Wouldn't It Be Deadly (19 page)

“We've been married ten years, Miss Doolittle. How many children do you think we have? None. We went to doctors, too many doctors. Seems the problem lies with me, and I won't go further than that, seeing how you're a lady.”

“So you didn't know the whole truth until the garden party?” Higgins asked.

Finch ran his fingers through his hair, as if he wanted to tear it out in frustration. “She took bad at that party. You saw her, Miss Doolittle. Running through the crowd, yelling at the top of her lungs, begging for a second's notice from a man who had just announced his engagement to another woman. Bloody nightmare, what with all the swells watching us. And then the butler had to carry her off the lawn. She was so hysterical, I called a doctor.”

“Is that when you learned about the child?” Eliza asked.

He nodded. “She'd been muttering about a child all the way home, but it was the doctor who confirmed it. Hell, he even congratulated me!” Finch pounded the table again. “And how do you think that felt? I'd wanted a son since I married the girl. And now I learn some nasty foreigner fathered the child I wanted for ten years.” He turned to Higgins. “Do you blame me? Would any man blame me?”

Higgins only stared back at him. It would be futile to explain wounded pride was no justification for murder.

“I wonder that you waited so many days to kill her,” Eliza said quietly. “Seeing how upset you were.”

“I didn't know what to do. I loved the woman. Don't you understand that? God help me, I love her still. I felt gutted, destroyed. It took days just to process the truth, and the whole time she was weeping and wailing with grief, like a bleeding widow.”

“Seeing how upset Mary was about Nepommuck's engagement, perhaps she was the one who…” Eliza's voice trailed off.

“What? You think Mary killed him?” His laughter had a horrible sound. “She would never have harmed a hair on that devil's head. Oh, she might have stuck a knife in the Marchioness, but never the Hungarian. She was talking so crazy, in fact, that I worried about her hurting Lady Gresham. When I had to go to Leeds on business, I forced her to come with me. She fought me tooth and nail. But I couldn't let her stay in London after making a spectacle of herself at the party.”

“Then you were both in Leeds the day of the murder?” Higgins asked.

“We heard the news in the papers about him being stabbed, and Mary had another knockdown fit. She created such a ruckus while we were in Leeds that I gave in to her demand that we return to London. We have family and friends in Leeds, and there's only so much humiliation a fellow can tolerate.”

“Indeed.” If Higgins ever had a moment's doubt about the perils of matrimony, these last few minutes dispelled it.

Jack finally spoke up. “Did Nepommuck threaten either you or your wife with blackmail?”

Finch shook his head. “He'd have no cause to blackmail me. Mary perhaps, but she never admitted to it. Sure, she played fast and loose with her pin money. I never kept track of what she spent. Mary did love to shop. She squawked on and on about your wardrobe, Miss Doolittle, enough to make me sick.”

Eliza knew that was true, given Mary's obsession with every fashionable article she wore from Whiteleys and Harrods. “She may have given her lover blackmail money.”

“I can't say for sure. She seems to have given him everything else.”

“I don't understand, Mr. Finch. You were enraged to learn your wife had been unfaithful and was carrying another man's child. But you left her unharmed for over a week. Why did you decide to kill her when you did?”

“The shock finally wore off, Miss Doolittle. I was beginning to feel something besides pain and humiliation. And she never stopped carrying on for the man, never stopped weeping and sobbing, falling to the floor, talking to his ghost in the middle of the night.”

“She sounds a bit mad,” Higgins said.

“I think we both went a little mad.” Finch sat silent a moment. “This morning was worse than ever. It appears today was that devil's birthday. And she was grieving as if she hadn't already cried an ocean's worth of tears. I didn't know what to do. I was near the end of my patience, and maybe my sanity. When I went to get dressed, I'd left Mary weeping on the couch. But when I came out, she was gone.” His face hardened. “I knew exactly where she went.”

“To Nepommuck's apartment?”

“Yes, Miss Doolittle. She'd gone to weep and worship at the altar of her lost love. I went after her, I did. And when I got there, she was on her knees, kissing his photograph like he was a bloody saint, and not some lying fat foreigner.”

