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

by Granger, Ann

  There was a gasp. The light from the nearest lamp-post was shining on my face and the girl could see me far better than I could see her.

  ‘It’s you, ain’t it?’ she said. ‘You’re that inspector what came to the Hero to speak to Jed.’

  ‘Come out!’ I ordered sharply. ‘Let me see you.’

  A figure emerged and I saw the girl in the mauve bonnet who had been with Jed Sparrow in the public house. She still wore the same bonnet, despite its unsuitability for the time of year, and a light gown equally out of season, with petticoats short enough to reveal her boots and mud-splashed stockings. For warmth she had draped round her shoulders a small cape edged with some fur that looked to me as if it had last been worn by a cat. She also carried a brolly and now put this up to shield herself from the rain – and perhaps also to put a barrier between herself and me.

  ‘I remember you,’ I said. ‘You sat at the table with Sparrow and another girl. So, out collecting rags, are you?’

  She gave a nervous giggle. ‘That’s Jed’s little joke,’ she said.

  ‘Sparrow would do well not to jest with the law. What’s your name?’

  She hesitated. ‘Rose,’ she said at last, adding in a frightened voice, ‘Here, you’re not going to run me in, are you? I only just got here, I ain’t earned any money yet.’

  ‘And Sparrow, in another of his little jokes, will black your eye if you go home empty-handed,’ I said. ‘As he used to beat Clarrie Brady.’

  ‘You found Clarrie, didn’t you?’ she said quietly.

  ‘I viewed her body in the morgue. I didn’t find her. The River Police did that. She was taken out of the Thames.’

  She sighed. ‘It don’t seem fair,’ she said. ‘It was the River Wraith who did that to her, wasn’t it?’

  She said this with a kind of dull certainty that was sadder than any more dramatic tone.

  ‘You’re afraid that, one night, he’ll find you, too,’ I said.

  ‘I already saw him,’ was the reply.

  I hadn’t expected this. ‘When? Where?’ I demanded. ‘Not tonight?’

  ‘No, it was a couple of weeks ago, just before Clarrie disappeared. I saw her that day and after that I never saw her no more. I knew the Wraith had got her. She was afraid of him. We’re all of us afraid of him, but Clarrie, she knew he was looking for her.’

  ‘Daisy Smith said the same,’ I said.

  ‘Daisy and Clarrie, they were good friends.’

  ‘Rose,’ I said gently, ‘tell me where you saw the Wraith and how it came about.’

  ‘It was during the week before we had that really thick fog, I think it was the Thursday.’ She paused. ‘But the weather wasn’t good. The river mist had come up, nowhere near so bad as it got later, but still bad enough. Down near the water it was swirling about and sort of confusing for anyone out and about in it like I was. The cold got into your bones. I stopped and bought a hot potato from a seller. I stood by his stove to eat it and warm meself up. I know that seller; I often buy a potato from him in cold weather. Just after I moved off, hadn’t gone very far, I heard footsteps hurrying along behind me. I turned quick – but not quick enough. He was there, all white robes, like a burial shroud, with staring black holes instead of eyes . . . He spoke to me.’

  This was the first information I’d had that anyone had heard the prowler’s voice. I asked eagerly, ‘What did he say? What was his voice like?’

  ‘Very soft,’ she said. ‘Strange that, you’d think it would be harsh, croaking. But it was very soft and would have been quite nice if it hadn’t been coming out of that face. He called me a harlot, a daughter of sin, and he sort of . . . hissed. I let out a really big yell, and the potato seller, further down the road, he heard and he came running. He was shouting out, “What’s up?” because he guessed it was me screaming. When the old Wraith heard someone coming he took off too, just vanished into mist. By the time the potato seller got there, I was shaking. But the Wraith had gone.’

  Rose had seen Clarrie on the Thursday – and met the Wraith that same evening. But if he’d been looking for Clarrie on that Thursday evening, he’d not found her, because Daisy had seen Clarrie on Friday morning, at a coffee stall.

  ‘You were fortunate,’ I told Rose. Indeed she had been, because she too had seen him close at hand and heard his voice – and perhaps only the approach of the potato seller had saved her. If the Wraith had wanted to practise his skill with a cord that night, it would have been Rose’s body I’d seen at Wapping.

  ‘Maybe.’ Her thoughts were echoing mine. ‘Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t seen him. Clarrie saw him and look what happened to her. Perhaps he is looking for me, now.’ She peered up at me from beneath the umbrella. ‘You going to run me in? Don’t, please!’

  ‘No,’ I said wearily. ‘I’m not going to arrest you. But take care and try and stay where there are plenty of people around.’

  ‘Daisy said you were all right,’ she confided.

  ‘I’m obliged to Daisy,’ I said. ‘Goodnight, Rose.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Ross.’

  I set off on my way again but the meeting with the girl, and her youth, had depressed me. Perhaps it was the thought of that scoundrel Jed Sparrow waiting for her to bring home any money she earned. Whatever the reason, I turned my head and looked back.

