‘Holly Lodge,’ said Colm. ‘Where else?’
It was mid-afternoon when they reached Holly Lodge. Flossie Totteridge greeted them wearing a thin wrapper that imperfectly concealed her plentiful flesh, and she had either not removed the paint from her face last night, or had applied it that morning in a very bad light.
Colm said without preamble, ‘Floss – we need a bed for a couple of nights.’
‘Do you indeed? I don’t, as a rule, let rooms to gentlemen.’
‘No, but you’ve my cousin Romilly’s room still empty, perhaps?’
‘I have, as it happens.’ Flossie eyed Colm. ‘And, of course, circumstances alter cases.’
‘Circumstances?’ said Colm, with a reminiscent smile at her. False, thought Declan. Oh God, he can be so false at times.
‘The circumstance of you and me having become such particular friends,’ said Flossie, and Declan thought how revolting it was to see a lady of Mrs Totteridge’s age and proportions displaying coyness. With obvious reluctance she removed her gaze from Colm to look at Declan. ‘You’d be agreeable to sharing a room with one another, I dare say?’
‘We would.’
‘Sharing a bed? For there’s only the one in each room, although they’re good wide beds, all of them. My gentlemen callers like quality in the beds, you know.’
‘Personally,’ said Colm, ‘I can sleep on a clothesline and never know who’s alongside.’
‘Then it’s the second floor; third left along the passage.’
It was an impersonal, not uncomfortable room, and, as Colm said, sharing it would give him a bit of protection from the voracious Floss. ‘Unless, of course, it occurs to her to take both of us on.’
‘Will you not even think that,’ said Declan angrily.
Colm, who had been exploring the interior of the wardrobe and opening the drawers of the tallboy, grinned and sat down on the bed. Declan perched on the window sill, staring down into the gardens. The sill was narrow and hard and something dug into his thigh and he remembered putting Bullfinch’s wallet in his trouser pocket last night, and fished it out.
‘How much money have we left in there?’ said Colm as Declan threw the wallet on to the bed. ‘And hadn’t we better get rid of anything with Bullfinch’s name on it?’ Handling the wallet by one corner to avoid the blood, he extracted several Treasury notes, along with what looked like a couple of bills bearing Bullfinch’s name and address on the envelopes.
‘Let’s burn those,’ said Declan, seeing the envelopes.
‘Yes. Because if anyone sees them—’
He stopped and they both turned as the door opened. Flossie Totteridge stood there. ‘I’ve brought you the key to this door,’ she said. ‘There are locks on all the rooms.’ She, in her turn, broke off, and Declan and Colm saw she was staring at the wallet and the envelopes. Harold Bullfinch’s name stood out, clear as a curse. Mr Harold Bullfinch, Clock Street.
‘We picked this up in the street on the way here,’ said Colm, and although he spoke lightly, Declan heard the note of strain underlying his voice.
To reinforce Colm’s words, he said, ‘We were just saying we should take it to the police station in case it’s been reported as lost.’
Flossie Totteridge was still staring at the wallet with its dreadful telltale stains. She looked as if the flesh had suddenly shrunk away from her bones. She said, ‘One of Zelda’s gentlemen left a midday edition of The North London Banner.’
Declan felt a jolt of fear. The North London Banner was the newspaper they had seen that morning at their lodgings.
‘There’s a story in it about the man whose body was found last night,’ said Flossie.
‘We read about that at breakfast.’ It was clear from Colm’s tone that he was going to brazen this out. ‘An unknown man on some river steps.’ He glanced at Declan and Declan signalled a warning: don’t pretend to be too ignorant. Colm said, ‘Canning Town, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. The early editions didn’t know the man’s name,’ said Flossie. ‘But the midday one says he was identified earlier today. Harold Bullfinch of Clock Street. His landlady reported him missing, and was taken to see the body. She identified him. And,’ she said, in a voice in which suspicion and shock were mingled, ‘you’ve got his wallet.’
There was a rather dreadful silence. Then Colm said, ‘In that case we should take this to the police without delay.’
‘Yes, you should.’
‘We’ll do it now,’ said Colm, getting off the bed. ‘Will I look in on you later to tell you what the police say?’
‘You could do that. Come at three o’clock. I’ll be busy with the household matters until then, but I’ll be there at three.’
‘Three o’clock it will be,’ said Colm.
They retrieved the newspaper, which was in the drawing room, and found the article.
CANNING TOWN MURDER VICTIM IDENTIFIED
The body of the man found on the river steps by the old Bidder Lane sewer has been identified as that of Mr Harold Bullfinch (52), of Clock Street.
Mr Bullfinch was well known in the Canning Town area and was a familiar figure in several other parts of London, largely because of his work as a travelling salesman. That work caused him to be away from his place of lodging a good deal, so it was not until early this morning that it was realized he was missing. His landlady, Mrs Ivy Podgrass, reported his absence to her local police station.
‘A commercial traveller, he was,’ Mrs Podgrass told our reporter, ‘and never away from the house without he’d tell me where he was going and when he expected to be back. He’d ’ave to be away some nights, of course, for ’is work. Salesman in ladies’ undergarments he was, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it, although perfectly respectful and gentlemanly.