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Doyle looked annoyed but calm enough. “Good morning. What may I do for you?” He looked beyond Hooper and told the clerk, in peril of his job, not to repeat what he had heard, and to close the door behind him. “Now, tell me, Mr….?”
“Sergeant Hooper, sir.”
“All right, Sergeant Hooper, what is this tragedy you have to tell me?”
Hooper had weighed his approach in his mind on the way here. He had decided not to conceal his own reactions. He wished Doyle, innocent or guilty, to feel the full import of the facts. If he was innocent, he would be horrified. If he was not, he would be afraid. The heat of emotion often betrays the would-be liar.
“I’m very sorry to tell you, sir, but one of your employees was attacked and murdered last night.”
Doyle made one or two attempts to speak, but the color drained out of his face so completely that Hooper feared the man might have an attack of some sort. He half rose to his feet, in case Doyle lost consciousness and slipped to the floor.
“Miss…Miss…Franken is not in yet this morning,” Doyle gasped.
So, he knew who it was! Deduction? Or more than that? “She’s usually here by this time?” Hooper asked.
“What? Oh, yes. She is very…punctual…diligent…reliable…” Doyle seemed to want to add more, but he was gasping. He looked everywhere but at Hooper. “Very…For God’s sake, what happened? Where was she found? Not in…anywhere…where?”
“Where were you thinking she might be found, Mr. Doyle?” Hooper asked.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Did you think her death had something to do with Mrs. Exeter’s murder?”
“No!” Doyle was appalled. “She…she was a pleasant young woman, a bit opinionated…but for the love of heaven, man, she’s dead!”
“And if she were not dead, would you think her connected to Mrs. Exeter’s kidnap in some way?”
“No…of course not. She was an employee!”
“So where did you expect her to be found?” Hooper pressed.
“I don’t care to…” Doyle colored with embarrassment. It was clear to Hooper that his assumption had been that the circumstances of Bella Franken’s death were in some way compromising.
“Say?” Hooper finished for him. “Why not? Are you seeking to protect her reputation rather than help us find who killed her? She was killed, Mr. Doyle. Murdered—with a man’s hands around her neck…her throat…”
“Stop it! If she was found with some wretched man’s hands around her neck, then you know the answer, don’t you!” Doyle protested. “There is no need to exercise your cruelty on me. I had nothing to do with it. I knew absolutely nothing of her private life. If she had a lover, or whatever, I knew nothing. I always thought her rather bookish, not a particularly attractive quality in a young woman. I think the ability to add and subtract with accuracy excellent in a ledger clerk, not a…a companion.” He straightened his collar and cravat and sat a little more upright in his chair. “So, you have the matter settled, and you have informed me. Thank you. I will tell the staff about it a good deal less brutally than you have told me. I suppose the newspapers will get hold of this? They love scandal. I shall have to think of how to deal with this. I appreciate your telling me. That is all I have to say.”
Hooper smiled very slightly. “I have not come merely as a courtesy to inform you, Mr. Doyle. I need to ask you a good many questions. And it seems you have taken too much meaning from what I said as to the manner of her death. She was strangled and her neck broken, but whoever did it was not there when we found her. She was thrown into the river, like rubbish. It was Commander Monk who saw her and, with a ferryman’s help, pulled her out.” He watched Doyle’s face intently, saw the newly returned color ebb out again, and anger mixed with fear.
“What…what was she doing in the river?” Doyle demanded. “And what was Monk doing? How did he come to be there? I think I have a right to know.”
Hooper made a decision. “Yes, sir, perhaps you do. If Miss Franken has no family in the area, then as her employer, you are, in a sense, her guardian. She was quite young, and seemingly alone. You appear to assume some moral turpitude on her part…”
“No! No, not at all!” Doyle protested, shifting his position in the chair uncomfortably. “But you said she was alone in the street at night, and she had been murdered.”
“Yes,” Hooper agreed. “She had made an appointment to see Mr. Monk early yesterday evening, and he was at the right place at the right time, but she was not. He saw her body in the water and pulled her out, at some risk to his own life. But she was far beyond help, poor soul.” He waited.
Doyle could not resist. “What…what was she going to see Monk about? Did she tell him?”
“Yes, some irregularity in the bookkeeping, I believe. She thought it might help us find out who was behind Mrs. Exeter’s kidnap and murder.”
Doyle swallowed. “How on earth could the words of a ledger clerk like Miss Franken be taken seriously on such a subject? You seem to be suggesting that Mr. Exeter himself was doing something other than paying an exorbitant amount to save his wife’s life. The young woman is…was…light-minded, hysterical, if you like.”
“Was she?” Hooper felt his body stiffen in anger at Doyle’s attitude to someone who had risked her life, and lost it, seeking the truth. “It seems to me as if she was highly perceptive. Still, when we see the books, we will be able to tell. I merely wanted to let you know that, unfortunately, she gave her life to find the proof and could only hand it over in her death. Thank goodness it was Monk who pulled her out of the water, not someone who did not appreciate what the papers meant. I’m sorry to be the bringer of such news.” He looked rather critically at Doyle. “Should I ask your clerk to bring you a cup of tea, perhaps? Or maybe you have a little brandy somewhere available.”
“Get out!” Doyle said between his teeth.
* * *
