Just Murdered Page 12

  The shop interior was completely empty. Not just empty of people, but devoid of everything: stock, fixtures, furnishings … even the carpet was gone, exposing the bare wood of the floor. In fact, the only thing he could see was a haphazard pile of letters, spilled across the floorboards just behind the door. Clearly Florence Astor hadn’t been here for some days.

  Steed moved back to the door and assessed the situation. There was a small gap at the bottom—an obliging postman must have been stuffing the mail through that way—but rattling the knob only showed him that everything was tightly locked. A passer-by stared curiously and Steed backed away, keen to avoid drawing attention. It was then he noticed the rubbish bin tucked just around the corner in the adjoining laneway. Sitting on top of the assorted detritus was a twisted wire coathanger. Steed grabbed it and wrestled with the wire until he was satisfied. Then, after checking for more curious pedestrians, he crouched down, pushed his makeshift hook under the door and slowly dragged Florence Astor’s post out into the open. It took him several attempts, but within a few minutes he’d retrieved most of it. Discarding the coathanger, James Steed shuffled quickly through the pile before tucking everything into his pocket.

  Now he really needed to find Florence Astor.

  Peregrine opened the door almost as soon as Steed rang the bell. She’d changed out of her Blair’s uniform and was now dressed in capri pants and a short-sleeved shirt in shades of pink and aqua.

  ‘Did you find Florence? Is she okay?’ Peregrine asked, bare feet slapping on the wooden stairs as she raced ahead of her guest and turned down the volume on the record player. ‘Sorry, I was just doing my nails.’ She held up a bottle of frosted pink polish and wiggled her toes for emphasis.

  Steed was momentarily distracted, but then he pulled the bunch of envelopes from the pocket of his overcoat.

  ‘To answer your questions, no, I didn’t find her, and I don’t know how she is. I was actually hoping she might be here.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Peregrine said, spreading her arms wide. ‘You mean she wasn’t at her salon?’

  ‘Not only was she not at her salon, I’d say she hasn’t been there for a week or more. The place was deserted, locked and stripped of all furnishings. And there was all this’—he brandished the mail—‘piled up behind her door.’

  Steed passed the post to Peregrine and, as he had done earlier, she thumbed through the thick stack.

  Peregrine frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Florence told me she was run off her feet finishing the collection for New York.’

  ‘When you see Miss Astor, give her that lot and tell her I really do need to speak with her as soon as possible. There’s something going on and she clearly hasn’t been straight with you.’

  Peregrine nodded, subdued. ‘Of course I’ll tell her.’

  Detective Steed studied her for a moment and seemed about to say something else, but he settled for a sombre nod. ‘I’ll let myself out,’ he said.

  But Peregrine wasn’t listening. She was staring at the pile of envelopes in her hand, trying to understand what it meant, and wondering if she really was cut out to be a detective after all. She liked Florence, and all the other Adventuresses liked and respected her too. Was it possible they were all wrong? Peregrine hated the doubt that had crept into her mind, but she couldn’t ignore what Steed had said: Florence was hiding something.

  Peregrine threw herself down on the sofa and dropped the envelopes on the seat next to her. She picked up one, turned it over and hesitated. Then quickly, before she could change her mind, Peregrine stuck her thumb under the flap, ripped the envelope open and drew out a single sheet of paper. It was a bill, and stamped across it in angry red letters were the words Final Notice.

  She cast it aside and opened the next, and the next. Bill after bill, some long overdue, some with additional threats and demands, all for large amounts of money. It seemed Florence owed everyone, from the fabric supplier and the button maker to the electricity company and the Board of Works. And her landlord. In fact, as Peregrine discovered, Florence owed the landlord so much money that she had been served with an eviction notice.

  ‘That explains the empty salon,’ Peregrine murmured.

