The Burning Issue of the Day

by T E Kinsey

  ‘Oh,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘I’m sure she can do that. Emily does have such wonderful stories to tell.’

  ‘And at least a third of them are true,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘But I’m poorly,’ I said, and pointed to my plastered leg. Our hosts weren’t in on the private joke, but it seemed to amuse them nonetheless.

  The doorbell rang, and within moments the room was crowded with the new arrivals. Inspector Sunderland had brought his wife. He introduced her as Dorothea, although she insisted that we should all call her Dollie. Lizzie Worrel looked much healthier than when we had seen her last, though the slight bagginess of her dress showed how much weight she had lost during her weeks in gaol. Dinah Caudle, as always, looked as though she had been dressed for a fashion spread in a society magazine. Simeon Gosling had been invited, too.

  Drinks were served and the evening began in earnest.

  Conversation at the dinner table was comfortable but a little guarded as we sat down. Once the food and wine began to arrive, though, things warmed up considerably. The Bickles dined extraordinarily well – it wasn’t just pastry skills their cook had picked up in Paris – and Sir Benjamin kept a fine cellar.

  ‘I feel like a bit of a Johnny Newcome,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘Is anyone going to bring me up to date? The last I heard, poor Lizzie here had been wrongly imprisoned, and Emily had been dragooned into helping uncover the truth. Next thing I know there’s explosions at the docks, missing gold, Georgie’s been rescued from a fiery death, and half the city’s luminaries have been banged up in Miss Worrel’s place.’

  ‘That seems a fair summary of events,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’d say you were pretty much on top of things.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘What is it that you don’t understand?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘You know me, Sunderland,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘I cut up dead bodies for a living – no one tells me anything.’

  ‘While the ladies of the WSPU were trying to find out what had really happened at Brookfield’s flat, they uncovered something of a nest of vipers,’ said the inspector. ‘With Councillor Morefield at its centre. He seems to have been something of a collector—’

  ‘Of human souls?’ suggested Dr Gosling.

  ‘Needlessly poetic,’ said the inspector, ‘but not far off the truth. He covets power and influence above all things, it seems, and he had amassed plenty of it. Sadly for him, though, he wasn’t quite as good at hanging on to his money, and the scale of his debts would make the exchequers of some small nations blanch. When he became aware of the gold shipment coming from Chile, he realized that he had the men in his pocket to pull off an audacious theft. James Stansbridge owed him a small fortune, and also happened to be a decorated ex-soldier with experience of sneaking about behind enemy lines. He’d be sure to come up with a wheeze for nicking the gold, and would have the wherewithal to pull it off. Redvers Hinkley was a crooked property developer who didn’t mind using his money to get what he wanted. He’d be good for a few bob to cover the assorted expenses and disbursements of the exercise. As would Oswald Crane, the coffee magnate with whose wife Morefield has been . . . dallying. Crane’s contacts at the docks would also come in handy for intelligence and—’

  ‘Does Crane have warehouses at Avonmouth?’ interrupted Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Of course,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Have they been searched?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This morning. Why?’

  ‘Did they find anything?’

  ‘Coffee beans,’ he said. ‘As expected. Crates and crates of the stuff.’

  ‘When you told us about Stansbridge’s arrival yesterday morning, you described the unloading of a large crate. But we know that the gold – and the fake gold – were both transported in a set of smaller boxes. So what happened to the big crate? What if – and I’m just speculating wildly here – what if the crate fitted exactly over the pallet holding the boxes of gold? What if instead of hoiking the boxes of fake gold out of the crate and putting them on a trolley, they just lifted the fake crate off the fake gold boxes and placed it over the real gold boxes? What if once it was nailed in place, it just looked like a crate of coffee beans?’

  ‘My men opened all the crates – all full of beans.’

  ‘What if the top half of the fake crate were filled with coffee beans, with a compartment underneath to conceal the gold boxes?’

  The inspector paused for thought for a moment. ‘They’d have to leave it on the trolley – they’d never lift it off.’

