Page 8 of The Murder of Thomas Cardwell
Penelope looked down at the corpse. “The key to the office?”
Barnaby added, “And anything else he was carrying on him.”
Findlay nodded. “I was just about to search his pockets.”
After a key ring with two keys, a coin purse, a billfold, and a clean, folded handkerchief had been found and surrendered to Stokes, Penelope and Barnaby left Findlay to his examining and ambled about the office, idly looking at the contents of the shelves. Eventually, they joined Stokes and Jordan about the small round table at the front of the office, where the pair were discussing what other steps they might take to further the investigation.
All were contingent on what Sergeant O’Donnell, Constable Morgan, and Constable Walsh—a recent addition to Stokes’s team—learned from the shopkeepers manning the various establishments surrounding the office.
Penelope sat in one of the chairs and, letting the men’s rumbling voices pass over her head, looked out of the window and across the street.
She saw Morgan, accompanied by another man she assumed was Jordan’s Gelman, come quickly out of the baker’s directly opposite. With barely a glance up and down the street, the pair came hurrying across the cobbles.
Taking in their excited expressions, Penelope rose. “I believe we have news.”
Morgan led the way inside, with Gelman on his heels. Morgan saluted Stokes. “Sir. The baker opposite has a direct view of the front door over here. He says he was going back and forth from his ovens to the shop, so he might have missed something, but what he did see was a gentleman loitering about the pavement in front of Cardwell’s door.”
“This was before Cardwell arrived for the day,” Gelman put in.
Morgan nodded. “So sometime before eight, according to the baker. He said Cardwell was regular as clockwork, and sure enough, he turned up at eight on the dot, just like he always did.”
“Cardwell’s siblings confirmed that,” Jordan said. “He took pride in being on time.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “So according to the baker, Cardwell seemed to recognize the gentleman. They shook hands, then Cardwell opened his door, and they went inside.”
“Description of this gentleman?” Stokes demanded.
Morgan grimaced. “Not all that helpful. The baker labeled the man as a gentleman because he was wearing one of those long dun-colored coats that are all the rage.” Morgan nodded atBarnaby. “Like Mr. Adair here. The baker says the man was of average-ish height, perhaps a touch shorter than Cardwell, who was medium tall. The man was wearing a black top hat, just like other gentlemen favor. Other than that, the baker said the man was just a gentleman, the sort you pass by on the pavements around here all the time.”
Stokes sighed. “Well, at least we’ve got that much, for which, apparently, we’re supposed to be grateful.”
Gelman shifted and offered, “The baker had to return to baking and his oven, so he didn’t see what happened over here until he came out into his shop again later.”
Morgan went on, “He was away for at least twenty minutes, he says, so when he returned to the front of the shop, it would’ve been a few minutes before eight-thirty. At that time, he glanced over here and saw the younger Mr. Cardwell?—”
“That would be Bobby,” Gelman put in.
Morgan nodded. “Seems like. The baker said as this younger Cardwell went in, and then just a minute or so later, he saw you and him”—Morgan nodded at Jordan and pointed at Gelman—“arrive and go inside. Then about five minutes later, our baker saw Miss Cardwell come along with ledgers in her arms and go in.”
Stokes had been busily scribbling. “Oh, for such an accurate and knowledgeable witness to every murder.” He glanced at Morgan. “I take it this baker is sure who he saw?”
“He said he knows the Cardwells well,” Morgan replied. “Apparently, Cardwell has had this office for years, and all three of the Cardwells he saw this morning buy buns and cakes and bread from him, so he’s sure.”
“Blessed be,” Stokes murmured, jotting that down. Then he looked at Morgan and grimaced. “I take it our wonderful baker didn’t see the gentleman who met Cardwell on the doorstep leave.”
Morgan shook his head. “He mentioned that he hadn’t seen the man come out, but then he was off tending his oven for those twenty minutes.”
“He did wonder if the man had left the back way,” Gelman added. “If so, he wouldn’t have seen him anyway.”
Penelope, along with Barnaby, Stokes, Jordan, and even Findlay, stared at Gelman.
“The back way?” Stokes turned to look at the narrow panel set into the wall at the rear-right corner of the office. “I thought that was a closet.”
O’Donnell, who had returned from his own canvassing and was standing with Walsh by the front door, listening to Morgan’s report, stated, “We looked, sir. It is a closet.”
Findlay beat everyone else to the panel and opened it.
Looking past Findlay, Penelope saw a gentleman’s brown coat hanging on a hook.
