“So, what was this again, about my Davey?” asked Mrs Bailey, once she had fortified herself with a gulp of hot, sweet tea.
Caroline noted the use of the word ‘my’. Billy was right. Mrs Bailey had claimed possession of Davey.
“Constable Rigsby felt that I might be able to help Davey overcome his speech impediment.”
Mrs Bailey looked suspicious once more. “How?” she asked bluntly. “Because I have to say, I have a sister who is tongue-tied, and no doctor has ever offered to help her.”
Caroline decided to be cautious. “Well, not every case is suitable for surgery. I would have to examine your sister, to see what might be done… as, indeed, I don’t know whether I can help Davey, until I examine him. But if he is a suitable candidate, the surgery is very simple and quick. There shouldn’t be any risk.”
“And if you performed this surgery, what would be the outcome for Davey?”
“Very good. He should be able to speak normally after a period of healing. That, I’m sure, would make his life so much better.” Caroline tried to sound encouraging.
“No.”
Caroline was shocked and then outraged. “Mrs Bailey, I don’t think you have the right to deny the boy the possibility of a decent life!”
Mrs Bailey’s mouth was set firm. “I don’t have the right to condemn him to certain death either.”
Caroline was confused. “I don’t understand…”
“Then let me explain, Doctor.” Mrs Bailey’s eyes were gleaming with determination. “My other sister has just lost her boy. Sixteen years of age. He was an apprentice stoker on a merchant ship called the Bayano. It was sunk off the Scottish coast by a German U-boat in March. Two hundred crew died. My sister is beside herself with grief. She doesn’t even have the body of her son, to bury him.”
“I still don’t understand.” Caroline couldn’t see where Mrs Bailey was leading.
“I don’t want to stop Davey from having a normal life, Doctor,” – the tears had begun to form in her eyes – “but the way he is at the moment – a dummy who can’t speak properly, nor read or write – the Army won’t have him, neither will the Navy. As long as he is the way that he is… he’s safe.”
Caroline finally understood. There was a silence while she thought.
“I’ll make a bargain with you, Mrs Bailey,” she finally said, softly. “When this war is over, you bring Davey to me, and we’ll give him his voice back.”
Mrs Bailey smiled through her tears and nodded. “Yes, Doctor. It’s a deal. When this war is over, Davey and me will come and find you.”
CHAPTER NINE
It’s All in the Book
Beech eyed the surly individual in front of him. Reginald Ingham had just been brought into the Yard by Tollman and Billy Rigsby. It had taken Beech all morning, wading through Scotland Yard’s finest tiers of bureaucracy, to obtain a warrant to search Ingham’s premises and he was not in a mood to be trifled with.
“So…” – Beech was leafing through a file filled with Ingham’s previous convictions – “It looks as though, this time, you are facing the hangman rather than another spell in prison.”
Ingham shook his head vehemently. “I’m not a murderer! You can’t pin that woman’s death on me!”
“Then who is responsible, Ingham? It appears that you were the last person to visit Adeline Treborne. You were seen and heard by the neighbours. You stayed about fifteen minutes – plenty of time to have killed her. How did you kill her, by the way?” Very few people outside of his team knew how Adeline Treborne had been found and he thought he would test Ingham, to see if he knew the method of death.
Ingham looked confused. “Look, Chief Inspector, I didn’t kill the woman! I’m not capable of doing such a thing! Look at my record! I’m a confidence trickster… I con women out of money… I don’t kill and have never killed anyone.”
“There’s always a first time for everything,” commented Tollman, who was taking notes in the corner.
“Quite,” agreed Beech. “So why, exactly, were you visiting Miss Treborne, Ingham? Was it to extract money from her?”
Ingham gave a small mirthless laugh. “You’ve got it all wrong, Chief Inspector. I wasn’t trying to get money out of her. She was extracting money from me. She was blackmailing me… and a few others.”
Tollman and Rigsby looked at each other in surprise. As startled as he was by this news, Beech calmly asked Ingham to explain more fully.
Ingham began his tale. “She had found out, somehow, what my business was, and she came to me, about six months ago, and said that if I didn’t pay her ten pounds a month, she would tip off the police. So, I paid her. What else could I do? But ten pounds is a lot of money, Chief Inspector. I’m lucky if I make thirty pounds a month and my rent is five. It put a lot of pressure on me.”
“I can understand that.” Beech was sympathetic. “So, perhaps you felt that the sensible thing to do was get rid of your blackmailer, once and for all.”
“No!” Ingham was exasperated. “Look, I didn’t kill her! I went to see her to ask if she could let me off that month’s payment. Business hadn’t been so good. I needed a breather. She wasn’t having it. She laughed at me and waved her bloody great book at me and said, ‘Hard luck, Major. Everyone else has to pay up. I don’t make exceptions.’ I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I left.”
“Wait. You said a book… she waved her bloody great book at you?”
“Yes. Big brown book. Like an accounts ledger.”
“Where did she produce this book from? A cupboard, drawer, handbag?”
Ingham struggled to remember. “I think it was just on the table… I don’t know. Maybe she’d been looking at it when she let me in.”