  ‘That should make it easier to find, then,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sir Benjamin,’ said the inspector. ‘May I use your telephone?’

  ‘In the hall, dear boy,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘Help yourself.’

  Inspector Sunderland excused himself and left the room.

  ‘I say, Emily,’ said Lady Bickle. ‘You are a clever clogs.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Dr Gosling, ‘but how does poor Miss Worrel fit into all this?’

  ‘As well as being a thief, a scoundrel, and a peddler of influence,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘Nathaniel Morefield was also a prominent anti-suffragist. He hated the very idea of the WSPU and came up with a way of thwarting the suffragettes’ plans by planting a spy in their midst. He found a likely member of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League and employed her to join the WSPU and report on their activities. Christian Brookfield was already investigating Morefield, so he soon got wind of this new scheme. He wooed the spy – Beattie Challenger – to find out more, but then he met and fell in love with Lizzie here. He cut off his false relationship with Challenger at once. Meanwhile, Morefield et al. had realized Brookfield was on to them and decided he had to be done away with. It gave them a chance to kill two birds with one stone – they could kill the nosy journalist before he could unmask them in the newspaper, and they could severely damage the reputation of the suffragettes, who had supposedly ceased militant operations for the duration of the election. They had a willing volunteer in Beattie Challenger. As I said, she was lonely and easily led – eager to please. For some reason she has a passionate hatred of the idea of universal suffrage. She seems to believe wholeheartedly in the idea that the great affairs of state should be decided by wealthy men and that the rest of us should keep our beaks out. She said as much to the magistrate this morning.’

  ‘So the job was jam all round as far as she was concerned?’ I said.

  ‘Absolutely. Not only was it an opportunity to advance her precious cause, it also gave her the chance to take revenge against her former lover and his new sweetheart by killing one and framing the other for his murder. Using her favourite method, too – it seems she has a quite impressive history of arson. The owner of the shop was a committed anti-suffragist, too, so I don’t doubt he was invited to be away from home for the night with the promise of a big insurance payment. And then, of course, once we started to investigate, Challenger was on hand to keep them abreast of developments. Dinah already suggested that they must have known she had Brookfield’s notebook – they broke in and tried to steal it.’

  ‘Well I never,’ said Dr Gosling. ‘The things I miss while I’m slicing open corpses and weighing their internal organs.’

  ‘Simeon, dear,’ said Lady Bickle. ‘Not at the dinner table, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘Sorry, everyone.’

  Throughout all this, Lizzie Worrel remained very quiet. She ate sparingly, and seemed somewhat overwhelmed, but she was, at least, smiling. I’d not seen her do that before. It suited her.

  The inspector returned.

  ‘I’ve got men heading out to Avonmouth right away,’ he said. ‘Thank you for the idea, my lady.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘But you have to try this salmon pâté. It’s quite the most delicious thing you�
��ll ever eat.’

  The conversation took a more conventional turn after this, with discussions on the recent election – which hadn’t provided quite the mandate Mr Asquith had been looking for to pass his budget – women’s suffrage, football, music, and even motor cars. Dr Gosling appeared to be getting on very well with Miss Caudle, which seemed to please Lady Bickle. And Mrs Sunderland got on very well with Lady Hardcastle, which seemed very much to please the inspector.

  I tried my hardest to be sparkly and bright, but the morphine wasn’t helping. It dulled the pain wonderfully, but I was ready for a return to bed. Lady Hardcastle, ever my protector, noticed that I was flagging and offered to help me upstairs once the cheese had been served.

  I slept the sleep of the blessed.

  On Wednesday morning Lady Hardcastle and I helped Lady Bickle open up the WSPU shop. We had expected that Marisol Rojas would have opened up in Beattie’s absence, but there was no sign of her. We asked around and heard from one of the neighbours that she had been seen crawling out through one of the back windows of the shop and legging it up through Berkeley Square.

