A Better Quality of Murder: (Inspector Ben Ross 3)

by Granger, Ann

  ‘I had been thinking of closing the gallery early, because of the bad weather. As soon as I realised the seriousness of the news, I did close the gallery – leaving Miss Marchwood inside with the sherry decanter for support – and Gray and I went out to look for the missing lady.’

  ‘Mr Gray tells me he didn’t go into the park during his search. Did you, Mr Angelis?’

  ‘No, Inspector, I took the other direction and went down as far as Piccadilly Circus on this side of the road. Then I came back on the other side of the road.’

  ‘Passing by the Burlington Arcade?’

  ‘Just so. The fog was atrocious. I could hardly see where I was going. I realised there was little hope of finding Mrs Benedict. I did come across a cab, so I asked the cabbie to return with me. I put Miss Marchwood in the vehicle and sent her off to Waterloo. I went out a second time to try again, leaving Gray here in case Mrs Benedict should find her way here after all. Eventually I gave it all up as hopeless. I came back, sent Gray home, locked up the gallery, and went to Little Vine Street to report the lady missing at the police station there. They took details of her appearance. I had taken the precaution of asking Miss Marchwood how the lady was dressed. She told me she was wearing a brown skirt and mantle. I also . . .’ Angelis put his fist to his mouth and coughed delicately. ‘I also told them she was uncommonly handsome. Then I went to Waterloo Station and took a train to Egham. I made my way to Mr Benedict’s house and told him of the situation.’

  ‘He must have been very alarmed,’ I said.

  ‘Very!’ said Angelis curtly.

  I thanked him for his help and returned to the main part of the gallery where Gray waited. He preceded me to the door and showed me out with the graceful courtesy that seemed natural to him. I mumbled my thanks and exited into Piccadilly, quite glad to be out in the hurly-burly of the street. The passers-by looked reassuringly normal, in contrast to the exotic pair I’d left behind me in the gallery. You do not belong in the art world, Ross! I told myself. You need not be embarrassed at finding it a rum set-up.

  As I neared the entry to the Burlington Arcade, I saw Morris was there (surely no more welcome figure than his sensible bulk!). He was talking to a top-hatted, uniformed beadle.

  ‘This is Harry Barnes,’ Morris told me when I joined them. ‘He was on duty on Saturday last, but he doesn’t recall the two ladies.’

  I looked at the beadle. He touched a finger to the brim of his hat and peered at me with eyes remarkable for the yellowness of the ‘whites’. His skin also had an unhealthy ochre tinge. Did he suffer from jaundice or some liver disease? He appeared otherwise healthy. More likely he had spent many years in hot and unhealthy climes, suffering there from the ailments that afflict Europeans. An ex-soldier, I thought, as the Arcade’s beadles mostly were.

  ‘You are certain about the ladies?’ I asked him. ‘You don’t recall them? One of them was very handsome.’

  ‘Visibility very poor, sir!’ barked Barnes at once, as if making a report to his superior officer. Then his manner grew less certain. ‘It doesn’t mean they weren’t here, sir. But there are a lot of visitors to the Arcade, you understand.’

  ‘They would have asked you to find them a cab,’ I prompted him.

  ‘It’s very possible they did, sir. But I can’t say as I recall it. Several people asked me to find them cabs that afternoon, gentlemen and ladies. A lot of ladies come to shop here in the Arcade. But there wasn’t one single cab of any description to be had anywhere. There were people coming out of the fog and asking me all manner of questions, most of them lost and some of them not able to tell north from south. Sorry if I can’t help you further, gentlemen.’

  We moved away a little.

  ‘Pity about that,’ rumbled Morris.

  ‘What about the jeweller?’ I asked in some exasperation. ‘How is his memory?’

