Part 12

The following Monday William had sent a message to Eliza's office to meet him at the city Mortuary, so Eliza dutifully waited on the street outside the main door for him to arrive. She was back in her normal blue dress with the navy chevron stripes, stripped shirt and navy tie and hat. Her blonde hair was twisted in her plaited bun, and she held her brown handbag in her gloved hands.

She watched as his carriage, driven by his usual driver Arthur, arrived and William jumped out, dressed in his standard black suit and coat, he greeted her with a smile while he put his hat on.

"Good afternoon," he told her as he joined her on the side of the street by the black entrance door to the Mortuary.

"So, what are we doing here?" she asked curiously. Since his message hadn't exactly explained anything other then to meet him here, and she had been slightly surprised since he had never before invited her to join him at the Mortuary. Certainly, Mr Potts was going to be none to happy at her being in attendance with him.

William, didn't respond, but just smiled a mischievous smile and motioned for her to follow him as he opened the door to let them in. Eliza followed him down the corridor through to Mr Potts office. The door was open and the man himself was happily filing away paperwork.

"Ah Inspector Wellington," Mr Potts said, as he looked up and saw him walk in. His face dropped as he saw Eliza following close behind him.

"We're here to see the body of Mr Goldberg, he was brought in late Friday night," William said, as Mr Potts stared between them and sighed unimpressed that Eliza was once again with him.

"I've told you Inspector, she is not allowed in here," Mr Potts told them firmly.

"Well, Miss Scarlet's here on behalf of the family, so shall we go?" William posed it as a question, but he was really telling him. He wondered if Mr Potts was going to challenge him further, but instead he just gave him a frustrated sigh and turned around to lead the way to the examination room.

He begrudgingly opened the door to the room where the body was lying on the table and had been covered up with a white cloth, resting after it had been examined. William in strode in without a word and Eliza smiled politely when she walked past Mr Potts. Whilst she did enjoy annoying him and his insistence that she shouldn't be there was frustrating, she also did want and even need Mr Potts on her side.

William walked straight over to desk on the far side of the room and picked up the brown file that contained the paper work, to read over the results of the tests he'd asked for, while Eliza uncovered Mr Goldberg's head, just to double check it was the correct body.

"Please do not touch the body," Mr Potts demanded, not so politely as he stood uncomfortably in the doorway.

"Do you know if they tested the contents of the wine glasses we had sent back with the body?" William asked Mr Potts, whilst still reading the report and attempting to distract him from Eliza.

"Yes," Mr Potts confirmed impatiently. "As you expected there were trace of arsenic digested and there were traces of arsenic within the glass with the lipstick on." Mr Potts was sounding rather annoyed at his work being questioned and he was still uncomfortably watching what Eliza was doing, as she discreetly looked over the body.

"And nothing in the other,"

"No," Mr Potts sighed.

William walked over to where Eliza was standing to show her the final report, he pointed to a section in particular and handed her the file to read.

"Thank you Mr Potts, that will be all," William said, dismissing him.

Mr Potts hung in the doorway momentarily annoyed at being dismissed, and not wishing to leave them, but angrily did as he was asked, and backed out, closing the door behind him.

"I'm not here on behalf of the family." Eliza told William, when Mr Potts had left them alone and whilst she continued looking over the file.

"He doesn't know that," William said, with a cheery amused tone.

"You asked me here to mess with him, didn't you?" Eliza stated, looking up from the file narrowing her eyes on and glaring at him, unimpressed at being a pawn in his little game.

"You worked the case Friday night, I thought you'd like to know what the report came back with," William said with faked innocence, before smiling slightly. "The fact it annoys him that you're here is … just a little added bonus," he shrugged.

Eliza rolled her eyes at him, frustrated at his actions to say the least, but William was for once willingly letting her be here with him in the mortuary, which was rather unusual indeed.

"So it was definitely arsenic poisioning then," she questioned.

"Appears to be. I spoke with his Pharmacist friend this morning. Apparently Mr Goldberg had been prescribe arsenic for his breathing problems, though he unsurprisingly couldn't locate the corresponding paperwork while I was there."

William wasn't sure how much he believed that Hugo Goldberg legitimately had the arsenic, and that he didn't have it for more suspect reasons. It wouldn't be the first time he'd known someone to fake having proper access to it and use it to kill someone, whilst claiming it was an accident.

"Have you told Arabella?" Eliza was quietly curious as to how Arabella would react to this news.

"Not yet, I was going to go and see her after this."

"Do you think the city coroner is most likely going to rule the death a misadventure?" Eliza asked, looking over the wording contained in the file.

"I'd say that's most probable. Let this be a warning to someone trying to kill their wife," William said seriously.

Eliza sighed, there was one thing that still didn't sit quite right with her about all of this. If Hugo intended to kill Arabella, why did he not make sure he didn't drinking the wrong drink?

"You've got to admit, drinking the wine was it was a bit stupid of him," she stated to William, as she closed the file and handed it back to him.

"Well, drinking either glass of wine? Yes." He agreed. "If you know you've put arsenic into a drink, you should make damn sure you don't accidentally drink it yourself."

William thought for a moment. He knew there was still a possibility that Arabella did actually kill her husband, and she was smart enough to make it look like he'd killed himself.

"You know Arabella could still have killed him," William told her, and Eliza nodded in agreement. "She could easily have poured the poison into her glass, then put the vial in his pocket unnoticed."

"She was pretty convincing, when she said she had nothing to do with it," Eliza replied. "However, if Mr Goldberg did legitimately have the arsenic, she would have known, and therefore also had access to it."

