He wagged a finger at me. “I know who you are! You’re the niece of Sir Ronald Bainbridge. I’ve heard about you.”
I didn’t know what to say. We’d kept my involvement in the previous murder out of the newspapers, and few people outside the hotel staff and the Bainbridge’s friends even knew I existed.
“You look like a startled deer, Miss Fox. It’s all right. Your secret is safe with me.” He winked.
“What secret?” I asked weakly.
“How you solved the case of that guest’s death. I’ve already been sworn to secrecy by a very good friend of mine.”
“And who is your friend? My cousin, Floyd?”
He laughed. “Lord, no. Your cousin is the sort to be friends with women like Pearl and Dotty, not men like me. No, it was a young friend of mine who works there. Danny. He’s a footman. You probably don’t remember him, but he credits you with getting him off the hook with the police”
I certainly did remember Danny. He’d been the police’s main suspect in the Christmas Eve murder, but all the staff knew he hadn’t done it. He’d finally been freed after admitting where he’d been at the time of the murder—in another man’s bed.
“Danny is very sweet,” I said.
Mr. Alcott’s eyes sparkled with his smile. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, he is.”
He headed off while I made my way to the door. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized there was one very important question I’d failed to ask everyone. Pearl’s funeral had not been announced in the newspapers. Lord Rumford had insisted it be a private affair for those closest to her. If no one knew the man with the disfiguring warts, how did he come to be at the funeral? How did he know when and where it would take place? If he hadn’t made inquiries of the theater manager, two of her friends, or her sister, then who had told him?
I exited the theater and found the doorman standing exactly where he had been earlier, beside the blackboard sign. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you always work here on the door?”
“Only during performances, and at special events like today.” He jerked his head towards the sign.
“Were you on the door last night even though there was no performance?”
“Aye. Mr. Culpepper needed me to keep everyone out. Miss Westwood’s admirers wanted to get in and pay their respects, see.”
“Did anyone ask about her funeral?”
“Several, but I didn’t tell them. Mr. Culpepper said it was supposed to be a private service and I weren’t to tell no one about it, so I didn’t. I swear to you, miss, I told no one.”
The man doth protest too much. A little nudge should procure a confession from him. “Come now, nobody expects you to withhold the details from her most intimate friends. That wouldn’t be fair, would it? They deserve to attend her funeral too.”
“That’s not for me to decide.”
“But you did tell one person, didn’t you?” I pressed. “He gave you a very large incentive to tell him, didn’t he?”
The doorman stared straight ahead. He was considerably taller than me and very well built. His collar struggled to contain his neck and he wore no gloves, probably because he couldn’t find any to fit his broad hands. He could snap me like a twig if he wanted to. And yet he looked worried by myquestioning.
“I won’t tell a soul, and certainly not Mr. Culpepper,” I said quietly. “Your secret is safe with me. But this is a murder investigation and I need to know about the man who paid you a considerable sum of money to tell you when and where Miss Westwood’s funeral would be. If you don’t, I’ll have to inform the police that you wouldn’t co-operate.”
“The police!” He rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, but there’s not much to tell. He came here last night when Mr. Culpepper was inside with the others, having a drink in Miss Westwood’s honor. When I wouldn’t let him in, he asked me about her funeral and I told him. He said he was a real good friend of Miss Westwood’s and, like you said, a good friend has a right to farewell her.”
I suspected the man had paid him too, but admitting as much went against the doorman’s code of honor. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he have warts or sores on his face?”
“I didn’t see his face. It was dark and he wore his coat collar up.”
Damnation.
“There was one distinguishing thing about him, miss,” the doorman said.
“Oh?”
