Who then?
Alkmene opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of poor quality paper. On it were a few lines in the same strong hand as the writing on the envelope.
Your father would not be pleased if he learned his daughter is consorting with a convict. He will hear of it unless you pay.
Put a hundred pounds into a hat box and take it out with you.
Leave it on the bench underneath the elm next to St Mary of the Humble Heart.
Do not stick around to see who will come and take it along.
Don’t talk about this with anybody or you will pay in a different way. With your reputation. Perhaps even your life.
We are watching you.
Alkmene had to read it a couple of times before the truth sank in. She was actually being blackmailed.
She glanced over her shoulder at the front door as if she could see right through it into the street and establish if anybody was there right now, watching her.
‘Who is it from?’ Cook asked, carrying the breakfast dishes from the dining room. ‘What does it say?’
Alkmene looked up at her, her mind a whirl. ‘Uh… Oh. It’s nothing special.’ She folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. ‘I will be out this morning. I will probably not be back for lunch. Save me some cold cuts to take around four.’
Cook gave a grunt that could be acceptance or disapproval of this unconventional request. She shuffled off with the dishes.
Alkmene ran up the stairs to get dressed. She intended to be in Meade Street as soon as possible and ask Dubois for his take on this blackmail scheme.
As she was walking along past the many houses on the street, some harbouring little shops and businesses, others being boarding houses where women polished the bell, she realized Dubois had never told her at what number he rented rooms. It was like him to be evasive, but she supposed he would be known around here and she could ask for him.
Loath to get herself into the same kind of trouble as the day before, she went into a reasonably clean-looking fish store to ask the wiry man cleaning the fish behind the counter where to find the reporter Dubois.
‘Oh, that troublemaker, huh?’ the old man replied. Ashes from his cheap cigar rained on the counter and whatever he was cleaning. ‘Number 33, upstairs.’
Alkmene bought some fish by way of thanks, deciding to leave it somewhere for the strays as she could not bear to think of having to eat it after having seen the cigar ashes falling.
Carrying the parcel, wrapped in old newspaper pages, she walked up to number 33. The door was open, and she went in, going up the stairs and knocking at a closed door.
‘Yeah,’ a voice called, and she pushed the door handle down and walked in.
‘Put the hot water there,’ Dubois’s voice came from another room. ‘I don’t have time for breakfast. I will eat on the way.’
Footfalls resounded, and he appeared, in a dirty shirt with suspenders holding up dark trousers, which had mud stains on the knees, like he was some dock worker. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes bleary as if he hadn’t slept all night.
The change couldn’t have been greater from the distinguished gentleman, entrepreneur, self-made businessman with money to spend Alkmene had met at the Waldeck tea room in the company of the countess.
Hiding her shock, Alkmene held out the parcel in her hands. ‘No hot water, just fish.’
‘No thanks,’ Dubois said. He recovered remarkably quickly from the surprise of finding her in his rooms at this hour. He turned away, back into the other room, slamming the door shut.
After a while, he reappeared in a clean crisp white shirt over the pants of his dark blue suit. There was even a tie in sight.
Raking back his hair, he snapped at her, ‘So what do you want? I thought ladies of standing didn’t go out before noon.’
‘That was twenty years ago,’ Alkmene snapped back. ‘I guess I should have sat at home painting a screen or doing embroidery, to your mind. And I might have, had I not received a blackmail letter.’
Dubois’s eyes widened. ‘A what?’
She put the fish parcel on the table and pulled the offensive envelope out of her purse. ‘Read it for yourself.’
His expression darkened as he read.
A woman with fiery red curls bustled in with a rusty metal bowl full of water. She clanked it on the table, appraised Alkmene, shook her head in bewilderment and scurried out again, apparently relieved her tenant wasn’t going to give her an earful for being late with his hot water.
Dubois returned the letter to her and leaned over the bowl, splashing water into his face. The drops rained on his shirt, leaving spreading stains. His nails scratched over the stubble on his chin.
‘Late night?’ Alkmene asked, half interested, half repulsed at the idea he had been drinking or something. She knew it was pretty normal even in the higher circles, and although her father himself was a moderate man, he had prepared her to accept that men might drink themselves into a stupor every once in a while over something like winning a card game.
Or losing it.
Dubois reached for the thin towel that lay nearby. Rubbing his face vigorously, he grunted. ‘Talking to people can be hard. Just tracking them down can be hard. It takes time.’
He lowered the towel and threw it onto a plain wooden chair.
Alkmene didn’t want to look around like she was appraising his rooms. She kept her eyes on his face. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’
He nodded. ‘You know that by questioning the neighbours I had already found out that a man came to the house on the night Silas Norwhich died. I didn’t think he would have been on foot, so I tried to find the cab that dropped him off. I had hoped I would get a good description of the man. An address where he had been picked up. But it turns out he was cloaked and had a hat pulled over his face. The driver couldn’t tell me a single useful thing. And he picked him up on the corner of Bond Street. No doubt that location has nothing to do with him. At least the driver confirmed for me that the man went to see Silas Norwhich. He rang the bell there and was admitted.’
Alkmene tilted her head. ‘So we were right before. Norwhich admitted his own killer. Which means he knew him and was not afraid of him. Else he would have slammed the door in his face.’ She frowned. ‘So it can’t have been that man who appeared at the theatre. Norwhich was worried about that man. The countess used the words: a man returned from the dead. She must have told you all about that.’
Dubois nodded.
Alkmene continued, ‘So if Norwhich was afraid of this man, because of the past, because it was someone he had believed dead and gone, dealt with, now back in his life, he would not have let him into his house, especially not if he was home alone.’
Dubois
