A Death in Chelsea

by Lynn Brittney

  Victoria and Maud swept down upon Billy as he was fetching coal into the kitchen for Mrs Beddowes.

  “Billy, we need a word,” said Victoria conspiratorially.

  “Come up to the study, when you’re finished,” said Lady Maud.

  Billy washed his hands and duly presented himself upstairs. Victoria explained their suspicions about the female servants’ sewing circle.

  “We need someone to infiltrate the organisation,” said Lady Maud, relishing her part in the planning of the operation.

  “Do you think your excellent Aunt Sissy would help?” asked Victoria.

  Billy shook his head ruefully. “Sorry, ladies, but my Aunt Sissy can’t thread a needle to save her life. Sewing is just not her forte, as it were. She leaves all that to my mum.”

  “Well… what about your mother, then? Would she help us?” Victoria persisted hopefully.

  Billy screwed up his face into an expression of doubt. “I could ask her…” he said tentatively, “but don’t get your hopes up.”

  Billy was duly despatched – without delay – to telephone his mother and was astonished to find her eager and willing to play her part. He suspected that Sissy had been boasting about her day with Caroline and Mabel and this had made his mother a little jealous. He heard her say to Sissy, while she was still on the telephone, “Ooh, now I’m being asked to help!” with a note of excitement in her voice. Not only that, but she was being invited to come and have tea with Lady Maud and Victoria to discuss the matter.

  “Oh, and Ma,” Billy added before he put the receiver down, “come to the front door, please, and not the kitchen entrance. You’re not being interviewed for a position.”

  At three o’clock, a breathless Elsie Rigsby, in her best hat and coat, rang the front doorbell of Lady Maud’s Mayfair house and was astonished to find the front door being answered by Victoria herself.

  “Mrs Rigsby!” she said, extending her hand, “I’m Victoria Ellingham. Do come in! Billy has told us so much about you!”

  “Ooh, how do you do, Miss. I wasn’t expecting you to answer the door.”

  “Ah, well, you will learn that we are very informal in this house. Mother did not bring her butler with her to London, so whomever happens to be nearest to the door when the bell rings, answers it! I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

  Elsie was ushered into the drawing room and the presence of Lady Maud, who greeted her as though she were a long lost relative. “Mrs Rigsby! We are so delighted that you could come to see us! We have lots to talk about, don’t we, Victoria? Sit down, sit down. Let us take your coat and make you comfortable. We have one of Mrs Beddowes’s best cream teas on the table here and we shan’t be disturbed.” Maud was determined to charm Elsie Rigsby into submission at all costs.

  “No Billy?” asked Elsie, looking around.

  “No, I’m afraid he’s been summoned out on a job, by Mr Beech,” explained Victoria. “But he said to us that he was sure you were capable of making your own mind up about our suggestion and didn’t need any help from him.”

  “Sounds like Billy,” Elsie chuckled as she accepted a cup of tea. “Now, Your Ladyship… Miss Victoria… how can I help you?”

  ***

  Tollman and Rigsby, dressed casually, like a father and son out on the town for the afternoon, met with Beech at a café at the top of Whitehall, near Parliament Square.

  “When I interviewed Sir Anthony this morning,” he explained quietly, “I was convinced that, even though he said he did not know Adeline Treborne and the thought of him being a blackmail victim was ridiculous, he was lying. I may not have your instincts, Tollman, but I definitely felt that he was hiding something.”

  “Mm.” Tollman nodded and said cynically, “I’m surprised we’ve only got one MP on the list. In my experience, at least half the House of Commons and two-thirds of the House of Lords are taking bribes, keeping mistresses, visiting prostitutes or generally involved in mucky business.”

  Billy grinned and even Beech managed a small smile. “I think that’s a rather sweeping generalisation, but I take your point. Anyway,” Beech continued, “I have instructed the duty policeman to give us a signal when Sir Anthony leaves so that you can both follow him, and I will discreetly follow you. He knows what I look like, so it will be up to you two to handle the close observation work.”

