the comics, the performing dogs, the acrobats, the dancers, girls with long legs in daring, glittering costumes, usually of scarlet satin.
Scarlet satin.
Like the woman they had found murdered in Fleshers Close, except that her dress was torn and muddied.
He felt the thrill of certainty.
Gosse was wrong. He had leapt to the obvious conclusion. Despite that scarlet dress and the face paint, the woman was not a professional prostitute but an actress, a chorus girl, a dancer. Perhaps out of work and starving she had had to seek survival on the streets. And a more significant memory: the woman in the tenement who had heard a carriage and drunken shouts that night.
Faro considered Paul with new interest. Should he confide his suspicions to Gosse, who wanted the woman in Fleshers Close to be a whore? He hated whores and had set his heart on that as the reason why she had been murdered. Bearing that in mind, Faro later felt boundto mention that Paul was a known flirt with the maid servants.
Gosse’s reactions were exactly what he had expected. The sergeant’s eyebrows shot skyward. A shake of the head, a mocking laugh. ‘Are you hinting that the son of the house was Ida’s secret lover? Paul and one of the maids! You must be insane. The idea is unimaginable – completely absurd.’
‘It happens, sir,’ said Faro. ‘Every day.’
For him, remembering Lizzie’s bitter past, the idea was neither absurd nor unimaginable.
Gosse gave him a pitying glance. ‘Did you not see her lying in the mortuary – a plain little nobody? And him an educated, handsome lad, about to graduate as a doctor. What an idea.’ And shaking an admonishing finger, ‘And another thing. Don’t forget Jock Webb. Why on earth should Paul attack an elderly man, a stranger?’
Faro suppressed a weary sigh. Despite the revelations of his interview with Webb, Gosse was still hanging on to his own theory, hoping that the murder might be pinned on the ex-boxer.
‘And how do you fit all this in with the sinister planting of the nine of diamonds on the victims?’ Gosse demanded.
Faro had to admit that the only link was that Paul was a known gambler. ‘Jock Webb couldn’t account for the playing card.’
In a voice heavy with sarcasm, Gosse said, ‘Don’t make me laugh, Faro. You’re not using those much-vaunted powers of detection. It is a well-known fact that criminals do things exactly like that to divert suspicions from themselves. Wait till you’ve been tracking them down as long as I have, you’ll see.’
It didn’t divert from the fact that Webb had been injured, hit on the head by someone. But as Gosse said darkly: ‘Webb is our prime suspect.’ Only one thing still baffled him. He was as yet completely unable to fit Webb by any stretch of imagination into the role of Ida’s killer, her rich young lover.
As for Faro, he knew from even the short experience of their dealings together that it would be useless to protest, impossible to dissuade Gosse from what he wanted to believe.
‘Now that Wade is out of the enquiry,’ said Gosse, ‘for God knows how long – and if I know the inspector, he will be in no hurry to return to duty – all his work has fallen on my shoulders, so you will need to do the legwork, accept a bit more responsibility without me to look after you.’
This little speech brought Faro to a decision. Without Gosse looking over his shoulder, he would carry out his own search, beginning with the Vaudeville Theatre, to see if any of the girls were missing.
And time wasn’t on his side. After more than a week in the cold store mortuary, unclaimed bodies found their way to Surgeons’ Hall and the knives of the eagerly awaiting medical students.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Faro’s instructions from Gosse were to follow up Jock Webb and interview him closely again. As the sergeant had already made up his mind, in the absence of any more suitable candidate, that the ex-boxer was his prime suspect, it seemed to Faro a
Scarlet satin.
Like the woman they had found murdered in Fleshers Close, except that her dress was torn and muddied.
He felt the thrill of certainty.
Gosse was wrong. He had leapt to the obvious conclusion. Despite that scarlet dress and the face paint, the woman was not a professional prostitute but an actress, a chorus girl, a dancer. Perhaps out of work and starving she had had to seek survival on the streets. And a more significant memory: the woman in the tenement who had heard a carriage and drunken shouts that night.
Faro considered Paul with new interest. Should he confide his suspicions to Gosse, who wanted the woman in Fleshers Close to be a whore? He hated whores and had set his heart on that as the reason why she had been murdered. Bearing that in mind, Faro later felt boundto mention that Paul was a known flirt with the maid servants.
Gosse’s reactions were exactly what he had expected. The sergeant’s eyebrows shot skyward. A shake of the head, a mocking laugh. ‘Are you hinting that the son of the house was Ida’s secret lover? Paul and one of the maids! You must be insane. The idea is unimaginable – completely absurd.’
‘It happens, sir,’ said Faro. ‘Every day.’
For him, remembering Lizzie’s bitter past, the idea was neither absurd nor unimaginable.
Gosse gave him a pitying glance. ‘Did you not see her lying in the mortuary – a plain little nobody? And him an educated, handsome lad, about to graduate as a doctor. What an idea.’ And shaking an admonishing finger, ‘And another thing. Don’t forget Jock Webb. Why on earth should Paul attack an elderly man, a stranger?’
Faro suppressed a weary sigh. Despite the revelations of his interview with Webb, Gosse was still hanging on to his own theory, hoping that the murder might be pinned on the ex-boxer.
‘And how do you fit all this in with the sinister planting of the nine of diamonds on the victims?’ Gosse demanded.
Faro had to admit that the only link was that Paul was a known gambler. ‘Jock Webb couldn’t account for the playing card.’
In a voice heavy with sarcasm, Gosse said, ‘Don’t make me laugh, Faro. You’re not using those much-vaunted powers of detection. It is a well-known fact that criminals do things exactly like that to divert suspicions from themselves. Wait till you’ve been tracking them down as long as I have, you’ll see.’
It didn’t divert from the fact that Webb had been injured, hit on the head by someone. But as Gosse said darkly: ‘Webb is our prime suspect.’ Only one thing still baffled him. He was as yet completely unable to fit Webb by any stretch of imagination into the role of Ida’s killer, her rich young lover.
As for Faro, he knew from even the short experience of their dealings together that it would be useless to protest, impossible to dissuade Gosse from what he wanted to believe.
‘Now that Wade is out of the enquiry,’ said Gosse, ‘for God knows how long – and if I know the inspector, he will be in no hurry to return to duty – all his work has fallen on my shoulders, so you will need to do the legwork, accept a bit more responsibility without me to look after you.’
This little speech brought Faro to a decision. Without Gosse looking over his shoulder, he would carry out his own search, beginning with the Vaudeville Theatre, to see if any of the girls were missing.
And time wasn’t on his side. After more than a week in the cold store mortuary, unclaimed bodies found their way to Surgeons’ Hall and the knives of the eagerly awaiting medical students.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Faro’s instructions from Gosse were to follow up Jock Webb and interview him closely again. As the sergeant had already made up his mind, in the absence of any more suitable candidate, that the ex-boxer was his prime suspect, it seemed to Faro a
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