Death by Silver (24 page)

She stiffened slightly, and reached into her battered purse. “My name is Makins, Mr Lynes, Mrs Annie Makins. I’ve a letter of introduction from Mr Bolster.”

Julian took the crumpled slip of paper, and gestured with his free hand to the client’s chair. “Please, do sit down, Mrs Makins.”

She settled herself, gathering her skirts carefully around her, and Julian unfolded the note. On a quarter sheet, probably torn from the bottom of a bill, with a badly mended pen, Bolster had scrawled,
Mrs Makins is a friend, and her husband was a colleague. Please give her the benefit of your advice.
It was signed with his familiar complex monogram, and Julian set the note aside. “How may I help you, Mrs Makins?”

“It’s my husband,” she said. “Joe. He dropped dead Sunday night and the doctor called it apoplexy, but I know that’s not right.”

Julian hesitated. Several questions hovered on the tip of his tongue; he settled for the most innocuous. “Why did you come to me? You work for Mr Murtaugh – I wouldn’t have thought that would be a recommendation.”

She met his gaze squarely. “You have a reputation, Mr Lynes, even Mick Murtaugh knows you. And Bolster says I can trust you.”

“And what makes you think that your husband’s death wasn’t apoplexy?” He couldn’t think of any way to phrase the question that wouldn’t cause pain; better to be clear.

“Two things.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “First, he was a remarkably healthy man. Never sick a day in his life, and he didn’t drink more than his due or smoke more than a pipe a day, and he never touched any of those paper drugs. That’s not the sort of man who drops dead on his own back doorstep. Second, he – he was a cracksman, Mr Lynes, same as Bolster, and he’d done a job that went sour somehow, that he was worried about.”

“And you think someone involved with this job might have killed him?” Julian asked.

“I don’t know,” Mrs Makins said. “I found him, you see, crumpled up at our back door like he’d been knocked over the head. Cold he was by then, and stiff…” She shook herself. “But I know what a broken skull feels like, and his was whole. There wasn’t a mark on him, Mr Lynes. But I don’t believe it was an apoplexy.”

“What did you say to the police?” Julian asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

She gave a fleeting grin. “What do you think? I told them he’d gone out for a pint and a smoke, and I hadn’t expected him back until late. But when I went out to the yard, there he was.”

“Was it the police surgeon who called it apoplexy?”

Mrs Makins nodded. “And who am I to argue with him? I couldn’t exactly tell him why.”

“No,” Julian agreed. “Tell me about this job.”

“I don’t know much,” she said. “Just that he was hired to crack a gentleman’s crib – the man who hired him wanted one particular thing, said Joe could keep anything else he could carry. Joe thought it sounded like a fair enough deal, but…” She shrugged. “Something didn’t go right, that’s all I know. Oh, he got the stuff, and fenced it easy, but – he wasn’t happy about it. And he wouldn’t tell me why.”

“Did he usually confide in you?” Julian asked.

“Some,” she said. “Not everything, of course, and I didn’t want to know everything. But I’d’ve expected him to tell me this.”

“Did he say why he wouldn’t tell you?”

She looked away. “He said there wasn’t anything wrong, and I should mind my own business.”

“I see.” Julian laced his fingers together. It was always possible that she was mistaken, that there had been nothing wrong, and this was just grief and guilt at the loss of her husband, and there was the absence of any obvious injury to support that theory. Not that he particularly trusted the police surgeon, but Mrs Makins wouldn’t have missed anything. But there was something about her stance, the bleak anger lurking in her voice, that made him think she was probably right. And if she was – it was awkward, having to stand up against the police when Ned needed him to be conciliatory over the Nevett case. Of course, if he really wanted to break things off, this would be the perfect excuse… Except he didn’t want to. It was an inconvenient realization, and he was sure something showed on his face, because Mrs Makins’s chin lifted.

“If you don’t want to take the job, Mr Lynes –”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m sorry, I was thinking how best to proceed. Forgive my bluntness, but – has the funeral been held?”

She shook her head. “Not till Friday week. I get paid Saturday, and my brother’s promised to help with the rest.”

Burial never came cheap. Julian nodded. “Where is the body?”

Her mouth tightened, but she answered steadily enough. “At the cemetery. There’s a house there where they can keep the coffin until the burial. It’s sixpence a day, but we save the cost of bringing him from home. And Joe wouldn’t care. I doubt he’s been inside a church in ten years.” She rubbed her cheek. “I can swear there was no mark on him, Mr Lynes.”

“I believe you,” Julian said. “No, my thought was to find out what did kill him, and specifically if there was enchantment involved, and to that end, I’d like to consult a colleague of mine. With your permission, of course.”

“I can’t afford to double your fee,” she said. “Not on top of the funeral.”

“Of course not,” Julian said. “Here’s what I propose. Mr Mathey and I will examine Mr Makins’s body, and see if we can find an unnatural cause of death, then I’ll report to you and we can determine the best course of action. I won’t expect to proceed unless we find something that we can act on.”

“And your fee for that?” she asked.

“Five shillings.” It would be a sizable piece of her week’s pay, Julian knew, but it would only make her suspicious of his motives to charge her any less.

“Two now, and the rest when you tell me what you’ve found.”

Julian nodded. “Agreed.”

Mrs Makins reached into her purse again, and came out with the coins. Julian took them, wrote out a receipt, and she tucked it away. He wrote down her address as well, though she reminded him that she’d be easier to find at Murtaugh’s, and saw her to the door.

