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

by Granger, Ann

  I really did not like this woman and struggled not to show it. ‘The police are investigating,’ I said.

  ‘I think we will have some tea, after all,’ said Mrs Scott. She got up and went to ring a bell. Returning to her chair, she continued. ‘Do you know how she died?’

  ‘She was strangled.’

  There was a silence. ‘As was her late employer, Mrs Benedict?’ Mrs Scott asked.

  ‘In exactly the same way.’

  The housekeeper appeared and received her order to bring the tea tray.

  ‘There is always an element of danger in a lady travelling alone, especially by the railway. It’s why I go to the expense of keeping my carriage.’ Mrs Scott had used the interruption to regain her composure and her tone was brisk. ‘I take it she was robbed?’

  ‘No,’ I told her with a shake of my head, ‘her bag was found under the seat. There was a little money in it, my husband told me, and she still had her gold-rimmed glasses.’

  ‘She would have had little to interest a thief, anyway,’ Mrs Scott observed. ‘But I suppose, having entered the carriage with the intent to steal, he did not know it until after he had killed her.’

  ‘I am not a party to what the police think,’ I said apologetically. It was true. I knew no more than I had told her.

  The tea tray arrived and was set down on a table whose top was made of beaten brass, intricately engraved. Mrs Scott poured me a cup and handed it to me, ironically in a repetition of the gesture she had made at the Temperance Hall after the meeting.

  ‘The police do not know exactly why she was coming to London,’ I began carefully, feeling I was walking ‘on eggs’, as the saying went. ‘But I did chance to overhear you invite her to visit you here in Clapham.’

  Mrs Scott raised her eyebrows.

  ‘After the last meeting at the Temperance Hall,’ I reminded her. ‘I was outside on the pavement. She spoke to you through the carriage window, and I heard her.’

  ‘You are sharp-eared, Mrs Ross, as well as observant,’ Mrs Scott said coldly. She raised an eyebrow. ‘I did not see you on the pavement.’

  I had been hiding, along with Bessie, under the arch. But I was not going to explain that.

  ‘It was getting dark,’ I said vaguely. ‘I wondered if you had been expecting her and she might have been on her way to you yesterday.’

  ‘No, she was not,’ said Mrs Scott. ‘She would not have called here without sending me a note first.’

  She gave me a very direct look as she said this. Even the despised Miss Marchwood had known better than to burst in unannounced as I had.

  ‘Will you tell Mr Fawcett?’ I asked. ‘And her other friends at the Temperance Hall?’

  She stirred her tea without so much as a quiver of the teaspoon. ‘I cannot be driving around informing everyone. Besides, as you say, it will doubtless be in the newspapers. The public has a fascination with the sordid.’ She set down the teaspoon. ‘But I will certainly write a note to Mr Fawcett at once, and tell Harris to saddle one of the carriage horses and ride over to his lodgings with it. He will be very sorry. Isabella Marchwood was a staunch supporter of our cause.’

  ‘So I observed,’ I said blandly. ‘Apart from attending the meetings, what else did she do to help?’

  I didn’t deceive her and had not expected to. She looked at me with that expression I’d seen on her face when we had first met. She was perfectly aware that my being here was more than a courtesy.

  ‘She always brought biscuits,’ she said. ‘That was very helpful.’

  ‘It must have been. Mr Fawcett will find it difficult to conduct next Sunday’s meeting with this sad knowledge on his mind.’

  ‘Not at all!’ she said sharply. ‘His work is more important than any inconvenience such as the loss of Isabella Marchwood!’

  She must have seen shock in my face at her brutal turn of phrase, because she added quickly, ‘Distressed though he will be on a personal level, you understand, his work must always come first.You can have no idea, Mrs Ross, how dreadful the scourge of drink is among the poor. Even if a man has but a few pence in his pocket, he will spend it on beer or spirits and let his family starve. I wish I could say the women did not do the same, but many do. When Mr Fawcett had just begun his ministry among the London poor, I had the good fortune to hear of it. I heard him speak and was immediately convinced of the value of his work and the difficulty of the task. He wished me to see the problem for myself. I accompanied him to a place where cheap drink was sold. He assured me that I need have no fear for my safety; because he was already so well known and respected in the district, no one would offend us or offer us violence while I was in his company. I told him I had no fears as I had been in many dangerous places in the world at times of great unrest and knew how to stand my ground before a hostile mob.

  ‘The place Mr Fawcett showed me was a gin palace. I have seen some terrible sights in my life, Mrs Ross. I was in India with my husband during the Mutiny. But when I entered that place of alcoholism and despair, and saw the depravity stamped on the loutish faces of those there, I thought I had entered hell!’

  I was taken aback by the ferocity in her voice. She, at least, believed in Fawcett and his ‘cause’. It would be hopeless to try and persuade her that he was a fraud, as I believed him to be. He had picked his acolyte well. He had cunningly shown her the enemy, drink, face to face. He had told her they must fight it. She was a soldier’s widow. She knew about fighting. She had immediately thrown herself into the fray.