“Right,” said Beech, rising. “We are now going to search Miss Treborne’s apartment and we have a warrant to search yours. If we find that book in your rooms, we will assume that you killed her and took it…”
“You won’t find it in my place!” Ingham was insistent. “I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t take her book. I swear on my life.”
“Tollman, take him back to his cell and then meet me outside. Rigsby, come with me.” Beech gave Ingham a final warning look and then left the room, with Billy in tow.
“You’ve got to speak to your guv’nor, Sergeant Tollman.” Ingham was desperate now. “You’ve known me a long time. You know that I have never been involved in any violence. You know that!”
“Like I said before, there’s always a first time. Particularly if a man is desperate enough.”
***
Victoria and Lady Maud were exhausted. Reading letter after letter, cataloguing the terrible spite of Adeline Treborne, had been draining.
“I cannot understand why the girl did such a thing,” commented Maud. “I mean, to set oneself outside the bounds of decent society by betraying all their secrets… well, it is beyond my comprehension.”
Victoria was puzzled and had been since they started work on this case. There was just something that didn’t add up. “Mother,” she said, “have you ever been to a function where Adeline Treborne was present?”
“Good Lord, no! Well, at least not to my knowledge. Surely no one would invite her to their private functions, would they?”
“Well, exactly! She may have gone to parties and balls in the early days, before people realised what a snake she was, but not once she started the newspaper column. Besides, her maid, Lily, said that Adeline never went anywhere. And that she was very lonely and had almost no visitors. So, how was she getting her information? I mean, some of this stuff…” – she waved a handful of letters – “… is very specific. Information about divorces that were being kept secret – not something that would have been chatted about at a party… I mean, this one, here…” – Victoria rummaged among the letters and found the one she was looking for – “… which is
a letter from a young woman’s sister complaining about a private conversation that had been reported by Adeline. This,” Victoria tapped the letter with her finger to emphasise the point, “is not something that she would have overheard at a party. This is about two people talking in the privacy of a bedroom.”
“It has to be servants, Victoria,” Maud said simply. “There’s no other explanation for it. People of our class know that we should not have conversations in front of servants but so many of us forget. We are so used to having servants floating around in the background that we forget they are there. It’s the only possible explanation.”
“I agree with you. But there is still something that does not add up. There is no evidence that Adeline Treborne met with any servants. How would she do that anyway? She could hardly loiter around the servants’ entrance of every large house in London, could she?”
“I suppose not,” Maud agreed. “I don’t know. Is there some place that servants go? Like a social club or something?”
“Maybe we should ask Mrs Beddowes and Mary. Perhaps they can shed some light on the matter.”
Down in the kitchen Mrs Beddowes was baking and prevailed upon Victoria and Lady Maud to sit and partake of warm scones, homemade jam and cream. “Cream is getting scarce now, milady. Apparently, they’re mixing the cream in with the milk now and then turning it into evaporated milk for the troops.”
“Perhaps we should get a couple of cows for the end field in the country house,” said Maud, trying not to speak with her mouth full. “I’ll look into it. Although I somehow can’t see William coping with cows at his age,” she added, referring to her elderly coachman back in Berkshire.
Mary poured some tea and Victoria asked, “Mrs Beddowes… Mary… is there any sort of social club that servants in London go to? You know, somewhere where they could gather and chat, on their days off?”
Mrs Beddowes and Mary shook their heads.
“No, Miss Victoria, I’ve not heard of anything like that,” Mrs Beddowes said. Then she said thoughtfully, “Mind you, some of the footmen and valets used to go to the Workers’ Educational Association for classes… the ones who wanted to better themselves, like. But I don’t know if that’s still running, what with the war and everything. Oh… Mary, what was that thing you heard about… from Annie at number thirty-two?”
“Oh yes! Some woman had persuaded some of the households in Mayfair and Knightsbridge to send their parlour maids and ladies’ maids to a sewing circle once a week. Annie said she wanted to go but it’s not for kitchen staff, only upstairs staff. It didn’t cost anything, Annie said. One of their parlour maids went and she said it was lovely. You got tea and cakes and a chat and they only did a little bit of sewing.”
“Interesting,” said Victoria. “Mary, do you think you could find out a bit more about it for me? Like where they meet and who runs it?”
“Yes, Miss. I’ll have a chat to Annie this afternoon, when Lady Donaldson is having her nap. It’s usually quiet in the kitchen then for about an hour.”
“Good girl! And come and tell me all about it, straight away.”
“Yes, Miss.”
***
Tollman had found a large cache of, seemingly, unused handbags in the top of Adeline Treborne’s wardrobe. They were all lined up in an immaculate row. Some were large and capacious and some were small and bejewelled. All in pristine condition and, to Tollman’s eye, representing a sizeable amount of money. He tutted and sighed, before dragging over a chair to stand on, to enable a more thorough examination.
He began to open them, one by one, and then, in one of the oversized bags, he came upon the large brown accounting book, as Ingham had described. As Tollman’s fingers closed around it, his heart sank.
“I have found this book, sir,” he said in a glum voice, “but it looks as though we are too late.”