  She worked her way through the pile, growing more and more concerned but also more confused: Florence hadn’t said a word about any financial problems—but, even so, how could Florence’s lack of money have anything to do with Barbie Jones’s murder? Peregrine knew from years of experience that the first thing you did when you owed money was pack up and get out of town. At least, that’s what she and her mother had always done.

  She tore open the last envelope, expecting to find another letter from an irate creditor, but as she pulled it out Peregrine realised this was heavy paper, not the thin carbon triplicate of an invoice. She unfolded it and read. And felt her stomach drop.

  ‘Oh, Florence,’ she groaned.

  Peregrine read the terse message again, but it was exactly the same the second time around. She was holding a letter of demand, but this was written by a lawyer on behalf of Miss Barbara Jones.

  Florence owed Barbie Jones money, a lot of money, and Barbie Jones had wanted it back. Immediately.

  Peregrine carefully folded the letter and tucked it back into the envelope. She needed to talk to Florence, and if the designer wasn’t at the Adventuresses’ Club surely Birdie would know where to find her. Unless Florence had found somewhere else to work? Peregrine thought back to her first foray into the basement rooms of Blair’s Emporium, and the door marked Alterations tucked in a dim corner. Florence deserved a chance to explain before Peregrine told anyone else about her money troubles, so if there was a chance she was holed up and working late at Blair’s …

  Besides, it wouldn’t hurt for Peregrine to have another look at the scene of the crime.

  Peregrine was not surprised to find her aunt’s wardrobe included a variety of outfits suitable for covert night-time excursions: they were not only darkly coloured, they were also cut for ease of movement, enabling the wearer to run, jump or engage in any number of athletic pursuits without so much as straining a seam. Needless to say, they all came equipped with numerous pockets and were stylish enough to pass unremarked in all but the most formal of situations. She selected fitted pants, a black turtleneck and an almost space-age jacket with a hood large enough to shadow her face if necessary. The shoe cupboard yielded the perfect pair of black plimsolls—exactly the sort of thing for scaling walls and walking on roofs, Peregrine thought ruefully—and she was ready to go.

  Cruising slowly past Blair’s Emporium in the Austin-Healey, Peregrine was on high alert for any sign of police or security guards, but everything seemed still: no uniformed officers on the street, no moving shadows within. She drove a few blocks further uptown, parked the convertible in a quiet side street and made her way back to the store on foot. Although it was close to 11 p.m., there were still a few people out on the city streets, and from somewhere Peregrine could hear a jazz quartet playing, experimenting with time signatures as they rolled the music from piano to saxophone to bass to drums before all diving into the finale. Realisation hit her as she listened to the music, and she glanced down at her outfit. Perfect. She had inadvertently come disguised as a beatnik.

  The facade of Blair’s Emporium was ablaze with lights, but Peregrine had no intention of breaking in through the main door. Instead, she loitered in front of the windows, waiting until there was no passing traffic before slipping down a narrow lane along the side of the building and around to the trade entrance. The lane was dark, lit only by a single light suspended over the back door to Blair’s. Peregrine pulled a bobby pin from her hair and began to twist it, keeping to the deeper pockets of night as she covered the final few feet. She was reaching for the lock when suddenly the handle turned and the door began to open. Peregrine leaped back then darted behind an assortment of rubbish bins and old wooden crates, where she crouched, waiting to see who would come out. Cautiously, she raised her head until h
er eyes were just above the level of the pile of crates. A security guard was standing in front of the doorway, soft light spilling from the store’s interior. He looked up and down the lane, inhaled deeply, then fumbled in his shirt pocket, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit up.

  Peregrine eyed the tantalisingly open door then lowered her head and eased herself backwards. There wasn’t enough light to see anything much here so, carefully, she ran her hands over the ground in slowly-widening sweeps. On the third pass with her left hand her questing fingers brushed against something and she stopped, reversed the movement and prodded the object: cold and smooth. A bottle. Perfect. She hefted it in one hand then inched to the edge of her hiding place.