  Tollman nodded. “Leave it to us, sir.”

  Rigsby and Tollman took up position opposite the side gates to the Houses of Parliament. Beech stood to one side, immersed in a newspaper and occasionally glancing at the duty policeman. Finally, he was rewarded with a one-finger salute to the helmet, which signalled that Sir Anthony was about to exit the gates. Beech nodded to Tollman and Rigsby and they casually crossed the road to be closer to their target.

  Sir Anthony seemed distracted when he came out and he immediately turned on to Parliament Square and hailed a taxicab. Tollman and Rigsby sprinted across the square and hailed another one, which slowed to pick up Beech as it turned into Whitehall.

  “The driver has been instructed to follow the vehicle in front,” murmured Tollman.

  “It will be interesting to see where this leads us,” muttered Beech, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  The traffic was slow as it went around the bottleneck of Trafalgar Square and Sir Anthony’s cab led them up the Strand, into Fleet Street and towards St Paul’s.

  “Heading to the City of London?” ventured Tollman, but then they found themselves being led away from the City, past the Tower of London and into the grimy world of the riverside docks and wharves of Limehouse.

  Sir Anthony’s taxicab seemed to be slowing down and Tollman quickly instructed Billy to get out and follow him on foot, while Tollman and Beech carried on beyond the now stationary vehicle and turned a corner before alighting. Tollman pulled Beech into a dank alley, just as Sir Anthony rounded the corner, hurrying past, looking neither to left nor right. Billy sauntered past about one minute later, tipping his hat at Tollman to signal that he knew they were there.

  “Stay with me, sir,” muttered Tollman, “this is a very rough part of town,” and they slipped out into the street to follow the tall figure of Rigsby in the distance.

  Beech looked around. The street was filled on either side with dark, towering warehouses. The wind then hit them sideways on, as they crossed a bridge over the wharf and became exposed to the open river. In the wharf and all along the river, as far as the eye could see, were ships tied up, their cargoes disgorging on to the docks and into the warehouses. Customs men with clipboards were checking the consignments; other dockers were loading cargoes on to canal barges that were tied up two and three abreast, ready to transport the goods up the canal system that fed into the Limehouse Basin. So many of the men working on the ships were testament to Britain’s vast empire – Lascars, Chinese, Indians, Africans.

  There were men lounging in doorways, looking with suspicion at any stranger that passed. Women were hanging out washing on lines strung between the buildings and operated by pulleys fixed by the side of windows. The odour of strange food cooking, with foreign spices, lingered in the air. Grubby children played on the greasy cobbles with pieces of rope and other rubbish that came from some of the many ships moored along the Thames.

  Up ahead, Billy had ducked into a doorway and they could see that Sir Anthony was entering one of the large merchants’ houses that ranged along the river, next to offices that bore the name Chen Shipping Company. Once he was in the house, Beech and Tollman ran up to join Billy. He had chosen a vantage point in the shadows of a warehouse doorway, which was partly obscured by a horse and cart but gave a full view into the window of the house that Sir Anthony had entered. They were rewarded with the sight of the member of parliament clasping a young man, who looked Chinese, in an embrace.

  “Aye, aye,” murmured Tollman, “looks like a secret boyfriend…”

>   But then, to their confusion, a Chinese woman, exquisitely dressed, entered the room and Sir Anthony gave her a lingering kiss.

  “A girlfriend as well?” Billy asked in a whisper.

  “Gentlemen,” said Beech, with a note of triumph in his voice, “I think it is time that we asked Sir Anthony Jarvis to reveal his secrets, don’t you?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Man Gone Native

  Sir Anthony Jarvis’s face was a picture of dismay when he was confronted by Beech, Tollman and Rigsby. The Chinese woman and young man looked confused.

  “I think it is time for the truth, Sir Anthony,” said Beech firmly. “We are, after all, conducting a murder enquiry.”

  The Chinese woman gasped and swayed, as the young man rushed to her side and helped her to a chair.

