darkness and despite the constable bending over him. You must have a very sharp eye, madam.’

‘I have.’

‘And you saw the incident from these rooms here, is that right?’ asked Mr Newsome, standing and walking to the leaded window.

‘That is right.’

‘It is a sharp angle to see the cobbles below the fateful room.’

‘Not if one opens the window.’

‘I see that you have been rehearsed well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind. Did you see the jovial, well-dressed young man flee from the place?’

‘I did not. As you say, the angle is awkward. I only heard his voice.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Something like, “O, my friend has jumped from the window. I will fetch his friends.”’

‘He said “jumped” rather than “fallen” did he?’

‘Something of the sort. Is it not all the same?’

No. What did you do in the immediate aftermath of the incident?’

‘Why, I went to the room.’

‘And what did you find?’

‘It was empty. The door was open. The beds had not been slept in. The window was open.’

‘And the four glasses?’

‘I must say I did not notice. I was distracted. Some other guests had been awoken and I tried to becalm them. Perhaps one of them put the glasses in the room while the door was open and I was otherwise occupied.’

‘A natural enough impulse, I suppose, to put four used glasses in another man’s vacated room. How long was the door open?’

‘Until a constable came and asked me to lock the room. An hour or so.’

‘And did anyone else enter during that time?’

‘They may have. But most went back to sleep once the body had been removed. I did too – until the constable woke me about the door.’

‘You sleep easily after one of your guests has been tossed from a window.’

‘I work hard. I was tired.’

‘So it would seem. We will wait here while you bring us that list of tenants. And fetch your girl.’

Mrs Colliver put the bonnet back on and stuffed her hair into it before muttering her way back down to the coffee house. As she did so, she saw the back of a man rapidly turning the corner at the end of the corridor and fleeing out through the alley door.

‘Hoi!
Stop! This is a private area!’ she yelled.

‘Who was that?’ said Mr Newsome, appearing at the doorway.

‘A fellow running from the corridor.’

‘A thief?’

‘There is nothing in this corridor to steal . . . unless he was listening at the door.’

Mr Newsome ran to the alley door and looked out. It was empty. He hurried along its length, looking for recesses as he went, and emerged into the street. Nobody there was conspicuously hurrying away from the alley.

‘Pardon me, sir – did you see a man emerge from this place a moment ago?’ Mr Newsome asked a passer-by.

‘Why, yes – then he asked me if I had seen a man emerge a moment ago, ha ha!’ replied the man with powerful gin-scented breath.

The inspector grimaced and fought an urge to violence. He turned back down the alley.

‘Describe him to me, Mrs Colliver,’ he said on returning.

‘I saw only his back. He was wearing a broad-brimmed hat, dark trousers ... he looked like anyone.’

‘Have you seen him before?’

‘It is hard to say without seeing his face. I think not.’

‘Very well. See to that list, and fetch your girl.’

Mr Newsome returned to the fug of the private quarters and smiled at Mr Cullen. ‘What do you make of her testimony, Constable?’

‘It is not very helpful.’

‘It is lies from beginning to end – that’s what it is.’

‘It is certainly lacking detail, but how can you be sure it is all lies?’

‘Look at what she did
not
say. Her sentences are clipped as if she is frightened of giving too much away. She has an answer to every omission. That ludicrous comment about the ghost of her husband was pure theatre – I am sure someone else has put it in her mind. Then there is her general manner and that wound on her head, no doubt put there by the person who has silenced her. Still, there is little we can do, I suppose. We could arrest her, but no magistrate would gaol her for this.’

‘You suspect the other fellow – the one who fled and said he was going for friends?’

‘I can think of no one else who might benefit. Could it be that he visited her shortly before he fled and warned her not to tell the police anything? Could it be that the fellow who appeared to be listening at the door just now was the very same person? I have no idea.’

‘What do we do next?’

‘We investigate, Mr Cullen. We investigate further. Did Mr Williamson teach you nothing?’