Page 52 of Murder at the Mayfair Hotel

I headed inside before I froze to death. I planned to race up the stairs before anyone saw me, but unfortunately I had to pass Mr. Armitage and he missed nothing.

He eyed me up and down.

“I left in a hurry and the rain caught me unawares,” I said before he could lecture me too. “If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to drip on the floor any more than necessary.”

“I’m on my way to the kitchen now. Shall I send up a cup of tea and cake?”

I blinked at him. I’d expected censure or mocking not kindness. “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful.”

“And a maid to fix your hair.” He walked off.

Well! I must look bedraggled and my hair frightful, but there was no need to point it out. Just when I began to like Mr. Armitage again, he did or said something to remind me why that was a mistake.

* * *

I spentmy bath time thinking about the filing cabinets in the vicar’s office at the orphanage. While I was quite sure Mr. Armitage had lived there as a youth, I wanted to know more. What had he been like? Had he shown a tendency for violence? It might point to signs of guilt if he had. All of that information would be kept in his file, and that would be kept in the cabinet. The only way I could read it was to sneak in.

Harmony helped fix my hair after my bath. She asked me how the investigation was going but I gave her little information. “It’s too early to know,” I told her. “I do need some help, however. I need to unlock a locked door without a key. Do you know how?”

She regarded me, one hand on hip. “I’m not a burglar, Miss Fox.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you were.” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Harmony. I can see how you misconstrued my meaning.”

She lowered her hand and continued to pin my hair in place. “Ask Victor.”

I gasped. “Was he a burglar before he became a cook?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, but he’s a suspicious character.”

“Tell him to meet me outside the hotel at midnight but don’t let the doorman see him.”

I dined alone with Flossy at eight. Floyd dined at a club, Uncle Ronald ate at his desk, and Aunt Lilian didn’t want to leave her room. Flossy was pleased to have company and we played cards after dinner until eleven.

Just before midnight, I donned coat, hat and gloves in my room, and collected an umbrella from the night porter. Frank and Goliath were not on duty, so I was able to slip away and meet Victor without anyone asking where I was going. He waited for me in the shadows, well away from the hotel’s lights.

“Harmony says you want me to unlock a door for you,” Victor said as we trudged along the pavement. “Want to tell me what building that door belongs to?”

“A home for boys on Dean Street.”

“I know it. Why there?”

“All I can tell you is that it might give us a clue about one of our suspects.”

Victor hunched into his coat, the collar flipped up to protect his neck from the icy breeze. With his hat pulled low, the light from the streetlamps didn’t reach his face and I couldn’t even make out the scar. Even so, if I’d been walking towards him at this hour alone, I would have crossed the street to avoid him.

To be fair, he didn’t exude menace. I would have crossed the street to avoid any man if I walked London’s streets alone on a winter’s night. But there was a nefariousness about Victor that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Harmony was right; he was a suspicious character.

Perhaps it was his affinity for knives. He didn’t wear them on a belt around his waist tonight. He’d changed out of his chef’s whites too. He must have been home and returned to meet me.

“How long have you worked at The Mayfair?” I asked.

“Two years.”

“And where were you before that?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m hearing that often lately.”