Maxim Jakubowski: The Best British Mysteries III

Within moments the place was in uproar. The man who feared the arrival of the police was fastening his britches with clumsy desperation. A grizzled old fellow emerged from the second room, wheezing so frantically that Collins feared that he might succumb to a heart attack at any moment. The bald ruffian from the parlour was lumbering upstairs, with the fat brothel-keeper trailing in his wake. Looking into the other rooms, Collins could see two naked girls cowering in the shadows. Their clients jostled past the bald watcher, the younger man taking the steps two at a time in his haste to escape.

The watcher grabbed Dickens by the arm. ‘Causing trouble, mister? Why did she scream?’

‘We heard the voice of Bella’s client,’ Dickens said.

‘He sounded frightened and in pain. But the door is locked and I cannot force it open.’

The man pushed him aside and heaved against the door. Timber splintered, but the lock held. Puffing furiously, the fat little woman arrived on the landing.

‘What’s all this to-do?’ she demanded, turning furiously to Nellie. ‘Where’s Bella?’

The maid was sobbing piteously and unable to speak. Fearing that the fat woman would strike her servant, Collins interposed his squat frame between them and said, ‘We heard her visitor. Something – is very wrong.’

The watcher grunted and took a step back before charging at the door. They heard the wood giving way. He charged again and this time the door yielded under his weight. Bella’s room was no more than twelve feet square. Apart from a tall cupboard and a double bed, the only furniture was a cracked looking glass and a battered old captain’s chair on which were piled a pair of tweed trousers and an expensively tailored jacket as well as a man’s underthings, evidently discarded in haste.

Stretched out on the bed lay the body of a naked man. His wrists were tied to the bedstead by lengths of rope, his glassy eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Collins had a sudden fancy that he saw in them a look of horrified bewilderment. Tall and broad-shouldered, with heavy jowls, the man had a shock of jet-black hair. His lips had a sensual curve. Blood dripped onto the sheets from a gash in his stomach, an inch above the navel.

The watcher uttered an oath. ‘She’s done for him!’

‘Murder!’ the fat woman cried. ‘Oh, Bella, you stupid little bitch!’

Behind them, Nellie retched. Dickens was the first to move. He rushed into the room and bent by the corpse, searching for a pulse. After a moment he said, ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘There’s her weapon,’ the watcher said, pointing to a pair of scissors lying on the floor. They were dark with blood.

The brothel-keeper lifted the man’s coat from the chair.

A leather wallet tumbled from one of the pockets. She picked it up and folded it open. They could all see that the wallet was empty.

‘So she’s a thief as well as a murderess! She’ll swing for that. Precious little bitch, just see if she won’t!’

Only four of them were in the room: the fat woman, the bald man, Collins, and Dickens. Outside the door Nellie was wailing, her head in her hands. Of Bella there was no trace.

‘She must be in there!’ the fat woman cried, waving at the cupboard.

The two friends held their breath as the bald man flung open the cupboard door. Collins was not sure what he expected to see: a cowering woman, stripped and covered in blood, he supposed. The cupboard was crammed to overflowing with gaudy gowns and dresses. As well as a pair of tasselled boots, there was a mass of lace and ribbons piled high on the cupboard floor. The watcher tore the clothes aside, as if to unmask his quarry, lurking behind them. But there was no sign of her.

The room had a small rectangular window set high in the wall above the end of the bed. Collins could detect no other means of egress. The watcher ripped the blankets from the mattress, but found nothing. He got down on his hands and knees and peered underneath the bed, discovering only dust.

Unable to help himself, Collins cried, ’ Where is she?’

The fat woman clasped a podgy hand to her heart. ‘The window is bolted shut. Besides that, there are bars outside.’

‘Could the bars have been tampered with?’

The bald watcher clambered onto the bed and shoved at the window. There was no hint of movement. Shaking his head, he said, ‘I couldn’t move ‘em, never mind a young slip of a girl like her.’

‘How can she vanish into thin air?’ Collins demanded.

‘This Bella, is she a wraith, a phantom?’

‘All her clothes are in the cupboard,’ the fat woman gasped. ‘Every stitch. But where is the key?’

‘The girl must have it,’ the watcher said. ‘She is hiding somewhere.’

‘Not in here,’ Dickens murmured.

Beyond argument, he was right. Dickens pointed to the corpse. ‘This man came here alone, I take it?’

‘Oh, yes. He was one of her regulars. Always paid handsomely for her time.’

‘When he arrived, you handed him the key and asked Nellie to escort him up to this room?’

Mrs Jugg nodded. Ain’t that right, Nell?’

The maid, still snivelling out on the landing, managed a grunt.

Dickens said, ‘You saw him enter the room?’

‘As he put the key in the lock,’ the maid croaked, ‘he told me I could go.’

‘So you did not see Bella herself?’ Collins asked.

The maid shook her head, but the fat woman said impatiently, ‘Of course, Bella was in the room, waiting for him. She was here all evening, same as usual. Nellie brought her up and locked her in, same as always. The gentleman had an appointment. He called upon her every Thursday at nine, regular as clockwork.’

‘She must have done him in and then locked the door on him,’ the bald man said. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘If she’d come down to the ground, you’d have stopped her, wouldn’t you, Jack, my lad?’

‘She could never get past me,’ he boasted. ‘She’s tried it once or twice and I made her pay for it, so help me.’

‘Then,’ Dickens suggested, ‘if she is flesh and blood and not a poltergeist, she must be concealed in one of the other rooms on this floor.’

‘He’s right,’ the watcher said.

‘What are you waiting for, then?’ the fat woman demanded. ‘Let’s find her, quick!’

They hurried out and into the adjoining bedroom. Dickens moved swiftly to Nellie’s side and whispered something to her before returning and pulling the door shut behind him.

‘What did you say to her?’ Collins asked.

Dickens was staring at the pale flesh of the dead man.

‘Do you recognise him, Wilkie?’

‘The face seems familiar, but -’

‘This is the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre. You heard the woman refer to him as “His Lordship”? He liked to play up his noble origins. Besides that, he fancied himself as something of an artist, although to my mind his daubs were infantile. John Forster introduced me to him a year ago at a meeting of the Guild for Literature and Art.’

‘You are acquainted?’

‘Regrettably. De mortuis, Wilkie, but he struck me as one of the least agreeable men I have ever met. I recall a conversation in which he sought to convince me of the pleasure that could be gained from inflicting pain – and having pain inflicted upon oneself.’

Collins shivered as he considered the corpse’s face. Even in death, the saturnine features seemed menacing. He found it easy to imagine that they belonged to a man with vile and sinister tastes.

‘Do you believe that Bella killed him?’

Dickens put a finger to his lips. ‘Come, let us join the search.’

The watcher and his mistress were opening and slamming shut cupboard doors and drawers scarcely large enough to accommodate a box of clothes, let alone a full-grown woman. It was absurd, Collins thought, to imagine that the missing girl could have taken refuge in a room where a colleague was entertaining a client – but where might she have concealed herself? The brothel-keeper was cursing and describing in savage terms what she would do to Bella once she was found. Nellie had scuttled off downstairs, while the shivering prostitutes hugged each other in a corner and tried not to attract the fat woman’s attention.