  The guard was still there, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet as he smoked, staring up at the night sky. Peregrine waited until he shifted his weight, turning ever so slightly away from her. Then she lobbed the bottle into the air, watching as it arced over the guard’s head to crash down in the darkness somewhere on the other side of the door.

  ‘Who’s there?’ the guard called, flicking his cigarette to the ground. ‘Who’s there?’ He fumbled at his belt for a moment, then a powerful torch beam lit up the brick wall on the opposite side of the lane. Peregrine ducked back out of sight, keeping one eye on the guard.

  He shone his torch in the direction the noise had come from, then stepped away from the door, turned his back to Peregrine’s hiding spot and slowly began to walk, moving his torch left and right as he probed every dark nook and shadowy angle.

  Peregrine counted to three then stood and raced for the entrance, her rubber soles barely a whisper on the cobblestones. She sprang through the open door and kept going, just in case the guard decided to return, and only slowed when she’d put a few corners and a good length of passageway between them.

  Everything looked different at night. In the glow of the dim, sulphurous security lights, it took Peregrine a moment to get her bearings, but then she made her way directly to the stairs and down to the basement storage area. The crowd of mannequins was even creepier in the half-dark, but Peregrine ignored them, drawn across the room by a soft whirring sound emanating from behind the closed door marked Alterations. Carefully, she eased the door open and peered around it to see Florence, head bent over a sewing machine, all her attention focused on the black fabric she was slowly feeding beneath the needle. Peregrine let out a sigh of relief and stepped into the room.

  Florence jumped, her foot slipping from the sewing machine’s power pedal. ‘Good God!’ she yelped. ‘Oh, it’s you, Peregrine. What are you doing here at this hour and why on earth are you sneaking up on me?’ She put a hand to her chest.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Peregrine looked around the tiny room, taking in the bolts of fabric, the single rack of clothes—some finished, some little more than tacked-together shapes—and the professional-looking Bernina sewing machine. The last time she’d been in this room it had looked as though it was hardly used, but now it seemed Florence had taken over the space. Peregrine inhaled. The faint smell of machine oil hung in the air, a sign that Florence had been here for hours, running the machine until its motor grew hot.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Florence asked again.

  ‘Looking for you.’ Peregrine gestured to the rack of clothes. ‘Florence, what’s going on?’

  ‘Oh, I just had a few last-minute things I needed to finish off. These are for Blair’s, so it’s easier to do them here than take them back to the salon.’ She smiled broadly at Peregrine.

  ‘Florence …’ Peregrine paused, wanting to be gentle. ‘I know about the salon. Is this where you’re doing all your work?’

  Florence’s shoulders sagged and tears welled in her eyes. ‘The landlord put up the rent. I had to get out.’

  ‘Come on, Florence—I said I knew. It’s not just the rent.’ Peregrine pulled the bunch of envelopes from the pocket of her jacket and put them down in front of the other woman.

  Picking one up, Florence fingered the open flap, swallowed and met Peregrine’s worried eyes. ‘I’m in quite a bit of debt, actually.’

  Peregrine perched on the end of the worktable. ‘But I thought you were doing really well! Your clothes are in all the magazines, you’ve got the wallpaper and interior design range, and Samuel said a department store in New York was going to stock your label.’

  A lone tear traced its way down Florence’s cheek. ‘The American deal fell through, but I’d already borrowed heavily for fabrics and notions … I wanted it to be the most eye-popping collection I’d ever put together! I had to let all my cutters and seamstresses go, and they’ve all been with me for years. I thought the bridal show might be enough to keep things afloat but then …’

  Peregrine put her hand over Florence’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Why didn’t you say something to Birdie? Or anyone?’

  ‘I thought I could fix it. And I was so ashamed and embarrassed. How could I have let this happen? I didn’t want Birdie to know. She’d try to offer me money and the club doesn’t have any. Bad enough for Birdie and the Adventuresses to think I’m a failure without ruining them too.’