  ‘He does confirm Mrs Benedict and her companion were in his shop on Saturday afternoon, sir. He knows Mrs Benedict and there is no doubt it was her. I asked him if he could remember why they were there and he said it concerned a brooch belonging to Mrs Benedict. I asked him what time they left and he said it was about half past four, as well as he can remember. He’s sorry but he can’t be more precise.’

  ‘But Angelis tells me Miss Marchwood didn’t arrive at the gallery until half past five, and he is sure of the time. The gallery is what, ten minutes from here, if that?’

  ‘In good weather, sir,’ Morris agreed. ‘But it would take longer in the fog, and the ladies dithered a bit about crossing the road and so on.’

  I gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I wish Tedeschi could be as precise as Angelis. But it looks more and more, Morris, as if there is a period of time unaccounted for. I’ll have to ask Miss Marchwood again. But I don’t think it will get me anywhere. You had better begin your trawl of the domestic agencies. Perhaps we can at least find Seymour!’

  I returned to Scotland Yard with the intention of writing up an account of my interview with George Angelis for the benefit of Superintendent Dunn. When I walked into the outer office I saw that there was a visitor.

  He sat on a chair devouring a large hunk of bread with some cheese, tearing the bread apart as if he hadn’t eaten all day, as perhaps he hadn’t. He was a ragged, unwashed urchin of some ten or eleven years of age, wearing boots too large for him. A battered felt hat lay on the floor at his feet.

  Constable Biddle was sitting at a desk staring gloomily at the boy. When he saw me, he scrambled to his feet and said, ‘The crossing sweeper, sir, from Piccadilly.’

  ‘Well done, Biddle!’ I said, pleased.

  Biddle turned puce under the praise.

  The urchin collected up the last crumbs of bread carefully and put them in his mouth. Ignoring me, he addressed Biddle.

  ‘Aven’t you got any more?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said Biddle crossly. ‘You’ve eaten my dinner as it is. This is Inspector Ross, so stand up and mind your manners!’

  ‘Come into my office,’ I told the sweeper.

  He collected his hat, tucked it under his arm and followed me into my office. There he unashamedly took stock of his new surroundings.

  I sat down at my desk and hoped he was impressed. I had the strong feeling he wasn’t.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked him.

  ‘Charlie,’ said the boy.

  ‘Charlie what?’

  ‘No!’ returned the boy in disgust. ‘You’ve got the wrong one. You’re thinking of Percy Watt. He sweeps the crossings in the Strand.’

  ‘I meant,’ I said as patiently as I could, ‘what is your surname? Your family’s name.’

  ‘Got no family,’ said the boy promptly.

  ‘But you must have another name besides Charlie.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said the boy at last. ‘They calls me Charlie Tubbs.’

  ‘Then your name is Tubbs. Where do you live?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ said the boy.

  ‘Well, where do you sleep at night?’

  ‘Doorways mostly.’

  He was probably telling the truth.

  ‘Now then, Tubbs, I understand you sweep the crossings for pedestrians.’ The boy frowned, and I quickly changed that to ‘for people walking in Piccadilly’.

  ‘Between the Circus and St James’s Street,’ said the boy, with a nod.

  ‘It’s a good place to work?’

  ‘Yus,’ agreed the boy. ‘It’s where the swells do their shopping. They go walking up and down in polished boots and ladies with their crinolines all made of shiny material and lace. They don’t like crossing the road in all the muck and mud. So I run up and offer to sweep them a clear path and very pleased they are, too!’

  ‘You were there last Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘Always there,’ said the boy.

  ‘It was very foggy.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’ said Charlie Tubbs with deep feeling. ‘There weren’t no people walking about at all. I didn’t think I’d make any money. It was
cold, too, and damp. I thought it would be nice to have a hot pie. There’s a pie stall in the Circus. I kept thinking about them pies.’

  ‘Then what happened? After the fog came down and you were wandering up and down Piccadilly hoping to find a customer?’

