The interior doors of the shop had been left ajar to allow for the circulation of air and they had a good view of the bright workroom full of tailors and apprentices. Compared to some of the poor half-starved wretches who strained over their sewing in the poorly lit sweatshops of London, these men and boys seemed healthy and well fed and were diligently bent over their tasks. Some used paper patterns and scissors to cut out pieces from long rolls of wool, tweed and cotton. Others sat with their heads bowed over their sewing, swiftly dipping and raising their needles and thread. The tables before them were littered with skeins of colourful silk and bowls of glittering metal and bone buttons. Finished and half-finished coats, shirts and waistcoats were lined up on racks or hung on hooks on the walls.
Lavender flicked through one of the illustrated company catalogues of men’s clothing he found lying on top of the wooden counter. Woods poked around in a bowl of shiny military buttons.
The shopkeeper returned. ‘Mr Drachmann will see you now, Detective.’ They followed him through the back of the shop and up a flight of stairs.
‘Drachmann?’ Woods said. ‘Isn’t that a Hebrew name?’
The shopkeeper glanced over his shoulder, frowning. ‘Yes, it is – and it’s a respected name in these ’ere parts, so mind yer manners with Mr Drachmann. The company name were changed to Drake’s ten years ago.’
Woods winked at Lavender behind the man’s back.
They were led into a small office dominated by a solid desk piled high with papers and catalogues. Behind the desk, twirling a quill in his inky fingers, was a swarthy-skinned man in his mid-thirties with a prominent hooked nose. His intelligent dark eyes gleamed with amusement at their arrival. Lavender sensed the man’s restless energy from across the room.
Drachmann wore a dark green velvet yarmulke on his head. Beneath the exquisite tailoring of his matching coat, he wore an identical pale gold and white striped waistcoat to the one Lavender had admired in the shop window.
‘Good evening, gentlemen. I’m Saul Drachmann, owner of Drake’s Tailors. I don’t often get visits from police officers to brighten up my dull days in the office. How can I assist you?’ His eyes scanned the smart cut of Lavender’s black coat with approval but he seemed to recoil at the sight of Woods’ heavy blue greatcoat and his bright red waistcoat. ‘Does Bow Street require a new uniform for its horse patrol, perhaps?’
Despite the seriousness of their mission, Lavender allowed himself a small smile. ‘No thank you, Mr Drachmann.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Drachmann replied, smiling. ‘I can understand now why Londoners refer to the constables of the horse patrol as “Robin Redbreasts”. The criminals must be able to see you officers coming from several miles away.’ Woods stiffened with indignation.
‘We’re here on more serious police business, I’m afraid,’ Lavender said.
Drachmann waved his quill towards the pair of wooden chairs on the opposite side of his desk. ‘Oh well, you’d better sit down then.’
They lowered themselves into the seats and Lavender cleared his throat. ‘Early this morning, the body of Mr David MacAdam was found stabbed to death in his lodgings in London. We’ve reason to believe MacAdam had some connection with your company.’
Shock flashed across Drachmann’s face and all traces of amusement vanished. ‘MacAdam? Big fellow, fair-haired?’ Lavender nodded. ‘Good grief – yes, I knew him. I haven’t seen him for months, though. Stabbed, you say? Murdered?’ Lavender nodded again. ‘That’s disgraceful. No man should die like that.’
‘May I ask in what capacity you knew him, sir?’ Lavender asked. ‘We’re trying to locate MacAdam’s family to notify them of his death. What was MacAdam’s connection with your company?’
‘He worked for me.’
Even though he was prepared for a surprise, the news still shocked Lavender. ‘MacAdam worked for you?’
‘Yes, he was what you would call a commercial traveller – and when he could be bothered to work on our behalf, he was a damned good salesman. MacAdam would charm the birds down from the trees if they had something he wanted.’
‘He were a hawker?’ Lavender heard the surprise in Woods’ voice.
‘Oh, it’s a little more than a mere hawker and peddler of goods, Constable,’ Drachmann replied, smiling. ‘This company was founded by my grandfather over thirty years ago. It always had a good reputation in the local area but I decided to expand the business about ten years ago. The tailors in London can barely keep up with the burgeoning demand for high-quality gentlemen’s clothing in the capital and they often don’t have the space or the workforce to do so. Many establishments welcomed my idea to provide ready-made garments for them to sell through their shops. Thanks to the endeavours of my small group of commercial travellers and my illustrated catalogues, Drake’s’ menswear is now sold all over southern-eastern England from Cambridge to Brighton.’
