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

by Granger, Ann

  ‘Why kill her at all?’ asked Dunn bluntly.

  ‘Because he – they – feared she would eventually confess whatever facts she was hiding to us. I believe she was on her way to do so. Or she may have intended to seek out my wife.’

  Dunn raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Lizzie spoke to her last night, Sunday, after the meeting at the Temperance Hall,’ I explained. ‘She urged Miss Marchwood to confide in her but the lady didn’t want to talk to Lizzie. However, the conversation, brief as it was, may well have led her to change her mind about speaking frankly to the police. Whatever secret she carried, it was a dreadful responsibility and worry. She was a religious woman, highly respectable. She wanted to unburden herself. The murderer knew that. It worried him. He decided she must never reach the police.’

  ‘Or, I repeat, are we looking at Benedict himself?’ Dunn’s stare challenged me.

  ‘I don’t count him out, sir,’ I said with a sigh, because I could see Dunn had got the idea fixed in his head. ‘Benedict did take a sudden violent dislike to Isabella Marchwood after I first called at his house. But he didn’t immediately turn her out, bag and baggage, as might have been expected, given his wish not to set eyes on her. What was his purpose in keeping her there? Was it simply because, as he said, his wife had been fond of the woman? Or because he preferred to know where she was and what she was doing?’ I paused. ‘I can’t help but think of something that wretched Scully said to me about Benedict.’

  ‘Who is Scully?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Dr Carmichael’s assistant, sir. You probably haven’t met him. He is an unpleasant sort of fellow, gives you shivers up your spine to look at him. He enjoys working with corpses, I do believe. However, what he said was, did I think the husband had killed her? Why do it in the park, was Scully’s comment. Why not kill her at home? But of course to do it at home would be too obvious. He’d be arrested at once and all the servants would be witnesses. But he might have followed his wife to London that afternoon.’

  ‘And today he followed Marchwood? You may be betting on someone watching the house. My money is still on the husband.You had better get down to Egham and talk to him again.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I wonder, is there something I could ask of you?’

  Dunn raised his bristling eyebrows. ‘Go on, then, man. What is it?’

  ‘The preacher, Joshua Fawcett, who is the main attraction at the Temperance Hall Isabella Marchwood attended. I suspect he may have been the man Allegra Benedict was going to meet, although I have not yet any proof she knew him personally. But she almost certainly knew of him through her companion. She had a large sum of money with her. The purse and the money have not been found. I think Fawcett may be a confidence trickster, preying on lonely women, persuading them to give him money for his claimed good works. If so, he may have plied the same trade in other cities. My wife describes him as young, about thirty or possibly a few years older but looking thirty. He is a dapper dresser, with a diamond stickpin in his cravat. He has long hair and blue or green eyes. He is extremely eloquent and adept at controlling his audience. My wife, who is a shrewd judge of character, considers him a fraud.’

  ‘I’ll make enquiries,’ Dunn promised. ‘I am glad Mrs Ross is so observant.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘But I know Mrs Ross has her wits about her. It is a pity we can’t enrol a few women like her in the Metropolitan Police!’

  The gardener was sweeping up fallen leaves and garden debris near the entrance to The Cedars. He looked up as I passed and greeted me with a bright, ‘Good afternoon, Inspector!’ I had not interviewed him myself on my first visit; Morris had done that. But someone on the staff had obviously pointed me out to him. Servants observe all comings and goings at a house and generally know what’s happening. I wished even more fervently that Morris would be successful in tracking down the former butler, Seymour. His sudden voluntary departure must have had some fairly drastic cause.

  The black bow still adorned the knocker on the front door, but the window curtains were no longer drawn. I wondered if, when the household learned of the death of Isabella Marchwood, they would be drawn again in respect.

  Parker opened the door to me and greeted me cheerfully this time with, ‘Oh, Inspector Ross! Are you here to see the master, sir? You’d better come in.’

  I was glad to see her no longer tearful, but feared my news would return her to her former state of distress. It had been agreed with Burns that I would be the bearer of the sad news. I had already interviewed Benedict in connection with his wife’s murder and he must remain a suspect in that case (at least in Superintendent Dunn’s mind). He was now, given that this new victim had also been part of that enquiry and lived in his home, part of this. I could well understand Dunn’s argument. It was going to be very interesting to see the effect of my present news on Benedict. He was intelligent enough to realise that circumstances were beginning to build up a case against him – and many a man has been hanged on circumstantial evidence before now.

  Benedict was in his study. An easel had been set up on which rested a large oil painting. It was one of those compositions usually called a still life, which means everything in it is dead or otherwise inanimate. There were lifeless game birds with lolling heads, an unlucky hare hanging upside down, a pair of glassy-eyed fish I identified as trout, a pewter flagon or two and a bottle of wine in a raffia jacket. I wouldn’t have wanted it in my home, but I dare say there is a call for that sort of thing in large country houses.

