. . .
THE DISPATCH INQUIRY
Chapter Sixteen
She went to her room to type up the interview with Bert, but instead, once Amy got there, she decided to write as much as she could recall from Rajesh's confession while it was fresh in her mind, although she left out their names, just using X and Y instead. It helped to clear her thoughts; if the facts of this impromptu interview were out of her head, secured on paper, she would not have to worry about forgetting them. The implications of it all - and what she would have to do about it - were more than enough weight to carry around.
Just she finished typing up Bert's interview, a footman brought her usual sandwich but she didn't touch it, her appetite gone. Instead, she reread both sets of papers carefully and then locked them in her drawer. Looking out her window, she studied another bright and beautiful autumn afternoon.
What should she do? Inspector Kripke had left for the day, so she did not have to decide until this evening. Possibly she could postpone it until tomorrow. But she knew that would not do. If she decided she had to tell him, it was best to do it as soon as she saw him again so that he would not think she was hiding information. As she and Sheldon had mentioned more than once, she was not in charge of this investigation.
But Amy had not warmed to Inspector Kripke or his methods over the past few days, despite her attempt to respect him more. He still struck her as sloppy and disrespectful. Even cruel. However, she thought with a frown, her personal feelings were immaterial. The important thing was to discover the murderer so that justice could be served. If only she could find a way of telling Kripke about the overheard conversation Rajesh reported without stating why he was downstairs. She could use his own lie, that he could not sleep and was on the way to the kitchen for warm milk. But Kripke already doubted that story, as well he should. It's why she'd convinced herself she didn't have to tell him about her conversation with Mrs. Sparks, that the housekeeper was only confirming what the Inspector already knew.
And had Rajesh been telling the whole truth? Perhaps he had stayed in the dark and overheard the murder itself. Or did he suppose it was Ramona blackmailing Stuart because he'd heard more of the conversation than he'd let on? He as much as admitted he would murder her to save himself and Stuart; what if he actually had? She knew from many a mystery novel that it was easy to dismiss away the person who found the body. But sometimes, the first person to see someone dead was the last person to see them alive.
Lifting her glasses, Amy rubbed her eyes with a heavy sigh. She was talking herself into circles. She needed to do something to help her focus. Her walks with Sheldon had been laced with a conflicting set of emotions, but at least the weather had always been refreshing. Yes, she would walk again, alone this time, to help her order her thoughts.
There were several different exits to the house, but her feet turned toward the library by habit. And because she still had to call an article into The Herald. At least, that's what she told herself. So she could not be surprised that he was there, although perhaps it was earlier than usual. He was wearing another combination of jersey shirts and he stood at the French door to the terrace again, but this time he held a flat cap in his hand. When he saw her, he put it on.
So he was expecting her. A walk with her. Amy paused briefly, remembering the way he'd looked at her when he played the piano the night before. But she also remembered the song he'd chosen to play. A song about hidden emotions . . . and alibis. Was it a message of some sort? Amy had tossed and turned in her bed, unable to work it out.
Swallowing, Amy continued toward him. Sheldon opened the door to let her pass before he fell into the step next to her. All without a single word. They walked together in silence, over the broad stones, around the pond, meandering past hedges, until they entered the formal garden. Its curved paths slowed their pace. Amy picked at a loose thread on the bottom of her cardigan, trying to concentrate on how she'd fix it but failing. Her mind kept returning to her conversation with Rajesh.
It was kind of Sheldon to accept her distraction. He didn't press her with questions or force her to divulge what she knew. But, at the same time, she wished that she could share it with him; she had not realized how much she'd come to depend upon their conversions, even when it was just hearing herself say things aloud. His pattern of thought was even more linear and organized than her own at times, and his measured replies were always thoughtful.
She must have uttered some sigh or other expression of dissatisfaction, for Sheldon gently asked, "How was your morning?"
"Difficult," she admitted.
"No luck discovering the murder? No tearful confession in the morning room?"
"No. Not quite. But I discovered several new clues."
"I must admit I fail to see how that makes you unhappy."