‘How long was he in your employment?’ Lavender asked. ‘And why haven’t you seen him for several months?’
‘I haven’t seen him, Detective, because in May he left my company for another, more lucrative job in London, or so he said. He joined us about eight years ago and was an excellent salesman. Unfortunately, the orders he placed dwindled this spring and his accounts became – how shall I put it? – muddled? I was relieved when he departed, to be honest with you.’
‘Were he stealin’?’ Woods asked.
Drachmann waved his hand in the air. ‘Nothing I could prove. He ordered lots of samples of our coats in his size – which we never saw again. But I was happy to cut our losses and employ someone else. Before us, MacAdam worked for a local horse dealer, buying and selling the animals at market. But he had ambition and was desperate for an opportunity to move to the capital.’
Woods laughed. ‘So, he were a horse courser!’
Drachmann glanced between them curiously. ‘Does this information surprise you, gentlemen?’
‘I’ll say it does!’ Woods laughed again. ‘MacAdam made himself out to be a grand swell down in London and most folks had swallowed his lies.’
Drachmann smiled. ‘Like I said, the man was very charming and ambitious. He even took lessons from the local vicar to round off the rough burr of his country accent. He said talking like a gentleman helped him to sell more garments.’
Elocution lessons? Then Lavender remembered the well-thumbed copy of The Manners and Conduct of an English Gentleman in MacAdam’s bedchamber. Things were beginning to make sense. MacAdam had perpetuated a fraud; he’d pretended to be an English gentleman – and everyone from Mrs Palmer to the Howards had fallen for his deception. ‘Do you happen to know anything about his family?’ he asked. ‘I assume he was from Chelmsford and he has relatives in the town.’
‘Yes, they live in the town, near the riverside.’ Drachmann rose to his feet and moved across to a shelf stacked with old ledgers and files. ‘I think I still have the address.’ He pulled a ledger down and flicked through its pages. ‘Yes, here it is.’ He brought the book back to his desk and sat down. ‘I saw his wife at the market a few weeks ago. She always was a sharp, humourless woman but I feel sorry for her today. No doubt your news will distress her.’
‘Wife?’
Drachmann paused and smiled at the shock on Lavender’s face. ‘Let me guess,’ he said slowly. ‘That silver-tongued rogue MacAdam forgot to mention to anyone in London he was married?’
Lavender nodded, made a note of the address and rose to his feet. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mr Drachmann. Thank you.’
Drachmann gave them instructions about how to reach Mrs MacAdam’s house and they hurriedly left the building.
Lavender was grateful for the fresh air in the street. His mind reeled with these latest revelations and he needed to make sense of it. He pointed to the tavern across the road. ‘Are you hungry? Shall we get some food and a tankard of ale?’
‘No, let’s visit Mrs MacAdam and get to the bottom of this puzzle,’ Woods said. ‘It looks like our vict
im were livin’ a false life and were a sharper and a cheat as well as a lothario.’
‘Yes,’ Lavender replied grimly, ‘and if he’d lived a few more weeks, he would also have been a bigamist. Miss Howard has had a lucky escape – although I doubt she’ll see it that way.’ They waited for a gap in the traffic, crossed the road and ducked down a narrow, damp alley that led to the riverside cottages. Their boots slipped on the slimy cobbles.
Woods frowned. ‘I can’t believe that nabob didn’t make a few more enquiries about MacAdam before consentin’ to his marriage with his granddaughter.’
‘MacAdam’s wife and Miss Howard may not be the only women in our victim’s life,’ Lavender said. ‘I found several long auburn hairs on the clothes in his room. Unless Mrs MacAdam is a redhead, I suspect there’s another woman. Your description of MacAdam as a lothario may turn out to be accurate.’
‘No fellah will marry my little girls until I’ve seen his baptismal record and know all his bad habits and the amount of his savin’s.’
Despite his preoccupation with this startling new development in the case, Lavender managed a small smile. ‘I pity the suitors of little Rachel and Tabitha.’