  She was standing where I had left her, beneath her brolly, but now she had apparently snared a customer. A well-dressed man was talking to her and some discussion, probably over price, taking place. Then he looked up and in my direction, as if he sensed that the pair of them were observed, and I saw in the gaslight that it was Sebastian Benedict.

  I would say that my initial response was surprise. But then my surprise faded, to be replaced by a mixture of feelings. To put the best interpretation on his presence, it was possible he was simply unhappy and lonely following the death of his wife, and that had led him to come up to town and seek out one of the ladybirds working about the streets. Or, and now my emotion was turning to one of anger, this had always been his habit. Despite a beautiful wife at home, he was one of those men who find more pleasure and excitement with prostitutes. There are plenty of well-to-do men of that sort. But it still shocked me that Benedict was turning out to be one of them.

  I turned on my heel in disgust and walked on, but soon I heard footsteps rapidly overtaking me and a voice called, ‘Ross!’

  I stopped and waited. Benedict caught up with me, rather out of breath. I noted that although still clad in severe mourning, he had removed the silk scarf from his top hat. His servants would have noticed if he had changed his dress to come up to town so he was obliged to seek his pleasures still clad in deepest black.

  ‘You are astonished to see me,’ he said, his manner and voice both defiant.

  ‘I am a police officer,’ I told him. ‘Very little surprises me, Mr Benedict.’

  The coldness of my tone had impressed him. I fancied that even in the gaslight, I could see him flush. ‘You censure me!’ he said angrily.

  ‘I am investigating Mrs Benedict’s murder,’ I said. ‘Your behaviour is only of interest to me in as much as it touches on my enquiries.’

  ‘Damn it!’ he exclaimed, ‘I am not the only man—’ He broke off.

  ‘Indeed not, sir.’ I kept my tone bland.

  ‘But I am in mourning, and you disapprove of my being here on that account,’ Benedict said. When I made no reply to this, he went on, ‘When I told you I loved my dear late wife, that was the truth.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  He hesitated. ‘I would like you to understand, Ross, I want to explain . . . You see, my wife was . . . She was a work of art. No sculptor or painter could have produced more perfect a form. I always feared that . . . that she would become pregnant.’

  Now I was startled enough to show it. ‘You feared it? Most couples hope to start a family.’ As I supposed that Lizzie and I would one day, if all were well. ‘But that’s not my concern, sir,’ I added apologe
tically, because odd though it seemed to me, it was truly not my concern.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I could not have watched that perfect body become distorted and bloated with child. I have seen pregnant women with their puffy faces and awkward gait. That Allegra should become like that? No!’ He paused. ‘So, you see, my wife and I seldom shared a bed.’

  This unwelcome and distasteful confession did touch on my investigation. Could it have been this very lack of a physical relationship within the marriage that had driven Allegra to seek love elsewhere?

  I heard myself ask, ‘How did your wife feel about that?’

  Angrily he snapped, ‘A woman of refinement does not entertain base cravings!’

  Confound the fellow! I thought. Does he truly believe that? Then he is stupid, deluded, or simply callous and making a sorry excuse for his habit of frequenting common prostitutes. But I’d been right in my judgement; he did look upon Allegra as a possession, something to be added to his art collection, not a real living being with human emotions and vulnerability. Too late now to argue that out with him. After all, I told myself, I’m neither his medical adviser nor his father confessor. Let him believe such nonsense if he wants to. It has brought him grief once already and very likely will do so again. I just hope he doesn’t ruin another woman’s life as he did Allegra’s. In the meantime, he doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. There is no need for any pretence.

  Aloud I said, ‘Well, then, you had better get back to your ladybird. However, it is my duty to warn you that such women are not always only what they appear to be. If you have valuables on you, take care. She may act as decoy for some ruffian who is lurking in the shadows waiting for you. I need not mention the diseases such girls often pass on.’

  With that, we parted company. At least I might have given him something to think about.

  I arrived in my own house to find myself confronted by two pairs of eager eyes. As I suspected, the news of Fawcett’s arrest and his overnight stay in the cells had got about. My faint hope that it hadn’t was instantly dashed.

  ‘Well?’ demanded my wife.

  ‘What have you done with poor Mr Fawcett?’ asked Bessie, less subtle and more partisan.

  ‘The devil take your Mr Fawcett!’ I snapped irritably. What with encountering Fawcett and Benedict on the same day, it really was too much.

  ‘Ben . . .’ murmured my wife, with a glance at our maid.

  ‘I have had to let the fellow go,’ I told her.

  ‘There,’ said Bessie smugly, ‘I knew poor Mr Fawcett couldn’t have done anything.’

  ‘Go and peel the potatoes, Bessie!’ ordered Lizzie.

  Bessie went, not without a last triumphant look at me.

  ‘You didn’t tell me, when you got home last night, that you’d arrested him,’ said Lizzie, as I’d known she would. The look in her eyes fell somewhere between reproach and accusation.

  ‘We hadn’t charged him,’ I said feebly. ‘It’s a tricky moment when you bring a man in for questioning. I thought it better to be silent on the matter last night and wait until I’d spoken to him today.’ I threw myself down in an armchair. ‘And, as I told you both just now, we have had to release him.’