  ‘I heard voices, women’s voices. Very ladylike, they was. So I moved up nearer, because ladies in particular don’t like to cross the road. Especially where you get a lot of horse traffic like you get in Piccadilly. Hard to get across without putting your foot right in—’

  ‘Yes, yes, Tubbs! Could you hear what the ladies were saying?’

  ‘Yus,’ said Tubbs and then stopped, looking at me expectantly.

  ‘Well, go on,’ I urged him.

  ‘What’s it worth?’ demanded the wretched child.

  ‘A clip round the ear if I think you’re being impudent,’ I snapped. ‘Or I’ll tell Constable Biddle to lock you in the cells until you learn better!’

  Tubbs was unabashed. ‘I could be out there in Piccadilly, sweeping crossings and making money. I’ve been sitting out there I don’t know how long.’ He jerked his head towards the outer office behind him.

  ‘You’ve been fed. Come on, Tubbs, what did the ladies say?’

  Tubbs decided it would be better to impart his information and try for remuneration later.

  ‘One of them was saying they should go home. But the other one, she said . . .’ Tubbs drew a deep breath and made a passable imitation of a lady’s voice. ‘But we are so near.’

  ‘What kind of voice did she have?’ I asked. ‘No, don’t, please, try and imitate it again! Just tell me. Was she soft-spoken? Loud? How did she sound? Alarmed? Worried?’

  ‘She spoke very quiet. I could hardly hear her,’ said Tubbs, ‘and in a funny sort of way. I don’t reckon she was a Londoner. I know most London voices. She was foreign. She sounded like old Martini who runs a coffee stall in Old Bond Street.’

  God bless all London urchins. They missed nothing. One of the speakers had certainly been Allegra Benedict who hadn’t lost her Italian accent! We are so near . . . Near to what? Benedict’s gallery?

  ‘Go on,’ I invited Tubbs.

  ‘The other female,’ continued Tubbs, ‘she started moaning about the fog and how it was hopeless. But the one with the funny accent, she said they could get there. “It’s so near,” she said again. “And he will be waiting!”’

  I nearby jumped off my chair and tried to hide my emotions from Tubbs. I didn’t want him to start elaborating from his imagination.

  ‘Are you sure she said that, Charlie?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the sweeper. ‘I was standing right by her at the time. She didn’t see me. Fog was really bad.’

  ‘“But we cannot even cross the road safely,” says the first female. So that was when I jumped in, see? “You want to cross the street? I’ll take you!” I says. She gives a little shriek, on account she didn’t know I was there. Then the one with the funny voice, she says, “Yes, yes, Isabella! The boy will take us across and we can find our way from there.” So I took ’em across, sweeping a nice clean path for them. The first lady, she gave me sixpence. I went straight off and bought a pie with it.’

  ‘And the other one, the one with the funny voice, as you call it?’

  Tubbs shrugged, ‘I don’t know about her. She walked off into the fog. She was in a hurry, I reckon.’

  ‘Why do you reckon that?’

  ‘She was sort of jumpy. The first one, she was worried. But the one with the foreign voice, she was like a cat on hot bricks.’

  I gave Tubbs a shilling, which he tested with his teeth to make sure it was a good one. Then I took him back to Biddle, sat him down and requested him to tell his story again, just as he had told me.

  ‘The constable,’ I said, ‘will write it down and read it back to you. You will make your mark to agree it’s a true record. Do you understand?’

  ‘Do I get another sixpence for that?’ asked Tubbs hopefully.

  ‘No, you do not. If you do it nicely, you might get a mug of tea.’

  Biddle gave me a reproachful look.