“How did she get into the apartment?” Eliza asked. “It must have been locked.”

“He'd given her a key for their trysts. Only he never got a chance to ask for it back.”

“That must have been a terrible scene between you two this morning.” Eliza shuddered.

“No, no scene at all.” Finch stared down at his clasped hands. “I looked at her there on the floor, crying out his name, telling him how much she loved him, would always love him, how their child would know how wonderful he was. So I walked over to her and put my hands around her neck.” He paused, eyes still downcast. “And it was over.”

Higgins and Eliza looked at each other. Neither of them wanted to be in this room any longer.

“She deserved to die,” Finch added. “Both of them did.”

Higgins waited for him to admit anything else about the Maestro's murder.

“But you didn't kill Nepommuck.” Jack came to stand by the table.

“No. I wish I had, though.”

“You're a rich man,” Eliza said. “You could have paid any number of lowlifes to do the job for you.”

Finch shook his head. “I might have, but someone else got to him first. That's why I wanted to see you, Professor Higgins.”

Higgins sat back in disappointment. “Why?”

“To thank you, of course.”

“Whatever for, man?”

“You've done a great thing, Professor.” He grabbed Higgins's hand and shook it. “You killed Emil Nepommuck.”

 

ELEVEN

Higgins regarded himself as an ordinary man who only wished to lead a quiet bachelor life. So why was he skulking about the city chasing after murder suspects? Women, that's why. As he feared, females brought only disorder into a scholar's peaceful existence. And Eliza Doolittle had so far brought more trouble than a police wagon filled with suffragettes. She wasn't the only woman currently complicating his life, of course, but she was at the top of his list.

If not for her traipsing off to work for Nepommuck in the first place, he would never have been dragged into this bloody circus. Now instead of researching the dialects of a Devonshire farmer, he was stumbling over corpses, being hauled off by the police, and waiting like a messenger boy outside the home of that fraudulent Greek diplomat, Dmitri Kollas.

He looked up from the newspaper he pretended to read. Directly across from where he sat was Kollas's lodgings. When Higgins read the addresses of Nepommuck's clients, he had been surprised to see that Kollas lived in such a prestigious neighborhood. What sort of income did this fellow have access to that he could afford an elegant mansion in Kensington? This was just a step or two down from the heady environs of the aristocracy in Mayfair.

Of course, if the man posed as a retired diplomat, Higgins didn't expect him to be living above a brewery in Lambeth. But it looked as though Kollas enjoyed a lifestyle that could only be termed posh. A steep ascent indeed for one secretly rumored to be a watchmaker's son from Clerkenwell.

“I'm back, guv'nor.”

Higgins nodded at the boy who suddenly appeared next to the wrought iron bench he was seated on. “Where did the gentleman go, boy?”

“I followed him to Holborn. St. Giles-in-the-Fields.”

“He went to a church? Whatever for?”

“Seeing how it's Sunday, sir.” The twelve-year-old raised an eyebrow, and even Higgins felt the rebuke.

“Yes, of course. He went to Sunday service. Anywhere he stopped along the way?”

“Bought a griddle cake from the muffin man at Tottenham Court Road. He sells griddle cakes special on Sundays.”

Higgins fished a pound note from his wallet and handed it over. The information he had just received was more helpful than anticipated. And how lovely to learn it was Sunday.

“Would you like me to wait outside the church and follow him some more?”

“No need for that.” Higgins rose to his feet. “He's sure to be busy singing hymns for the better part of an hour, which is more than sufficient for my purposes.”

The boy tucked the money into the lining of his cap. “If you ever need me to follow anyone else, guv, you'll find me in the same place: making pretty pictures on the pavement in Piccadilly. Leastways on a sunny day. Otherwise, ask around for Toby Greene.”

As the boy vanished into traffic, Higgins made his way to Kollas's mansion. No better time to discover the sort of man one was dealing with than taking a look about his home, especially if he was absent. Higgins had met Kollas only once at the infamous Embassy Ball. Even during their short conversation, he had been struck by the man's atrocious Greek accent. And he seemed a florid and overbearing poseur. But Higgins swore he heard a Cockney flavor in the few words Kollas spoke in his presence. For certain, he was no Greek. Then what was he?

