I moved about the main room of the flat at the edge of light from the hand-held as Brodie swept it back and forth, and reminded myself to bring my own the next time I was in a similar situation.
Shadows appeared then disappeared in the darkened room. I caught a glimpse of something, lost it, then glimpsed it again—a small glass tumbler on the table, the sort that Brodie and I had in the office on the Strand when we shared a dram of whisky.
That seemed odd. Particularly for a woman who had just returned from work and then was attacked and murdered.
Was it simply left from the day before the murder? Had she shared a drink with someone? Still, there was only the one glass.
The image of Ellie Sutton drinking alone didn’t fit with the few details I had learned about her.
“What have ye there?”
“A glass tumbler. I wonder if Ellie Sutton was in the habit of drinking at the end of the day. It might be able to tell us something if there are prints on the glass,” I suggested.
The murderer perhaps? That did seem highly unlikely. I couldn’t imagine someone sitting there either before or after, and drinking. Or had it been someone else?
“She didn’t drink,” he replied, as if that was the end of the discussion about the glass.
Still...no stone unturned.
I found a cloth on the floor. I carefully wrapped the tumbler and put it in the pocket of my jacket.
I then continued my search, but found nothing more, other than a child’s toy on the counter beside a small cupboard. It was a toy locomotive. Not surprising considering a young boy had lived there until...
What might that tell us?
I put it in my other pocket as Brodie suddenly crouched to the floor and aimed the beam of the hand-held over a dark stain.
I joined him. It was blood. Not surprising under the circumstances. However there was some sort of mark in the dried blood.
That‘something’appeared to be an imprint made by a boot. I looked up at Brodie.
“Yours?” I asked, since he had been there that night.
He shook his head. “Not made by a common work boot.”
Upon further inspection with the hand-held, the toe of the boot print appeared, faint, as I imagined the murderer had stood there, and what he had done after killing Ellie Sutton. It was almost as if…
“What is it?” Brodie asked.
I wasn’t at all certain what it was, an impression more than anything.
“It’s almost as if the murderer paused here,” I added.
He stared at that stain. “Perhaps.”
But if so, what did that tell us?
Before leaving Drury Lane, I had pocketed the revolver along with my notebook and pen. I took those out and made a drawing of that imprint in the blood. I had no idea what it might tell us—something, anything, nothing.
The sketch was crude. I was not the artist in the family, but it was good enough. I then rose and continued my search of the flat as Brodie continued his.
It was suddenly interrupted by a loud baying sound, the sort of sound that might be made by a hound.
Brodie looked over at me. “What the devil?”
“Rupert,” I whispered.
He swore under his breath.
