Anne Perry - Funeral in Blue

“Allardyce was in Southwark all that evening, Mrs. Monk,” Runcorn said ruefully. “Got a picture that proves it, much as I’d like it not to.”

She must be very careful exactly what she said. A month ago she would have been delighted to dupe him in any way. Now she hated the necessity. She frowned, looking puzzled. “Does it really?”

“Oh it’s him, plain as day,” he replied. “And it’s the Bull and Half Moon for sure. Landlord recalls Allardyce there, knows him quite well.”

She managed to look doubtful. “I still believe he had something to do with it,” she insisted. “One way or another. If Dr. Beck wanted to kill her, he would hardly do it in another man’s house.”

“Murder isn’t often very sensible,” he said sadly.

She remained sitting. “Your sergeant was good enough to offer me a cup of tea, and I am afraid I was so eager to see you that I refused. I wonder. .”

He was glad of the chance to do something for her. “Of course.” He stood up immediately. “Just sit there, and I’ll have him bring one up.”

“Thank you,” she accepted with a slight smile.

He went out, and instantly she darted around his desk and opened the first drawer. There was nothing in it but pencils and blank paper. The second had neatly written reports. She was desperate, trying to keep her fingers from fumbling. He had spoken of the picture. Which way had he been looking? She had only moments before he came back.

Third drawer. . nothing. She turned to the shelf beside the desk. She moved two books lying flat. There it was! An artist’s sketch of a group of men sitting around a table. She snatched it and pushed it down inside her jacket just as she heard his hand on the door. She had no time to sit again. Instead, she moved towards him as if she had risen to take the cup from him.

“Thank you!” she said with gratitude more for the escape than the tea. “I hadn’t realized I was so cold, or so thirsty. That is very good of you.”

He colored very slightly. “I’m sorry it’s going badly for Dr. Beck. I wish there were. .”

“Of course,” she agreed, sitting down again and sipping the tea. “But you can’t alter the evidence, I know that. I was just hoping. I daresay it was foolish.” Since she had asked for the tea, she was obliged to stay long enough to finish it. She was terrified in case he decided to get the picture out just to prove to her that Allardyce was really in it. “I mustn’t take up your time,” she said, swallowing hastily. “You have been very patient. I suppose there is no possibility it had to do with gambling?”

“Doesn’t make any sense, Mrs. Monk,” he said regretfully. “Nothing I’d like more than to string a few of them up, but I’ve got no excuse to. They kill slowly, not by breaking a neck.”

She put the teacup down.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his face flooding with color.

“Please don’t be,” she said quickly. “It is only the truth.” She stood up. “I appreciate candor, Mr. Runcorn. Too many evils are tolerated because we give them harmless-sounding names. Thank you for your courtesy.” She did not hold out her hand in case the paper under her jacket crackled. “I can find my way downstairs. Good day.”

“Good day, Mrs. Monk.” He had risen also, and came around the desk to open the door for her.

She escaped with a pounding heart, and an acute sense of guilt, but she had the drawing.

She spent a useless morning and early afternoon around the area of Allardyce’s studio, and came to the conclusion that in this type of detective work she lacked a skill. By the middle of the afternoon she had decided to follow Allardyce’s friends more directly, and if she took the carriage south of the river Southwark she would find some of them at least already in the Bull and Half Moon. The light was fading, and no one would be able to paint by it at four o’clock or later.

It was nearly dark and the lamps were lit by the time she went through the tavern door. The warm, smoky, ale-smelling interior was already filled with the babble of conversation. The yellow light of a dozen lamps shone on all manner of faces, but entirely masculine. It was too early for street women to be seeking custom, and more respectable women had work to do: dinners to cook, laundry to iron, children to care for. She took a deep breath and went in anyway.

One or two bawdy remarks, which she ignored, were hurled at her. She was too eager to find anyone who might be a friend or associate of Allardyce to have time for offense. Then she saw a man with an arm amputated above the elbow and a scar on one lean cheek. Her spirits leapt at the thought that he might be a soldier. If he were, that would be at least one person whom she could talk to, perhaps find an ally.

There was no time for delicacy. She smiled at him, coolly, not an invitation. “Where did you serve?” she asked, hoping she was right.

Something in the tone of her voice, an expectation of friendship, even equality, startled any misunderstanding he might have had. He glanced momentarily at his empty sleeve, then up at her. “Alma,” he answered, a slight curiosity in his voice. He was waiting to see if the name of that dreadful battle had any meaning for her.

“You were lucky,” she said quietly. “Many fared a lot worse.”

Something lit in his eyes. “How do you know that, Miss? You lose somebody?”

“A lot of friends,” she replied. “I was in Sebastopol and Scutari.”

“Widow?” He raised his eyebrows, pity in his face.

She smiled. “No, nurse.”

“Let me buy you a drink,” he offered. “Anything you want. I’d get you French champagne if I could.”

“Cider will do fine,” she accepted, sitting down opposite him. She knew better than to say she would get it herself, and rob him of his generosity, or the feeling that he was in control and did not need anyone else to fetch or carry for him.

“What you doing here?” he asked after they were settled and she was sipping her drink. “You’ve not been here before.”

She had already decided that candor was the only way. She told him that she was looking for information to help a friend in serious trouble, accused of a crime of which she believed him innocent, if not in fact, then at least under mitigating circumstances. She wanted more knowledge of someone who had been here on the night of the crime, and showed him the picture she had taken from Runcorn’s office.

He screwed up his eyes as he looked at it, one face after another. “What night was that, then?” he said at last.

She told him the date.

“That’s a while back.” He pursed his lips.

“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “I should have come sooner. There have been several reasons. We were looking in a different direction. Will anyone remember? It was the night there was a big spill of raw sugar in Drury Lane, if that’s any help?”

“Wouldn’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t have any reason to go up that way.” He concentrated on the picture again. “Know that artist fellow.” He pointed to one of the men. “And that one.” He indicated Allardyce. “He lives up that way, but he comes here every now and then.” He stared at the picture of half a dozen men around a table, ale mugs in their hands, the surroundings roughly sketched in, suggesting the tavern, the parallel walls, a couple of hanging tankards and a poster advertising a juggling act at a nearby music hall.

Hester waited with a sinking feeling of disappointment growing inside her.

The soldier still frowned. “There’s something wrong,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t know what.”

Hester stared around the room, looking for the place where they had been sitting. Perhaps it was not this tavern? It was too slim a thought to offer hope. Almost before it had taken form in her mind she recognized the tables and the chairs, the angles of the paneling on the wall behind them.