  ‘I wonder why she did that?’ asked Lady Bickle. ‘There was no one in the shop – she could simply have walked out through the front door.’

  ‘No idea,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘I just nipped in to tell her what I’d heard. One of my regulars told me that she’d heard from her ma that her neighbour had said the Chilean gold had been stolen from the docks. We had a little chat, like, then I went back to work. I was out in the back room makin’ a pot of tea, and there she was, large as life, shinnin’ down a drainpipe and scootin’ off through the back yard.’

  ‘It’s what I would have done,’ I said.

  They all looked at me blankly.

  ‘Well, if I thought the front of the shop were being watched, and I wanted to get away, I’d go out the back. I’d have made sure I knew the way in the dark.’

  ‘Do you think she was involved in some way?’ asked Lady Bickle.

  ‘We have no way of knowing,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she had been a source of information for the gang. Or perhaps she was working for the Chilean government in some capacity and was afraid of the consequences of her apparent failure to protect the gold. Or perhaps she had nothing to do with it and just thought she ought not to hang around for long enough for people to make any spurious connections. Chilean gold, Chilean suffragette – it’s not a massive leap to suppose some sort of involvement.’

  ‘I do hope she comes back,’ said Lady Bickle. ‘I shall miss her.’

  We never saw her again.

  We stayed with Lady Bickle until reinforcements arrived. We were presented with our own ‘Votes for Women’ badges as a token of appreciation, and were told that we would always be welcome at WSPU meetings. We both assured them that we would see them all before very long, and I promised to help with self-defence classes as soon as my leg was healed.

  At about midday, we said our goodbyes and tried to fit me into the Rover for the journey home. It wasn’t easy. Lady Bickle offered the use of her Rolls-Royce and her chauffeur.

  ‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to be on the crocked list for at least another month. I’ve got to get used to getting about in the Rover sooner or later. I’m sure it will be fine. At least it isn’t raining.’

  It was uncomfortable, and highly undignified, but it wasn’t too long a drive to Littleton Cotterell.

  As we drove along, I had a sudden thought.

  ‘Do we know Inspector Sunderland’s first name?’ I asked.

  ‘We do,’ she said. ‘It’s Oliver.’

  ‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘So he’s Ollie.’

  ‘He is,’ she said. ‘Oh, and she’s Dollie. I say, how utterly priceless.’

  We soon arrived at Littleton Cotterell.

  ‘Lunch at the pub?’ asked Lady Hardcastle as we rounded the village green. ‘I telephoned Edna not to expect us until later, so there’s nothing at home.’

  ‘I never say no to one of Old Joe’s pies,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hope Holman had a meat delivery,’ she said. ‘Or we’ll be disappointed again.’

  We weren’t disappointed. Pies were back on the menu, and Daisy seemed unusually pleased to see us.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ I asked as she brought our food and drink to the table. ‘You look like the cat that’s got all the other cats’ cream.’

  ‘What’s that bit from the Bible?’ she asked. ‘The bit about sowing and reaping?’

  ‘“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘That’s the one. And whatsoever a nasty little housemaid soweth, that shall she also reap, an’ all.’

  ‘Has some ill befallen our good friend Dora Kendrick?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll say,’ said Daisy. ‘While you was all off gettin’ blown up and shot at—’

  ‘To be fair,’ interrupted Lady Hardcastle, ‘I was the one doing the shooting.’

  ‘Well, while all that was goin’ on . . . What? You shot someone?’

  ‘With a very tiny gun,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘It was nothing, really.’

  ‘Right,’ said Daisy doubtfully. ‘Well, while you was doin’ that, Dora – she as had been spreadin’ false rumours about me and Lenny Leadbetter – was caught with that very man in her room up at The Grange.’

  ‘“With” him?’ I said.

  ‘In the biblical sense,’ she confirmed. ‘There a’n’t been a scandal like it round y’ere for years. She was sacked on the spot, my name is cleared and my honour restored, and Lenny Leadbetter daren’t show his face. Specially not now half the girls up at The Grange have seen a sight more than just his face.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ I said. ‘And is that my pie?’