  ‘Well?’ Benedict greeted me, turning from his inspection of his new acquisition. ‘You have brought news of some progress at last?’

  ‘I have unfortunately brought more sad news,’ I confessed. ‘Miss Marchwood has been murdered.’

  He stared at me. ‘Nonsense,’ he said curtly.

  ‘I have seen the body with my own eyes, earlier today, sir. At Waterloo Bridge Station.’

  He moved away from the painting now, but still stared at me in disbelief. He was either an excellent actor or the news was simply so extraordinary and shocking that his mind could not accept it. Then he turned and pulled a bell cord.

  Parker appeared.

  ‘Where is Miss Marchwood?’ Benedict asked her.

  ‘The lady’s gone out, sir,’ said Parker. ‘She went out early this morning. I think she meant to go to London. She said she wouldn’t be back for lunch.’

  Benedict dismissed her with an irritated wave of the hand and turned back to me.

  ‘How on earth could Marchwood get herself murdered at Waterloo Station? It’s a busy place, full of people. Besides, who on earth would want to kill her?’ He was beginning to sound bewildered and even, I fancied, betrayed a touch of panic.

  ‘She never reached Waterloo alive, I’m afraid. She was murdered on the train from Egham, at some point after Richmond.’ I watched carefully for his reaction. ‘We know this because the ticket inspector spoke to her between Twickenham and Richmond, where he left the carriage. Miss Marchwood was then alone in it and very much alive. But at Waterloo the same ticket inspector discovered her dead.’

  ‘Heart attack?’ Benedict whispered. I could scarcely catch the words.

  ‘No, sir, most certainly not.’ I hesitated. ‘Nor any other natural cause.’

  Benedict sat down with a thump, and stared up at me, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. His expression was briefly quite wild. I think he only now fully believed me.

  He didn’t know before now, I thought. He’s not our killer. Dunn is wrong.

  ‘Who killed her?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. She died in the same way as Mrs Benedict.’

  An expression of pain crossed his face and his features twitched.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know why, sir. I suspect she may have been on her way to Scotland Yard. Perhaps she had remembered something and wished to tell us.’

  ‘She could have told me!’ Benedict shouted, leaning forward in his chair, his face suddenly red
with anger. ‘But she did not – because she was ashamed, Ross, ashamed! You and I both know why!’

  He fell silent but the anger seemed to flow out from him. He looked at me with real hatred. He believed his wife had betrayed him – and that I shared the knowledge. To him, in my eyes he was the cuckolded husband, that stock figure of fun through the centuries.

  ‘We cannot be sure why,’ I said gently.

  It was true, after all. I had a theory that Marchwood had been on her way to me, just as I suspected Fawcett to be the man for whom the purse of money was intended. But I had no proof. Fawcett would not admit it. I had to have more on him and that’s why I had asked Dunn to help find it. I still did not know who had killed Allegra and it would be a dangerous mistake to assume that the two crimes, obtaining money by deception and murder, were automatically connected.

  Fleecing the public does not make a man a murderer. If anything, it suggests otherwise. Confidence tricksters’ boldness only extends to extorting money from the gullible. They are seldom if ever violent, relying instead on the ingenuity of their fertile imaginations and resourcefulness. If discovered, they melt away and try again elsewhere, working their charms on a new mark. And that’s what Fawcett would do, if I confronted him without proof. He would vanish and reinvent himself elsewhere.

  As to whether there was more than money involved, who could say? Perhaps Allegra was not actually having an affair with Fawcett. Was it only the knowledge that her employer was selling her mother’s jewels to fund the man that her devoted companion had wanted to hide?

  An alerted husband does not need proof, however, only suspicions and an instinctive knowledge that he is being deceived in some way. He easily presumes it to be the worst. Benedict knew his marriage had not been a love match, that he was older than his wife, that she had been a beauty and he, on the other hand, very ordinary. Perhaps he had feared from the first that one day some dashing younger rival would come along and sweep Allegra off her feet.

  ‘My wife was untrue to me,’ Benedict said now in a bleak tone. ‘Marchwood, who might have persuaded her from her folly, or come to me to tell me of it, kept silent. She was complicit in my wife’s deception. She encouraged it. Well, I cannot say I feel any sorrow at the news of Marchwood’s death. It is shocking, of course, and unexpected. But do not expect me to display a hypocritical grief. I doubt I could do it convincingly, anyway.’ His mouth twisted in a mirthless grimace.

  I appreciated his honesty. Dunn might have said he was clever. It was better to confess to no sorrow than to feign sorrow and be detected as, at best, a humbug – and at worst, a liar.

  ‘I have to ask you, sir, where you were earlier today,’ I said.