‘But what about Howard, eh?’ Woods persisted. ‘Do you think he were negligent? His granddaughters are young gals and helpless against scoundrels like MacAdam who come danglin’ after their fortunes.’
‘I think Howard is aware that his granddaughters’ best asset in the marriage market is their fortune but he’s ill-prepared for his role as their guardian. His secretary, Jackson, hinted as much. Despite his incredible wealth, Mr Howard is not from the gentry himself and is blinded by titles. He’s as much at risk from the lies of a swindler as the young ladies are themselves. We need to know how MacAdam supported himself since he left his employment with Drake’s in May – and more about that damned carriage he owned.’
They turned down a dark, muddy path between two rows of ancient timber-framed cottages, whose plastered walls flaked with damp. The smell of roasting meat suppers drifting down from their smoking chimneys did little to mask the sharp stench from the nearby tannery.
‘Well, Drachmann’s comments explained one thing, anyway,’ Woods said, as they arrived at the low door of Mrs MacAdam’s home.
‘What’s that?’
‘We now know why MacAdam were so good with horses – a horse dealer, indeed!’
Lavender rapped on the peeling wood and after a few minutes the door opened to reveal a small, sharp-featured woman with a sallow complexion and dark, greying hair. She wiped her hands on the stained apron she wore over her plain black gown. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you Mrs David MacAdam?’ Lavender asked.
‘Yes, what do you want?’
‘I’m Detective Stephen Lavender from Bow Street Police Office in London, ma’am. I’m sorry to inform you your husband, David, is dead.’
She jerked and emitted a loud gasp. Her thin lips slammed shut. Then she recovered from her shock and bristled. ‘I should ’ope so, Detective,’ she snapped, ‘because I buried ’im three months ago.’
Chapter Eight
It took several minutes for Lavender to persuade the indignant Mrs MacAdam that he and Woods weren’t a pair of heartless tricksters. The little woman was outraged by their suggestion that her husband had still been alive the previous day and railed at them loudly on the doorstep, cursing them for their cruelty.
A tall, grey-bearded man with long shaggy hair suddenly appeared behind her. ‘Let ’em come in, Winnie,’ he suggested quietly. ‘We need to ’ear what they ’ave to say.’ Grudgingly, the woman stepped back and opened the door wider. The slow-moving man, with his deep voice and strong country burr, seemed to have a calming influence on her.
They ducked below the lintel and entered a warm room dominated by the stone fireplace and a large pine table. A shabby padded armchair and an ancient settle faced each other across the hearth, scattered with crudely made cushions. Along the back wall stood a battered oak dresser crammed and cluttered with pots, pans, baking ingredients, sewing equipment and just about everything else the family owned. Two doors led out of the room: one into a small scullery and the other into a bedroom.
A pair of wide-eyed, fair-haired young boys sat at the table, their spoons paused above their bowls of thin stew in alarm. They were miniature versions of MacAdam. Their mother told them to leave their meal unfinished and go up to their bedchamber. Grumbling, they grabbed handfuls of bread from a bowl on the table and scampered up the wooden ladder into the chamber in the eaves of the roof. Lavender had no doubt they’d have their ears glued to the floorboards as soon as they disappeared from sight.
The grey-whiskered fellow sat down in the armchair by the fire, calmly picked up his bowl of food and resumed his meal. ‘This sounds a real mystery, Detective,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘Perhaps you should start at the beginnin’?’
‘Thank you, sir. What’s your name?’
‘I’m Ike Rawlings.’
‘’E’s a neighbour who eats with us sometimes.’
Lavender’s eyebrow twitched cynically. Mrs MacAdam didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who offered charity. She sat down on the settle opposite Rawlings but was too agitated to take up her own supper bowl and finish her meal. She continued to glower at Lavender and Woods while they stood awkwardly by the table.
Lavender cleared his throat. ‘This morning, we were called to a lodging house in Park Lane where we found the body of a man called David MacAdam who’d been stabbed to death.’
‘Well, it must have been another ’un!’ Mrs MacAdam exclaimed. ‘Another Davy MacAdam.’
For a second, Lavender hesitated and weighed up her suggestion. Then he dismissed the notion and carefully described the facial features and stature of the dead man.
