Murder in the Smithsonian (18 page)

***

Heather came down to the Chesterfield’s lobby at seven-thirty. She chatted with one of the desk staff,
then went to the front door and peered out. The rain had intensified; buildings across Charles Street were vague, fluid shapes. She gingerly stepped through the doors and saw Killinworth on the corner, an umbrella over his head, his attention on the busier Curzon Street a block away.

“Evelyn,” Heather called.

He turned and shouted, “Bloody rain.” A few moments later a taxi responded to his frantic waving. Killinworth again looked at Heather. “Share it with me?”

“Yes, thank you.”

When they were together in the taxi, Killinworth told the driver, “Belgrave Place, Belgravia.” To Heather he said, “I’m running a little late. Hope you don’t mind my being dropped off first.”

“Not at all.”

A few minutes, and eighty pence later, Killinworth told the driver to stop at a corner in Belgrave Square. He handed him two pounds and said to Heather, “Getting off here. See you at nine-thirty.”

“Yes. All right.”

As he opened the door the blowing rain whipped inside the cab. He slammed the door behind him and disappeared into the fog.

“Where to now?” the driver asked.

“The East End, Cable Street, please, a pub called the Quid.”

“Don’t know that particular pub, ma’am.”

“We’ll find it as long as we get to Cable Street.”

“As you say, only that’s not the sort of spot I’m comfortable dropping a proper lady at.”

“I appreciate your concern, but it’s quite all right.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Fifteen minutes later, as the driver circled the Tower of London and turned onto Cable Street, he said,
“There’s a very nice pub, ma’am, close to here called the Prospect of Whitby. I’d recommend it over the spot you’ve chosen.”

Heather smiled. “I know that pub, but I’m meeting someone at the Quid. Thank you, though, for the suggestion.”

He pulled up in front of the Quid. The area was dominated by project housing and warehouses. The lighted signs were blurred images through the fog and rain. Heather paid the driver and ran to the protection of a small ledge overhanging the front door. Raucous female laughter cut through the general male din inside. She watched the taxi pull away, then opened the door. An oval bar in the center of the room was crowded with drinkers, several of whom turned to look at her. An Irish jig played loudly through a speaker suspended in a corner. The floor was covered with chipped red-and-gray tiles. The barstools were red vinyl, and there were ripped tan vinyl benches along the walls.

To the rear of the pub two men played darts. One was tall and heavy; his nose and cheeks were plum red. He wore a green plaid shirt and heavy workman’s trousers. His sandy hair was thick and unruly. His opponent was a much smaller man, sallow-faced and bald except for a fringe of gray hair. He wore a black raincoat over a rumpled brown suit.

Heather told the bartender, “I’m looking for Mr. Elwood Paley.”

“That’d be him over there,” the bartender said, pointing to the smaller of the two dart players.

Paley spotted her, assumed who she was and waved for her to join him. She walked to the fringe of the dart playing area. He held up a finger. “One minute, luv. I’m up.”

Heather watched him throw his three darts, putting them in a tight bunch around the triple-twenty section.
His score was written on the board as he turned to Heather, extended his hand and said, “Elwood Paley at your service. Glad you found it. I’d have come over to your neck of the woods but like I told you on the blower, I’m tied up here tonight.”

Heather wondered if his main business wasn’t drinking and dart playing. She asked if they could sit down and talk.

“Just as soon as I teach this bloke what darts are all about. Go on over there and have yourself a bitter on me. I’ll join you shortly.”

Heather sat on a bench, and Paley told the bartender to see that his “lady-friend” was served “half a bitter.”

Heather sipped it and watched the finish of the game. Paley lost, she was rather glad to note, and handed his opponent money. He came to the table and sat down next to her, evidently sensing what she was thinking when he said, “It might not seem work to you, mum, but I keep in with the locals. Good sources of information, if you catch my drift.”

“I suppose,” Heather said, not wanting to prolong the conversation in recriminations. “What have you found out, Mr. Paley?”

“About your fiancé?”

“Of
course
.”

“Well, now, Miss McBean, I’d be lyin’ in me teeth if I said I learned very much, be handin’ you a bag a hooey. I’ve gained my reputation by bein’ honest to a fault—”

“That’s admirable, Mr. Paley.”

