Garden of Lies(41)

Tentatively she tried the doorknob and was somewhat surprised when it turned in her hand. A bell shivered and chimed when she entered the shop. She was assaulted by an unpleasant mix of chemical fumes strong enough to make her breath catch in her throat. Hastily she covered her nose and mouth with one gloved hand and looked around. There was no one behind the sales counter.

“Who’s there?”

The voice—thin, high, and tight with anxiety—emanated from behind a partially closed door. The speaker could have been either male or female.

“I’ve come to inquire about your perfumes,” Ursula said, intuitively trying to reassure the person behind the door. “A friend of mine has some that she said she obtained from this shop. I am interested in purchasing a bottle for myself.”

There was a great deal of nervous dithering on the other side of the door before a man edged nervously out of the back room. He was as thin as his voice, small and jittery. A few wisps of graying brown hair were plastered across the top of his head. A pair of spectacles framed his pale eyes. He wore a stained leather apron and leather gloves.

He regarded Ursula with a mix of suspicion and anxiety.

“Mr. Rosemont?” She employed the calm, confident, you-can-trust-me voice she usually reserved for clients who wished to hire a secretary for the purpose of taking down confidential information.

“I’m Rosemont,” he said. He removed his gloves and shoved them into one of the pockets of his apron. “You say a friend sent you?”

“That is correct.” Ursula crossed the room to the counter. “Miss Clifton.”

For the moment she wanted Rosemont to think that Anne was still alive. There was no reason that he would be aware that was not true. There had been no notice in the press. Women who lacked family or connections died every day in London, leaving behind very little evidence of their existence.

“I don’t remember a customer by that name,” Rosemont said quickly—too quickly, perhaps.

“Are you quite certain?” Ursula pressed.

“Positive.” Rosemont started to retreat behind the door. “If you don’t mind, I’m rather busy.”

Ursula opened her satchel and took out the perfume bottle that had belonged to Anne. She placed it on the counter.

Rosemont stared at the bottle. He looked horrified.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded.

“In my friend’s house. Miss Clifton has disappeared. I am trying to find her.”

“Disappeared? Disappeared?” Rosemont’s voice rose to a squeak. “See here, that’s no business of mine. I can’t possibly help you.”

“I am trying to reconstruct her comings and goings in the days just before she vanished. According to her appointment calendar she called in at this shop on a number of occasions during the past year—including last week.”

“I told you, I don’t remember a Miss Clifton.”

This was not going well, Ursula thought. She had come here for information but it was starting to look as if she would leave no wiser than when she had entered the shop.

She could not afford a significant bribe and something told her that Rosemont would not be persuaded by a small offering—assuming he could be convinced to talk in the first place.

“How odd that you would not remember such a loyal customer,” she said.

Rosemont stiffened. “I beg your pardon.”

“Allow me to refresh your memory.”

Ursula reached back into her satchel and took out the paper on which she had transcribed several brief passages from Anne’s notebook. Rosemont watched in mounting panic as she unfolded the paper and smoothed it flat on the counter with one gloved hand.

“What is that?” he yelped.

“A record of some of her recent visits to your shop. They began about eight months ago and continued on a twice-monthly basis right up until last Wednesday. Oh, wait, I do believe that if we examine the dates more closely we see that in recent months she began stopping in more frequently.” Ursula shook her head, seemingly mystified. “It’s very odd, isn’t it?”

Rosemont glared at her. “I see nothing odd about it.”

“I do. You see, I happen to know that Anne earned a respectable living from her secretarial work. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine that she was able to purchase so much expensive perfume. And such a great quantity of it. I wonder what she did with all that fragrance. She certainly did not give any to me or her colleagues at the agency.”

Rosemont stared at the damning sheet of paper. Then he collected himself.

“Let me check my journal of receipts and transactions,” he said brusquely. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

She had won. Rosemont was backing down.

Cheered by the success, she gave him a cool, benign smile. “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want you slipping out the back door before you tell me what you and Anne were about with all those perfume sales.”

Rosemont drew himself up, momentarily projecting an air of defiance. Then his shoulders collapsed and he gave a heavy sigh.

“Very well, come with me if you must,” he said. “I will show you my records. But I must tell you that I have absolutely no idea why Miss Clifton purchased such a great quantity of perfume.”

He turned and disappeared into the back room.