Beech, Tollman and Rigsby stared at the book in despair. They had been searching for nearly an hour, only to find that someone had got there before them.
Tollman laid the book down carefully on the living room table and switched on a lamp to illuminate the blank page.
“Billy,” he said quietly, “go down and see the boot boy and borrow some of his blacking and a soft rag for me.”
Rigsby nodded and left. Beech understood the possibility that was forming in Tollman’s mind.
“Do you think there might be an impression, Tollman?” he asked hopefully.
Tollman ran his fingers lightly over the top blank page. “I think I can feel something, sir.”
When Rigsby returned, he and Beech stood, almost holding their breath while Tollman deftly smeared a light coating of boot blacking over the page. Magically, words and numbers began to appear and Beech murmured “Good man!” in relief.
They peered at the book and Tollman tried to decipher the impression of Adeline Treborne’s erratic handwriting.
“Make notes, Billy,” he said, then he read out loud, “top line looks like – capital letter S, small letter r – looks like a space then capitals A, J, M full stop P … thirty pounds. Second line is capital A, small m… space, then the whole word… wife… then space, capital Q and capital C… thirty pounds. Third line is capital M small j small r… ah, I think this is the ‘Major’… ten pounds.”
On Tollman went, reciting what he could see on the page, with Billy carefully writing down every instruction until he ended up with a list that almost perfectly matched the scribble revealed by boot blacking.
It read:
Sr AJM.P£30
Am wife QC£30
Mjr£10
Kit B, Peachtree£10
SR M jew£30
Ruth B baby£10
“One hundred and twenty pounds!” Beech was staggered. “If this is just one month’s extortion fees, then Adeline Treborne was a very rich woman indeed. And most hated by this list of people.”
“This might not be the full list,” commented Tollman. “I could only get what was written on the last page. There could have been more people she blackmailed but we won’t know until we find the missing pages.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of money,” said Billy with feeling. “She was collecting, in one month, far more than I earn in a year.”
Tollman tapped Billy’s list. “It’s these three that interest me the most. The ones who were paying thirty pounds a month. You have to be very wealthy to be able to afford three hundred and sixty pounds a year in blackmail fees.”
Beech decided that the team needed to put their heads together to decipher the list and come up with some ideas. Meanwhile, he would visit Adeline Treborne’s bank and ascertain just how much money the dead blackmailer was worth, while Tollman and Rigsby combed through everything in Ingham’s apartment to make sure that he wasn’t the one who had taken the missing pages from the book.
Billy opened a drawer in Ingham’s bedroom and said in disgust, “I can’t stand this!”
“Pornography?” asked Tollman, busying himself with searching in the bedroom.
“No. Pictures of half dead and dying horses.” Billy curled his lip.
“Ah,” said Tollman, giving them a cursory glance and pulling a face, “Ingham used these to wring money out of his little old ladies. Nothing like a distressed animal to get the womenfolk to part with their money. My wife used to singlehandedly support Battersea Dogs Home. I think they were more distressed than her family when she died.”
“How did he get hold of these? They look as though they were taken at the Front.” Billy was annoyed.
“Son,” said Tollman, taking the pictures from Billy and putting them back in the drawer. “Concentrate on what’s important. We haven’t got time to worry about dead horse pictures. Have you searched all this room?”
“Yes, Mr Tollman.”
“Looked behind all the drawers… under the mattress… under the rug?”
“Yes, Mr Tollman.”
“Good lad. Well, there isn’t anything here. Let’s get back to Lady Maud’s and have a nice cup of tea and sort out the evidence so far, shall we?”
***
“At the moment, we have two suspects – Ingham, aka The Major, and the Duke of Penhere,” Beech said. “And yet,” he continued, “neither of them really fits the bill.”
“The problem we have, Peter,” chipped in Caroline, “is that we seem to have two separate actions. The death from drug overdose and the fake suicide from hanging. It’s difficult to attribute both to one person but then, if the drug overdose was an accident on the part of Adeline Treborne and someone arrived in the early morning, with the intent to kill her, why bother to string her up? She must have already been dead!”
“Yes, I know. But someone obviously hung her up at six o’clock in the morning, because that was when the dislodging of the gas pipe cut off the gas in the apartment above.”
“And her body was still swinging when the maid arrived at six thirty,” added Victoria. “Obviously, she had only just been hung up and someone had been in and out very quickly that morning.”
“I have a problem with Ingham being our murderer, sir,” offered Tollman.
Billy added, “Me too, sir. He’s not fit enough to lift the dead weight of a body up to ceiling height. He looks a flabby beggar to me.”
“And I’m sure the Duke of Penhere will have servants who can attest to serving him breakfast at the very time of the ‘hanging’,” offered Victoria.
Beech exhaled loudly in frustration. “Let’s turn our attention to this blackmail list, shall we? By the way, according to Adeline Treborne’s bank manager, the worth of her bank account was a staggering three thousand pounds.”
Billy whistled, and the others murmured disbelief.
“And that was despite the expensive rent on the apartment and her endless shopping for clothes and accessories,” Caroline reminded everyone.
A Death in Chelsea Page 9