Amy suddenly stopped short on the path, and Sheldon turned toward her. "I wish to ask you something . . . let's say philosophical or ethical, I suppose, and I'd like your honest opinion."
"I do not see the advantage to ever giving a dishonest one."
"How do you feel about homosexuality?"
His eyebrows shot up and she read genuine surprise on his face. "Honestly, I can't say I've ever given it any feeling at all." He paused. "I was not raised to. My mother would no doubt disapprove."
"Yes, certainly."
"That's an inference, you understand. She did not speak of such matters. What little I gleaned about sexual matters came via hints from Georgie and it did not sound pleasant at all." He frowned. "Later, there were biology courses that I excelled in, of course, and they touched on procreation in the animal kingdom, but by the time I'd met Leonard, he said I was all mixed up about it. He brought me one of those pamphlets from the women's clinic. It was . . . enlightening. I was pleased to finally have a scientific source, you see, to understand all the mechanics in humans." Amy glanced down at her feet, to give his words privacy. She found Sheldon's direct and honest replies refreshing, but his unwillingness to adhere to the rules of polite conversation startled her at times. "But it did not cover homosexuality. So I suppose I never really considered it."
"Because it's immoral?"
"No, because any expression of physical love baffles me in general. Not the mechanics anymore, but well . . . it all seems frightfully messy."
"So you've never had a sweetheart?" Amy ventured, taking advantage of his open mood.
"No. I never went looking for one. I never considered that there could be a woman similar enough to me."
"If you found there was such a woman, would you consider it?"
"A sweetheart or physical love?"
"Either. Both. They tend to go together . . . eventually."
Sheldon took off his cap, took a deep breath, and looked into the distance. "It's a possibility."
He slapped his thigh with his cap, set it back upon his head, and resumed walking, much more briskly this time. Amy had to skip to catch up.
"Homosexuality, you asked," he continued, back to his usual clipped speech pattern. "It's illegal, of course. Two years hard labor. I've never understood the drive to flaunt the laws of society. Or undertake hard labor without reason."
"But do you think this particular law of society is right? As in just?"
"I don't know."
Spying a stone bench behind them, Amy reached over and tugged him toward it to slow him down, to try and regain that moment on the path. They sat together under a curling vine, the greenery upon it drying up and falling to the ground. She imagined it covered with a profusion of blooms in the spring. Now, it was merely locked potential.
"I think society is wrong," Amy said. "I have never been lucky enough to be loved in that manner - romantically or physically. But I cannot imagine feeling that way, believing that I had found the one person on Earth that was everything I'd ever wanted, but I could not tell them, could not be with them, could not share my life with them. Just the idea makes me sad."
"I have always thought that the greatest potential folly of emotion was thinking you had found that person but find yourself wrong." He did not meet her eyes and instead looked out at the beautiful garden beyond.
"That would be tragic," Amy agreed. "But imagine if you could not even discover if such a person were right there, next to you? Imagine if you met someone and they seemed to be everything - everything you wanted. If they were intelligent and strong and unique. What if you could take everything you loved, like your science and your books and your scholarly debates and you found they were distilled into a single human being? Like a vial in your laboratory, concocted just for you, the sweetest drink you could never take? Oh, Sheldon, don't you think the real tragedy would be if a love like that had to remain silent?"
She sniffed and then reached up to her cheek and found a tear there. She stared at it on her hand, so surprised that she could not fathom where it came from. But then she felt a soft brush against her face and she turned. Sheldon was dabbing at the opposite check with his handkerchief. Amy stopped him as a reflex, and their hands met around the cloth.
"Amy, when you phrase it that way . . ." he whispered. And then cleared his throat. "Are you a homosexual? I've seen the way you look at Penny."
"No." She couldn't help but chuckle and his hand slipped away, leaving her holding his handkerchief. "I'm not. But I believe the emotion is the same, regardless of who I wish to be with." She turned her head and looked out of the corner of her eye. "If I were, would you send me away?"
"No."
"Even if I were a member of your staff?"
"Oh."
Amy grimaced. She'd said too much.
Sheldon swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Well . . . I suppose that if they were discreet, then there would be little risk of harm to me. I would not want trouble with the law - nor for them."
