“Tell me about the man who hurt you, Annie, and try to remember exactly what he said.”
“His name is Arnie Stackpole, and he came here hoping to find Margot.”
“I’ve heard of the man. You needn’t fear him now that Margot is dead.”
She raised her eyes from her cup. “I’m hoping that’s true. Owing him money, Margot was, and giving him the slip. ‘I’ll have the other half of twenty pounds for them,’ he shouted at me. ‘I’ll not deliver the goods until I’m paid.’”
“What goods? Had they been in business together?”
Annie shrugged. “I didn’t want to know, and I wasn’t asking.”
“You haven’t a guess?” Tennant took a sip and watched her over the rim of his cup.
Annie shook her head. “He wanted her address, but he’d not be having it off me.”
“Refusing a man wielding a knife—that was brave of you, Annie.”
“He has the look of an angel with his fair, curly hair. Until he opens his trap, that is. Then he looks like someone took a hammer to his teeth. But he’s a devil, that one.”
“Stackpole didn’t murder Margot. He was in prison when it happened. What about other men in her life? Had you ever seen Margot in the company of Mister Allingham’s manservant? Rawlings is his name.”
Annie touched her mouth. “The one with the lip, you’re meaning?”
Tennant nodded.
“Thick as thieves, they were, while Margot was living here. It puzzled me, him turning up with notes, left and right.”
“Love letters?”
“Never. Not with the likes of him. Lists of dates and times and numbers, they were. Couldn’t make head nor tail of them.”
“I’d like to look at Margot’s old room, if I may. Did she leave anything behind after she left?”
“You’re welcome, but you’ll not find anything.” Annie opened a bedroom door. “Clean as a whistle, it was, and all her bags and boxes gone.”
Tennant looked inside a bare cabinet and three equally empty bureau drawers.
Tennant crossed to Annie’s front door to examine the two bolts that secured it. The bottom one looked new. He looked around the rest of the room.Too many bloody windows.
Tennant rattled the doorknob and said, “Best keep your door double-bolted and on the chain, even in the daytime.”
“I’ll not be opening up to anyone I don’t know. Of that, you can be sure.”
“The father of Margot’s child . . . Can you tell me his name?”
Annie flushed. “’Tis hard to speak ill of the dead. Margotwasn’t one for keeping her knees together, as my old aunt would say. Keeping her mouth shut? She was champion at that. I’m only guessing, but . . .”
“Yes?”
She sighed. “It can’t matter now, seeing as they’re both dead. I’m thinking Mister Allingham was Margot’s man. I can’t be certain, but it may have been so.”
“Thank you.”
“I felt bad about thinking it when I saw Miss Allingham the other day at the clinic. He was a married man and her big brother. She thought the world of him.”
* * *
The following morning, Sergeant O’Malley said, “So Charles Allingham was Margot Miller’s fancy man.”
