Murder As A Fine Art Part 15

The women laughed harder.

I tried to make it seem that I heard this kind of talk every day.

"Gibson, give me some help," Becker told the newly arrived constable. With distaste, the two men searched Doris's pockets.

"The b.u.g.g.e.r's thievin' from me!" Doris objected. "Yer my witnesses!"

"I'm not trying to steal from you," Becker insisted. "Stop fighting. What have you got here?"

Becker held up two gold coins. "Who else has these?"

A noisy, frenzied struggle resulted in the discovery that each of the women, all twenty-four of them, had two gold coins.

Becker frowned. "Where'd you get your coins, Doris?"

"Worked for 'em, and not the way you think."

"Then how?"

"A gentleman paid me."

"To do what?"

"To sneak in this morning before the gardens opened."

"And then what?" Ryan interrupted.

"To hide in the forest."

"And then?" Ryan persisted.

"When he came along"-the woman pointed toward Father-"I was to call to him." Doris mimicked the tone that I had heard earlier among the trees. "Thomas. Thomas."

She sounded as if she were pleading for help.

At the sound of his name, I felt Father become tense.

"Thomas! Thomas!" the other women joined in. The sound boomed violently off the Oriental walls.

It hurt my ears.

Father stopped weeping.

"All right!" Ryan shouted, raising his hands. "Stop! If you want your sovereigns returned, shut up!"

Gradually, they quieted.

"The gentleman told me to say I was Ann," one of the women volunteered.

"And I was to say I was Jane," another said.

"Elizabeth," a third joined in.

"Catharine," a fourth added.

"No, I'm Ann."

"I'm Jane."

"I'm Elizabeth."

"I'm Catharine."

I felt Father's head rise from where he slumped next to me. Holding him, I looked down and was struck by how red his eyes were from sobbing and how hard the blue of them was.

The litany of names resounded off the walls.

Again Ryan shouted, "d.a.m.n it, stop!"

His stern look had its effect, although the harsh echo of their voices took long seconds before the room became still.

"A gentleman told you to say these names?" Ryan demanded. "What gentleman?"

They pouted and didn't answer.

"I asked, what gentleman? Describe him!"

Doris looked at Becker. "I don't like the way he speaks to me. You're much nicer."

"Thank you, Doris," Becker responded. "Tell me about the gentleman, and I'll bring you hot tea."

"Hot tea?"

"I promise." Becker turned toward a constable by the door. "Webster, would you mind taking care of that?"

The constable looked at Ryan, who nodded his permission.

"The gardens have a shop just down the path," Webster said.

"And you'll give us our sovereigns back?" Doris asked Becker fretfully.

"I promise to give you your sovereigns back."

Doris smiled, showing toothless gaps.

As when Ryan and Becker had first met Father and me, I suspected the two had a stratagem in which Ryan made the women feel threatened while Becker was solicitous, winning their cooperation.

"Doris, what did the gentleman look like?" Becker asked.

"Tall, he was. Strong-looking."

"How old?"

"Wasn't young, wasn't old." Doris pointed toward Ryan. "Like him."

"Did he have a beard?"

Doris nodded emphatically. "Yellowlike."

I felt Father sit up beside me.

"How was he dressed?" Becker asked.

"Like a sailor," Doris answered. "But he didn't fool me. No sailor ever gave me two sovereigns. A shilling if I was lucky. Never two sovereigns."

"Forty-eight pounds all told," Ryan noted. "A man of means."

"Doris, how did he talk?" Becker asked.

"Not like any sailor I ever met. This one was educated, he was. A gentleman."

"Weren't you afraid? After all, he was lying about himself."

" 'Course I was. Since Sat.u.r.day night, everybody I know is afraid. But he gave me two sovereigns." Doris spoke as if that was all the fortune in the world. "Ain't never seen two sovereigns before. Sometimes he used fancy words I didn't understand."

"Like what?"

Doris searched her memory. "Like 'rehea.r.s.e.' Didn't have the faintest. Turns out it means he needed to get us together in an alley and tell us what to say and be satisfied we remembered it."

"Tonight we go back and get another sovereign," a woman near Doris said proudly.

"Another one?" Ryan asked in surprise.

"Hush, Melinda," Doris warned.

"No, tell me." Ryan stepped forward.

"To make sure we did what we was supposed to, he said if we was good he'd give us another sovereign tonight," Melinda said.

"Where?"

"In the same alley where we..." Melinda looked at Doris.

"Rehea.r.s.ed," Doris said, pleased that she remembered the word.

"Tell me where," Ryan persisted.

"Oxford Street."

The name made Father stiffen as I held him.

"Can we have our tea now?" Doris asked. "I was cold in them woods."

"It's on its way," Becker promised.

"Melinda, will you take me to where the alley is?" Ryan asked.

"No!" Doris objected. "Then the gentleman'll see you and he won't show up to give us the other sovereign." She scowled at Melinda. "I told you to hush."

"He won't see us, I guarantee," Ryan a.s.sured her. "And for cooperating we'll bring you biscuits with your tea."

"Biscuits? Lordy, you treat me just like a lady."

"Just like a lady," Ryan agreed.

"Yellowlike," Father said, startling me. It had been a long time since he'd spoken.

Everyone looked in his direction.

"Excuse me?" Ryan asked him.

"She said 'yellowlike.' The beard was 'yellowlike.' "

Father surprised me even more by standing. His sobbing had made his face seem narrower than usual. His blue eyes were even more stark.

"Yellowlike. That's what I said," Doris agreed, uneasy about Father's intensity.

"Which means not yellow but somewhat like it," Father said. "Could the color have been closer to orange? Perhaps a cross between the two?"

Doris c.o.c.ked her head one way and then the other, thinking. "A little orange, a little yellow. Ain't seen many beards like it."

"That's the color I describe in 'Murder as a Fine Art,' " Father told Ryan. "In the essay, I suggest that the color might have been a disguise."

"Disguise?"

"John Williams worked on ships that sailed to India. Some criminal sects there change the color of stolen horses with dyes, one of which is the color Doris describes and which I mentioned in my essay. I raised the question of whether Williams dyed his hair to disguise his appearance when he committed his crimes."

"You're suggesting that our man dyed his beard for the same purpose as well as to imitate what was in your essay?" Ryan asked.

"I'm suggesting far more. I have trouble imagining that the killer grew a beard, a several-months' process, and kept dyeing it. Meanwhile, he would also be forced to dye his hair to match it, lest the discrepancy between his hair and his beard attract more attention than the unusual color of the disguise. It's all too complicated."

"The beard itself is a disguise?"

"Without question. Just as he disguises himself in sailor's clothes. Perhaps he has a theatrical background."

"An actor?"

"Someone who is an expert in changing his appearance. Make inquiries at shops that sell wigs and makeup to performers."