  ‘I was filled with disgust, Mrs Ross, as I am sure you would have been. These were British men and women who should have been supporting themselves by honest toil and raising their families to be God-fearing and hardworking. They lounged there in every kind of abandoned attitude. Some were only half conscious, so stupefied were they by drink. This cannot be allowed to continue or the entire country will go to the dogs! Where will the sturdy young men come from, to fill the ranks of the British Army and Navy? Who will work in our great industries? Where will be the strong hardworking mothers to raise healthy families? Feebleness of character must, like feebleness of body, be expunged from our society!’

  Her cheeks glowed red and her eyes sparkled. She leaned forward and clenched her fists. She saw Fawcett as leading a cavalry charge, and she was there at his side.

  ‘And what does Mr Fawcett do to make them change their ways?’ I asked.

  ‘He organises gatherings among them to urge them to reform and see their error. He helps by finding them gainful employment. If they will accept to take work he also, if necessary, provides them with strong boots and work clothes, as many are destitute and in rags.

  ‘He organises classes for their children where they may be taught their letters and so be better fit for employment. Those who are starving he helps with food. Money is never given directly, because that would encourage them in their idleness. Of course, the help is dependent on every member of the family turning aside from drunkenness and debauchery.

  ‘He took me to see a family who had been saved by his efforts. The father was now in employment as a porter. The wife was decently dressed, her children washed and the room in which they lived tidy. They could not praise their benefactor highly enough.’

  ‘If he does all that,’ I said, ‘it is worthy work indeed. Does he only preach in London, at the Temperance Hall? Or elsewhere? Here, for example, in Clapham?’

  ‘I have been able to introduce him to a good many people here in Clapham,’ she returned proudly, ‘at my regular soirées.’

  And the residents of Clapham, those who lived in the comfortable large houses and villas I had seen, had money to spare for a worthy cause. How much, I wondered, had Fawcett managed to raise in the time since he had begun his ‘ministry’ at the Temperance Hall? Surely a great deal of money. And what checks were made to ensure it was spent in the way Mrs Scott described?

  I knew how these schemes worked. As our town’s doctor, my father was aware of everything that wen
t on, and in his additional role of police surgeon got to hear many details of crimes. I was not only his daughter but his housekeeper and companion. We would sit of an evening and he would talk to me freely of his day. He told me of cases where the public had been gulled and parted from its money by an elaborate façade of deception. There would be no difficulty in Fawcett producing a ‘reformed family’ for inspection, if so required. The interested visitor would be shown a neat, clean room, a newly employed and redeemed head of the household with decently dressed wife and children, all smiling and praising Mr Fawcett, just as Mrs Scott had seen.

  The ‘reformed family’ would be in Fawcett’s pay. Each interested visitor would see the same scene, with the same people in it. In the same way, the proprietor of the gin palace described by Mrs Scott would have been paid to allow a potential donor to the cause to view his dreadful premises. A little money had perhaps been dispensed among the drinkers beforehand to make sure that by the time Fawcett brought Mrs Scott there, they were all in the sorry state she had described. But she would not believe me if I told her any of this.

  I could not extend my stay any longer. I wasn’t sure I had learned anything other than to confirm Ben’s suspicions that Fawcett had been raising money from wealthy people, met at the ‘soirées’, and my own that he was a charlatan.

  Neverthless I was about to learn another interesting detail as we travelled home.

  ‘What did the housekeeper have to say?’ I asked Bessie. ‘Did you tell her Miss Marchwood was dead?’

  Bessie nodded. ‘Yes, I did. She was that cut up, really shocked. Said it was awful and Miss Marchwood was a very nice lady who had been lots of times to the house for the swarries.’ Bessie darted a look of triumph at me. ‘And so had the Italian lady who was strangled, Mrs Benedict.’

  Mrs Scott had taken care not to tell me that!

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked Bessie eagerly.

  ‘Mrs Field, that’s the housekeeper, told me that a very beautiful lady used to come with Miss Marchwood sometimes and she was Italian. What’s more she was murdered, too, and Mrs Field read about it in the newspapers. Mrs Field says it seems a decent woman can’t set foot out of the house now without being set on by some murderous ruffian. Mrs Field has a sister who lives in Cheapside; and now she’s afraid to travel up to town to visit her on her day off. Mrs Field is a soldier’s widow, too, missus. Her husband was a sergeant and he served in India at the same time as Major Scott and that’s why she’s now Mrs Scott’s housekeeper. Mrs Field says that there used to be people in India called Thugs. They used to befriend travellers and then murder and rob them. She says it is getting as bad as that here in England. I asked her what Mrs Scott had said when she’d heard about the murder of the Italian lady.’

  ‘And what did Mrs Scott say to Mrs Field?’

  ‘That it was disgraceful that such a thing could happen in a respectable part of London in broad daylight. Only it wasn’t broad daylight, as we both know, because it was that bad fog,’ added Bessie pedantically.

  ‘It’s a figure of speech,’ I said. ‘Mrs Scott meant, during the daytime.’

