The Color of Death by Bruce Alexander Page B

leave of them all, thanking Mr. Collier for his cooperation.
    My patient waiting paid handsomely when word came from Lady Fielding that Sir John was at last awake, and that upon waking he had asked to see me. As the three women puttered joyfully about the kitchen preparing a dinner tray for him who had not eaten for twelve hours or more, I hurried up the stairs to his bedroom, eager to tell him all.
    Yet before I could begin, he questioned me closely on the matter of food.
    “Did they give you any idea how long it would be? I’m altogether famished, you know.”
    “No sir, they did not,” said I. “But all three were working at it. You should not have long to wait.”
    “There was none of this nonsense about clear broth, was there?”
    “I did not discuss it with them, sir, but I know it as fact that Annie went especially to Mr. Tolliver’s in Covent Garden for a beef chop. I happened to glimpse it sir, and it’s monstrous large.”
    He smacked his lips as a child might. ” ‘Monstrous large,’ you say? Couldn’t suit me better. But quickly, if you can, dear boy, tell me if you’ve made progress in the Lilley matter. Give me your report.”
    Quickly was indeed how I told it. Because I knew I had much to tell, I had organized it well during the time that he slept. First I told of finding Mr. Collier at the Zondervan residence through Annie’s help and of the interrogation that followed. I made no effort to repeat question and answer through the entire session, but rather offered what I thought to be the most important items to emerge from my discussion with the butler.
    For instance, this: “Mr. Collier estimated the worth of all things stolen at up to twenty thousand pounds.”
    “So much?” Sir John groaned. “Oh, dear God! What more?”
    “Well, there was this, sir: According to Mr. Collier’s recollection of the time he spent in the kitchen with the rest, awaiting the robbers’ departure, the lady’s maid, Mistress Pinkham, did not join her fellow servants until the house had been sacked. Not until they left was she put with the others in the kitchen.”
    “Hmmm,” said he, “that was not the impression she created when she talked to us, was it?”
    “No sir, it was not. There may be cause for suspicion.”
    “There may be. Continue to look for her. We must talk with her again. What else did you turn up?”
    “Not much worth mentioning from Mr. Collier. However, I interviewed Constable Patley as he was coming on duty this evening.”
    “And what did you discover?”
    “I discovered that the supposed servant from the Lilley residence who notified Constable Patley of the grand robbery was more or less fictitious.”
    ” ‘More or less’? What does that mean?”
    “It means, sir, that while we must credit it that Mr. Patley was approached by someone and told of the robbery, we do not know the identity of that someone. The name given by the constable in the rather crude document which pretends to be his written report of the crime corresponds to that of no one on the household staff of the Lilley residence. Nor does Mr. Collier recall sending anyone forth to report the crimes of theft and murder; he said that he was too busy tallying up the cash value of the objects stolen to remember to do what needed to be done.”
    “And so,” said Sir John, “where does that leave us?”
    “In a rather awkward place,” said I.
    “And what place is that, Jeremy?”
    “Sir, I explained all this to Constable Patley — well, you might say that I confronted him with it.”
    “With what result?”
    “He admitted that he had made up the name.”
    Sir John popped up in his bed to something near a seated position. For a moment he was speechless — but only for a moment, for he bellowed loud and deep, “He what?”
    “That’s right, sir. He was, in the end, quite apologetic, but at first he insisted that it could make no difference anyway, since the information given was quite accurate. After all,