by Ellis, Kate
When it was over he removed his gown and gloves before giving his verdict.
‘It’s as I expected. Cause of death: a knife wound directly to the heart. He was stabbed once in the chest and the knife slipped between the ribs and hit its mark. The killer used something like a kitchen knife. I estimate that the blade was around eight inches long and an inch wide at the base; pointed with one sharp edge.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s the sort of knife found in kitchens everywhere. Have you any suspects?’
‘It’s early days,’ said Albert noncommittally. ‘I believe his fellow drinkers have been questioned but nobody’s fallen under particular suspicion so far. Wenfield’s a small place, though, so I’m sure it won’t be hard to root out any people he’s offended. Can you tell me anything about his attacker?’
The doctor frowned, took a scalpel and probed the wound, calculating the angle of entry. Eventually he looked up. ‘I’d say his killer was at least as tall as the victim. You can tell by the wound. If he’d been smaller, the weapon would have been thrust upwards – instead it was slightly downwards.’
‘A man?’
‘I’d say so. Some force was used.’ He paused. ‘How’s his wife? Sorry – his widow.’ The question was casual but Albert sensed more than a passing interest in his answer. ‘She’s a patient of mine,’ Kelly said. ‘I’m wondering whether she’ll be needing something to help her sleep or …’
‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Doctor. I’m sure the lady’ll be grateful for any support you can give her.’ In view of her maid’s revelations, Rose Pretting was bound to come under suspicion. Her diminutive stature probably ruled her out as the attacker, but an accomplice might have done it on her behalf. However, this wasn’t something he was inclined to mention just at that moment.
Kelly returned his attention to the corpse. ‘There’s really nothing more I can tell you, Inspector. It’s a straightforward case of murder. A lucky strike after a drunken quarrel would be my guess.’
There was a short silence before Albert spoke again. ‘Actually, there is something I’d like to ask you, Doctor. You examined the body of the Reverend Bell, who died last year.’
‘That’s right.’ Kelly looked uneasy.
‘You said he died of a heart attack.’
‘Man in late middle age, overweight, sudden death.’
‘You didn’t suspect foul play?’
‘I had no reason to at the time.’ The answer sounded a touch defensive.
‘You didn’t consider poison?’
The doctor sighed. ‘You’ve been talking to Mrs Bell, haven’t you? She asked me the same question and I’ll give you the same answer I gave her. No, I didn’t suspect poison at the time. Although …’
‘You did have doubts.’ Up until now, Kelly had been giving him the authorised version. Albert hoped he was going to tell him what he’d really been thinking.
‘A few, I admit. I thought his pupils showed signs of …’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’s true, I did suspect poison, but I was afraid it might have been a case of suicide and I wanted to spare Mrs Bell any distress.’
‘Why would you think of suicide? Did you know of any problem that might have led him to take his own life?’
‘No. But I couldn’t think of anybody here in Wenfield who would want to kill him. He was well loved. Highly thought of by everyone. He tended to take the burdens of others on his shoulders, which can prove a strain for some. Of course I’m not saying he did take his own life. It might have been a tragic accident. Even so, I wasn’t going to risk dragging his good name through the mud.’
‘He was too old to serve in the war.’
‘I know what you’re thinking, Inspector. A lot of men came home with damage that can’t be seen. But, no, in this case you can rule out a delayed reaction to the horrors of the trenches. Bell wasn’t even there.’
‘You served yourself?’
‘In a military hospital on the front. Fresh out of medical school and wet behind the ears. I grew up fast.’
‘The reverend visited somebody on the night he died. Was it you?’
Kelly shook his head. ‘Absolutely not, Inspector. I hadn’t seen him since church the previous Sunday.’
‘If it was poison, what would you say was used?’
The doctor considered the question. ‘Certainly not cyanide. And the symptoms were wrong for arsenic. There are a few possibilities. Morphine, perhaps. There’s plenty of laudanum still around in cupboards all over the country, I imagine, and the appearance of the pupils was consistent with that particular substance.’ He walked over to the cupboard that stood against the far wall. ‘I didn’t conduct a full post-mortem because I didn’t want to distress Mrs Bell, but I did take the precaution of taking a few samples.’
A slow smile spread across Albert’s face. He had been dreading the fuss and explanations involved in obtaining permission to exhume the Reverend Bell’s body, but now it seemed Kelly had relieved him of that burden.
‘I have a friend at Liverpool University, where I studied. I can ask him to take a look at Mr Bell’s samples, if you wish. I’ve already sent him the stomach contents of the man in the cave.’ He grinned. ‘He says I send him the nicest gifts.’
‘If it does turn out that Bell was poisoned and we’re ruling out suicide, that leaves us with two possibilities,’ said Albert. ‘Accident or murder.’
‘I’m well aware of that, Inspector.’
Albert thrust his right hand into his trouser pocket and drew out the little blue bottle he’d found in the empty flat above the stable block at Tarnhey Court. The bottle bearing the skull and crossbones and marked poison. ‘Can you get the contents of this bottle analysed?’
The doctor took it from him. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘I’d rather not say for the time being,’ said Albert before taking his leave.
