A Death in Chelsea

by Lynn Brittney

  There was a surprised murmur of agreement from everyone as the possibility opened up before them.

  Tollman suddenly said “Marchesi!”

  “Yes!” Victoria agreed. “It has the Royal Warrant!”

  “So, SR must be a person who works at Marchesi?” asked Caroline. “How do we find out?”

  “I’ll have to make a trip to the Inland Revenue offices in Parliament Square,” said Tollman, pulling a face. Obviously, it was a job he had performed before and not enjoyed.

  Victoria continued her analysis of the list. “I looked through all the letters of complaint again. I thought that ‘Ruth B baby’ might refer to a girl from a wealthy family who had become pregnant or had given birth out of wedlock, but I could find no reference to anyone called Ruth or even a reference to a baby. So that one is proving a dead end, at the moment. ‘Kit B, Peachtree’ eludes me as well.”

  “Well, we have two names to investigate tomorrow.” Beech was feeling tired from his long walks around London during the day. “I suggest that Victoria and I tackle the QC – it might be useful to have some legal expertise by my side if the QC starts quoting the law at me – and Tollman, you make your investigations at the Inland Revenue. Let’s all meet up here for lunch. Caroline? Are you working tomorrow?”

  Caroline nodded. “’Fraid so. But then I have a few days off, so I can be of more help then.”

  Everyone began to go their separate ways, but Billy lingered to speak to Caroline.

  “Doctor?” he said quietly. “How did you get on with David, the boot boy?”

  “Not very well, I’m afraid,” and she told him about her conversation with Mrs Bailey.

  “Ah, well, I don’t blame her,” he said simply and turned to go.

  “Billy,” Caroline asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. “What was Sir Anthony Jarvis’s wife like?”

  “Beautiful… really beautiful and elegant. I can’t understand why having such a wife is beyond the pale. I mean, marrying an American woman is fine. Plenty of the aristocracy do that. What’s wrong with a Chinese wife?”

  “Skin colour and colonial prejudices,” said Caroline sadly. “‘Those who profit most from the Empire look down the most upon its inhabitants’, my grandfather always used to say. And I suppose we do. The British regard those with a different skin colour as their inferiors, even though they may come from civilisations much older and wiser than ours.”

  “The upper classes always look down on everyone,” Billy said sarcastically, then hastily added, “present company excepted, of course.”

  Caroline smiled. “I wish it were just the upper class but, you know, the working class are every bit as bad, if not worse. We have two West Indian ladies in the hospital – volunteer orderlies – and many of the white working-class women complain if they are touched by them or they handle their food. It’s disgraceful. I’ve lost count of the number of patients I’ve had to reprimand for being rude to those ladies. Let’s hope this war removes all these prejudices.”

  Billy nodded but, privately, he doubted it.

  ***

  Tollman was woken from a deep sleep by his eldest daughter shaking him.

  “Air raid coming, Dad!” she said urgently, the rags in her hair bouncing around wildly as she shook her father again. Outside in the street, the air raid whistle was being blown with a shrill and insistent blast.

  “All right, all right,” he said grumpily as he reluctantly heaved himself out of bed and found his slippers. “What’s the time?”

  “One o’clock.”

  “Blimey, these bloody Zeppelin raids are getting beyond a joke.” He looked out of the window and he could see the searchlights criss-crossing the sky from their emplacements along the river. Bloody fools, he thought. What’s the point of all the houses and shops having to put out all their lights when the searchlights give the bombers a much better idea of important targets? He sometimes wished he lived somewhere else in London. He was very fond of his little house in Clapham, with its tiny rose garden and vegetable patch. But it was perilously close to two power stations, the massive railway station at the Junction, two candle factories and numerous important industries situated behind the wharves along the river at Battersea. All highly attractive to the Germans, he reminded himself, and all highly combustible.

  With a sigh, he picked up his dressing gown and the storm lamp he kept beside his bed and padded down to the cellar.

