Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [53]
She supplied Rose and Miss Friendly with long aprons to protect their clothes and told them to supply their own next time.
Rose had not been prepared for the rank smell of so many diseased and unwashed bodies. But she smiled and ladled soup into bowls while Miss Friendly handed out chunks of bread.
Her beauty was appreciated by the poor. She smiled at each and said a few words of comfort. One old Cockney was particularly grateful. “The Good Lord sent you, missus,” he said. “I saw the light in prison, I did. Chaplain says God would take care of me. You is an instrument of the Lord.”
He moved on. Rose’s feet began to ache. “How long do we have to stay here?” she whispered to Miss Friendly.
“Another hour,” murmured Miss Friendly. “So many hungry people.”
At last it was over. Rose felt a glow of achievement as she was driven off. She had promised to return on the following day.
Her scalp became increasingly itchy as the day wore on. She rang for her lady’s maid. “Turner, would you see if I have a rash on my scalp?”
Turner took the bone pins and pads out of Rose’s elaborate hair-style and brushed out her long hair.
“My lady, you have lice!”
“Lice!”
“Head lice. I will fetch a tooth comb and disinfectant.”
Rose spent an agonizing hour bent over a sheet of white paper while Turner combed out the lice with a toothcomb soaked in disinfectant. Then her hair was washed several times.
Rose remembered that Mrs. Harrison’s hair had been bound up in a tight turban. She could only be glad that she was free of social engagements that evening. What if all the lice had not been discovered and some fell on the captain!
When she went to sleep that night, she dreamt she was floating down the river in the rowing-boat with Dolly. “You’ve missed something. It’s right under your nose,” said Dolly. Rose awoke with a start. Someone had said something or done something recently that was important. She racked her brain, but could not think what it was.
EIGHT
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
—OSCAR WILDE
Harry visited Kerridge the next day. “Did you ever interview Lord Berrow?” he asked.
“Yes, but got nothing but the usual bluster out of him.”
“He is a nasty, brutal man. Maybe he knew Dolly was going to run away. I really feel you should interview him again. I’ll come with you. He’ll still be at his town house.”
“I’ll try anything. I don’t like unfinished cases, particularly murder ones.”
Accompanied by Inspector Judd, they went to Lord Berrow’s home. When Berrow heard that a detective superintendent from Scotland Yard had called, he could almost feel his heart shrivel into a tiny knot of panic.
“Very well. I will see this person,” he told his butler loftily. “Put him in the library. Has he come alone?”
“There is a police inspector with him and a Captain Cathcart.”
Berrow wondered whether to make a run for it out of the back door or bluster it out. Bluster won.
He entered the library with a breezy, “What ho! One of my servants been stealing the silver?”
“I have neglected to ask you, my lord, what you were doing on the evening that Miss Tremaine was murdered.”
Relief flooded Lord Berrow’s corpulent body. “Get out of here. You are insolent. Do you know who I am?”
“Answer the question,” said Harry in a level voice.
Berrow stared at him for a long moment. He was sure it was Cathcart who was behind the taking of that dreadful photograph.
To Kerridge’s amazement, Berrow said mildly, “Sorry. But you caught me on the hop. Let me see. It’s a while back. I was at The Club. You can ask the other members. I stayed there until two in the morning. Went home, went to bed. That’s it.”
“You do not have any connection with criminals, do you?” asked Kerridge, thinking that if Berrow had hired an assassin, it didn’t really matter what sort of alibi he had.
“My dear fellow, I do not know such types. I consort with the highest in the land, including our King.”
Kerridge fixed a flat-eyed gaze on