“Ollie,” Charles heard the girl say in a low voice, “there’s a pair o’ gentl’men lookin’ fer ye. Wot’ll I tell ’em?”

“Yer s’posed t’ keep it quiet that I’m ’ere,” Moore hissed.

“I din’t say,” the girl protested, and turned with a start as Charles’s shadow fell across the threshhold. She dropped a frightened curtsy and fled back down the path.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Moore,” Charles said quietly. “I am Charles Sheridan, and this is Mr. Murray. We’ve come to talk with you about the murder of Mr. Alfred Day.”

“Don’t know nuffin ’bout it,” Moore growled with a show of belligerence. “Nuffin a’tall. If ye don’t b’lieve me, ask me brother Thomas. I bin ’ere fer three ’ole days. ’E’ll swear to it.”

“No, sir,” Murray contradicted him firmly. “You were in the Great Horse in Newmarket High Street yesterday evening, before eight. The proprietor testifies to that, and others will, too.”

Furtively, Moore glanced from one to the other. He wore thick-soled boots, stiff brown trousers tied at the waist with a length of dirty rope, and his shirt was homespun-the usual farmer’s garb. But he was clean shaven, his hair was neatly cut and pomaded, and his hands and nails were clean. He did not have the look of a country man.

“Are ye from the p’lice?” he asked nervously.

“No, Mr. Moore,” Charles said. “We are conducting a private investigation.”

This seemed to make Moore feel easier. His shoulders relaxed, and he became more confident. He glanced from Charles to Murray. “Wot’cher want from me, then?”

“We want you to tell us what you know about your employer’s murder,” Charles said. “Everything you know about it, please, sir.”

“Don’t know nuffin,” Moore repeated, with emphasis. “I wuz at the Great ’Orse, true. But then I went up to the Owl and stayed an hour or so. You can ask Mrs. Thorpe. ’Fore I left, I bought one of ’er shepherd’s pies. She wrapped it fer me to take ’ome.”

“To St. James Street?” Charles asked, thinking of the remains of the pie on the table in the loft.

“Where else?” Moore countered. “I went ’ome, ate me pie leisure-like, and went t’ bed. I wuz woke in the middle o’ the night by men movin’ round in the office below. Thieves, they wuz. Bangin’ drawers, pullin’ out papers, talkin’-”

“What time was this?” Murray asked.

“I din’t strike no light, now, did I?” Moore was truculent. “They din’t know I wuz there. I wuzn’t goin’ to call their attention to me, now, wuz I?”

Charles pictured the situation, the clerk cowering in his bed with the covers pulled over his head, afraid that the men would come up the stairs and discover him. “You say you heard them talking,” he remarked. “What were they talking about?”

Moore chewed on his lip. “One of them said as how Badger wuz dead. Shot in th’ alley b’hind the Great ’Orse. I reckoned when they ’eard ’e wuz dead, they come lookin’ fer money.” He shook his head as if with disgust. “Prob’ly figgered t’ find a satchel full o’ gold sovereigns.”

“But they didn’t?” Charles asked.

“Badger wuz a careful man,” Moore said. “ ’E never kept no money in the office. ’E ’ad a safe at ’ome.”

“I see,” Charles said. Perhaps it would be a good idea to interview the widow after all. The safe might contain some sort of clue to the killer’s identity. “You didn’t recognize the voices, I suppose.” And might not readily tell them if he had.

Moore shook his head.

Charles narrowed his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked abruptly. “Why are you hiding out? What do you know?”

Again the furtive glance, and a silence.

Murray stepped closer, crowding Moore against the shelves. “Don’t be a fool, man,” he snarled. “Your employer’s been murdered and you’ve run away to hide. Who’s to say there was no money in that office? Who’s to say that you didn’t kill Badger, ransack the office, and make off with that satchel of sovereigns? I promise you, the chief constable won’t be so tender, nor the judge at the assize. Answer the question!”