Higgins rang the mansion doorbell. The brass doorknob and address plate looked well polished, and the porch was swept as clean as the front stoop of a Dutch housewife. The door opened and a young maidservant peeked out at him.

“Sir?”

As he suspected, only a skeleton staff remained at the house on Sunday; most of the servants would be given permission to attend church. This was easier than he hoped, with no head housekeeper or butler to persuade. Higgins gazed upon a girl no older than sixteen.

“Mr. Kollas, please.”

“I'm afraid Mr. Kollas is at church, sir.”

“I see. I have an appointment with him at eleven. I realize I'm a bit early, but I was hoping to find him in.”

“He'll be back in time for luncheon. Cook has a roast in the oven.”

Higgins handed his calling card to the girl, whom he guessed to be the under-house parlor maid. “No doubt you are aware that Mr. Kollas had engaged a gentleman to help him with his English. Sadly that individual is recently deceased. As you can see from my card, I am a language specialist as well. Mr. Kollas wished to speak with me about continuing his instruction.”

The girl seemed impressed by his embossed card. “Since you have an appointment, Professor Higgins, you may wait inside.” She opened the door wider.

He needed no further invitation. Within minutes Higgins was comfortably ensconced in Dmitri Kollas's front parlor.

“Can I bring you tea, Professor? Or coffee? Ambassador Kollas prefers Greek coffee.”

Higgins settled back in a dark purple divan. “I will wait for Mr. Kollas to join me. Besides, I am sure you must have a great deal to do getting luncheon ready.”

“Indeed yes, sir. There's only me and the scullery maid here right now and a dozen things on the stove. If you need anything, just ring, sir.” She bobbed a small curtsey.

As soon as the oak door swung shut behind her, Higgins sprang to his feet. It was a small room with overlarge furniture. He had to skirt carefully around the ottomans and polished tables. There were no family photos in evidence, although a portrait of King George I of Greece hung in a prominent spot above the fireplace.

He examined the many paintings in the room. Each portrayed a scene in Greece: three were of the Acropolis alone. A pedestal near the window held a first-rate marble reproduction of a bust of Pericles. On a side table sat a brass tray with demitasse cups and several bottles of Greek wine. Nothing surprising about that. Only a fool would pretend to be a foreign diplomat and not have several objects related to their so-called mother country.

There wasn't a book to be seen, but the Sunday
Times
lay neatly folded on a cabinet by the door. Higgins sighed. He would have no further luck in here. Opening the door, he peeked out into the hallway. The aroma of roasting meat already wafted through the house. Higgins's stomach gave an involuntary growl. He remembered he had not eaten breakfast.

Stepping out farther, he heard two female voices below along with the sound of clattering pans. Through the open door across the hall, he spied what must be the library. Crossing the hallway as quietly as a house burglar, he ducked into the room and slid the pocket doors shut behind him. Due to the cloudy morning, Higgins swept the curtains open wide before turning to inspect the room. The oak writing desk was free from any clutter save an inkwell, blotter, and a neatly stacked pile of vellum stationery.

He pulled open each desk drawer, but they held little of interest. Next he turned to the bookshelves filled with leather volumes; most appeared remarkably new. Several bore Greek titles on the spines. When Higgins pulled these out, they opened as if they had never been touched. Some had pages still uncut. Just so, Higgins thought. The books were as much a false front as the portrait of the Greek king and the bust of Pericles in the parlor.

The bottom shelf held several medical journals and two thick volumes on tropical medicine. He flipped these open. All the spines were cracked, with pages repeatedly marked in the margins. Unfortunately, there were no bookplates or names scribbled on the flyleaf to identify the owner.

Kollas would be home soon and he had discovered nothing except that the fellow wasn't actually Greek. Yet who really believed that he was?

Discouraged, Higgins returned to the hallway to think over his next move. He paused by the stairs. The library and parlor might hold no clues as to Kollas's real identity, but the bedroom was where a man might feel safe enough to be careless.