Page 94 of Evil at the Essex House
“Of course not,” Wolfgang said, with the suggestion of an eye roll. “If you would be so kind as to lend me two of your hairpins, I will endeavor to use them to pick the lock.”
“Oh.” My hand flew to my hair. “Of course.”
That was much better. We could all go inside together. And of course he was one of the heroes. How could he not be, with such a dashing scar?
I pulled the Kerbigrips out of my bob and handed them over, before tucking my loose hair behind my ear. “I’ve never seen anyone pick a lock before.”
“It’s a useful skill,” Wolfgang said modestly as he wandered towards the back door with me right on his heels.
I imagined so. Not that I had ever imagined, up until a few months ago, at any rate, that I would ever have need for such a skill. But I watched avidly as he straightened one Kirbigrip into a stick and inserted it into the lock, and then inserted the other and began wiggling them both.
The Schlomskys, too, gathered around to watch. Hiram looked fascinated, just the same as I imagined I did, although Sarah seemed less impressed. She didn’t comment on the many (illegal) uses of such a skill, but I’m certain she thought about them.
It was quick, anyway. Less than a minute, and Wolfgang slid the back door open, soundlessly. “I’ll go first.”
“By all means,” I told him, and followed him into the house’s kitchen.
And that was when I had to give up on the comforting notion that we were alone. There was scrambling from above our heads, the sound of rapid footsteps and shrill female voices, along with the lower (but no less startled) tones of a man.
My first instinctwas to back out of the kitchen and run. If we were right, and this was the correct cottage, and we hadn’t made some sort of terrible mistake, the people upstairs were kidnappers and murderers. They had nothing to lose, and I didn’t think we wanted to involve ourselves with them.
That was the worst case scenario. The best case scenario was that we had made a mistake and the people upstairs were innocent strangers, and all we had done was break into their house unprovoked. That possibility was better than coming face to face with murderers, but it was hardly a desirable thing to have done, even so.
So yes, I wanted to flee. Unfortunately, Hiram and Sarah had entered the kitchen now too, and between them behind me and Wolfgang in front, there was nowhere I could go. Especially when Hiram fastened his eyes on the ceiling, from behind which all the noise was emanating, and his face darkened to an angry brick red. His mustache bristled.
“Hiram!” Sarah said in warning.
He flicked her a look. “They killed our daughter, Sadie.”
“We don’t know that,” Sarah said, although there wasn’t much conviction in her voice. We all believed the same thing, and that was that we had caught the kidnappers inflagrante.
She had a point, however. We couldn’t attack them without being certain. If Hiram went on the warpath and started swinging his cane, and he hurt somebody, and then that somebody turned out to be innocent of any crimes, we would be the ones in the wrong. Not only had we broken into someone’s home, but we had attacked them.
I turned to Sarah and lowered my voice. “Are you certain this is the house?”
“It’s the right address,” Sarah said. “And it said Ivy Cottage on the gate.”
“And you’re certain you’ve paid for it?”
She nodded. “Positive. Ruth contracted for an apartment in London and a cottage in the country. I didn’t realize the country—” She grimaced, “was quite so close to the city, but this is it. Ivy Cottage in Thornton Heath.”
Well, then we weren’t breaking and entering, at least. Not if the Schlomskys were the rightful renters of Ivy Cottage, and the ones who had been paying for it.
“Enough of this,” Hiram said and pushed past me. He raised his voice in a bellow. “Show yourselves, you yellow-bellied side-winders! Stand and fight!”
His voice echoed through the small house, and the scramble upstairs intensified. The voices rose in a sharp crescendo, and then steps entered the staircase and came clattering down. Hiram took a tighter grip on his cane and faced the doorway. Wolfgang took a step forward, next to him, so the two of them could stand side by side, protectively before Sarah and myself.
In the front of the house, someone took the last two steps of the staircase in a jump and then bounded through the receiving room into the dining room, where he became visible through the kitchen door. Meanwhile, lighter steps also descended the staircase above our heads, but at a more decorous pace.
The young man was clad in a tweed suit, but was hatless, and the light from the window shone on a head of heavily brilliantined black hair. His eyes were also black, or appeared so: wide and startled, the pupils enormous and surrounded by a thin ring of what might have been brown or hazel. He had a narrow face with a narrow jaw, and he was pale, but looked like he might have naturally olive skin, and the result was an unfortunate resemblance to porridge. He had a cricket bat clutched in one hand, knuckles white, and now he raised it threateningly.
“What are you doing here? This is my house!”
“That’s him,” I said. There hadn’t been much light last night, and I had only seen him from the top of the St Olave’s church tower, but the tweed suit was the same, and the general outline was the same, and so was his bearing and the way he moved. “That’s the man who picked up the ransom.”
His eyes flicked to me, and they hardened from anxious and startled to angry. But before he could respond, assuming he had wanted to, Hiram flung himself forward with a roar, cane swinging. It was all the young man could do to get his cricket bat up in time to save himself from having his skull split open.
As he stumbled back with a wordless bellow, the sound was echoed by a scream from the front of the house. “Sid! No!”
