Page 9 of The Murder of Thomas Cardwell
Findlay huffed. “Looks like Cardwell’s coat.”
Jordan was standing beside Findlay. “There’s a draft.” Jordan reached past the coat and gently pushed on the panel at the closet’s rear. The panel swung away on hinges, revealing a narrow corridor beyond.
“Stand back,” Stokes ordered, and when Findlay and Jordan complied, Stokes stepped forward and slid sideways into the “closet,” past the hanging coat and on into the corridor beyond.
Penelope leapt to follow. Unimpeded by the narrowness, she trailed Stokes along the corridor and into a small storeroom-cum-kitchen at the rear of the building.
A single solid wooden door was set into the rear wall. A large bolt could secure it, but was presently drawn back. Stokes reached out a hand and pushed the door, and it swung slightly open.
Stokes grunted. “Left swinging, not even properly closed.”
“That would be the source of the draft. It seems our murderer left in a rush.” Penelope crowded behind Stokes as Barnaby, followed by O’Donnell, Morgan, and Jordan, shuffled into the limited space. “What’s beyond the door?”
The answer was a narrow lane that ran along the rear of the buildings on that side of the street.
Penelope stepped back and let the men exit into the lane. She watched from the doorway as Stokes, Barnaby, O’Donnell, Morgan, and Jordan looked around. After glancing back and forth along the largely empty lane, she suggested, “The murderer saw Cardwell hang up his coat, and I suspect the panel at the rear of the closet space was normally left wide open. Why would Cardwell shut it?”
“It wasn’t latched when I pushed it open,” Jordan said. “It swung freely.”
“So after killing Cardwell,” Stokes said, his expression grim, “the murderer didn’t want to risk being seen on the street, leaving the scene of the crime.”
“He came out this way,” Barnaby concluded, “and unless we’re very lucky, he wouldn’t have been seen by anyone.”
Stokes grunted in resigned agreement. “O’Donnell. Morgan. Take Walsh and Gelman and knock on the rear doors of the premises along this lane to either side and see what you can turn up.”
O’Donnell and Morgan snapped off salutes, and Penelope turned and led the others back along the corridor to the office.
When, after Stokes had sent Walsh and Gelman to help O’Donnell and Morgan, Barnaby, Stokes, and Jordan rejoined her, she was standing at the round table at the front of the office, busily flicking through the ledgers stacked upon it.
“Anything there?” Stokes inquired.
She shook her head. “Nothing obvious in these, but as I understand it”—she glanced questioningly at Jordan—“these weren’t here when Cardwell was killed.”
Sliding his hands into his trouser pockets, Jordan confirmed, “They weren’t. Ruth Cardwell, the sister, brought them when she arrived.”
“So they’re likely not linked to Cardwell’s death.” Penelope shut the topmost ledger and patted the cover approvingly. “They’re very neat.”
While they’d been in the lane, two of Findlay’s men had arrived with a stretcher, and Findlay had directed them in placing the body upon the canvas and covering it decently with a sheet.
Now, the men hoisted the stretcher and made for the door. His black bag in one hand, Findlay followed, dipping his head to those at the table as he passed.
With Stokes, Barnaby, and Jordan, Penelope watched in silence as Thomas Cardwell’s remains were ferried away.
Once the small procession had departed, Jordan exhaled. “The senseless ending of a life.”
Stokes glanced at Jordan, then gently said, “There will have been some sense to the killing—there always is. It’s up to us to learn what that was—why someone thought Thomas Cardwell had to be killed—and that will lead us to his murderer.”
“Indeed.” Barnaby had been studying the shelves of account ledgers. “To that end, what can you tell us of Cardwell’s business?”
Jordan grimaced. “This is purely from what I gathered through my limited interaction with him, so it might not be the full sum of it. I understood the bulk of his business lay in acting as a financial manager, in the same way a man-of-business does, for small- and medium-sized enterprises. For instance, the linen supplier that was the reason I met Cardwell is along-established medium-sized business, but I sensed they were among Cardwell’s larger clients. Most would have been smaller than that—shopkeepers and the like.” Jordan nodded through the window. “You might even find the baker was a client.”
Penelope nodded. “So Cardwell got to know you and Roscoe because of the linen supplier’s contract.” She turned a questioning gaze on Jordan. “If we accept that Cardwell had uncovered some nefarious undertaking that he felt he had to bring to the attention of the authorities, why did he turn to Roscoe for advice?”
“Had he and Roscoe met?” Stokes asked.
Jordan shook his head. “Cardwell had only met me and Rawlings. I handled the negotiations, and Rawlings was there as either he or Mudd usually are.”
Barnaby’s gaze had remained on Jordan. “So why did Cardwell contact Roscoe? Could it have been because Cardwell’s concerns arose from the linen supply business, and therefore, Cardwell felt Roscoe would want to know?”