  His three daughters were already snuggled up together in the corner – two were already asleep. The eldest, and most sensible, Daphne, was the one who had woken everyone else up and she was waiting for her father to get settled down before she went back to sleep herself.

  “All right, Dad?” she whispered. Tollman grunted. Taking that as a ‘yes’, she whispered again, “There’s some hot tea in the thermos, if you want it.”

  He nodded and gave Daphne one of his rare smiles. She seemed content with that and settled down next to her sisters to try to get back to sleep. Tollman sank down into the old armchair that they had managed to get down the cellar steps and poured himself some hot sweet tea. He made a face. “Evaporated milk!” he muttered, and Daphne, eyes shut, smiled and murmured, “Be grateful for what you get.”

  Like all the other houses in the street, the Tollmans had converted what was their coal cellar into an air raid shelter. His daughters had scrubbed and whitewashed the cellar while Tollman had built a coal bunker in the front outside area (which could not be deemed a garden, as it was barely six feet long by three feet deep). Then they had ‘furnished’ the cellar, in a manner of speaking, with two fold-up camp beds, for the daughters to share, and the battered but comfy old armchair for Tollman.

  He sat, sipping his tea, in the weak moonlight that was filtering through the two panes of glass in the window where the coal hole used to be. Strange, he thought. They had been told that Zeppelin raids only took place when there was no moon. He was grateful, he reflected, as he surveyed the rows of shelves he had put in, laden with canned goods for emergencies. He was grateful he didn’t have to get out of a warm bed and make for the nearest Underground station or railway arch, like some families did.

  He looked around at the well-stocked, if rather cramped cellar. There was a first aid kit, emergency lighting, a sealed drum of water and cans and cans of food – corned beef, Irish stew, pilchards, sardines, pears, plums, peaches…

  Something clicked in his brain… peaches… Peachtree.

  “Daphne!” he hissed, and she opened her eyes.

  “What is it, Dad? I was nearly asleep!” For all her amiability and good intentions, she had inherited some of her father’s tendency towards grumpiness.

  “That place that you girls went for your works day out… where was it again?”

  “What? That was last year! What do you want to know about that for?”

  “Never mind, just tell me.”

  “It was Peachtree, Dad. A lovely place down in Kent, on the way to Gravesend. Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “Just one more thing, Daphne. How big was this Peachtree place?”

  “Oh, it was tiny. No more than about ten, fifteen cottages, one pub and a church. Now can I go back to sleep?”

  “Yes, love. Thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.” Tollman finished his tea and settled back in the chair to go to sleep, with a small smile of triumph on his lips.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Jezebel and Jewellery

  Tollman decided that the Peachtree information could wait until this evening, but he stopped by the Mayfair house anyway, to pick up Billy.

  “I thought you were going to go to the Inland Revenue on your own?” asked Billy, buttoning up his uniform jacket.

  “Nah.” Tollman shook his head. “I thought to myself last night, why go through all the nightmare of trying to get the Revenue to be co-operative, when I ca
n just take along a uniform – that’s you, son – and quote the Defence of the Realm Act at the shop manager.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Policeman’s gift is DORA. You can basically use it as an excuse to get information or gain entry to anywhere you like. All I need to do is to say to the manager that we are doing a spot check on potential enemy aliens and he has to give me chapter and verse on all his employees. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it yesterday. Thing is, it’s all so new, I haven’t got used to it yet.”

  “Right. Well, lead on then, Sergeant! Where is this fancy jewellers, Marchesi, anyway?”

  “Piccadilly – the posh end, up opposite Burlington House, so we can walk there.”

  As they strolled along in the morning sunshine, Tollman said, “Did you get much sleep last night, son?”

  “Slept like a log. Why?”

