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I wasn’t going to respond, but Harmony spoke up. “Did you know who her lover was before Lord Dunmere?”
He feigned shock at her question, but neither Harmony nor I showed any coquettishness, so he stopped pretending to be offended. “No, miss. I know these London singers have certain reputations, but I don’t keep up with the gossip. I don’t know who folk are unless they’re a close acquaintance of his lordship, so it means nothing to me. Why? Who was he? And what’s all this got to do with the murder?”
Harmony and I exchanged what I thought were subtle glances, but the mechanic was observant.
His frown deepened. “Blimey. Is she involved somehow? She’s not the murderer, though. She can’t be.”
“Why not?” I asked.
He looked at us askance. “Because she’s a woman.”
Harmony bristled. “You don’t think women are capable of murder?”
“You misunderstand. The police reckon a man killed that polo player. It’s been all over the papers. They’re looking for witnesses who saw amanleave the Elms that afternoon. He was wearing a brown coat and hat. They have a witness who saw him there but want to find the cab driver who picked him up.”
I sighed. The police truly had been incompetent. Not only were they still hoping to find a cab driver who collected a man wearing a brown coat and hat, they hadn’t even considered the fact the hat and coat could have been discarded or that a woman wore them.
“You mentioned seeing Miss Rivera leave the polo club,” I said. “Are you sure her bag was empty?”
He nodded. “When she got out of my motor, she used two hands and it was bulging.” He indicated the size of the bag with his hands. It wasn’t overly big, but big enough to carrying a coat and hat. “When she walked through the gate to leave, she carried it in one hand while she dusted it off with the other. There was no bulge.”
The reason the police couldn’t find a cab driver who’d picked up the coat-wearing murderer was because the murderer had discarded the coat at the crime scene. But we’d not found it in the stables. The police might be incompetent, but even they would have found a brown coat if there was one there to be found.
“What time exactly did you collect Miss Rivera from Royal Albert Hall?” Harmony asked.
The mechanic scratched his head. “It was supposed to be three-thirty. I was on time but had to wait five minutes. We arrived at the Elms a little before four.”
I thanked him and we made to leave, but I doubled back. The mechanic hadn’t moved. He still stood by the automobile, frowning. “Don’t mention this to anyone,” I told him. “Not even Lord Dunmere.”
He gave me a lazy salute. “Right you are, Miss Fox.”
“And one other thing. Do you know where Miss Rivera lives?”
“I do. I collected her from there yesterday, and I’m to take her back there in an hour, before driving her to the Royal Albert later for her performance.”
“May I have the address?”
A few minutes later, Harmony and I exited the mews onto Piccadilly. Instead of returning to the hotel, we walked to the address the mechanic had given us. Rosa Rivera lived on the ground floor of a modern block of flats overlooking a small grassy common. I wondered if Mr. Rigg-Lyon paid for it, but dismissed the notion. If he did, she was unlikely to have murdered him.
I was now almost positive she was the murderer. I still lacked a motive, however, as well as evidence that would convince both the police and a jury.
The door to the flat was locked and I didn’t want to be seen attempting to pick the lock in broad daylight. Harmony suggested we try the window around the side. It was hidden by a tree and, as it turned out, the lock was flimsier. I used the slender tools I always carried with me nowadays and picked it in a matter of minutes.
Getting through the window was not quite as easy, and much less elegant. Both Harmony and I were too short to simply climb in, so she suggested giving me a boost. She linked her fingers together and formed a cradle for me to step into. With a grunt, she lifted me up and pushed me through the open window.
She shoved with such force that I sailed right through, knocked over a lamp on the table beneath the window, and tumbled onto the floor. Both the lamp base and I made loud thuds.
“Cleo? Are you all right?” Harmony loudly whispered.
I rubbed my elbow as I stood. “Yes.”
Her face appeared at the window. “Grab my arms and haul me in.”
I picked up a stool and passed it out to her. “Or you could step on this.”
We knew from the mechanic that we had time before Rosa returned, so we were able to make a thorough inspection of the flat. We searched the bedroom first, looking through the wardrobe for a brown coat, in case she had brought it back with her, after all. We didn’t find it, but did discover more coral ribbons in her dressing table drawer. There were no signs that she brought gentlemen to the flat, and there were no photographs of men either. There was some expensive jewelry and a box full of money, but no letters or tokens from lovers. There were no personal items that she’d kept to remind her of Mr. Rigg-Lyon. She’d told the truth when she said she didn’t love him. She hadn’t cared enough to keep even a single photograph of him. Jealousy wasn’t a motive, then. One had to care about a man to be jealous of his other lovers.
Harmony and I moved into the only other room in the flat. It was larger than the bedroom. At one end was a small kitchen, while at the other was the sitting room where we’d entered via the window. It contained only a sofa, no armchairs, and a cabinet with books and a shelf of trinket boxes of various sizes. While I inspected the boxes, Harmony looked around the kitchen.
