Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood

the back of each drawer in the chest of drawers. Clothes, plain and well kept. Her stockings were darned with the correct thread. This was always an index, Tommy had been told, to the state of a woman’s mind. There were no reminders of her circus past. Her prison-release document was the only personal item in the room. Her ashtray was full of pins and one loose button.
    ‘All right, Tillie, who’s next?’
    ‘This is Miss Minton’s room.’
    ‘Do you like her?’ asked Tommy, reeling back under a cloud of cheap scent. Tillie looked around to make sure that no one was listening.
    ‘She’s all right. Makes a lot of work. Lots of washing and ironing, with all them costumes. I don’t know what sort of an actress she is, though. And,’ Tillie lowered her voice further, ‘I don’t think she goes to church when she goes out on Sundays.’
    ‘Why do you think that?’
    ‘I asked her what church she was, cos I thought she might be a Catholic. I can’t abide them Micks. She said she went to St Paul’s. But she don’t.’
    ‘How do you know?’ The overpowering femininity of Miss Minton’s belongings was stifling Harris. The window had evidently not been opened for some time. He pulled at a drawer, dreading that he might see something which would cause him to blush.
    ‘She leaves at the wrong time. Service at the cathedral is eight and ten. She often don’t leave until ten. I don’t know where she’s going but it ain’t church. But she’s got some pretty things.’ Tillie gazed admiringly at a gown figured with gold dragons. ‘And she smells nice.’
    Love letters and cards and cheap novels with chocolate wrappers marking her place comprised most of Miss Minton’s reading matter. Tommy glanced through them. The terms in which Miss Minton’s person was described by one ardent suitor were too much for him. He felt his cheeks begin to burn.
    He replaced the letters, felt along the mattress and under the bed. There he found three unmatched stockings and an earring. The walls of her room were hung with posters for various plays, and the small table was covered by a fringed shawl. Her wastepaper basket contained more chocolate wrappers and two types of cigarette butt—one long and lipstick stained; the other short, gold-ringed and brown.
    ‘Oh! They’re the ones that Mr Sheridan smokes!’ squeaked Tillie. Tommy Harris selected a representative collection of butts and put them into an envelope.
    ‘Come on Tillie, I’m stifled in here,’ he said. ‘Who’s next?’
    ‘This is Mr Christopher’s room,’ breathed Tillie. ‘All his stuff is still there. Ooh, this is creepy!’
    Constable Harris had been taught how to search a room. He got down and crawled. His first effort had been thorough; at the end of half an hour his harvest was scant. The only things which he could not definitely state were Mr Christopher’s possessions were another strip of flimsy paper, which he discovered caught behind the picture of Miss Molly Younger, a length of twisted fishing line and a small white feather. The collection meant nothing whatever to him but he packed it all up in another envelope.
    ‘What’s the next, Tillie?’
    ‘Mr Sheridan’s room.’
    But no matter how Constable Harris turned the key, the door would not open.
    ‘Missus’ll be mad,’ said Tillie. ‘They ain’t s’posed to muck about with the locks. In case of fire, she says.’
    ‘Well, it won’t open. Tell me about the house. Can you get into the roof? What about under the floors?’
    ‘They fixed the ceilings where the roof used to leak but the painter ain’t been yet. And now I expect she’ll have to have the downstairs ceiling fixed. Ooh, to think of poor Mr Christopher lying there bleeding like a tap! It’s awful.’
    ‘How did you feel about him, then?’ asked Tommy, trying not to think of Mr Christopher bleeding like a tap. Tillie screwed the tea-towel in her water-sodden hands.
    ‘He was a gent,’ she said sadly. ‘Never any