The Vice Society by James McCreet Read Free Book Online Page B

it still caked and sticky.
    ‘Who did that to you, madam?’
    ‘Nobody. No one. I fell while cleaning the hearth last evening.’
    ‘How did that happen?’
    ‘Well, I . . . I was bending to rake the ashes and I slipped.’
    ‘Slipped on what?’
    ‘My dress.’
    ‘I see. Because it looks to me like the mark was made by a blunt instrument of some sort being struck upon your head.’
    ‘Wouldn’t I have called the local constable if that were the case?’
    ‘Yes, I am quite sure you would. I want you to provide us with a list of the other people who were staying in your rooms the night of the unfortunate event.’
    ‘All gone.’
    ‘That may be true, but I am certain you took their names – genuine or false – before you took their money. If I can locate them, I will speak to them to see what they heard. Have you a girl here cleaning or serving?’
    ‘Only in the coffee house. I alone attend to the rooms.’
    ‘Convenient. I will speak to the girl anyway. Now – you say you were awoken at two o’clock by someone moaning? Not by a man frantically kicking at the wall and trying to hold on to a window ledge?’
    ‘By the moaning.’
    ‘It must have been quite dramatic moaning.’
    ‘Terrible. I thought at first it was the spirit of my dead Harold: Mr Colliver.’
    ‘How do you know it was two o’clock?’
    ‘It was my impression. I did not see a clock.’
    ‘Could it have been three?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘What did you see when you looked from the window?’
    ‘The poor man lying on the ground. The constable was bending over him.’
    ‘And you recognized the man on the cobbles as your tenant despite having been rudely awoken, despite the darkness and despite the constable bending over him. You must have a very sharp eye, madam.’
    ‘I have.’
    ‘And you saw the incident from these rooms here, is that right?’ asked Mr Newsome, standing and walking to the leaded window.
    ‘That is right.’
    ‘It is a sharp angle to see the cobbles below the fateful room.’
    ‘Not if one opens the window.’
    ‘I see that you have been rehearsed well.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Never mind. Did you see the jovial, well-dressed young man flee from the place?’
    ‘I did not. As you say, the angle is awkward. I only heard his voice.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘Something like, “O, my friend has jumped from the window. I will fetch his friends.”’
    ‘He said “jumped” rather than “fallen” did he?’
    ‘Something of the sort. Is it not all the same?’
    No. What did you do in the immediate aftermath of the incident?’
    ‘Why, I went to the room.’
    ‘And what did you find?’
    ‘It was empty. The door was open. The beds had not been slept in. The window was open.’
    ‘And the four glasses?’
    ‘I must say I did not notice. I was distracted. Some other guests had been awoken and I tried to becalm them. Perhaps one of them put the glasses in the room while the door was open and I was otherwise occupied.’
    ‘A natural enough impulse, I suppose, to put four used glasses in another man’s vacated room. How long was the door open?’
    ‘Until a constable came and asked me to lock the room. An hour or so.’
    ‘And did anyone else enter during that time?’
    ‘They may have. But most went back to sleep once the body had been removed. I did too – until the constable woke me about the door.’
    ‘You sleep easily after one of your guests has been tossed from a window.’
    ‘I work hard. I was tired.’
    ‘So it would seem. We will wait here while you bring us that list of tenants. And fetch your girl.’
    Mrs Colliver put the bonnet back on and stuffed her hair into it before muttering her way back down to the coffee house. As she did so, she saw the back of a man rapidly turning the corner at the end of the corridor and fleeing out through the alley door.
    ‘Hoi! Stop! This is a private area!’ she yelled.
    ‘Who was that?’ said Mr Newsome, appearing at the doorway.
    ‘A