  Lizzie perched on the edge of the chair opposite. ‘He could not tell you anything, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Could not, would not . . .’ I muttered moodily. ‘I knew it was a mistake to bring him in, but Dunn would have it. He wouldn’t even confess to the affair with Allegra Benedict although we have testimony from two servants that it was going on.’

  ‘Wretch!’ exploded Lizzie. I assumed she meant Fawcett. ‘So, what will happen now?’ she added.

  ‘We have to hope he does not run for it. Dunn may be right and he won’t do so immediately. It would make him look guilty of a capital offence. It is one thing to run to avoid being detected as a swindler. Quite another to present yourself as a candidate for the hangman’s noose.’

  ‘Do you think he killed her?’ Lizzie lowered her voice, although much clattering from the kitchen announced Bessie’s location. She was not a quiet worker.

  I sighed. ‘I have no idea. Dunn thinks he did. The man had motive. Allegra was in love. For Fawcett that would normally have meant that she was under his sway, but in this case the lady was Italian. She had a Latin temperament; she was passionate and unpredictable. Her whole demeanour had changed. She wanted the world to see how happy she was. We know that the servants at Cedar Lodge had already guessed the truth from her altered manner; and it would only be a matter of time before her husband’s suspicions were aroused. I do believe Fawcett had got himself into a situation from which he would gladly have extricated himself. But kill to do it? That’s something quite different. In my view it is far more likely that, if it came to a moment of decision, Fawcett would simply have packed his bags and vanished. It would have meant abandoning a profitable enterprise raising money for his so-called work. But given the possibility of some indiscretion on Allegra’s part revealing the scandal, well, that’s what he would have done. No, I don’t think he killed her. But I am prepared to find out I am wrong. She may have said something, done something, particularly rash and Fawcett may have panicked.’

  ‘I shall go to the Temperance Hall on Sunday afternoon!’ declared Lizzie after taking a moment to consider all this.

  I wasn’t altogether happy about this. ‘You will find yourself unwelcome on my account,’ I warned her.

  ‘I was not particularly welcome there before, I fancy,’ said my wife serenely. ‘But I shall be interested to see how Mr Fawcett conducts himself now, after his little adventure in the cells.’

  And, I had to admit, so should I. As for my recent encounter with Benedict, and what I had learned from it about the nature of his marriage, I had not and could not tell Lizzie about that. That Benedict had in some way been the author of his own misfortunes did not excuse Fawcett, who had taken advantage of a lonely and desperate woman.

  I think Superintendent Dunn was a little discomfited by our having been obliged to let Fawcett go. If so, his good spirits were soon restored. On Saturday morning I headed for my office, only to be waylaid by the eager Biddle.

  ‘Mr Dunn’s come in today, and got visitors, sir,’ he whispered. There was no reason for his lowered tones. Biddle has a sense of the dramatic. With luck, he’ll grow out of it.

  ‘Visitors from the North!’ went on Biddle, gesturing vaguely towards the window and what he probably hoped was a northerly direction. ‘And he wants to see you, sir, straight away, in his office.’

  ‘Now what?’ I muttered to myself as I set off. Dunn did not normally appear on a Saturday. He must have been summoned.

  I could hear voices before I got there and when I went in I found Dunn entertaining, if that’s the word, two gentlemen obviously from out of town. They wore top hats and bulky winter overcoats and a faint smell of soot and engine oil hung about them that suggested they had come directly from one of London’s great railway termini.

  Dunn was looking really pleased with himself. ‘Ah, Ross,’ he greeted me. ‘Just the man. Now then, I think our luck has turned!’ He indicated the two men. ‘This is Inspector Styles and that’s Sergeant O’Reilly. They are from the Manchester force and have just come from Euston Station where they arrived on an early train, carrying with them . . .’

  Biddle wasn’t the only one with a sense of the theatrical this morning. Dunn picked up a sheet of paper and waved it triumphantly at me.

  ‘A warrant for the arrest of Jeremiah Basset.’ Dunn leaned forward. ‘Known to us as Joshua Fawcett.’

  ‘We were interested to receive Superintendent Dunn’s telegraphed enquiry with a description of the man in question,’ said Styles. His voice seemed to emerge from his boots. He was a solid, red-faced fellow with a fine beard. Despite this newly fashionable hair growth, there was something of the countryman about him. In this way he shared his appearance with Dunn, suggesting a pair of farmers met to discuss cattle prices. ‘We guessed it was
our man. We’ve been chasing Basset for some time. There are a lot of folk anxious to talk to him in Manchester.’

  ‘Not only there,’ put in O’Reilly, his voice contrasting alarmingly with his senior officer’s, being rather light and reedy with the soft echo of an Irish brogue. ‘They want him in Preston, Sheffield, Bradford and Leeds.’

  ‘But we have got here first!’ rumbled Styles with an air of triumph. ‘And we’d like to take him back with us, if that’s all right with you,’ he added, with a look at Dunn, who was preening himself in the background.