"I'm glad."
"I don't suppose you feel you can tell me who."
"I have already said too much when it is not my secret to tell. But I think, if you consider it for long enough, you already know."
"Perhaps." He paused. "Is it necessary for you to tell Kripke?"
With a deep sigh, she said, "I don't know. But I'd like to avoid it if I could."
He nodded and Amy stood, for once looking down at him. "We should probably start back. I'd like a bath before tea." She held out the handkerchief, handing it back to him, "Here. Thank you. I don't know what came over me."
"No, you keep it. And thank you. I think I . . . I understand something new."
They walked back in a silence similar to how they started the journey, but Amy felt both newly lightened and newly burdened by their conversation.
Only when they reached the library did Sheldon break the silence. "You haven't called in your article yet. I suppose I'm to blame." He pulled off his hat, ruffling his normally straight part. "I was in the library early and I distracted you."
"No, I needed a walk to clear my head," she explained. "But I thought I'd be alone; you've seemed to figure out exactly what time I need the telephone."
"Was I unwelcome?" It was a pointed question, delivered pointedly. Sheldon was good at that. Normally, she liked it. But sometimes it was unsettling. She remembered what Mrs. Sparks had said, that, even as a child, Sheldon was able to look at you in a way that seemed he knew things about you that you didn't even know yourself.
She looked away. "No, you were not unwelcome." Then she whispered, "Quite the opposite."
"Oh. I . . . I am glad. I was worried that you would not wish to walk with me, to speak to me, after yesterday. Because of what you surmised."
Clearing her throat, Amy said, "In regards to yesterday, I neglected to get my copy of the Leonard's interview back."
"Of course." Sheldon moved quickly to the desk, taking his keys from his pocket and unlocking the drawer. He passed the transcript over to her and she quickly glanced through it, making sure it was all in order. "I apologize. I suppose that makes me more suspicious to you. But I promise no one has been in that drawer."
Amy didn't reply immediately for the thought had crossed her mind that morning, when she was cursing herself for leaving something so important in his care. But now . . . "You're nobody here," she whispered to herself.
"What?" he asked. "Who's nobody?"
"Not you," she said, her brow wrinkling as she worked something out.
"Of course not." He stood straighter. "I am one of the greatest minds this nation has ever seen. Move over Michael Faraday, it's Dr. Sheldon Cooper."
Amy smiled. Not at his joke but at something she realized. "No, you're Lord Sheldon Cooper."
"I really wish you wouldn't call me that. Why does it make you smile? Because I dislike it?"
"Because you're Lord Cooper and perhaps that is enough." He gave her another quizzical look, but she only ignored it to wish him a good day, effectively sending him away so that she could quickly write her short article by hand on the official Medford stationery from the desk and call it into The Herald.
She had just returned to her room for her bath when there was a knock on the door.
"A telegram, Miss." Stuart held out the thin envelope.
Stuart started to leave as she took the message, but she said, "Mr. Bloom, will you step inside for a moment?"
She thought she detected a pause, but he turned and passed into her room. He looked uncomfortable as she shut the door behind them. "Please, come sit," she said, hoping to put him at ease.
"I'll stand, Miss."
Cursing herself, Amy realized her faux pas. "Mr. Bloom, I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may."
"For the Inspector?"
Amy frowned. She would proceed honestly. "I haven't decided yet." Stuart nodded and she continued, "Have you spoken to Dr. Koothrappali this afternoon?"
"Yes."
She let out a deep breath. At least she didn't have to tell him what she'd discovered, that would make it easier. For her. Poor Stuart was visibly sweating and paler than usual. "Mr. Bloom, I meant what I told Dr. Koothrappali, I will try to keep your secret if at all possible. But I need your honesty in everything else to do so. Do you think you can trust me?"
"What about His Lordship? Without this job, without him taking me in, I would have been homeless. And I'm already underweight as it is. And Raj? He'll be ruined. He'll lose his job and it will be in all the papers, all the details, because of his shows. Like Oscar Wilde. "
"I know I cannot speak for Lord Cooper, but I truly do not think you have a concern from that quarter." At that, Stuart seemed to relax slightly. "Tell me about the night of the murder. Everything you heard and saw."
