Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

“Very well, Mr. Sheedy. I’d call that an excellent report. Now where are Mr. Baker and Mr. Kelly?”

“Oh, they could be almost anyplace/’ said the constable. “They were going to go through the house room by room to make sure it was just as empty as we thought.”

“All right,” said Sir John, “we’ll find them. Come along, Jeremy.”

Eventually, we did, though not before we had searched through many an empty room, calling for them, hearing nothing in return but the echo of our own footsteps. I had never been in a house so big that was so empty.

“It’s a bit like walking through a haunted house, isn’t it, sir?” said I.

“I was just thinking something like that myself,” said he. “Ghosts, however, are not quite in my line.”

It was not until we reached the rear of the ground floor, and the stairs which led to the kitchen, that we heard voices; I recognized Mr. Baker’s, and with a bit of difficulty, Mr. Kelly’s as well; but the third, though familiar, eluded me completely.

Sir John and I descended the narrow stairway in the usual way: he with one hand upon my shoulder, and the other touching the walls as we circled downward. The voices ceased as we neared the bottom of the stairs. I must have taken that as a menacing development, for I suddenly found my hand upon the butt of the pistol I had just loaded. Yet I removed it when I saw that the voice I had failed to identify belonged to Mr. Collier, once the butler in the Lilley house and now the same in the Trezavant residence.

“Well, it’s you, Sir John,” said Mr. Baker. “I’ve got a fellow here you may know.”

“His name is Collier,” said the magistrate. “I met him at Lord Lilley’s, who discharged him following the first robbery. Jeremy met him again on numerous occasions, lately at Trezavants.”

“I guess I was right. You do know him.”

“His voice is quite distinctive — whinging, most irritating. I identified him immediately when I had heard it.”

“We found him hiding in the kitchen pantry,” said Constable Kelly. “There’s some food in there still — potatoes, apples, and the like. Maybe he got hungry.”

“Maybe he did. What about that, Mr. Collier? What were you doing in the pantry?”

The butler glanced left and right, first at Sir John, then at me, then back to Sir John. “Hiding,” said he at last.

“Come now, Mr. Collier, I remember you as much more forthcoming than that. Hiding from what? Hiding from whom? Surely you can do better than that, sir!”

“Well … I would, sir, but to answer as frankly as you wish me to would involve me in matters I do not wish to discuss. They are far too personal.”

“Too personal?” said Sir John rather skeptically. “Or might it be that in discussing those matters frankly you would incriminate yourself?”

Mr. Collier presented to us an expression of wounded innocence. “Why, sir,” said he, “I do not know what you might mean by that!”

“Why, sir, I believe you do,” said Sir John, thrusting himself toward the butler with such force that he came within an inch of butting him in the head. “I believe it was you who stole Lady Trezavant’s jewels.”

“That’s … that’s wrong. I did not even know where they were hid. How could I know such secrets of the household when I had been there but a day or two?”

“Because you went there knowing that secret of the household. It was all too convenient, your arrival just after Trezavant’s former butler had been felled by an apoplectic stroke — and so early, too.”

“I told you — ” Then did Mr. Collier realize his error and point at me, “no, I told him that I had heard the news on the street. Such matters are much discussed from house to house.”

“Mr. Collier, from whom did you hear it?”

“As I say, I heard it on the street.”

“From whom did you hear it?” Sir John’s tone was most severe.

The poor fellow — in spite of myself, I felt pity for him. He looked all about the room: at me, at the two constables, everywhere but at Sir John. The smell of fear was upon him.

Finally, he said, “I heard it from Charles, who was the butler here.”

“And perhaps not then, but eventually, you heard — from Mr. John Abernathy, whom you may know as Johnny Skylark, or more likely from Mr. Zondervan himself — the location of the jewels, your best opportunity for removing them, and the nature of your payment.” At that, Sir John paused. “What wad the nature of the payment, Mr. Collier? I believe you came here to collect it.”

No response came.

“Constable Baker, did you search this man? You had the right, you know.”

“I did, sir. I found naught but a few odd pence and shillings, a linen kerchief, some bits of string, and some keys.”

“No bag of sovereigns?”

“No sir.”

“Well, the keys may prove of some value. Have you encountered any locked doors?”

“Not as yet. We found the front door wide open, but we’ve not been through the servants’ rooms.”

“Well, let us do that now, shall we?” Then to Mr. Collier: “What say you to that, sir?”

He had naught to say, but went along willingly enough. Yet I, on the other hand, wished to stay, for I had an idea all of a sudden — one which made perfect sense, at least to me.

“Sir John,” said I, “might I remain and search a bit on my own?”

“Certainly you may,” said he. “If you’ve an inspiration, by all means pursue it.”

I took an unlit candle in a single holder and lit it from the candelabrum in Mr. Kelly’s hand. As they marched off together, Mr. Collier threw me a look of concern, while at the same time Sir John began discoursing on just how it was the location of the hiding place had come to the butler.

“It was that poor child Crocker who divulged the secret to Aber-nathy, chief of the robbers, on their visit. They threatened Crocker, and she quite rightly gave it up. But Mrs. Trezavant had then taken the jewels away with her. It was a stupid place to hide valuables, anyway. After all, just above the cistern in the water closet — people in and out all day long. You cannot expect …” And so on.

Sir John continued, yet I, though interested, set out upon my search — not for gold or paper money, but rather for a painting. That, it seemed to me, was the payment that Mr. Collier would have begged from Zondervan. He might steal for something from Zondervan’s collection.

In truth, I believed that Sir John was wrong. It seemed to me that just above the cistern in the water closet would have made an excellent hiding place — though it should have been altered after Jenny Crocker had told of it. Had she also told her master? Had she confessed to her mistress? Had she breathed a word of her betrayal of the secret to the rude Dutch woman who served as Mrs. Trezavant’s personal maid? Perhaps not. Perhaps only to me. And Mrs. Trezavant had doubtless told Sir John.

Furthermore, I believed above the cistern to be a good spot to hide such grand items as jewels because it was commonplace and indecorous. And so I resolved to look for the painting, if it be a painting with which Collier was paid, in the most ordinary places. I reasoned that the butler had not been long in the house when Constables Baker and Kelly came down the stairs. He had been found in the pantry, and so that was where I began my search.

Looking round it, I saw that there were not many places in the pantry where one might tuck away a good-sized painting in its frame — and all the paintings I had seen in Mr. Zondervan’s gallery had been rather large. I looked behind the two barrels (one of apples and the other of potatoes), but there was no such object hidden away there. I clambered up upon the apple barrel and looked on every shelf, feeling a bit foolish as I did so, for there was not room enough upon them to accommodate any package so large. I left the pantry.