Page 51 of Disturbing the Dead
The woman behind the desk is maybe forty, with gray streaks in her dark hair. She’s stout and bespectacled and dressed in a simple brown plaid dress and bonnet.
“Come to take me up on that offer, lass?” Elspeth says without glancing up from her account book. “Ready to go a few rounds in the ring?”
“Five months after you asked?”
“Took you some time to make the right decision.” Her gaze lifts then as she sets the pen down. “Good morning, Dr. Gray. You look well.”
I cross my arms. “Better than he looked the last time you saw him, after your goons tried to kill him?”
She sighs. “They did no such thing, lass.”
“They knocked him out and then threw him down the stairs.”
“I have had a talk with them. They should have either knocked him unconscious or thrown him down the stairs. It’s the combination that’s a danger. The problem with fighting men is that they aren’t terribly good at foreseeing consequences. I would say they’re dumb brutes, but I would hate to insult the present company.” She looks at Gray. “I have heard you know how to throw a punch or two, Doctor.”
“He can,” I say. “When he’s not caught unawares by brutes you set on him.”
Gray lifts a hand. His look says he appreciates my defense, but I can take it down a notch. After all, we’re here for Elspeth’s help. I know that. I just can’t help still being furious about what happened. He really could have been killed.
“I don’t suppose you came here to try the ring yourself, Dr. Gray,” she says.
“Hardly. I do not resort to pugilism unless absolutely necessary. I find it distasteful.”
Wow. He can even say that with a straight face. It’s the accent that sells it, that snooty upper-crust one, combined with a lofty look down his nose.
“We’re looking for Jack,” I say. “I haven’t seen her in a while, presumably because we didn’t have any interesting cases for her. Now that’s changed, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to speak to us. On her writerly friend’s behalf, of course.”
“You mean that baronet’s murder? The one who was wrapped in mummy bandages? What will people think of next.” While her expression mimes shock, her tone is pure wonder, tinged with admiration.
“We need to speak to Jack,” I repeat.
“I can pass along the message. It isn’t free, though.” She smiles. “Nothing is free.”
Gray turns on his heel and heads for the door. Oh, he isn’t averse to offering bribes. He’s actually very quick with them. But there’s a difference between a freely offered bribe—a little something for your time—and extortion.
“Tell Jack we tried to speak to her,” I say to Elspeth as I follow Gray. “And if that costs money, too, then don’t bother. We can get what we need without her, and it saves us offering information for her broadsheets.”
“For her broadsheets?”
I turn and give Elspeth a look. She’s an old friend of Jack’s, and if Jack is “Edinburgh’s Foremost Reporter of Criminal Activities,” Elspeth knows it.
We leave Halton House. I don’t expect Elspeth to chase us into the streets. That would be undignified. But I did think she’d call a resigned “Wait” before we got out the door.
“Did we overplay our hand?” Gray asks as we head down the busy street.
I shake my head. “Elspeth nearly had you killed because she thought we’d kidnapped Jack. She’s as protective as a mother hen. A really vicious mother hen. She’ll also be protective of Jack’s business interests, since that’s what puts food on Jack’s table. She was just testing our boundaries.”
“Seeing whether I will pay a bribe?”
“Elspeth is the sort who takes her pounds and her pence wherever she can get them, because even if she doesn’t need them now, she did need them once, and after you’ve needed them once, you’re never certain you won’t need them again.”
“The calluses on her fingers. They suggest years working in a mill. That is not an easy occupation.” He glances over. “Excellent deductive work.”
“I never saw the calluses. My deduction comes from the way her eyes light up at the thought of adding a few extra coins to her penny jar. Also, the fact that she let us walk out—hoping to call our bluff—means she’s not giving up a payday so easily, even though her clothing suggests she’s not in dire need of the half crown you might offer.”
“Then our combined observations suggest we did not overplay our hand. She is simply more than averagely hopeful of a bribe. You expect she will make contact with Jack—once she is certain no bribe is forthcoming. I agree. I could have hurried the process with that bribe, but my sense is that it would set a dangerous precedent.”
“Yep. If she can get a half crown out of you so easily, there’s no point giving you anything for free.” I glance over. “I’d like to speak to Selim Awad. I understand that Isla wants us to wait, and that’s probably the proper thing to do, but in my world, we don’t stall on a lead out of respect for the grieving, whatever their status. We understand it’s an imposition, but we have a murder to solve and the longer we wait, the colder the trail becomes.”
