“And you saw no one coming or going from Mr. Wright’s suite?”
“No, but I went upstairs shortly after that, so if someone did leave, I wouldn’t have seen nothin’. Was he murdered, then?” she asked, her frank green eyes wide.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” Ian said, showing her the police sketch.
“Lord if he don’t bear a resemblance to poor Mr. Wright,” she said. “Could be ’is brother, so he could.”
“But you’ve never seen him?”
“I can’t say as I have, no—never saw no one comin’ or goin’ in Mr. Wright’s rooms. Never knew a man who liked ’is privacy more—”
She was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and slamming, followed by the sound of stamping boots in the hallway, accompanied by a fit of consumptive coughing.
“It’s me brother, Seamus,” Abbie said, “back from the docks early.”
A young man entered the room. Clad in mud-encrusted boots, and a well-worn vest and jacket over a green flannel shirt, he was the very image of Edinburgh’s working class. In his right hand he clutched a handkerchief spattered with fresh droplets of blood. Upon seeing Ian and Dickerson, he pulled the tweed cap from his head, staring at them while hovering on the edge of the hooked rug. He had the same features and coloring as his sister, but his skin was bronzed from the sun, and he had the lean build and sunken chest of a consumptive.
“Take those boots off,” Abbie commanded. “I just swept in here.”
He obeyed without taking his eyes off the two policemen. “What are they doin’ here?”
“Asking ’bout the death of poor Mr. Wright.”
“Oiy—what happened to you?” he asked Ian.
“My face had a disagreement with a fist about occupying the same space. The fist had the upper hand.”
“That’s good, sir,” Dickerson murmured. “The upper hand.”
Seamus frowned as he pulled off his heavy-soled boots, setting them on the metal rack by the door. “There’s not much ta tell. Abbie found the poor bugger hangin’ in his hotel bedroom. End o’ story.”
“I’m afraid there’s a bit more to it than that,” Dickerson declared officiously.
Seamus gave a harsh laugh, which set off another fit of coughing, a deep hacking that sounded as if his lungs would explode.
“That’s a nasty cough ye got there,” Sergeant Dickerson remarked. “Ye should see someone about it.”
“Good idea,” Seamus Farley shot back. “I’ll just pop ’round an’ drop a month’s wages on one o’ those fancy Princes Street surgeons, shall I?”
“Seamus!” Abbie scolded. “There’s no reason to be rude. It just shows your bad breeding, so it does.”
“God forbid these fine gentlemen should think we’re ill-bred, Abbie,” he responded with a bitter laugh, which set off another coughing fit.
Ian knew the type: working class, resentful of the system that kept him on the edge of poverty, a chip on his shoulder the size of a caber. The Scottish Enlightenment had barely touched people like Seamus Farley, who could just see over the edge of their own misery onto what they didn’t have.
“Is there anything at all you observed about Mr. Wright that may help us find his killer?” Ian asked Abbie.
“He was murdered?” her brother said, his face slack with amazement.
Abbie rolled her eyes. “Why d’you think they’re here, Seamus?”
“Your sister is not a suspect,” Ian assured him. “We merely want to find out—”
“Who’d want to murder a fellow like him?” Seamus said, shaking his head. “Maybe a jealous husband, d’ya think?”
“Let the policemen do their job,” Abbie said. “Then I’ll be about gettin’ you a mustard plaster for your chest.”
“I’ll get me own plaster, so I will,” he said, stomping off in the direction of the kitchen. The sound of muffled coughing came from behind the closed door.
“How long has your brother been sick?” Ian asked.
“Since last winter,” Abbie said. “The cold and wet makes it worse. I told him I’d take in sewing so’s we can live off what I make, but he won’t hear of it.”
“Right he is, too,” Dickerson remarked. “No self-respecting man would let a woman support him.”
“Thank you for your enlightened social views, Sergeant,” Ian said. “Now then, Miss Farley, if there’s nothing else—”
“Hang on a minute,” she said. “There was one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just a detail, so maybe it weren’t nothin’.”
“The solution of a crime often turns on the smallest detail, Miss Farley. What is it you saw?”
“It’s more what I didn’t see.”
Dickerson cocked his head to one side, like a confused spaniel. “I don’ take your meaning, miss.”
“It was a vase, sir. Or rather, it wasn’t a vase—that is, it was gone.”
“Can you be more specific?” said Ian.
“That room had a pair o’ Chinese vases—big ones, like ye find in rich people’s houses. Only these are only reproductions, o’ course.”
“Go on.”
“Well, sir, whilst I was waitin’ for Mr. McCleary to come up, I happened to notice one of ’em was missing.”
“Are you certain?” asked Ian.
“Hadn’t I dusted them both earlier in the day?”
“Did you mention it to Mr. McCleary?”
“There was so much rumpus an’ all, I didn’t think to mention it till now. A missing vase didn’t seem very important at the time.”
“Miss Farley,” said Ian, “that is where you are mistaken. A great deal could ride upon that detail. Your missing vase could prove to be very important indeed.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
“What’s significant about the vase, sir, if you don’ mind my askin’?” Sergeant Dickerson asked Ian as they trudged up the High Street toward police headquarters.
“It could be proof that Henry Wright was murdered.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“I believe it was broken in the attack, and the killer removed the broken bits to cover the fact that there was a struggle.”
“I see—very clever, sir.”
“I’d like you to pay another visit to the Waterloo Hotel and have a look round the room for any broken pieces left behind. Then ask the manager—Mr. McCleary—if he had the vase removed from the room for any reason.”
“Now, sir?” asked Dickerson as they stepped aside to make room for a blacksmith leading a pair of chestnut geldings down the hill toward the foundry section of town. The man’s face was smeared with grease and soot, shiny as the glistening coats of the horses.
“No time like the present,” said Ian. “Off you go.”
“Yes, sir,” Dickerson replied, scurrying away in the direction of the New Town.
Ian continued toward the station house, passing a group of schoolchildren playing pitch-and-toss underneath George IV Bridge, their halfpennies clattering hollowly against the gray sandstones. The sun was just coming to rest from its daily labors when he entered the building, mounting the stairs to the main room on the second floor.
He found DCI Crawford in his office, staring out the window, slumped in his chair.
“Sir, I believe I have definitive proof that Henry Wright was murdered.”
“Good for you,” Crawford replied listlessly, without turning around.