Moore seemed to deflate in front of their eyes. His shoulders slumped as if his backbone could no longer support them, and his head dropped. “I’m ’iding out from Baggs,” he muttered.

“Baggs?” Charles frowned. “Why?”

“ ’Cause ’e’s ’oo killed Badger.”

“How do you know?”

Moore chewed on his lower lip. “ ’Im and Badger ’ad sharp words about ’orse doping, more’n once. Badger din’t like doping, ye see. It interfered wiv the book. Badger said it’s the bookie ’oo gets ’urt when there’s doping-the bookie and the ord’n’ry bettor. Badger went through ’ard times in ’is life. ’E ’ad a warm place in ’is ’eart fer the ord’n’ry bettor, ’oo saves up ’is pence to ’ave a go on a good ’orse.”

“And Baggs?” Murray asked. “What was his view on the subject?”

Moore ’s face darkened. “Baggs ’ad got in wiv the American dopers and saw a chance to make some big money, like they’re doing. When Badger told ’im that ’e’d been to talk wiv the stewards, Baggs wuz fierce wiv ’im. And when ’e said ’e intended to organize the bookies, Baggs wuz fiercer. Said ’e wudn’t stand still and watch ’im meddle in wot din’t concern ’im.” He hunched his shoulders and added darkly. “Baggs is the one ’oo killed Badger.”

“Do you have any certain knowledge of that?” Murray demanded.

“I ’eard ’im say ’e would, din’t I?” Moore replied. “They wuz arguing, and Baggs told Badger that if ’e tried to organize the bookies to stop the dopers, ’e’d kill ’im dead. Right in front of me, ’e said it. Loud and nasty-like. ‘I’ll kill ye dead wiv me own two ’ands,” e said, just like that.”

“When did he say that?” Charles asked.

“Recent. A couple of days ago. When I ’eard the men sayin’ how Badger was shot to death in the alley, I figgered it wuz Baggs as done it. Since ’e knew I wuz there when ’e threatened Badger, I feared ’e might come after me. To keep me from telling. So I come ’ere, to me brother’s ’ouse. And ’ere is where I’m staying.” He held out his hands and added, fervently. “That’s the truth, sirs, the ’ole truth and nuffin but the truth, so ’elp me God.”

On the whole, Charles rather thought that it was-the truth, at least, as Sobersides saw it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When Amelia left the kitchen after her conversation with Margaret, Mrs. Redditch the cook, and Bowchard the gardener, she went straight up to her mistress’s room in the hopes of finding Lady Charles. Bowchard’s news about Alfred Day’s murder had surprised Amelia to no end, and the servants’ veiled accusation of Mrs. Langtry had not been lost on her. Of course, she understood that none of the servants liked their mistress; in fact, most of them seemed to actively dislike her, some from a narrow-minded (and probably hypocritical) distaste for Mrs. Langtry’s low morals; and some from a general unhappiness with her slow payment of wages.

But even taking these hostile feelings into account, Amelia knew that something unusual was afoot here. Mrs. Langtry’s bookmaker had been shot to death at about the same time that he was to rendezvous with her. And what was more, Mrs. Langtry’s silver-handled derringer was missing from a drawer in the drawing room, where it was always kept.

Amelia and Margaret had learned this intriguing intelligence from Pru, the parlormaid, whom they encountered in the passageway outside the kitchen on their way back upstairs. Pru was tall and angular, and the absence of brows (scorched off by an exploding gas lamp) gave her a look of perpetual dismay. She was entrusted with dusting and straightening the dining, breakfast, and drawing rooms, a duty which permitted her to sew a lace edging on her apron to distinguish her from the other maids. Parlormaids were not supposed to snoop in drawers, of course, but Pru had seen the gun on more than one occasion when she had opened the drawer to put something away. She had thought then that it was a careless sort of place to keep a dangerous weapon, and now she was sure of it. For this morning when she opened the drawer, the gun was gone.