William watched her lost in thought, weighing up the idea of which one of them had more of a motive, or an opportunity to carry out the poisoning.

"I doubt we could prove either way though, which one of them actually put the poison in the drink," William offered, in an attempt to ease Eliza's worries about Arabella. "They both have reason to want each other dead."

"We aren't going to know either way are we?" Eliza reluctantly confirmed with a sigh. "Does this happen often? The not knowing?"

"Ay, it does, but it's worse knowing they did it and you can't prove it," William said, as if it were some consolation.

"If Arabella really did do it … Then she's just got away with murder and inherited an awful lot of money..."

"Are you joining me going to see Arabella?" William asked once they were back out on the street near his waiting carriage, as he adjusted his hat.

Eliza thought for a moment. Perhaps seeing Arabella again would put her mind at rest as to whether she murdered her husband, or if he'd tried to murder her. Then again, it might just annoy her more if she knew that the person who had practically bullied her at school had just got away with murder.

"I think I'll leave that one to you. I've seen enough of my old school enemy to last a lifetime." She told him.

He would have been lying if he said he hadn't been looking forward to a few hours of her time this afternoon, so to hear she wasn't going to be joining him was a little disappointing, but he did his best to hide it.

"Well, I'll update you with how I get on. Good day Eliza," he told her, nodding his hat in her direction.

"Good day William," Eliza smiled, turning away and heading in the direction of her office.

Her thoughts were tied up with the Goldberg's as she made a slow stroll in the sunshine back to her office.

If Arabella did kill her husband, then it was a very smart move, to do it at a dinner party where no one was probably watching her, and possibly easy to make it look like he did it himself.

If Hugo Goldberg was trying to kill his wife, what was the reason for doing it at Rupert's dinner party? Surely he wouldn't have gotten away with it? There would be no one else to blame, unless he planned to make it look like she'd killed herself for the shame of falling pregnant with someone else's baby. Yet surely that wasn't news he would want to get out. Something didn't quite make sense.

Still, as William had stated, there was no way they could ever really know which one of them had poured the poison into the drink, therefore they couldn't know which one of them was really the intended victim. Perhaps she was just going to have to let this one go.

As she reached her office, Mr Rupert Parker and Fraulein Tilly Hildegard were happily talking outside Herr Hildegard's funeral shop. Eliza smiled to herself as she saw them. It was nice to see them more relaxed with each other, like something at the party had changed them somehow. Rupert didn't seem quite so afraid of her, and Tilly didn't appear to be as steely calm as she would normally be.

"Mr Parker, Fraulein Hildegard, good afternoon," Eliza announced as she walked up to them.

She waited for Tilly's face to drop to her usual stern steely gaze when she looked at her. Only for the first time ever, it didn't happen. Whilst she didn't exactly break into a huge beaming smile of excitement, she did keep the small-relaxed smile on her lips that she'd had while talking to Rupert.

"Good afternoon Miss Scarlet," Rupert offered, with a nod of his hat.

"How are you both?" she asked politely.

"All good thank you," Rupert said, as Tilly nodded her agreement. "I don't suppose you have any further news about Mr Goldberg?" Rupert enquired eagerly.

"Well, yes I've just been to see Inspector Wellington at the Mortuary actually. The maid, Mary, it seems she had nothing to do with it. It doesn't look like it was murder, but instead an accidental death."

"Oh thank goodness," Rupert said. "I've got tea with mother this afternoon, and I'll be glad to tell her that it was not murder. She was not happy with news of the scandal on Saturday morning."

Eliza wanted to reply with, is she ever happy, but thought better of it. Instead she turned her attention to Tilly, since perhaps she might be able to shed some light on how Hugo was at the dinner table.

"Fraulein Hildegard, since you were sat next to Mr Goldberg, I don't suppose you noticed him fussing with his wineglass at all?"

Tilly thought for a moment, trying hard to remember if anything stuck out in her memory.

"He had this odd little cough at times, seemed a little breathless. He did seem rather confused at one point, unsure whether to drink his wine, like he'd reach for the glass then stop himself, but other then that, he seemed just fine."

Eliza nodded. Perhaps then, Hugo really did accidentally kill himself.

"Well, I should get to my office," Eliza said with a smile, trying to excuse herself.

Rupert nodded Tilly in Eliza's direction, almost as if he wanted her to say something, but Tilly didn't move, and seemed to look at Rupert almost uneasy. Eliza gave a smile and turned to walk away from them both. Yet as she walked with her back to them, she could tell they were both whispering to each other.

"Miss Scarlet?" Eliza heard Tilly's German accent as she reached her doorway, her name sounding unfamiliar, in her strange somewhat friendly tone. She turned around and saw Tilly walking uneasily towards her.

"Perhaps … if you ever … maybe need any help … with another case…" Tilly asked uneasily.

Eliza looked passed to see Rupert smiling at her and nodding encouragingly.

"I'll be sure to let you know," Eliza interrupted, and Tilly surprised her by breaking into a further embarrassed smile, as she nodded a silent thank you, before walking back towards Rupert, who seemed suitably impressed.

Eliza turned back to unlock her office door confused by what had just happened. Had Tilly really just asked to work with her? Had she actually just smiled at her? Dare she even say, that perhaps they might gradually become some sort of friends?

Eliza rolled her eyes and laughed to herself, unlocked the street door, and made her way up to her office. May wonders never cease?

To Be Continued...

A/N: So Drum Roll Please... we've got one more part to this lovely story... Place you're bets... Who will it be ... Arabella or Hugo... Find out soon...