Page 22 of The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child
Izzy glanced at the clock. “It’s barely nine—hardly the generally accepted idea of midmorning.”
Gray could have told her the early arrival was a ploy to catch Izzy and her staff off guard. Instead, he rose as she did and followed her into the foyer. She intercepted the Scotland Yard pair, then at their request, called the staff to gather again in the space at the end of the long counter.
Once everyone was there, she named the staff, mentioning their roles, then introduced Baines and Littlejohn and stepped back to stand by the office wall beside Gray as, with Littlejohn taking notes, Baines commenced his questioning.
Dipping his head, Gray murmured, softly enough that only she would hear, “It’s notable that they’re interviewing the staff as a group.”
She glanced at him. “It is?”
“It suggests they don’t suspect the staff of having anything to do with the murder.”
She frowned slightly. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Not if it means they’ve reverted to suspecting you.”
He had a nasty feeling that supposition would prove true.
Baines confirmed that none of the staff knew Quimby socially, that, indeed, none had ever met him anywhere other than at the printing works. Likewise, none of the staff had any idea who might have killed the photographer or why.
Watching closely, Gray concluded that none of the staff were hiding anything; they were an honest and open bunch. He was pleased to hear them confirm everything Izzy had said of Quimby.
The one new piece of solid information was that on the previous evening, at a few minutes before five o’clock, Quimby had entered the printing works via the rear door—his usual means of access—grunted at everyone as was his wont, and gone straight into the darkroom, as he usually did.
The printer’s devil, Digby, who had been told to scarper off home by Lipson a few minutes early and had left via the still-unlocked rear door, had passed Quimby in the lane. “He was coming down from Great Coram Street—his lodgings are somewhere up that way. I passed him a little way down from the corner and nodded, polite-like, and he nodded back, and we went on our ways.”
That seemed clear enough, as was Lipson’s tale of locking the back door after he’d shooed Digby off, and Maguire’s report of knocking on the darkroom door and warning Quimby the others were leaving and asking if he’d relocked the rear door. Quimby’s response, heard by several others, had been clear, namely that he’d taken care of it.
“Shouldn’ta listened,” Maguire said. “I shoulda gone down to the door and checked. We knew he wasn’t the sort to bother, but he was usually off again in a half hour or so, so it didn’t seem worth the argument.”
Littlejohn looked up. “Who has keys to the back door?”
“I do.” Henry Lipson nodded at Izzy. “Mrs. Molyneaux has a key, and Quimby, of course.”
“Only the three?” Littlejohn asked, busily scribbling.
“Yes,” Lipson said. “And I was already at the front door when we remembered Quimby, and William here went back to ask.”
“So he told you it was locked, and you had no reason to believe he was lying, even though you suspected he might be.” Baines nodded. “Perfectly understandable. So you all left then, at the same time?”
The staff looked at each other as if confirming who was there, then nodded.
“We left in a group,” Lipson stated. “All except Digby, who’d left earlier, and Quimby, who was in the darkroom.”
“And Mrs. Molyneaux,” Baines pointed out. “She was in the office, I believe?”
The staff looked at Izzy and nodded.
“At her desk,” Lipson confirmed. “It being Friday, she was doing the invoices and accounts, like always. We all called goodbye.”
“Right, then.” Baines glanced at Littlejohn. “I think that establishes all we need as to movements leading up to the incident.” He focused on Lipson. “Can you or anyone here tell us whether the plates left on the table in the darkroom are all the plates Quimby had? Or are there others stored somewhere else?”
All the staff looked at Digby, who colored but, encouraged by nods from Lipson and Izzy, cleared his throat and said, “None of us have gone into the darkroom. We don’t usually go in there, not unless Mr. Quimby tells us to. It’s—was—his place.” Digby blinked, then went on, “So I don’t rightly know what plates you’re talking about, but if they’re about this size”—he held up his hands about nine inches apart, moving them to indicate a square—“and have a black-and-silver film on them, then I reckon they’d be Mr. Q’s daguerreotype plates, and he kept all of those in the cabinets inside the darkroom. Safest there, you see.”
Baines and Littlejohn digested that, then Baines asked, “If we took you to look in the darkroom, would you be able to tell if all those plates have been taken out and left on the table?”
Eyes rounding, Digby nodded.
Baines looked at Littlejohn and tipped his head toward the darkroom. “Take him in and let him check.”
