Page 76 of Evil at the Essex House
His eyes lighted on the tire iron in Crispin’s hand, and he raised the cane in his own. “You! You’re a murderer!”
The silver-tipped mahogany stick whistled through the air, only missing Crispin because the latter jumped back, eyes wide. “I’m not! I didn’t do anything to her! Look…”
He brandished the tire iron, presumably to give Hiram the opportunity to see for himself that there was no blood or brain matter on it. “We only brought it inside for protection, because we didn’t know whether there’d be anyone here.”
But Hiram was beyond listening to reason, it seemed. “Murderer!” he screamed again, spittle flying, as he raised the cane for another go at Crispin’s head. “Murdering bastard!”
I shrieked, and Crispin bellowed. The cane was at the apex of a swing and starting to come down when Christopher reacted. “Go!”
He gave me a push towards the door with the arm holding the torch while the other hand shot out and snagged Crispin by the arm and yanked. All three of us stumbled towards the door to the hallway as Hiram checked the downward chop of the cane and brought it around for a swing instead. By the time it hit the place where Crispin’s head would have been, he was halfway to the door and we were almost out of the room.
“Hurry,” Christopher told me breathlessly, as he nudged my back. “Down.”
I was already headed for the top of the stairs, but didn’t waste my breath telling him so. Instead, I simply started down with the two of them scrambling behind me. By now, Hiram was on his way through the door, as well, roaring, and Sarah’s raised voice could be heard from the bedroom. “Hiram! Come back here! Hiram!”
I hit the bottom of the stairs and legged it down the dark hallway towards the front door as fast as I could in my elegant, T-strap heels. At least the dress wasn’t constricting around the knees: I could move my legs just fine. Behind me, Christopher and Crispin shoved each other down the hall, until we all three tumbled out into the dark and dirty street.
“This way,” Christopher said breathlessly, snagging me by the arm and yanking me up the street away from the motorcar. I had made for it like a safe haven, but he was right: Hiram was already pounding down the hallway behind us, and we couldn’t take the time to get situated in the Hispano-Suiza and wait for Crispin to get the motor going. By the time any of that happened, Hiram would have caught up, and then all three of us, not to mention Crispin’s pride and joy, would be beaten to a pulp by Hiram’s silver-tipped cane.
So we pelted up the narrow street, two aristocratic young men in expensive black tie and one poor relation in a salmon-pink evening frock, with an incensed American millionaire in hot pursuit.
On level ground we were younger and faster, though, and by the time we had made it to the corner and out of sight, Hiram had fallen behind. He was huffing and puffing like a bellows, both due to his age and because he was a portly gentleman who enjoyed his food and his leisure in equal measure, from what I could determine.
Nonetheless, we kept going to the next corner, and then to the next. By now, Hiram was long gone, and we had made our way in a circle, or rather a square, back to where we started. When we peered around the final corner, the narrow street where the Hispano-Suiza was parked lay dark and empty. Hiram seemed not to have taken his anger out on the motorcar, because the windshield still gleamed with glass, and the stork emblem stood proudly. I felt as much as I heard Crispin’s sigh of relief.
“Go on,” I told him, between breaths, with a nudge to the shoulder. “Go fetch the police.”
He looked at me, and then at Christopher, and then at me again. “Shouldn’t we all go?”
“I thought someone ought to stay behind and keep an eye on the Schlomskys,” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t think they’re going anywhere, Darling. Their driver left, and this isn’t the sort of neighborhood where one can simply flag down another Hackney. If they have any sense at all, they’ll stay inside the building.”
“And wait for what?” I wanted to know. “They’re stuck here, St George. As you said, their driver left. Their daughter is dead. They’ll want to fetch the police as quickly as possible.”
“But I’m sure they won’t start walking the street in the middle of the night,” Crispin said. “Not in this neighborhood. It doesn’t take great wisdom to see that it would be a bad idea.”
No, but— “I’m not sure that would matter to them. Their daughter is dead. They’re going to want the police. And Hiram has his cane. Perhaps he thinks he can handle whatever comes his way.”
“Then he’s a fool,” Crispin said, which of course was true as far as it went. I couldn’t argue with it.
“You go,” Christopher told him. “You’ll be safe in the motorcar by yourself. Drive quickly to Scotland Yard, tell them what has happened, and come back for us.”
He glanced at me before continuing. “We’ll wait for Hiram to calm down—it was you he was trying to kill, anyway, not us, and perhaps if you’re not here, he’ll be more reasonable.”
Crispin muttered something—I couldn’t hear what it was, but I was inclined to agree with him anyway, since I could guess what he’d said—and then shot me a look.
“I’ll take care of Pippa,” Christopher said. “We’ll keep the torch. If Hiram attacks us, I’ll hit him with it. And if someone else does, between the torch and Hiram’s cane, not to mention Pippa’s natural inclination towards bloodthirst, we ought to be fine.”
“Don’t joke about that,” I told him. “Not after what we just saw upstairs.”
He nodded. “Of course not. My apologies.”
“The only person Philippa wants to murder,” Crispin added, “is me.”
He pulled open the door to the Hispano-Suiza and fitted himself behind the wheel. The tire iron went on the seat beside him. I suppose he might be afraid he’d find trouble along the way, at this time of night and in this neighborhood, and he wanted to keep it handy, just in case. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“We’ll go back inside and see if we can hear what Hiram and Sarah are talking about,” I said. “It didn’t escape my attention that in a city of eight million people, they made their way here, to where their dead daughter was, within an hour of the ransom drop.”