"Raj -" he stammered, "Dr. Koothrappali, that is -"
"It's alright, just tell it how you like."
"Raj had already come down by the time I went to - to my studio - our - well, you know. I've only been going there once I know the Inspector is back. Then, later, I went downstairs to make tea. It's often what we do. I was just coming back up when I heard Raj start to scream. I was so afraid, I couldn't imagine what it was. I thought someone had hurt him, maybe they'd found our room, because I thought I saw them run away."
Amy gripped the footboard of the bed but didn't interrupt as Stuart continued, "But he was standing in the hall, screaming at the body. I thought, at first, he had done it. I was so frightened, I don't even remember setting the tea tray down, although I must have, because it was there, next to a floral arrangement later. But, Miss, he didn't, I know it. He wasn't bloody at all. There was no way he couldn't be if he'd . . . you know. Right?" Shaking even at the beginning of his tale, Stuart was now practically convulsing.
"Here. No argument, please." She grabbed him by the arm and steered him to one of the chairs by the fireplace, pressing him down into it, British hierarchy be damned. She poured him a glass of water from the pitcher by her bed and brought it to him.
Sitting in the other chair, Amy decided to ask simple things to try to calm him. "You're the one who suggested changing what time of day to wind the clocks?" A nod. "So that you could monitor the Inspector's whereabouts, to protect your secret room?" Another nod. "When you went to the kitchen, did you go via the servants' staircase?" A nod. "Did you see or hear anyone in the hall at that time? Or anything unusual at all?" A shake. "Who knows about the servants' staircase? It's a shorter route from the bedroom hallway and the great hall, right?"
Another nod. "Yes, Miss. Who knows about it? Well, all the staff and His Lordship, of course. Raj uses it at night, to come downstairs unnoticed. The Inspector: I gave him the tour myself in preparation for the weekend. I think Dr. Hofstadter and Miss Penny know, they've been here enough. The stairs aren't a secret, although I think most people don't notice the comings and goings of servants. Although once M. Kibbler saw me coming out and asked me about the door. And, upstairs, it opens right by Dr. Rostenkowski's room so she has surely heard it."
Amy sighed softly. That cleared up almost nothing. "How long were you downstairs? Dr. Koothrappali thought perhaps it was longer than usual."
"It was. After I'd put the kettle on, I heard meowing. The storeroom cat had snuck into the kitchen. She just had a litter, and she was separated from her kittens. I took her back and found her some extra food. I got distracted by them, such little things. But by the time I'd returned to the kitchen, half the water had boiled away so I had to refill the kettle again and bring it back to the boil."
Amy raised her eyebrows. "Lord Cooper has cats? I was under the impression he dislikes animals."
"Only cats, Miss. There are, he says, self-cleaning. And they catch mice."
Returning to the serious questions, Amy asked, "Dr. Koothrappali said he overheard Dr. Nowitzki arguing with someone in the hall while you were gone. But you couldn't hear from the kitchen?"
Shaking his head, Stuart said, "No. His Lordship put in insulation to keep the basement warm a few years ago and it blocks everything."
That matched what Mrs. Sparks had told her. "Now, Mr. Bloom, this is very important. You said you thought you saw someone running away. Tell me everything you remember about that."
Stuart took another drink from his glass. "I had just come through the baize door and turned to go out by the staircase to upstairs because it's closer to my room than the going through the dining room. This is the servants' hallway, under the grand staircase, it connects to the servants' staircase."
"I know. I went to the kitchen a few days ago and met Mrs. Sparks; I saw they connected. And you took me down those stairs the morning of the murder."
"Oh, yes, I forgot. It's easy to forget when you don't know where your life is going. Anyway, I just saw someone run up the servants' stairs. They were moving quickly. I thought I was about to call out, but then I can't remember if Raj started to scream already, so I must have imagined that part. Malnutrition, no doubt."