  “Anthony, what is this?” she asked in perfect English.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he answered, “I have not been entirely honest with you.” Then he turned back to the policemen and said, “I will answer all your questions, of course, but may I first introduce my wife, Mei Li, and our son, Harold.”

  There was a stunned silence from the policemen. This was not what they had been expecting.

  “Sorry, Sir Anthony… this lady is your legal wife?” Beech, alone, understood the implications of a knighted member of parliament being married to a Chinese wife. Social death and resignation would be on the cards if the information became common knowledge.

  “And has been my wife for a very long time, Chief Inspector,” said Sir Anthony defiantly. “My son was born in wedlock and he is now twenty-seven years old.”

  Billy looked at the son, standing by his mother. He was tall and powerfully built and he looked angry.

  “And this was why Adeline Treborne was blackmailing you?” Beech asked.

  “What?!” Harold Jarvis looked as though he was about to explode, and his mother looked even more distressed. It was obvious that Sir Anthony had neglected to tell his family about the Treborne problem.

  Sir Anthony looked miserable. “I’m so sorry…” he said plaintively, “I didn’t want to worry you…”

  “Worry us?!” The son advanced on his father angrily. “It’s not enough that we have to hide away in this foul area, where my mother cannot walk the streets without an escort; or that I had to be sent away to school under an assumed name, but now you tell me that you were being blackmailed because of us? And you allowed this to happen because of what? Your precious knighthood? Your reputation? Your career as a member of parliament?”

  “Harold, be quiet!” Mei Li found her voice and she was also angry. She stood and faced Beech. “My son finds it hard to accept the situation, Chief Inspector. He was not raised in Hong Kong, where the rules of colonial society dictate social and financial ruin if a man ‘goes native’ and marries a Chinese woman. If Anthony had chosen to take me as his mistress, no one would have thought anything about it. Such a practice is commonplace among British government officials in Hong Kong. But Anthony chose to marry me, in secret, so that I would never suffer the shame of bearing him a child out of wedlock.”

  “That does not excuse what has happened now!” protested the son.

  “No, you are right,” the mother said calmly, “but your father has important work to do and the British Empire is at war. Now is not the time for good men to be lost to government because of the actions of some spiteful and greedy woman.”

  Beech was impressed by the beauty and quiet dignity of the woman in front of him and he felt a sense of shame that she was forced to be kept hidden because of the narrow-mindedness of society.

  “I understand that you had everything to lose – your position, your title, perhaps your money.” Beech tried to be sympathetic, but he disliked the idea that Sir Anthony had sacrificed his family for his own self-preservation. “But I’m afraid that this gives you a very solid motive to murder Adeline Treborne.”

  “No!” Sir Anthony was outraged. “Whatever else you think of me, Chief Inspector, I am no murderer! I assume, from what you said earlier today, that this woman was murdered in her home. Well, I have – had – no idea where the woman lived. She came to see me at the Houses of Parliament, pretending to be a constituent. She told me what she knew about me, then she told me her financial terms and I was told to pay a certain sum into her bank account every month. Failure to do so would result in my family being exposed…”

  “You took money out of our business to pay this woman?” The son’s anger was refuelled by this thought.

  “No! Harold, I would never do that! The business is in your mother’s name. It is your business. The money came from my personal account.” Sir Anthony turned back to Beech. “I never knew where the Treborne woman lived and I would never have killed her. As you must realise by now, I am not a man of courage.” The son and the wife bowed their heads in shame at this statement, which they knew to be true.

  “Where were you, Sir Anthony, on the night of the first of July and the morning of the second? The truth this time, please.” Beech needed to go through the formalities.

  “I can answer that,” said the son. “He was here. It was my birthday and he came to celebrate with us.”

  Beech nodded and motioned to Tollman and Rigsby that they were done. The son followed them to the door to show them out. Beech looked back at the wife, who was seated once more, and he could see that Sir Anthony was now on his knees, presumably begging forgiveness. The son followed Beech’s gaze and his lip curled.

