In the inquiry cases I had assisted Brodie, there were no coincidences, most particularly when it came to murder.
What had the woman who called herself Ellie Sutton seen the night Stephen Matthews was killed? The murderer?
Who would threaten her? And why?
She disappeared and had lived anonymously for almost ten years—why had she returned? And who had killed her?
I refused to believe that Brodie had anything to do with her death. Yet that raised the question, what was he doing at the scene of Ellie Sutton’s murder? I pushed back other questions that came with that.
The hound was waiting for me as I left the building and grinned up at me from the sidewalk. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He had proven himself to have remarkable tracking skills in the past.
A headache reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before. I supposed that food was in order. Rupert needed no persuasion as we found a street vendor nearby who provided sandwiches on long rolls of bread with slices of ham and cheese.
The hound finished his in two bites, then the rest of mine.
According to the information Munro had provided, Ellie Sutton had worked at Brown’s Hotel, which was very near Mayfair.
I had passed it often, with that imposing Georgian façade on Albemarle Street that was actually eleven town houses that also included employee rooms. Just a year ago, it had been connected to the St. George’s hotel at the back, with a throughway between the two buildings.
I assumed that officers of the MET and perhaps even Abberline himself had already been there after the woman’s death. I wasn’t certain what I might learn. It was a place to start with my own inquiries.
I waved down a cab and climbed aboard. I didn’t wait for the cabman to inform me that he didn’t take animals. I simply handed him the full fare with additional for the hound and gave him the name of the hotel.
Many of the finer hotels about London provided rooms for their maids and clerks, so that they were always available when their work day, or night, started. However, Ellie Sutton had lived apart.
Perhaps her position as floor manager was that above a maid or clerk, and had allowed her to afford her own flat. And then, of course, there was the boy Lucy Penworth had spoken of. It was doubtful that children were allowed in the employees’ quarters at the hotel.
Another complication was the fact that I was not dressed in the manner the hotel was undoubtedly accustomed to seeing in their guests—visiting dignitaries, and those of society that included visiting royalty.
The clothes I wore were far more practical, since our inquiry cases might take us anywhere about London or beyond. And there was the issue of not wanting to draw attention to myself.
It was obvious that Abberline had sent the constable to have me watched. Perhaps to apprehend Brodie if he had gone to the town house? I wanted to know where Brodie was as well, still I was not about to make finding him any easier for Abberline.
And it did seem that my best hope to learn something about Ellie Sutton would be with the maids and other staff she had worked with.
I had the driver continue around to Dover Street when we reached the hotel, where I hoped to find a service entrancewhere I might enter the hotel. He pulled up at a carriage park where other cabs and coaches waited for their next fare from the hotel.
I made certain there were no constables patrolling about the park or Dover Street, then stepped down from the cab. I gave the hound instructions to stay at the carriage park, then crossed the street.
Luck was with me. A row of delivery vans sat waiting to be unloaded at the service entrance.
I had found a way inside the hotel and had stepped into the middle of a shift change for hotel staff. Wait staff, maids, clerks emerged from an adjacent hallway and moved past me as another group arrived from the previous shift.
They were a of variety ages, from young maids in uniforms to men in shirts and trousers with the hotel logo, chatting each other up with an occasional mention of sore feet or an aching back.
“There was just meself, and the gentleman wanted me to hoist the trunk into the lift…” followed by an invitation to one of the young women who was dressed in a simple but fine-quality dark blue gown, to join him at the local pub.
“That’s two straight shifts for me today,” she replied, “what with being short-staffed after what happened to Mrs. Sutton. I’m going straight to bed.”
“There was gossip up on the third floor about that…” a maid commented. “Poor thing.”
“Mr. Prewitt was in another meeting with the MET today…” another young man commented. “I took tea into ‘em. Heard one of the constables ask about any men who might have come round asking for her...”
“I don’t think there were any men,” another woman replied. “Kept to herself, she did. And I don’t believe for a minute that she was married. There was never a word about a husband.”
“She might have been a widow,” another commented.
“I heard there was a boy,” I commented as I removed my hat and joined the conversation. In for a penny, in for a pound as the saying goes.
