Murder Is Come Again by Joan Smith

Blackmore.
    “Shall I call for your carriage, milady?” he said. “It might be faster to walk. It’s not far.”
    “Let us take the carriage. If we find out who was there, we might want to go after him.”
    “Happen you’re right.” He sent for the carriage, then accepted a cup of coffee and sat down to wait and worry while her ladyship got her bonnet.
    Luten had to use his considerable influence, Deveril’s ingenuity and a large sum in bail to get the accused out, but within the hour he had Coffen released in his custody. It helped that Mr. Brown had a strong suspicion that Mr. Pattle was no more the murderer than he was himself. Why would he kill Mary Scraggs? He was a perfectly respectable gentleman, and there wasn’t much Mary Scraggs wouldn’t do for a well inlaid gent like Pattle. Who he wanted to blame for the murder and every other crime in town was Mad Jack. He couldn’t see how he was involved, but if the Berkeley Brigade could turn up some evidence against him and remove this nemesis from his town, he would be exceedingly grateful.
    The groom in charge of the mews at the Royal Crescent swore that no one had been next or night Mr. Pattle’s rattler and prads. “For it’s the finest rig and team here. I’ve taken a special interest in it and keep a sharp eye on it. It must have happened somewhere else. Had he left it parked anywhere?”
    Black cast his mind back, but he could think of no time or place so likely to have access to the rig as a more or less public stable at night. “Who’s here at night?” he asked the head ostler. “You can’t work twenty-four hours a day.”
    “A youngster called Timmy White, but he’d have told me if anyone was prowling about.”
    “Do you keep the door locked at night?”
    “Closed but not locked. This is a hotel. Folks arrive and leave at all hours. Timmy lets them in and out.”
    But it was not likely that many would be arriving or leaving in the middle of the night. His roving eye had already espied the straw bed covered in a blanket in the corner. It was four pence to a groat that Timmy was asleep half the time. Black didn’t bother with further questions. It didn’t matter when or how the incriminating objects had been put into the rig so much as who had done it, and this groom didn’t know.
    He led Lady Luten back to her carriage. “Can you think of anything else we can do?” she asked.
    “I wouldn’t mind a word with Flora, at the tourist shop. Not that the brass box will tell us anything.”
    “Let us go. I’d like to get a look at her.”
    Black directed the groom to the tourist shop. Flora cast a bold, almost a mocking smile on them. “Back for another look at our wares, Mr. Black?” she said, before turning her eyes to examine Lady Luten.
    Lady Luten began looking at the tawdry items on display, most of them cheap items featuring some aspect of Brighton on them, and the city’s name in gilt. She lifted a jug bearing a likeness of the Prince Regent and even considered buying it for Luten as a joke. A small vase of yellow roses on the desk, fading but still with their petals, caught her eye. There had been yellow roses in that bouquet Prance brought for Mary’s laying out.
    When she turned her attention back to Flora, she was saying, “How’s your friend Mr. Pattle today, Mr. Black?”
    “Fine. I’ll be meeting with him shortly at his house. Why do you ask?”
    She gave another of her bold smiles. “I thought he might be reconsidering my offer to work for him.”
    Black gave her a steely, menacing stare. “He hasn’t forgotten your keen interest in his house,” he said. Then he turned to Corinne. “Shall we go, Lady Luten?”
    Corinne turned a bland eye to Flora. “Your flowers need water,” she said. “They’re wilting.”
    Flora just glanced at the vase and gave a tsk of annoyance. “So they are, and I bought them only this morning from old Meg, at the corner stall.”
    “That was sharp work, milady,” Black