The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 Read Free

he did next, not even to himself.
    He moved closer to her door, lifting and placing his slippered feet with deliberate stealth. He put his ear to the inch-wide gap.
    His heart, his pummelling heart, must give him away! Its tocsin clamour surely filled the house. Certainly it made it hard for him to ascertain whether she was in her room or elsewhere.
    But if she was in her room, why would she leave the door ajar? At this time of day, she would no doubt be engaged in her toilet, perhaps combing her hair before her mirror. Or perhaps she was still in bed, rousing herself drowsily from whatever dreams girls like her experienced. Not wholly innocent dreams, he speculated. But perfectly natural ones. Dreams, perhaps, coloured by cruelty and spite.
    Whatever she was about, it would be of an intimate nature. She would brook no intrusion. And yet this door-ajar business, did it not have about it something of the aspect of an invitation? Or if not that, an expectation?
    The question was, an invitation to whom?
    Not Quinn, that was for sure. A man more than twice her age. Leaving aside all his other disadvantages.
    More likely it was either Appleby or Timberley, the two young male lodgers who made it their life’s work – or perhaps their sport – to vie for her fickle affections. Who was in the ascendancy at the moment, he wondered.
    Quinn had recently observed in Timberley signs of stress and upset – tears, in short. Quinn could think of nothing guaranteed to make a man less attractive to a woman than emotional weakness.
    And so, he speculated that the door was left ajar for Appleby. Was this to be the moment he would finally snatch the coveted prize? A kiss from Miss Ibbott? And all before breakfast.
    But was she even in there? The more he thought about it the less sense it made. Would they risk a liaison at this time of the day, when lodgers such as himself were trudging up and down the stairs? There had to be some other explanation. Either she had left the door open by accident. Or she had indeed slipped out of her room. If the latter were the case, she could return at any moment and catch him there in what could only be described as a compromising position. Not only that, by such carelessness she was laying herself open to the risk of burglary. Or, if she was in the room, to the risk of assault.
    He knew better than she did what men were capable of. Any man; all men. The criminals he hunted down all lodged somewhere. The fact that she was the landlady’s daughter was no protection.
    He now realized that it was his duty as a policeman to settle the question of her whereabouts once and for all.
    â€˜Mr Quinn?’
    Quinn pulled the door to hurriedly and spun away from it. He held his head bowed, eyes averted from Miss Dillard’s. For it was Miss Dillard, coming up the stairs to return to her own room, who now challenged him, her voice edged with confusion and fear.
    No, he could not bring himself to look into those eyes. Not now. Not after this.
    â€˜I was just … I … I couldn’t help noticing that Miss Ibbott had left her door open. I thought it wise to close it for her.’
    â€˜I see.’ But her voice was reproachful, as well as hurt. And no, he still wouldn’t look at her. He refused to face the same reproach, the same hurt, in her eyes.
    â€˜One cannot be too careful. Even in a respectable house such as this.’
    â€˜Of course.’
    And then Quinn remembered that he maintained the fiction that none of his fellow lodgers knew the nature of his work. ‘Well, no, not that. But … you never know. Mr Appleby and Mr Timberley.’
    â€˜What about them?’ There was genuine alarm in her voice now, panic almost.
    Quinn realized that he had made a tactical mistake. ‘Nothing! I say nothing against them. I know of nothing against them. Fine fellows, they are, I’m sure. We can all agree on that. But young. Youth, you see. Mischief and youth. You cannot