Chapter 30
On the way back from the hospital, Albert was strongly tempted to pay another visit to Tarnhey Court because he was sure Sir William knew more than he’d admitted about Henry Billinge’s disappearance. However, he decided to call at the police station first to see whether there’d been any new developments. As soon as he walked in, Constable Smith hurried from behind the front desk to meet him.
‘Inspector, there’s someone to see you. A woman. I asked her to wait in your office. I hope that’s all right.’
Albert made straight for his office where he found Grace, the elderly maid from the vicarage, perched on the edge of his visitors’ chair. When she rose to greet him, she looked overwhelmed by her surroundings, but Albert gave her a reassuring smile before inviting her to sit and shutting the door behind him.
‘What can I do for you?’
Grace looked round as though she was afraid of being overheard. ‘I didn’t like to use the telephone at the vicarage, in case … I just wanted to tell you that the reverend’s gone to see the archdeacon and he won’t be back till this evening. Mrs Bell said you’d want to know.’
Albert hadn’t expected Mrs Bell’s plans to come to fruition so quickly. Emboldened by the suspicions Dr Kelly had shared with him about the Reverend Bell’s untimely death, he convinced himself that he wasn’t agreeing to this course of action in order to find his lost son. He was doing it to uncover the truth about a possible murder.
He consulted his pocket watch. It was three o’clock, so they had plenty of time. ‘Thank you. Can you let Mrs Bell know I’ll meet her there in half an hour?’
Grace nodded and made a swift exit from the police station, as though she feared she might be tainted by being in the place where wrongdoers were interrogated and imprisoned.
Albert wasn’t sure whether what he was planning to do was wise. He needed to see inside that study, although he knew Sergeant Teague would be bound to disapprove if he ever found out. He had lost Frederick but there was a chance the vicarage study might contain a clue to the whereabouts of his other son. His and Flora’s. His heart began to beat faster at the prospect, but th
is wasn’t something he could ever share with anybody. Not even Mrs Bell.
Chapter 31
Rose
I lie on my bed at three in the afternoon, reading, because there is nobody to chastise me for my idleness. I answer to nobody apart from my Darling Man, but he says we should not meet for a while, so all I have is my books. My stories of love and triumph.
The police found money in the bureau; a lot of money – over two hundred pounds in a brown envelope. Sergeant Teague asked me where it came from and I told him the truth: I didn’t know.
I slide off the bed and look at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are brighter and I cannot help smiling at my new self. I cup my breasts in my hands and turn this way and that. I am beautiful and now my body is mine to do with as I please. He cannot touch me any more because he’s dead. I am proud of the act I put on in the mortuary. A star of the moving pictures couldn’t have done better.
I gather my books up and go downstairs to put them in my basket, smiling as I go. But I must wipe the smile from my face when I step beyond the front door. I am a recent widow, wearing black. I rub my eyes with my knuckles to make it look as though I’ve been crying. Everyone I meet will feel sorry for me. Even in the library, my safest place, nobody must guess how joyful I am.
As I open the front door Betty comes out of the parlour, a duster in her hand. She says nothing but looks at me with those sly eyes of hers. I am so tempted to give her notice, but they say that servants are hard to come by since the war.
Chapter 32
‘Even if your husband was poisoned, as you suspect, surely you can’t think the Reverend Fellowes had anything to do with it?’
Now Albert was standing beside Mrs Bell and Grace outside the study door in the vicarage he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of what they planned to do. He was a detective from Scotland Yard sent there specifically to deal with the case of a missing, possibly murdered, Member of Parliament. He wondered whether he would have been so keen to take Mrs Bell’s suspicions seriously if they hadn’t offered him the possibility of making his own, more personal, investigation.
Grace passed Albert the key and he opened the front door, hoping they weren’t being watched by curious eyes. He allowed the two women to enter the hall before him and waited. Grace nodded towards the study door to his left; polished mahogany and sturdy as the tree from which it was made. Albert fumbled in his jacket pocket and took out the tools he always kept with him for such occasions. He’d used them many times in the course of his police career to break into anything from thieves’ dens filled with stolen goods to locked Mayfair rooms where a body had lain rotting until the wealthy neighbours could no longer bear the smell. He’d never before had occasion to use them in a country vicarage.
He put the thin instrument into the lock and manoeuvred it until he heard a satisfying click. The door opened smoothly and he entered the study, the two women following.
‘It doesn’t seem to have changed much since Horace’s day,’ said Mrs Bell. She sounded slightly disappointed.
Albert paused, wondering where to begin. He was supposed to be searching for anything that might tell him who Bell visited on the night he died. A note, perhaps. Or a letter. Or an entry in an old diary. He took a deep breath and started on the desk drawers. As soon as he opened the top drawer he found the leather-bound diary for the previous year. He took it out and handed it to Mrs Bell.
‘This is the one he wrote all his appointments in,’ she said, flicking through the pages. Then she stopped and passed the open diary back to Albert. ‘There’s nothing for that day. Wherever he went, he didn’t write it down.’
‘If I can look through his correspondence, I might find something there.’