  ‘And Mrs Field let slip—’ Bessie smiled at me in triumph - ‘that she had the impression Mrs Scott didn’t like the Italian lady very much, so she was shocked but not what you’d call sorry. She heard Mrs Scott say once, to Miss Marchwood, that Mrs Benedict was “not devoted to the cause”. Which meant, Mrs Field said, she didn’t go to the temperance meetings. I asked Mrs Field if she had ever gone to the meetings. But Mrs Field said, “Certainly not.” So I asked her why and she said she was a good Catholic and didn’t go in for that kind of tub-thumping. She thought that probably the Italian lady had been a Catholic too, and didn’t go to the temperance meetings for that reason. But it was not her place to suggest that to Mrs Scott.’

  Bessie paused and looked thoughtful. ‘You know what, missus? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go to the meetings any more; not and really enjoy them, like I did. In my mind I’ll always see Miss Marchwood sitting there, or helping with the teas. I hope the inspector finds out who the murderer is quick.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Inspector Benjamin Ross

  ‘THERE IS absolutely no doubt in my mind that Fawcett is a fraudster,’ I said to Dunn the following morning, after I had given him Lizzie’s account of her visit to Clapham. ‘The woman Scott is in thrall to him. Others will be as completely convinced. He must be investigated.’

  ‘The matter is already set in hand,’ said Dunn. ‘I have contacted several other police authorities and passed out the description Mrs Ross gives of him. We shall have to tread carefully, however, or he will guess the game is up here and he’ll be off to pastures new.’

  ‘I am aware of that, sir,’ I said dolefully.

  I was frustrated that we could not stop Fawcett and his profitable enterprise at once, but Dunn was right. At the first sign of our suspicion, he would slip from our grasp. He would reinvent himself elsewhere and it would not be until he came to the notice of yet another police authority that anything could be done. Plenty of his sort kept themselves ‘in business’ for years before the law finally caught up with them. Even then it was always very difficult to prove anything against them. The problem often was that those deceived by such tricksters were unwilling to stand up in court and admit how they had been fooled. Mrs Scott, for instance, even if she were ever to be convinced of his falseness, would never make public admission of it. Her pride would not let her, and more. The Fawcetts of the world survive because not only money has been taken from the victims. The fraudster is protected because the gullible have given him something much more precious: their trust and, in that way, their hearts. For them, discovery of the deception is more akin to finding a lover unfaithful than just a robbery. As police officers, we just have to hope that knowledge of the truth engenders enough rage to make some of them speak out.

  I left Dunn feeling that things were not going our way. But, as often happens, the unexpected offered a gleam of hope.

  ‘There you are, sir!’ declared Morris, for once wearing a broad smile. ‘Found him, that Seymour chap. Like you said, he’s on the books of the same agency for “upper servants and superior staff” out at Northwood.’ Morris gave a snort of derision. ‘No use going to them if you just want a housemaid. Governesses and companions, best sort of lady’s maid and gentleman’s gentleman, and butlers, that’s what they deal in. Well, Mortimer Seymour is butler at a place down near Newmarket now. He works for a Colonel Frey. I have the address here.’ Morris waved a piece of paper. ‘Shall I get down there and talk to him?’

  I took the address slip from him. ‘The Manor House,’ I said. ‘We may have to go through his employer to speak to him. It’s better I go. No offence, Morris, but the colonel will appreciate my rank.’

  Morris nodded. ‘You’re right. I’d be sent round to the back door!’

  ‘You appear to be conducting this investigation by railway,’ grumbled Dunn. ‘If you exceed your daily expenses allowance it will be no use asking me to justify it. The department’s budget is not limitless and plenty of your colleagues are doing their work on foot within the boundaries of the capital. Let’s hope you turn up trumps this time.’

  I hoped so too. I had plenty of time, as the train took me down to Newmarket through the peaceful East Anglian countryside, to think out a strategy. There was no knowing how the colonel would react to a police officer turning up at his door, wanting to interview a member of his staff. I did not want to cost Seymour his place. I decided that, when I arrived, I would hire a cab to take me out to the village where the colonel lived and on arrival, find the most prosperous-looking tavern or small hotel if they had one, there to eat my midday meal. I would have to find a way to include that in my expenses. The landlord or landlady, or failing them, the waiter in the dining room or even the potman, would be able to tell me about a local landowner. Forewarned is forearmed.

  As I was driven out to the place, I realised that here I was
in racing country. There were plenty of signs of that, from strings of thoroughbreds on the skyline to the names of the pubs, all of which seemed to have some direct connection with the turf. The tavern in which I found myself was a spacious, comfortable place by the name of the Finishing Post. Very droll, I thought. A roaring fire heated the dining room and the menu offered a choice of pork chops or mutton stew. I settled for the mutton stew and it arrived, pleasantly bubbling and colourful, with carrots, swede and turnip bobbing about with the meat, and dotted with silvery globes of pearl barley. The smell was mouth-watering.

  ‘All cooked in ale, sir,’ promised the waiter, as he set down my generous plateful.

  I tucked in, as did the other two diners, a pair of fellows wearing loud check jackets, whose conversation was unintelligible to me. I have never followed the horses. Luckily these two finished before me and left; so that I was alone when the waiter brought my coffee.