  ‘It was an assignation,’ I told Dunn a few minutes later. ‘I’d wager a pound to a penny. Wherever those two women were going, it wasn’t the gallery. They were making for the park and that oak tree. Or, more likely, Allegra Benedict was to meet someone at the oak tree. Isabella Marchwood was to wait in Piccadilly, perhaps at the park gate or just walking up and down inside the park near the gate, until Allegra came back. That accounts for the period of time about which Miss Marchwood is so vague. She spent it waiting for her employer to return. But Allegra didn’t come back. Eventually so much time had passed that she realised Allegra was not going to rejoin her and that something had obviously gone wrong. She may even have tried to search for her in the park, but in the fog it was impossible. So by the time she turned up at the gallery, she was understandably in the very distressed state described by Angelis. Not only had she lost Mrs Benedict, but she would have to explain somehow why she had not been with that lady all the time.

  ‘That, too, is why Charlie Tubbs described the foreign-sounding woman as being “like a cat on hot bricks”, worried about being late and someone waiting. That, sir, is why what Harry Barnes had to say is important.’

  ‘Who on earth is Harry Barnes? Do stand still, Ross!’

  By now I was marching up and down in front of his desk, jabbing the air with my forefinger. Understandably the superintendent was beginning to look bewildered. I came to a halt and apologised.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Harry Barnes is a beadle employed by the Burlington Arcade. On Saturday afternoon last he was on duty at the Piccadilly exit of the Arcade. Isabella Marchwood told me that she and Mrs Benedict asked the beadle to find them a cab but he was unable to oblige them. When we asked him, he told Morris and me that he couldn’t recall two ladies asking him to find them a cab. But he was anxious to point out that a lot of people had asked him to do them that service on Saturday but owing to the fog, he hadn’t been able to find a single cab. It had been a confused situation and his memory was correspondingly patchy.

  ‘But, just let us suppose his memory isn’t poor but quite the opposite. The reason Barnes could not recall two ladies asking for a cab was because they didn’t make any such request! The patrons of the Arcade are wealthy people and not to be offended. Barnes’s job, apart from making sure undesirables don’t enter the Arcade, is to keep the paying customers happy. He wouldn’t say that one of them was telling a lie. Or he may genuinely not even remember. It was an afternoon of confusion. Either way, he doesn’t back up the story Isabella Marchwood told me, that they asked the beadle to find a cab. I thought Barnes had nothing to tell us but, by that very fact, he did.’

  ‘Will the woman Marchwood admit all this?’ asked Dunn simply, when I had run out of steam and argument. He was looking singularly unimpressed by my logic, not to say downright sceptical.

  That poured cold water on my enthusiasm. I had to confess it was extremely unlikely.

  ‘I doubt it, sir. How can she? Not without compromising herself, and leaving herself defenceless before Benedict’s anger. She’ll say the beadle has forgotten . . . and Barnes himself says he has. She’ll say the boy misheard them. She’ll say they were worried about being late returning to Cedar Lodge where Benedict was waiting. She’ll say they were talking of going to the gallery, and she did go to the gallery.’ I thumped my clenched right fist into the palm of my left hand. ‘She will have a ready answer for everything. But I knew Marchwood was holding something back!’

  ‘No, Ross, you have a theory that she is. Now, now, I am not saying you aren’t on the right track . . .’ Dunn waved a solid palm at me to forestall any further outburst. ‘But you will have to restrain your alarming enthusiasm, you know. We shall have to be careful. Keep it to yourself for the time being, there’s a good chap. We don’t want Benedict storming in here to accuse us of blackening the name of an innocent woman. We shall have to be very sure, Ross.�
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  But I was sure of very little, except that I was only just at the beginning of this mystery. I nodded glumly.

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  ‘NOW THEN, Bessie!’ I said, ‘we shall have to be discreet, you and I. Do you know what “discreet” means?’

  We were seated at the kitchen table. Between us stood a brown earthenware teapot with a curl of steam spiralling from its spout, two cups (pottery, for day-to-day use, not best china), two plates and fruit cake. The recipe for the cake was a special one of Mrs Simms, my Aunt Parry’s cook. It had been divulged to Bessie, with injunctions not to pass it on, when Bessie had left Aunt Parry’s staff to join our small household.