Murder Is Come Again by Joan Smith

in a bracing way, “Let us stop off at Nile Street and have a look about for clues.”
    Little was dearer to Mr. Pattle’s heart than a clue, by which he meant something you could get your hands on, like a button or a note, and figure out how it came to be where he found it. “It seems pretty clear Mary was keeping you busy last night while her friends searched the house. I’ve a feeling ‘twas Flora did the searching. She may have left a clue behind. Now that we know what we’re looking for —”
    “What would that be, Black?”
    “Why anything belonging to her, a ribbon, a glove. We didn’t really take much of a look abovestairs.”
    Coffen didn’t feel like returning to Nile Street. He didn’t feel like doing anything, even driving his new team. “As you like,” he said, but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and directed the hackney to Nile Street.
    When they first entered, Coffen just sat looking through the dusty front window at two cats grooming themselves in the sunlight, but as Black wandered about picking up various items and mentioning who or at least what sort of person they could belong to, he became interested.
    “Take this now,” Black said, carrying a saucer bearing the chewed end of a small cheroot to Coffen, “I don’t recall seeing this here yesterday. That tells me there was a man here last night. Very likely Flora’s Henry. We can find out if he smokes cheroots. And there was a glass in the cellar with brandy in it. That don’t look like a woman either. That empty gin bottle in the sink, wasn’t it half full yesterday?”
    “I didn’t notice.”
    Black took a deep breath and forged on. “I mind Lady Luten saying so. I checked and the door locks haven’t been tampered with. I made sure the place was locked when we left, so how did they get in? I had them locks changed, so Flora can’t let on she got the key from her ma, who used to work here. And that’s odd too. Weir said Bolger only had a Mrs. Beazely who came in once in a while. I doubt Flora’s ma ever worked here at all.” He looked hopefully to Mr. Pattle, but still saw no reaction.
    He pressed on. “We’ll ask Weir about that and we’ll find out where that Mrs. Beazely lives as well. What we have to do is think where we’d hide something if it was us.” He stared until Mr. Pattle was forced into speech.
    “That’d depend on what it was,” Coffen said. “You could hide a paper anywhere. If it was something bigger, you’d need space.”
    “Floor boards and wainscotting up — that don’t seem like paper, or gold or brandy. We’ve got to find out what Bolger might have been into. Weir might give us a hand there. Meanwhile why don’t we search for clues, begin with the bedrooms and keep going till we reach the cellar?”
    “You looked there this morning,” Coffen said.
    “I didn’t search, just took a peek in. ‘Twas dark with the blinds drawn. Everything seemed tidy enough at a glance.”
    “All them stairs,” Coffen said, and drew a deep sigh. But he was always interested in clues, as well as in the habit of being led by Black, and followed him abovestairs. It didn’t take them long to find her. She was on a bed in a dark corner of the first bedroom they looked in. When Black drew up the blind, a body-sized bulge was visible under the counterpane. Black drew the coverlet back to reveal Mary’s mortal remains. In the stillness of death, she didn’t look like a hussy. She looked young and innocent, with her curls tumbling over the pillow.
    Coffen thought at first that she was asleep and hurried over to her. It flashed into his mind that she had come here from the Albemarle after he left her there, and slept here rather than at that awful rooming house. She was wearing the same dress.
    Then he saw the ugly stain on the pillow and the dark, gaping hole in her throat where she’d been stabbed, and felt as if he’d been stabbed himself. Shuddering and blinking back a tear, he gulped a few times. When