  ‘Oh, yes, my lover, sorry. You eat it up afore it gets cold.’

  I’d been waiting for a pie and a pint at the Dog and Duck for weeks. I wasn’t disappointed.

  That night, Inspector Sunderland dropped in to tell us that the Chilean gold had been retrieved.

  ‘Was I right?’ asked Lady Hardcastle eagerly.

  ‘You were exactly right,’ said the inspector. ‘As always. I took a handful of men down to Avonmouth and set them to work checking the crates in Crane’s warehouse. The first sweep found nothing so we had a bit of a think and then had another go. Obviously it would have to pass a cursory inspection, so just prying off the lids and having a look inside was never going to be enough. One of the lads said we should empty them all out, but the part of me that hates waste couldn’t bear the thought of spoiling all that perfectly good coffee by tipping it on the floor. Then it hit me. It should have been obvious all along, really – we talked about it at some length: gold is astonishingly heavy. So I had them go round in pairs. If they could lift the crate between them, it was full of coffee. But if they couldn’t get it off the ground, open it up and search it properly. They found it in no time. There were a couple of inches of beans on a false floor, and below that, thirty shiny gold bars. We were just wrapping things up when who should come bowling in, bold as brass, but James Stansbridge and his two burly minions, so we nabbed them as well.’

  Lady Hardcastle tried her best not to look too smug, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

  The next few weeks passed extremely pleasingly. I wasn’t exceptionally mobile with my broken leg, but Edna and Miss Jones stepped up and I was allowed to rest and recover. I had plenty of time to read the newspaper, too, where Dinah Caudle cemented her reputation as the rightful heir to Christian Brookfield’s crown with a series of ‘exposing the seamy underbelly of our corrupt city’ articles.

  Lady Bickle sent her car on my birthday to take Lady Hardcastle and me to dinner and a show in town. As promised, it was as soppy, trite, and syrupy as any musical ever was and I had the most splendid time. As, almost against her will, did Lady Hardcastle.

  I had become used to being looked after and I wasn’t entirely looking forward to havi
ng the plaster removed – I’d soon have no excuse for sitting down and being waited on. I needn’t have worried. The doctor who removed the plaster cast told me, with – I thought – sadistic glee, that my full rehabilitation would take a long while yet. I wouldn’t return to full fitness for many months, and it would take a great deal of hard work to get me there.

  And speaking of getting places . . . At the end of March, Lord Riddlethorpe arrived, driving quite the most extraordinary motor car the world had ever seen. Long and sleek, like his racing cars, but with a coach-built compartment for driver and passenger to sit in, out of the wind and rain. Best of all, he had fitted an experimental electric starter motor. No more cranking.

  We sold the Rover to Miss Caudle – who had broken off her engagement to Michael and was now walking out with Dr Gosling – and packed our bags for a trip to London to visit Lady Hardcastle’s brother, Harry. I even persuaded her that we should spend a few days at the seaside when the weather was warmer. 1910 wasn’t off to such a bad start, after all.

  Author’s Note

  A little historical background.

  The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst. She felt that the suffragists (the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies – NUWSS) were not militant enough. She split from them with the slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’.

  The WSPU began demonstrations in 1906 and escalated to a campaign of window breaking in 1908. This continued, but their campaign of property damage didn’t extend to arson – always of empty buildings – until July 1912.

  In 1906, Charles E Hands coined the name ‘suffragettes’ in the Daily Mail to distinguish them from the other, less militant, suffragists. It was intended as a belittling term of abuse, but the suffragettes gleefully embraced it.

  In April 1909, the Liberal government under Herbert Asquith put forward ‘The People’s Budget’. It would fund old-age pensions and other welfare programmes by increasing taxes on the wealthy. It was passed by the Commons but, in an unprecedented move, blocked by the Lords.