“Only way to work. Tell too many lies and you find yourself in the Thames tryin’ to swim with blocks on your feet and hands.”

Heather sighed. “What
have
you learned?”

“Well, now, let me see.” He pulled a dog-eared pad from his raincoat pocket and turned pages until he
found what he was looking for. “First of all,” he said, “I’ve not been able to find Mr. Peter Peckham, which, I might add, is cause for concern, and I’m not the only one feelin’ this way. The gent seems to have disappeared, which isn’t regular for someone like him.”

“You have no idea where he might be?” she said, her voice reflecting her concern.

“Not a clue, ma’am. I come up with a few people who knew him but they’ve not seen hide nor hair of him for more ’n a week.”

“I see.” Heather sipped from her mug and stared at the scarred tabletop. Two drunken longshoremen came into the pub. One of them made a mildly suggestive comment to her as they passed. “Don’t mind them,” Paley whispered in her ear. “Nothin’ to fear as long as you’re with me.”

Heather did her best to ignore everything and everyone around her. “What about Dr. Tunney? Did you learn anything about his movements before he left for America?”

Paley flipped through a few more pages. “Yes, I did, ma’am.” He placed his hand over the page, cleared his throat. “You’ll be payin’ me the balance of my fee this night, I take it.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you’ve earned it.”

He slipped the pad back in his pocket, got up, went to the bar and bought himself another bitter. He returned to the table, downed half the dark brew, and turned a stare on Heather that was altogether unpleasant. He had a small face, pale and soft, but there was now an unmistakable hardness, cruelty, that made Heather lean away from him. He smiled, exposing yellowed teeth. “I’m not accustomed to havin’ my work questioned, Miss McBean. I’ve got me a good reputation.
Like I told you when we first talked, there’s no guarantees in this business. I do my best. If I come up with something, that’s ducky. If I don’t, that’s hard beans but I get paid one way or the other.”

“I’ll pay you what I owe,” Heather said. “Now please tell me what you can about Dr. Tunney.”

Paley waited until she’d dug into her purse and extracted his remaining fee in pounds. He counted them, put them in his pocket, withdrew his pad and returned to the page he’d stopped at earlier. “Let me see,” he said, squinting at his writing. “Ah, yes, I did discover, with some difficulty, I might add, that Dr. Tunney did talk with the missing Dr. Peckham during that week.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, indeed. I never report anything that ain’t certain.”

“Where did they meet?”

“At Mr. Peckham’s shop on Davies Street. Someone saw a gent fittin’ Dr. Tunney’s description go into the Peckham establishment one day about noon and come out of it about an hour later.”

“What else?”

“That’s the size of it.”

“Where else did Dr. Tunney go that week?”

“I don’t know. I come up against a blank wall, if you catch my drift.”

“Yes, I catch your drift. You’ve told me everything you know?”

“For now. Of course, I can keep on the case—”

“For another fee.”

“I’m a workin’ man, luv. I get paid for my services like everybody else.”

“No, Mr. Paley, I won’t be needing your services any longer.”

“As you wish, ma’am. If I can be of any further assistance in the future, just ring me up. Care to linger
a bit? I was about to get me a bite to eat. I’d be happy to have you join me and my friends—”

“Thank you, no.”

She pulled her raincoat tighter around her, stood up and went to the door. The rain was falling as hard as when she’d arrived. She considered going to a phone and calling for a cab but her need to escape the pub was overwhelming. She stepped out into the rain, opened her umbrella and walked up Cable Street. She was on the edge of tears over the lack of information Paley had given her. Her frustration turned to anger, and she walked faster. At Dock Street two local yobbos stood in an abandoned building’s doorway. One of them said, “What have we got here, a dolly-girl out lookin’ for a grind in the rain?”

His friend laughed and stepped into Heather’s path. “Pretty bird, ain’t ’cha? You wouldn’t mind if I grabbed your arse, now would ya?”

“Get away from me,” Heather said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

The other, ferret-faced and red-eyed, joined his friend in front of her. “I ain’t seen you before,” he said, cocking his head and leering.

“Get out of my way—”

One of them reached out and grabbed at her breasts through her raincoat. “You got nice titties, luv,” he said. The other one made a move to circle her.