  Tollman looked at him in disbelief. “Zeppelin raid! Those anti-airship guns were going off all night. Mind you, they said this morning it was a false alarm. Apparently, the Admiralty decided to send some aeroplanes up to do a patrol but forgot to inform the Royal Marines who man the gun emplacements at Tower Bridge and Green Park, so they start firing at anything and everything. It’s a good job they couldn’t hit the side of a barn with those guns of theirs, otherwise we would be short of a good few precious aeroplanes by now! Didn’t you hear anything?”

  Billy shook his head. “Guns going off don’t bother me, Mr Tollman. Never did in the trenches and a few bangs in London wouldn’t even make me stop snoring!”

  “It’s supposed to be your job to look after the women of the household, Billy. You should have got them up and down into the basement.”

  Billy snorted in derision. “Huh, yes. The last time I tried that, a very ratty Lady Maud bit my ear off. She said, ‘Peter told us that the Kaiser will never bomb the area around the Palace. That means us. So, if you don’t mind, Constable Rigsby, I shall stay in my own bed!’ So, ever since then, I haven’t bothered.”

  “Gawd! How the other half live!” said Tollman, to no one in particular.

  “Yes. Tell me about it,” said Billy, with feeling, as they looked at the glittering array of jewellery in Marchesi’s window in front of them. “Who can really afford this stuff?”

  “Armaments manufacturers,” said Tollman grimly. “I expect that every time a shell explodes, one of them buys his missus a new bracelet. They’re the only people making a fortune out of this war. I hear that half the aristocracy are losing money hand over fist because they can’t sell the goods from their companies in the far-flung places of the Empire. German U-boats blockading us in, like they are. Do you know,” he added with feeling, “my local shopkeeper reckons that we shall run out of tea soon. Tea! Beggars belief!”

  The manager and his mostly female staff were unlocking cabinets, dusting and generally preparing for the day ahead when Tollman and Rigsby walked in. The manager, a small man, looked up at the uniformed height of Constable Rigsby and visibly blanched. The female staff, on the other hand, cheeks suddenly a pretty shade of pink, simply smiled. Tollman pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. The lad’s catnip, he thought in irritation.

  “How can I help you, sirs?” the manager said warily, as Tollman produced his warrant.

  “Defence of the Realm Act, sir,” said Tollman breezily. “We’re running a spot check on whether any female illegal aliens are being employed in West End shops.” The women employees looked shocked and the manager bristled.

  “Look, gentlemen, as I have told the Board of Trade many times, I can’t afford to employ any staff with foreign-sounding names. None of our clientele would put up with it.”

  “So, you won’t mind showing me your staff details, sir, will you?” answered Tollman tersely.

  The manager looked resigned. “Come through,” he said, going through to the back office. He rifled through a filing cabinet and laid down four buff files containing the details of the employees out in the shop.

  Tollman quickly scanned them and frowned. “Is this all of it?”

  “In this shop, yes. We have a workshop in Soho, where the jewellery is made or repaired, and we have a man from Soho come into the shop twice a week to collect and deliver.”

  Tollman nodded.

  “Do you know all the workers in Soho?” he asked. “Only we’re looking for someone with the initials SR.”

  The manager looked surprised and then a little flustered. “Well, the only person who works for Marchesi – here or in Soho – with those initials would be me,” he said. “Samuel Robinson.”

  ***

  Victoria and Beech were having a pleasant end to a leisurely breakfast, chatting about their childhood memories and laughing, when Mary stuck her head around the door to inform Beech that there was a telephone call from Mr Tollman.

  “Ah! I wonder what he has uncovered?” Beech looked optimistic as he left the breakfast table.

  “Sir?” said Tollman on the end of the line. “I’m ringing from Marchesi, the jewellers. We’ve uncovered quite a little racket going on here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir. Apparently, the shop manager has been organising the making of fake jewellery for some of his clients, so that the real stuff can be broken up and sold. Strictly speaking, he’s not doing anything illegal, unless one of his clients attempts to defraud an insurance company and Mr Robinson here would technically be an accessory.”