‘He kept everything in that big cupboard,’ she said, pointing to a monumental cupboard that occupied one wall of the room. ‘He was always very organised. Everything in date order.’
Albert opened the cupboard door and took out a cardboard file dated the previous September, the month of the Reverend Bell’s death. But when he searched through the correspondence he found nothing requesting a meeting on that particular evening. And certainly no letter with a photograph enclosed.
‘Perhaps he received a telephone call,’ Albert suggested.
The two women exchanged looks.
‘I don’t remember any call,’ said Mrs Bell. ‘In fact I’m sure the telephone didn’t ring that night, and I know nobody called at the door. But I definitely remember the letter – it came in the late post.’
‘Did the reverend take his bicycle when he went out?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Mrs Bell, looking at Grace enquiringly.
‘As I recall, I heard the shed door opening. It needs oiling, so it creaks something awful. You were in the parlour at the back of the house, ma’am, so you wouldn’t have heard. But I can’t be sure. I wish I’d paid more attention.’
‘Neither of us was paying much attention,’ said Mrs Bell, putting a comforting hand on Grace’s sleeve. ‘How were we to know at the time it might be important?’
Albert returned to the desk. Ignoring the top drawer where he’d found the diaries, he opened the other drawers and examined the contents with dawning realisation. No wonder the Reverend Fellowes hadn’t wanted anybody to enter his study. Three drawers were crammed with photographs of women in various stages of undress. Albert had seen a lot worse in his time, but in a small place like Wenfield such photographs would cause quite a scandal if they were discovered.
He looked up and saw the two women watching him expectantly. He smiled at them and shut the drawer. The reverend was entitled to his private vices. ‘Nothing in there. I’ll have another look through the files in the cupboard, if I may. The person whose letter arrived on the day the Reverend Bell passed away might have written to him earlier. I’d feel more comfortable if someone kept watch in case the reverend’s meeting finishes early. Perhaps you could guard the back door, Grace, while you station yourself at the drawing-room window, Mrs Bell.’
The women nodded conspiratorially and left the room. As soon as he was alone, Albert went to the cupboard, selected the files for the appropriate dates and took them over to the desk. The information he wanted had to be in there somewhere.
Giving silent thanks for Bell’s meticulous filing system, he flicked through the papers. Minutes of parish meetings. Letters from charities. Correspondence from the headmaster of the village school. Personal letters from parishioners. As he searched, he began to despair of ever finding what he was looking for.
Then he found it. A letter dated late February 1920 from a woman called Charlotte Day (Mrs) assuring Mr Bell that the little one had settled in well, in spite of his unfortunate start in life, and was thriving under the care of his nurse-maid. Albert’s hands shook as he took the letter from the file. It was on expensive notepaper and the writing was well formed, an educated hand. As he reread the letter he caught a slight whiff of perfume. Mrs Day ended by thanking Bell for what he’d done and saying she was enclosing a contribution to the work of the church.
Albert read the letter again before putting it in his pocket. The Reverend Fellowes was hardly likely to miss it and it might be his only opportunity.
He replaced the 1920 file and went through the more recent correspondence for any clue to who Bell had met on the night he died. The fact that he might have taken his bicycle widened the field slightly, but as he examined the contents of the files, the truth about Bell’s death seemed as elusive as ever. Try as he might, he couldn’t find even the smallest clue and he knew he was going to have to disappoint Mrs Bell.
But his visit to the vicarage hadn’t been in vain: he now had a name and an address. As he locked the study door behind him, he wondered whether Charlotte Day would have the answer to the question that had tormented him for the past eighteen months – and whether he would ever be able to summon the courage to approach her.
Chapter 33
Rose
How hard it is to pass th
e building and know that my Darling Man is inside but we cannot yet be together. Especially now we are both free to live and love as we choose. I recall that line in the final chapter of the book I’ve just been reading – The Scarlet Maiden by Gloria Phipps. Rowena, the heroine, escapes from her wicked stepfather and, when she meets the young viscount who has waited so patiently for her, she says those very words – free to live and love as we choose. I think they’re the most beautiful words I’ve ever read.
I had an appointment with Mr Jennings, the solicitor in the High Street earlier. He told me that, according to Bert’s will, I inherit everything and will not have to worry about money in the future. There was a large life insurance policy and with the house and what he inherited from his father, I am now a wealthy widow. Well, not exactly wealthy, but certainly comfortably off. Then there’s the money in the envelope the police found. I suppose that’s mine too – although I’ve no idea where it came from.
Betty says one of Bert’s colleagues from the mill called to express his condolences while I was out. He says he’ll call again, so I’ll have to play the grieving widow. My aunty always said I should have gone on the stage.
How time drags. I have finished The Scarlet Maiden and The Duchess’s Valentine, so I need to visit the library again for more romance to feed my appetite until I can experience the real thing.
As I climb the stairs I can hear Betty singing to herself while she cleans the bathroom I insisted Bert had put in so I could enjoy all the modern conveniences. Sometimes Bert could be generous – if it made him look as if he was going up in the world. She’s singing ‘Pack up your Troubles’ and she sounds more cheerful than usual. Perhaps she’s glad Bert’s no longer with us too.