  “My father may lack courage, but I do not. If I had known about all of this, I would have killed the woman myself,” he said menacingly. Then he closed the door behind them.

  “Mr Beech! Look.” Tollman had wandered down the side of the house and was pointing at the river frontage, where some repair work was being done on a terrace overlooking the river.

  “I’m willing to bet those men are using waterproof cement,” he observed with a grim nod.

  ***

  The team meeting after dinner included Lady Maud briefly, as she was anxious to contribute to the gathering of information. Victoria explained that they had discovered this sewing circle, operating from a church hall at Hyde Park Corner, which they suspected might be a method by which some woman was obtaining pieces of scurrilous gossip about wealthy families. It would be meeting in two days’ time.

  “It may not be linked to the Treborne case, but it would be wise for us to investigate,” she added.

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Beech asked, trying to suppress a smile because he could see that Maud was desperate to explain the plan.

  “Mother?” Victoria wisely offered the floor to Maud before she exploded with pent-up enthusiasm.

  “Yes, well, Victoria and I have enlisted the help of Constable Rigsby’s mother.” Caroline and Tollman grinned at Billy, who shrugged and grinned back. “Elsie Rigsby has agreed to play the part of my lady’s maid… someone who is widowed and has come back into service and I have taken her on because one simply can’t get young maids any more – they all want to go and work in munitions or some such better paid occupation.” Maud was relishing the story she and Billy’s mother had woven between them. “I have agreed that Elsie can gossip about me as much as she likes…”

  “Whatever is she going to say about you, Maud?” asked Caroline in amusement.

  “Well, the first thing we decided upon was that I have a drinking problem. I am a complete lush!”

  Everyone laughed, and Victoria murmured, “It’s true, it’s true.”

  “Then Elsie pointed out that being a drunk was not really blackmailable, otherwise most of the women in Mayfair would be paying extortion money to someone, so we came up with kleptomania…”

  “What?!” Beech was alarmed. “I do hope that if this person is anything to do with the Treborne woman, that it doesn’t end up in the newspapers before we have a c
hance to arrest her! Otherwise your reputation will be ruined for ever, Maud!”

  “Oh, I’m not too worried, Peter,” Lady Maud said breezily. “I’m sure you’ll leap in before things get out of hand. Besides, Elsie’s only going to suggest that I am a little light-fingered when it comes to insignificant items in department stores. It is rumoured that Queen Mary suffers from the same condition, you know, so I shall be in good company.”

  Caroline was laughing so much that tears were coming into her eyes, while Billy suffered an unexplained bout of coughing and Tollman had to slap him on the back.

  “Well, I must be off now,” said Maud, quite oblivious to her effect on the assembled company. “I decided to visit Ida Toller-Bridge this evening for a game of cards. Ever since reading her daughter’s letter, which highlighted her mother’s distress at being shunned by society, I realised that I have been remiss in offering some companionship. I shan’t breathe a word about the letter or her divorce or anything. She seemed so grateful when I telephoned today, and it made me quite ashamed at my neglect.”

  Victoria kissed her mother’s cheek. “Have a nice evening, Ma,” she said fondly.

  When Lady Maud had left, there was a universal sentiment expressed that she was, in Billy’s words, ‘a diamond’, and Victoria felt quite proud.

  The conversation turned to the Treborne case. Beech felt that they had made no further progress other than to add two more murder suspects to the list.

  “We have no way of proving, at the moment, that Sir Anthony and his son have a cast iron alibi, as they are both vouching for each other on the night in question.”

  “The son looks very strong,” commented Billy, “and he has a fierce temper. He could easily have lifted a dead body into a noose. I’m not sure I believe him when he says he didn’t know about the blackmail situation.”

  “And there’s the business of the cement,” added Tollman.

  “I’ve been looking at the blackmail list again,” said Victoria thoughtfully. “I thought at first that ‘SR M jew’ meant that someone might be Jewish but then a thought occurred to me that it might be an abbreviation of ‘jeweller’.”