Rawlings nodded, put down his empty plate and reached for his pipe and tobacco pouch from the mantelpiece. ‘That sounds like Davy, all right,’ he said.
‘I can see the resemblance between your sons and the man who died in London last night, ma’am,’ Lavender said.
Mrs MacAdam didn’t comment.
Lavender then explained how the ledger book for Drake’s Tailors had brought him to Chelmsford and how they’d sought assistance from Mr Drachmann to locate MacAdam’s family. ‘Your husband worked for Mr Drachmann, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point,’ she persisted. ‘It can’t ’ave been ’im that’s died in London. Davy were sent ’ome to me in a coffin in June. We’ve buried ’im already in St Mary’s.’
‘Who brought you this coffin?’ Lavender asked.
‘It were a friend of ’is. A nice man. Said ’e were sorry for me loss and that ’e and Davy had been good pals. ’E said Davy had died of smallpox two days before and that ’e’d bin ravaged by the disease.’ She twisted her filthy apron in her hands in distress.
Woods stepped forward during the embarrassed pause that followed. ‘Can you remember this man’s name, ma’am? I know it’s upsettin’ for you but it would help us to get to the bottom of this puzzle, if you can. The detective and I are as bewildered as you about all of this.’
Her face puckered up and for the first time she looked like she was about to dissolve into tears. ‘No, I can’t remember ’is name.’
Rawlings leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘I may be able to ’elp, Winnie.’ He turned to Lavender. ‘I think ’e said ’is name were Collins. Yes, that were it: Collins.’
Collins? Mrs Palmer’s third lodger? The man currently away in Yorkshire on business?
‘Did he mention where he lived or how he came to know Mr MacAdam?’ Lavender asked.
Rawlings shook his head and lit his pipe with a splint dipped into the fire in the hearth. Clouds of smoke billowed up around him. ‘I don’t remember much about what that Collins fellah said. We were upset and Winnie were distracted wi’ findin’ the money for the funeral and worryin’ about her future and the boys.’
‘Did he bring any documentati
on with him, a letter from the doctor who’d attended him and witnessed the death, perhaps?’
Rawlings and Mrs MacAdam looked at each other and shook their heads.
‘What did this Mr Collins look like?’ Lavender asked.
Rawlings paused and scratched his beard. ‘I remember ’im as a young, dark-’aired fellah.’
‘’E were a smart dresser and educated,’ Mrs MacAdam added.
‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, ma’am,’ Lavender said, ‘but did you open the coffin and look inside?’
She looked horrified at the suggestion. ‘I didn’t! It were sealed shut and the last thing I wanted to do was see my Davy stiff and ravaged wi’ disease. ’E were a good-lookin’ man, my husband. That’s ’ow I wanted to remember ’im.’
‘So how did you know for sure there were a body in the coffin if you didn’t look?’ Woods asked.
Rawlings leaned forward and took Mrs MacAdam’s hand again. ‘Because it was ’eavy and took four of us – me and ’er brothers – to carry it to St Mary’s. That’s ’ow we knew there were a body in it. I’ll show you where ’e’s buried if you want. You didn’t do anythin’ wrong, Winnie,’ he added.
There was another embarrassed pause. Lavender considered their next move. ‘Mr Rawlings is right,’ he said to the widow, ‘you didn’t do anything wrong. But I do believe you’ve been the victim of a most terrible hoax.’
Woods nodded sympathetically. ‘Most folks would have done the same if they were in your shoes, ma’am. I know I would. It addles my poor noddle to think someone may have played such a cruel trick and caused you so much grief and sufferin’.’
‘But if it weren’t ’im . . .’ Confusion flooded over Mrs MacAdam’s face and Lavender felt a stab of sympathy for her. He braced himself for her next question.
‘If it weren’t Davy in the coffin . . . why did that Collins fellah say it were ’im? And where’s Davy been for the last three months if ’e were still alive?’
Lavender ignored her question. He knew exactly where MacAdam had been for the last three months and what he’d been doing, but he didn’t want to add to her distress by revealing the truth. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one way to sort out this mystery, Mrs MacAdam. I need you to come to London as soon as possible and see the dead man in the Bow Street morgue. It’s the only way we can know for sure if our murder victim was your husband.’
Murder in Park Lane Page 6