Stoker put out his hand for the newspaper. He read in silence, and when he had finished, his jaw was set. “Would you be interested in interviewing a woman who knew her? Someone who could tell you what it is like to live on the streets? To sleep rough and to earn your bread on your back?”
She leant forwards eagerly. “Would I indeed!”
Mornaday looked affronted. “It is far too dangerous,” he began.
J. J. rounded on him. “What I do is not your concern,” she told him, her tone biting. I had little doubt this was a conversation they had had on more than one occasion. “Besides,” she went on, “you had no objections when I wanted to work for Madame Aurore to write an exposé on the doings at her club.”
“I had the most strenuous objections,” he reminded her coldly.
“And look where that got you,” she jeered. “I did it anyway. You would never have got your own post there without me.”
“Is that how you came to be on hand?” I asked him. “We were grateful for the assistance, but you might have told us.”
He had the grace to look a little abashed. “I could not be sure. I heard snippets of the inspector’s plots, and I kept my ear to the ground. I trailed him a time or two and discovered he was meeting with de Clare. That put me immediately in mind of the last time that particular fellow came to our attention. Archibond was spending a good deal of his time at Madame Aurore’s—too much for a man merely bent upon a bit of rumpy-pumpy,” he added with a leer that would have done credit to a satyr. “I deduced the Club de l’Étoile was more than a spot for debauchery. It was a meeting place, a focus for some dastardly plan. So I prevailed upon J. J. to help me gain employment since she already had a post there,” he acknowledged grudgingly.
I turned to J. J. “How does it happen that you were already in Madame Aurore’s employ?”
“Mornaday,” she said smoothly. “He was kind enough to volunteer the information that the club was a rich source of material for a story with all the comings and goings of the great and good.”
“Volunteer!” Mornaday snorted. “You got that out of me with your femininewiles.”
J. J. blinked at him, wide-eyed and feigning innocence. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
Mornaday grumbled under his breath. “She had been sniffing around the club for some weeks, making notes for a story she intended to write. When I asked her to secure a position there for me, it was the least she could do.”
“I think what Mornadaymeansto say,” she put in coldly, “is that he extorted a reference from me on the grounds that he would tell Madame Aurore exactly what my purpose was in taking employment in the club and ruin my story if I did not help him.”
Mornaday’s smile was smug. “Sauce for the goose, my dear.” He turned back to me.
“I went in disguise so that Archibond should not know me.”
“And kept your disguise even when speaking with friends,” I put in.
“I could not know you were not a part of the plot,” he returned. “I had to be certain. I even came round and gave you tickets to the theatre to test you, which you bloody well failed. Innocent people would have used them.”
“I do not care for Gilbert and Sullivan,” Stoker reminded him.
Mornaday scoffed. “What sort of Englishman doesn’t care for Gilbert and Sullivan? They are national treasures, they are. In any event, your turning up at the club that night roused my suspicions. I had given you the perfect outing if you were innocent, but instead you appeared, just in the thick of the most damnable conspiracy I have seen since the last time de Clare darkened these shores. It was very difficult to entertain any possibility of your innocence after that.”
“What persuaded you?” Stoker demanded.
Mornaday shifted in his seat. “I discovered Madame Aurore’s body, just after the deed was done. I had seen de Clare and one of his men go into the dressing room, and I heard voices, raised. When theycame out, de Clare’s lad was putting a gore-stained handkerchief back into his pocket. I slipped into her room and found her there. I heard someone coming and hared into her bathroom, hiding behind the door.”
“So you heard everything when we entered with the prince?” I guessed.
“Most of it,” he affirmed. “Enough to realize none of you had a bloody thing to do with the conspiracy. So I decided to help.”
“Help?” Stoker’s expression was frankly skeptical.
Mornaday colored deeply. “Yes, as it happens. I did you a very great service. I scuttled down to the generator house and cut the electricity so you could get away in darkness. I meant to find you and lead you out of the place myself, but...” He trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.
“But?” I pressed.
“But he fell down,” J. J. said, scarcely suppressing her mirth. “He tripped over a leg in the darkness and fell headlong into the punch bowl. He came out festooned with liquored fruits.”
He scowled at her, no doubt deploring the less than romantic picture she had painted. He wanted to believe himself a swashbuckling hero, and yet to J. J. he would only ever be Mornaday, the bungling charmer of Scotland Yard.
I reached over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Well done, Mornaday. You always come through in the end. In spite of yourself.”