As sorry as she felt for his situation, his constant despair was starting to annoy her. "I can't imagine that Lord Cooper doesn't feed you and pay you well."
"Oh, he does. Bad habit, I guess. Since the Inspector came, I'm been so worried I can hardly eat. I'm just as weak as when I lived in my shop without two pence to rub together."
Too weak to commit murder? Or was it a clever ruse?, Amy wondered. But she asked, "Do you remember if the person running away was a man or a woman?"
"I thought a man because they were wearing trousers. But then, even Miss Penny wears trousers better than I do, so who knows?"
That was a valid point. Penny could have run back to her room and changed quickly; she might have run out of time to put on a dressing gown. And Bernadette was wearing pajamas the night of the murder, and they might be mistaken for trousers. "Other than Lord Cooper's previous guests, had you ever met anyone here before? Maybe in your travels about Europe?"
"I can't be sure. Not that I know of. But, odd that you mention it, M. Kibbler looked familiar. In Paris, I was a janitor in a hospital home for children that were damaged. Most of them had been forgotten."
Amy perked up. "Damaged children? Orphans?"
"No, people paid to keep them there, fed and taken care of. Some were just blind or deaf, some couldn't walk, or were deformed. From families with enough they could pay to forget them."
"That's revolting," Amy said, practically spitting. "We imprison people for who they love but not for who they abandon." She shook her head. "We got off-topic. The room you call yours - is it really your bedroom? I mean, assigned by Lord Cooper?"
"Not exactly. He told me I could use it for my art because the light is so good. Then I moved a bed in; I guess I got used to sleeping in the same cramped room as my art. Nothing puts a person to sleep like the sweet smell of turpentine."
"Did you happen to hear the argument in the upstairs hall, when Dr. Nowitzki said someone was outside her bedroom window?"
Stuart nodded. "I was winding the grandfather clock in the drawing room, and I thought l heard shouting upstairs, but then it was gone by the time I considered going up."
"So Inspector Kripke was outside at the time?"
"Yes."
Amy nodded. "How long have you and Dr. Koothrappali . . . been together?"
"A couple of years."
"And that's when you marked the room off the cleaning list in your office? And, maybe, lied to the other servants?"
Stuart looked at her sharply. "Good eye. Yes, I told the others downstairs that Lord Cooper had given it to me. There are few of us, and I have the senior position, so I knew it wouldn't be questioned. And His Lordship, well, if it doesn't involve him and everything keeps running smoothly, he tends not to notice."
"Mrs. Sparks said you're often up at night, making tea."
"Insomnia. I can't eat when I worried, I can't sleep much even at the best of times; welcome to my life."
Amy reached out and curled her fingers around his fist, clearly surprising him. "I know what it's like not to have what you really want, as freely as you want. Or the money you need. I just can't go back to school. I know it's not the same, but well . . . maybe a little bit."
"You know you could, if you asked. He likes you. He's allowed to like you. And that's the difference."
She pulled her hand away and stood. "Thank you, Mr. Bloom. I think that's enough for now."
The butler stood. "I'm sorry to presume, Miss. It's just that you've been so kind. I have trouble knowing how to react if someone isn't ignoring me or looking at me with contempt."
"Again, Mr. Bloom, really," Amy softly admonished as she walked him to the door, "you're amongst friends here."
"Not until the Inspector leaves. Good day." Stuart nodded and managed to leave with the dignity of butler, but his shoulders still looked slumped.
Amy looked at the closed door. "Perhaps not," she admitted to the empty room.
The unopened telegram caught her eye, and, suddenly aware of any possible wasted time, she ripped it open.
C graduate teaching assistant. K and N his students. K expelled for cheating. C did not dispute or confirm. Details and patent information to follow by letter.
To be continued . . .
Perhaps the most famous victim of the gross indecency laws in Britain was the writer Oscar Wilde. Convicted in 1895, he served two years in Reading Gaol for his 'crime.' While in prison, he grew ill and weak from the hours on the treadmill combined with poor quality food. He remained in poor health after his release in 1897 and died only three years later. He wrote the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol while incarcerated, but the brilliant and witty Wilde never wrote again after his punishment.
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