She shook her head. “Like I said, she kept to herself.”
“What about the man? Did she say what he looked like looked like? If he should come back,” I added. “The other girls should be warned.”
Maisy didn’t seem to think anything unusual about my curiosity.
“The way she described him, he weren’t no fancy high-class dresser like some of the guests that have too much of the drink and then return to the hotel of an evenin’. But fine enough, more than you and me. She said he wore a plaid jacket, trousers, and boots, like one of those City gents.
“I saw ‘im once, then he disappeared. He wore one of those hats that City gents wear,” she added. “Round and funny lookin’, if you ask me. And he had a piece of paper tucked in the band, like those who go to the betting parlors.”
“A bowler hat?” I suggested.
“That’s it, and he smoked cigarettes—lots of them. Them brown ones that have a sharp smell. I saw a half dozen or more crushed out by the fence at the carriage park across the way one night, where the drivers wait to be called round for a guest.”
A description that might be found on any street in London, I thought. A man with a bowler hat with a piece of paper tucked in the band.
“Was she able to see his face?”
“She said he had a full beard, and he was the short burly sort. The top of his hat reached just over the top of the fence at the yard.”
I went over the description in my head. Stocky of build, a full beard. A man of some means, with a penchant for bowler hats, though not a fancy dresser. He smoked cigarettes, Turkish blend perhaps, by the description.
I thought of that aromatic fragrance that engulfed the office on the Strand when Brodie lit his pipe.
I came back around to the present as she asked, “Where did you work before?”
“Privately,” I replied. That seemed the best answer.
Not that I had performed a maid’s duties other than picking up the paperwork at the office on the Strand after Brodie had scattered it about, or swept chunks of mud left by his boots, or brought him coffee, or...
How was it that I missed the small things between a man and woman—his clothes scattered about, the touch of his hand on my cheek, the sound of his voice no more than a sleepy mumble early of a morning...’Come here, lass.’
Good heavens, I was beginning to think like some pathetic, dithering female who had lost all sense. I pulled my thoughts back to the matter at hand as Maisy moved about the small room. She had undressed down to her shift and drawers. She hung her uniform on a hook on the wall.
“I get first go at the loo,” she said with a cheerful smile. “If ye hurry, ye might get there before the other girls who just came off shift. You have to move right quick before the hot water runs out.” Then she was out the door and headed down the hallway.
Maisy had been an enormous help with the information she had provided. I now had a description of a man who had apparently been stalking Ellie Sutton. But I needed more if I was going to be able to help Brodie.
The shift-change over, I slipped out into the empty hallway, then left the hotel. I walked across to the carriage park where the man whose appearance she had described had been seen on more than one occasion.
Someone who had frightened Ellie Sutton. And then murdered her?
Seven
Maisy had describedthe man she had seen as barely taller than the fence where drivers waited to be called for hotel guests.
That would put him at no more than five-and-a-half feet tall, but quite muscular.Burly, she had described him, and apparently someone who dressed well enough to wear that bowler hat.
Yet, I needed to know more. I needed to know who the man was and what, if anything, it had to do with Ellie Sutton’s murder.
It was very near evening, but there was another place I wanted to go. Best under the cover of darkness, along with a disguise in case I should encounter anyone.
Rupert suddenly appeared with the remnants of a paper bakery sack hanging from his mouth. He did have a fondness for cakes and scones. I only hoped that the person who had been attached to the sack hadn’t been injured.
I returned to Drury Lane. When I left some time later, I had to admit that I wouldn’t have recognized myself in my disguise. It was somewhat reassuring.
For his part, Rupert refused to come near me until he was satisfied, with that keen sense of smell, that I was there underneath the clothes.
I checked the street as I left Drury Lane. The only glance that passed our way was from the cabman, obviously not used to having what appeared to be a dustman or common laborer for a passenger. Then there was the hound of course—extra fare required, and we set off.