He returned to his desk and pulled out a sheet of notepaper, wondering exactly how he’d managed to fall back into his old habits with Ned. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know better – Albert was right, Ned had always been popular with the ladies of the University, and as soon as he got on a better footing financially, he was bound to be in search of a wife. And if he did marry – there was no reason they couldn’t continue to work together, at the least, though Julian was fairly sure that Ned would end their relations as soon as he found a suitable young lady. Surely Julian could content himself with Platonic friendship – Platonic in the modern rather than the classical sense, and therein lay the problem. He wanted the entire banquet, not the crumbs of sexless friendship, especially when he would know all too well what he was missing. The entire thing was folly, and he should know better. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he dipped his pen and wrote.
My dear Mathey, I have a new job for us…

Another pageboy arrived with a handful of letters hard on the heels of Bob’s departure, damp from the first drops of what looked to become a steady rain. Miss Frost rifled through them quickly and handed over one of the letters as Ned gathered up his hat and case. “Here’s one from Mr Lynes,” she said.

Ned ripped it open quickly and drew the letter out. “There’s a corpse Mr Lynes wants me to look at,” he said.

“Another one?”

“A Mr Makins, cause of death unknown.”

“You do have an interesting practice,” she said as he refolded the letter and tucked it into his coat. He’d stop by and see Julian later, but he wasn’t about to let Sarah Doyle slip through his fingers if he could help it.

“I don’t aspire to be a specialist in crime,” Ned said, although he couldn’t deny that he was beginning to feel like one.

It was raining in earnest by the time Ned arrived at Harley’s oyster-house, which seemed crowded despite the weather, or possibly because of it. Ned lingered in the cab long enough to sketch a water-repelling glamor over his coat and hat, but still wished he’d had the foresight to bring an umbrella. By the time he’d taken a few steps, he wished he’d enchanted his shoes as well, but he splashed resolutely through the muck.

He hoped the crowd at the oyster-house meant that Bill was occupied there for the moment and wouldn’t try to run him off out of brotherly protectiveness. He passed it by, ducking his head to shelter his face under the brim of his hat, and hunted for the house. Row after row of elderly houses loomed overhead, probably rented by the single room to the families that crowded into them.

He nearly ran into the girl as she came down the steps of one of the houses, sheltered under a faded shawl. She drew it closer around her and shrank back from him as he recognized her.

“Sarah Doyle,” he said. “Please, I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t know nothing, sir,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

“You must know it looks bad for you, running away like this. But you don’t have to be afraid. If you saw something that frightened you, or if someone’s threatening you…” He trailed off as a gust of wind drove rain against both of them. “May I come in, just for a minute?”

“There’s nowhere for you to come in, sir,” she said. “There’s no parlor, only the one room, and it wouldn’t be right. I’m a good Christian girl, Mr Mathey.” Her voice nearly broke on the words, and he wished there were any way to avoid frightening her.

“I know you are,” Ned said. “Believe me, I don’t have any intentions of that sort.” He stepped under the dubious shelter of the eaves, and after a moment she followed him, staying a cautious arm’s length away. The street was crowded, and a few passersby threw either hostile or wryly knowing glances in their direction; he supposed he must look like the worst sort of masher. “At least tell me why you left.”

“I couldn’t stand to stay in that house a moment longer,” she said. “Not when there’d been a murder. I was too frightened to go on sleeping there another night.” The words managed to ring false even when she was obviously terrified; they seemed too clearly a lesson learned by rote.

“So why didn’t you give your notice?”

“I didn’t think, sir, I just…”

“You ran. Because you saw something? Or know something?” She bit her lip, and he thought he might be close to the truth. “It doesn’t make you guilty if you were too afraid to tell what you know, not if you tell the truth now.”

“I never would have killed anybody, sir, and I never thought –” She broke off abruptly, looking over Ned’s shoulder, and her eyes widened. “They’ll take me to prison,” she said, clutching her shawl under her chin as if it could save her.

Ned looked round, and saw the bobby in his blue uniform. For a moment he thought it was simply coincidence, and then he saw Inspector Hatton beside the uniformed patrolman, both of them striding purposefully toward Sarah.

“They aren’t here to hurt you. If you’ll only tell them the truth –”

“You leave me be!” she cried, backing away, her eyes searching wildly for some avenue of escape. He hesitated to grab for her, afraid it would only frighten her more or inspire passersby to leap to her defense, and in his moment of hesitation, she darted away from him out into the street.

A police whistle shrilled, but she only ran the faster, dodging between speeding carriages and carts. He saw it the moment her heel turned, saw her slip in the rushing mud and go down in the path of an oncoming trap. She had only managed to push herself up to hands and knees when the wheel struck her.

The trap swerved, the horse shying in a panic, and there was an immediate tangle of traffic, with drivers swearing and trying to urge their horses out of the way. Ned shouldered between them, the rushing water soaking him to the ankles.

Sarah was lying sprawled in the road like a rag doll left lying in the rain. Ned knelt beside her, dimly aware that Hatton was telling the bobby to sort out this traffic before someone else was killed. He touched her bloody forehead as if there were any hope it could be mended.

“She’s gone,” Hatton said, not unkindly. “Get up, Mathey, you’re getting soaked. Someone get her out of the road,” he said to some of the men who’d crowded into to see what had happened. “It’s not like there’s any question how she died.”

Ned let himself be drawn to his feet and steered firmly out of the street himself. “Now you can tell me what you’re doing here,” Hatton said, more sharply. “Or am I to believe this is one of your usual haunts?”

“I was looking for Sarah Doyle,” he said, unable to think of anything better. He felt slow and stupid, and he knew he ought to gather his wits. “I wanted to get a statement from her on behalf of my client.”

“You knew we were looking for her,” Hatton said. “And it never occurred to you to tell us where she might be found?”

“You seem to have found her,” Ned said.

“That’s not the point,” Hatton said. “The point is you’re interfering and covering up evidence. I brought you into this to help me, blast it. Now you’re down here having a private talk with a potential witness who then promptly dies.”