  “Interesting! So, this Robinson has been blackmailed by Adeline Treborne because of this ‘service’ he’s been offering?”

  “It would appear so, sir. However, and here’s the interesting part, one of his regular clients is an American woman – Lady Patrick – the wife of the QC mentioned by Mrs E the other night.”

  “Good God! Do you want me to come down there, Tollman?”

  “I think that would be a good idea, sir… perhaps with Mrs E… because matey here is supposed to have a meeting with Lady Patrick today.”

  “We are on our way!”

  Beech put his head around the dining room door and said “Victoria! We need to be on our way! Grab your hat and coat and meet me outside. I’ll tell you the details on the journey.”

  Victoria sprang to life, grabbed everything necessary and was at Beech’s side in a flash.

  “It’s a lovely day, and we don’t have far to go, so let’s walk, shall we?” Beech suggested. Victoria took his proffered arm and they walked at a brisk pace while Beech explained the purpose of Tollman’s phone call.

  “What an incredible piece of luck!” Victoria exclaimed. “So, we shall interview this Lady Patrick?”

  Beech nodded, then he added, “But do you know what I’m wondering? Whether any more of these wealthy people who have had their jewellery copied before selling the stones were also on Adeline Treborne’s blackmail list? We only had an impression of that one page from the book. There could have been so many more names in there that we may never know about.”

  Samuel Robinson was seated in his office, looking distressed, when Beech and Victoria arrived.

  “I really have done nothing wrong!” he protested, as soon as Beech walked in the door. “I’ve explained to these policemen that it is perfectly normal practice for clients to ask for their jewellery to be copied – especially if they are going to travel abroad and don’t want their original pieces to be taken out of the country.”

  “Of course it is. My guess is, though, Mr Robinson,” said Beech smoothly, after seating Victoria, “that your other trade in providing these copies and selling off the stones in the real pieces was rather unique, and this is why you were being blackmailed. I expect Detective Sergeant Tollman can give me chapter and verse.” He looked at Tollman expectantly and was rewarded by him laying a large ledger down on the table.

  “A cursory glance, sir, would suggest in excess of one hundred such copies being made in the firs
t half of this year,” was Tollman’s summary.

  “I think that we need to discuss this further, down at Scotland Yard,” said Beech, nodding to Billy, who put his hand on the trembling manager’s shoulder.

  “Wait! Wait!” Samuel Robinson was beside himself with anxiety. “I can’t afford to be hauled out of this shop in broad daylight by the police! I will lose my position! Our customers will never come here again! Please! I’ll tell you anything you want to know but, please, no scandal!”

  Billy took his hand off the man’s shoulder, which seemed to calm him down a little, then Samuel Robinson proceeded to tell Beech everything about the special ‘service’ that Marchesi offered its clients.

  Some clients, he explained, did genuinely want replicas of their jewellery made, so that they could wear the fakes and put the real ones in a safety deposit box, while they grew in value.

  “Diamonds, for example, are an investment that will never diminish,” said Robinson knowledgeably. Then he went on to explain that, lately, they had had clients ask for replica necklaces and bracelets because they had ‘cash flow’ problems and wished to save face while their jewellery was broken up and reset, or left as individual stones, and sold to raise money.

  “Several gentlemen in the City of London, who own overseas companies, are having difficulty selling commodities because of the war,” Robinson confided quietly. Tollman and Rigsby looked at each other and nodded. It was exactly the topic Tollman had spoken about earlier.

  “There are others,” – Robinson’s tone grew more conspiratorial – “two ladies and one gentleman, who do this on a regular basis and require extreme confidentiality, which leads me to suspect that they are keeping the information about their activities from their spouses.”

  “Do you believe that these three people are in some distress?” enquired Beech.

  Robinson thought for a moment. “Only one of the ladies.” He leafed through the ledger and pointed to the name of Lady Patrick. “I believe that this lady needs sums of money and she cannot ask her husband for them.”