  ‘No one would ever think of you as a failure, Florence.’ Peregrine paused then nodded at the pile of letters. ‘There’s one in there from a lawyer. Barbie Jones’s lawyer. You owed her money too, and she wanted it.’

  Florence squeezed her eyes closed. ‘I hadn’t paid her for her catwalk work for a while—well, not with money. I’d been making her one-of-a-kind dresses instead. But even before that, before everything fell apart, I convinced Barbie to invest her own money in the Florence Astor label. Promised her she’d not only make a profit, I’d make sure she modelled in New York. It would’ve launched her career in America.’

  ‘How did she find out things had come undone?’

  Florence shook her head vigorously, as though she didn’t want to even think about it. ‘I don’t know. Gossip? Friends somewhere? She confronted me. Demanded to know what was going on, then demanded her money. I begged her for time, but …’ She flicked a finger at the pile of letters, causing them to spill across the table.

  ‘When? When did she confront you?’

  Florence looked at Peregrine. Her face was bleak. ‘The day before the bridal show.’

  ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t know your business was in trouble. Maybe she just realised that being pregnant meant she couldn’t have a career in New York, and she’d need her money back to plan for the future.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? Poor Barbie’s dead now, and if people weren’t talking about me last week they soon will be.’

  ‘People talking isn’t important. What is important is that you owed Barbie money and argued about it. It’s just a matter of time before the police find out—if they haven’t already. You need to go and talk to Detective Steed, Florence, and tell him everything.’

  ‘He’ll think I killed her.’

  ‘I’m afraid Sparrow’s already trying to pin Barbie’s murder on you. There’s no sense in giving him the satisfaction of dragging you down to the police station; much better if you talk to Steed. I’ll come with you.’

  Florence gave Peregrine a weak smile. ‘Thank you, but I don’t know if I can do it. Besides’—she smoothed the black fabric that was suspended halfway through the sewing machine—‘I need to finish this dress. I have to finish it.’

  Peregrine studied Florence. She could see how much it meant to the designer to complete the dress she was working on. It was something Peregrine understood: to have some sense of accomplishment, however small, when everything in your life seemed to be in tatters.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’m going to be a while.’

  ‘I don’t mind. You shouldn’t be here alone.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. It won’t be the first time I’ve sat in this room until the early hours. Go.’ Fl
orence tipped her head towards the door.

  ‘If you’re sure …’ Peregrine hesitated.

  ‘Yes! Go!’

  ‘And in the morning I’ll come with you to the police station.’

  Florence drew in a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. Then she grabbed Peregrine’s hand and squeezed, hard. ‘You’re so like your aunt. Thank you, Peregrine.’

  Peregrine lingered in the doorway, watching as Florence adjusted the needle and began to sew again. Then she left, pulling the door closed behind her. The sound of the sewing machine drifted after her through the basement, into the stairwell, and seemed to follow her up and through the silent store until finally Peregrine found a door she could unlock. She let herself out into the night.

  Back at what she was starting to think of as her home, Peregrine changed into a silk robe and stood in front of the wall of glass, looking out at the night-time city. She had gone to Blair’s intending to search for clues, but after hearing Florence’s story and seeing her despair, it would have been awkward to hang around and rifle through the storeroom; almost as though she didn’t believe Florence’s version of events and was looking for something to corroborate the story. And if there was one thing Peregrine knew for sure it was that, whatever was going on with money, Florence Astor had not killed Barbie Jones. She didn’t know how or why she was so certain, but she was, and nothing mattered more than clearing Florence of any allegations Inspector Sparrow could throw at her. Tomorrow they would go to the police and then, when Peregrine was back at Blair’s, Penny Foster would find an excuse to visit the storeroom.

  Peregrine climbed into the pink bed, nestling deep into the mound of pillows, but it was a long time before she finally drifted off to sleep.