  Benedict raised his eyebrows and gave a bark of laughter. ‘So now I am a suspect? Well, I was here, Inspector Ross. The servants will tell you so and in case you doubt their testimony, this -’ he waved a hand at the still life – ‘this was delivered here this morning. I was expecting it and took care to be here in order to inspect its condition on arrival. There is always a risk when transporting works of art that they will be damaged. I signed a receipt for it.You may check with the carrier’s man.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said awkwardly.

  Benedict fixed me with a steady gaze. ‘Nor, Inspector, did I kill my wife. You have not asked me that, but I know you and your superiors will have discussed the possibility. You will say, I had cause. But until I spoke with you, after her death, I had trusted her. Trusted her implicitly!’

  He threw up his hands in a gesture that was un-English and had perhaps been acquired in Italy.

  ‘Had it not been for Marchwood’s furtive manner and obvious hiding of some unpalatable truth, I would have continued to trust her.You, too, Ross, helped plant the seeds of suspicion in my mind, as I said. But let me tell you something.’ He leaned forward again. ‘If I had learned that my wife was deceiving me, before her death, I would have confronted her with the fact. If she had been willing to show penitence, break off the sorry affair, return to being my loyal wife, I would have forgiven her, taken her back. I loved my wife, Inspector.’

  Perhaps he believed it himself. It was love as he understood it. I thought that perhaps his willingness to take Allegra back would rather have been the act of a man from whom a precious object had temporarily been stolen, gratefully accepting its return to his possession. But we know little of other people’s hearts. We have enough trouble understanding our own.

  ‘May I ask,’ I turned to a practical subject, ‘if you know who Miss Marchwood’s next of kin would be? Someone we should contact regarding her death?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ He shook his head and looked at me as if I had suggested something socially unacceptable. ‘I never discussed personal matters with her. She was an employee. However, I can give you the name and address of the agency from which she came. They may have some record.’

  ‘Thank you.’ As Benedict scribbled the address on a slip of paper, I added, ‘I have one more request to make of you. I am sorry to have to do it, but I would like you to return to London with me and make formal identification of the body.’

  He gasped, looked up at me and blanched. ‘You want me to return – to that place where I saw Allegra . . .You want me to go there again and gaze on another woman’s body?’

  ‘She was in your employ for nine years, sir, and you knew her well. You cannot give us another name, a relative’s. She was, I believe, friendly in a minor way with a widow lady she saw at the temperance meetings she attended. But I hesitate to ask a woman . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ he said testily. ‘I am obliged to do it. You leave me no choice and it is my duty. I’ll come with you now. Just give me a few minutes to get ready. Perhaps you’d wait downstairs?’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ I offered. ‘By the gates.’

  The gardener was still working where I’d seen him on my arrival. I strolled over to him and asked him if he had seen Miss Marchwood leave that morning. He gave me a curious look, puzzled by my question, but agreed he had seen her, though only in a cursory way. He had said good morning to her. She had returned the greeting. There had been no further conversation. She had drawn the veil down over her bonnet and he couldn’t see her face well. He thought she had walked off down the hill towards Egham. He had not seen anyone follow her.

  ‘I was busy, sir. I didn’t pay any attention. But she’s that sort of lady, sir, if you’ll forgive me, a very quiet lady. You don’t notice her or pay much attention to what she does. Then, not long after she left, the carrier came with a package for Mr Benedict. I went up to the house to help him carry it in and upstairs to Mr Benedict’s study. It looked like another of those paintings.’

  The arrival of the carrier’s cart had occasioned a welcome diversion in the gardener’s day. But not the coming or going of the companion. Why should it? No one had ever paid any attention to Isabella Marchwood, a quiet, self-effacing but tormented soul. She would not be missed.

  The carrier’s cart may have saved Miss Marchwood from being attacked on her way down the hill, I thought. It must have been on the road at the time.

  Benedict and I made the return journey to Waterloo in silence. While he stared blankly from the train window, I turned it all over in my mind. Surreptitiously I took my watch from my waistcoat pocket and timed the journey between the stops. Where had she died? On the stretch before Clapham or after it? Had her murderer got off the train at Clapham, Vauxhall or at Waterloo? I peered out when we stopped at those stations as if I might spot some evidence from the train. At both Clapham and Richmond I saw uniformed Railway Police officers on the platform, questioning people. Burns was doing his bit.

  Benedict appeared to be paying no attention at all. He, too, was lost in his own thoughts; perhaps steeling himself for the gruesome task ahead of him.

  I was reminded, as we drew out of that station, that Mrs Scott lived at Clapham. Possibly Fawcett did too, since Lizzie had told me he left the meetings with Mrs Scott in her carria
ge. Now that might mean something or it might mean nothing, just like everything else.

  Theories! I thought with a sigh as we pulled into Waterloo and I put away my pocket watch. All I have is theories to account for two brutal murders of respectable ladies. I still thought of Allegra as such. Fawcett’s tawdry seduction of a vulnerable woman, if that was what had taken place, did not destroy her image for me as it had done for her husband.