Heather didn’t hesitate. She brought her foot up into the crotch of the one in front of her as hard as she could, He doubled over and moaned, “She got me in the cobblers.” Heather rammed the tip of the umbrella into the other one’s face, opening a gash on his cheek. He howled and lunged for her. She used the umbrella to keep him away, dropped it, turned and ran toward the Quid. She heard them chasing after her and she
ran blindly, the rain stinging her eyes, her feet sloshing through deep puddles on the uneven sidewalk.

The lights of an automobile came around the pub’s corner, illuminated Heather and her pursuers. Heather waved wildly at the driver, who stopped, pulled down the window of his cab. “What’s the matter, miss?”

“They’re after me—”

“Get on your way, you little bastards, before I warm your lugs for you,” the driver said. The punks swore, reviled Heather, but turned and disappeared into the night.

“Thank you,” Heather said.

“Don’t be thankin’ me, ma’am, but you’d better get in if you don’t want to drown yourself.”

She retrieved her umbrella and rode the cab back to considerably more genteel Mayfair and the warmth and security of the Chesterfield. The driver insisted on escorting her into the lobby, where Heather thanked him profusely. “You saved my life…”

“Just a case of comin’ along at the right time. You get yourself into some dry clothes, and if you don’t mind my givin’ advice, keep away from places such as you’ve been tonight. It’s not safe for a lady on those streets.”

“I’m convinced,” she said, and thanked him again. When she asked if she might give him something, he told her no, it was his pleasure. It was a lovely moment she wouldn’t soon forget.

In her room she stripped off her wet clothes, drew a hot bath, wrapped herself in a robe and checked her watch. Nine-fifteen. She was to meet Evelyn in fifteen minutes.

As Heather was finishing dressing, Killinworth was coming through the lobby carrying a paper bag and an envelope addressed to his Savoy luncheon companion containing the keys she’d given him. He gave the envelope
to the desk clerk to mail and went directly to his room, double locked the door behind him, placed the bag on the bed, opened it. He removed a small chamois sack the color of burnt ocher. The top was secured with a leather drawstring. Killinworth loosened it and slipped his hand inside, fondled something, withdrew his hand, tightened the drawstring and put the sack in the bottom of a suitcase, which he put in the rear of a closet. He tossed the paper bag in a wastebasket, washed his hands and face and combed his hair, checked himself in a mirror and went to the restaurant, where Heather had just been shown to a table. “I’d hoped to be here first,” he said, “to help you through the… initial difficulties.”

“After what’s happened to me tonight I had very little problem with it.” She told then about her meeting with Paley and being attacked on the street.

“How dreadful for you,” he said, patting her hand. “I should have been with you…”

“Yes, well, it’s over now… how was your meeting in Belgravia?”

He smiled noncommittally and ordered for them—smoked salmon appetizers, steak au poivre for him, Dover sole for her. “Routine business, nothing of import,” he said. “Turned out, in fact, to be a bore and damnably unproductive.”…

After dinner she said, “I’m exhausted Evelyn. I’d like to get to bed.”

“Of course. I might tarry in the bar for a cognac. Positive you won’t join me?”

“Positive, but thank you. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

***

Killinworth ordered a double cognac, nursed it for ten minutes, then said to the bartender, “I’ll be back… forgot something in my room.”

Where he went was to the hotel’s basement, where
there were two public phone booths. He wedged his frame inside one of them, put fifty pence in the slot and pressed seven numbers. Moments later his call was answered with, “Scotland Yard.”

Killinworth spoke through a handkerchief he had placed over the mouthpiece. “I wish to report a murder on Belgrave Place, in Belgravia, Number Seven.”

“Who’s the victim?”

“Number Seven Belgrave Place.”

“Your name, please.”

“Good night.”

He stopped to polish his custom-made Church’s shoes on a machine provided for hotel guests, returned to the bar, finished his cognac, bid the bartender a pleasant good night and went to his room, where he promptly fell sound asleep.

“I’m sorry, Captain, but Mr. Saunders isn’t in the office and won’t be back for two days.”

“Is he away on business?” Hanrahan asked.

“Yes, sir. He’s in New York attending gallery openings.”

“Thank you. By the way, is there some way I can reach him in New York?”