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

by Granger, Ann

  We stood before the villa and discussed how best to go about things. O’Reilly was once again dispatched to the rear of the building. Styles and I approached the front door and as we did, we heard from within the sound of chattering voices and the chink of bone china.

  ‘She’s got a lot of people there to listen to him,’ whispered Styles. ‘How’s she going to take it when we turn up?’

  ‘Badly,’ I said. ‘Have that warrant ready. She will be bound to ask to see it.’

  The housekeeper opened the door to us and showed no surprise. She even stood back to allow us inside, with smiles and welcoming gestures.

  ‘The reverend gentleman has not long begun,’ she said.

  I realised she thought we had come to join in the meeting, sounds of which had increased. I could now make out Fawcett’s mellifluous tones, holding forth. My heart leapt. He was here!

  ‘We would like to speak to Mrs Scott privately,’ I said. ‘Would it be possible, do you think, to ask her to step out here without drawing attention to it? I wouldn’t wish to disturb your speaker,’ I added duplicitously.

  Fawcett would be on the alert, though. If he had the slightest hint of our presence he would know at once we had something new on him. I hoped O’Reilly was ready in place.

  The housekeeper hesitated. She was realising something was wrong.

  ‘I am Inspector Ross,’ I said, ‘my wife called here recently to see Mrs Scott.’

  The housekeeper relaxed. ‘Oh yes, Mrs Ross, I remember. Just wait a moment, gentlemen, would you?’

  She made towards a door on the left that must lead into the drawing room and whence came the noise of talk and tea-taking. I moved quickly out on to the front step again and made so bold as to take a quick peep through the window. The room was full of people, mainly ladies. And there was our man! He stood in the midst, fortunately not looking towards the window. A regular dandy he was, too, in his frock coat, pantaloons and cravat with stickpin, gesticulating widely as he made some point. I saw the housekeeper cross the room and stoop to whisper discreetly into Mrs Scott’s ear. Fawcett, well into his speech, took no notice.

  Make the most of it, Mr Fawcett, I thought to myself. This is the last meeting you will address for a very long time.

  I rejoined Styles in the hall. He raised his bushy eyebrows and I nodded in response. Styles smiled broadly within his beard, revealing a set of strong white teeth, a predator ready to pounce.

  There was a flurry of silk skirts and suddenly Mrs Scott was bearing down on us, a militant glint in her eye.

  Rightly identifying me, she ignored Styles and addressed me. ‘This is not a convenient time for you to call, Inspector Ross! Both you and your wife appear to think it acceptable to arrive on my doorstep at any time of the day and expect entry. I am entertaining a party of friends. Go away.’

  Well, that was plain enough. Styles didn’t like it. He was scowling ferociously and digging in his pocket for his warrant.

  ‘This is Inspector Styles who has come down from Manchester,’ I told Mrs Scott.

  She stared hard at Styles, who stared back. ‘Indeed?’ she said dismissively. ‘And in Manchester they make house calls at any time of the day or night, I suppose?’

  A deep rumble suggesting a volcano about to erupt emanated from Styles’s beard.

  ‘Inspector Styles,’ I said hastily, ‘has a warrant for the arrest of a man we believe is present at your party.’

  Styles held out his warrant. It was snatched from his grasp.

  ‘Pah!’ said the lady, having read it. She held it out to Styles who quickly took repossession of it. ‘That warrant is for the arrest of someone called Jeremiah Basset. I know the names of all the people in that room, Inspector, and none of them is called Basset.’

  ‘You know the fellow as Joshua Fawcett,’ I said.

  An audible intake of breath greeted my words and a tide of red began to creep up her neck and cheeks. ‘Nonsense!’ she snapped.

  ‘By no means. He has been recognised and identified. He has gone by various names in the past. I must ask you to allow us to perform our duty.’

  Styles was not waiting on niceties. He simply barrelled his way past her and made for the drawing-room door.

  ‘You may not disrupt my guests!’ barked Mrs Scott in a voice well audible within.

  ‘Damn!’ I muttered and darted past her after Styles.

  The door flew open and we burst in upon the gathering. The resulting mayhem was predictable but still impressive. Ladies shrieked, the few gentlemen present leaped up, china fell and shattered, tea and cake flew everywhere. A parrot began an ear-splitting barrage of furious squawks, flapping his wings and ricocheting off the wire bars of his cage.

  In the midst of it all stood Fawcett, who reacted as might have been expected. At the first sight of Styles’s burly form and beard, and not attempting any denial, the preacher bounded towards a door at the far end of the room. Styles and I raced after him but we were impeded by the agitated crowd and obstacle course of small tables and cake stands. These we sent toppling to either side. More shrieks and wails arose and at least two ladies fainted away. Two men present tried to grab at us but we brushed them off and one of them fell over, too, knocking against a display cabinet and sending that and all its contents crashing to the floor.

  The door through which our man was trying to make his escape led into a room at the back of the house. We rushed through it after Fawcett and were in time to see him climbing through a window into the garden.

  It was a narrow window and Styles and I collided in our eagerness to follow. I was slimmer and more agile than my companion and scrambled through it first. Behind me I could hear the heavier built Styles cursing as he struggled through the opening.

  Fawcett was sprinting across the lawn towards some rhododendron bushes. He seemed to know where he was going. There is a gate somewhere . . . I thought as I panted along behind him. He knows of it and is making for it. Where is O’Reilly?

  As if in answer to my silent plea, O’Reilly stepped out of the rhododendrons. Fawcett, carried onward by the impetus of his flight, had no time to avoid him. They collided with a terrifying thump! The sergeant was bowled over and Fawcett lost his footing. They fell together to the ground where both lay winded unable to do anything before Styles and I were upon them. We grasped Fawcett and hauled him upright, leaving the gasping O’Reilly to get up unaided when he could.

  ‘Jeremiah Basset!’ boomed Styles, ‘I have here a warrant for your arrest -’

  Fawcett’s wild gaze was fixed on me. Gone was any vestige of urbanity. This was a hunted creature that had been trapped, panting and dishevelled. His fine coat and pantaloons were smeared with mud and grass stains. He had caught a sleeve, probably in climbing through the window, and ripped a long rent in it.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’ he howled.

  ‘The warrant,’ I told him, ‘is for your activities obtaining money by deception in Manchester. A similar trick to the one you have been playing here, I fancy! Denying it won’t help. The Law has caught up with you!’

  ‘I did do that!’ he almost sobbed, ‘But I had nothing to do with the other! I swear it, Mr Ross! I had no hand in the death of Allegra or of Isabella Marchwood. Before God, I am not a murderer!’

  O’Reilly had found his feet and produced a set of handcuffs from his pocket.

  ‘Slap the derbies on him,’ ordered Styles.

  Fawcett gazed at his cuffed wrists in bewilderment and then looked up at me. ‘You believe me, don’t you, Mr Ross?’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Inspector Benjamin Ross

  IT HAD been agreed that Styles and O’Reilly should take Fawcett back to Manchester to face the charges they had prepared against him there. Before that Styles let me take the opportunity to talk to Fawcett again about Allegra Benedict while we still had the wretch in our custody. I continued to call him by the name he had used in London. We had yet to get him to admit to his real one. Perhaps Styles would persuade him t
o own to it, or possibly Fawcett had used so many names over such a time, he was himself confused. He was an actor who had played too many roles.

  The fine man of fashion was a sorry sight on Sunday morning. This was normally the day on which he reigned supreme over his flock, basking in their adulation, thrilling to the power he held to manipulate their emotions and bend them to his will. Instead he sat in a bare cell exuding its miasma of despair and stared desperately at me. No dandy now, but hardly recognisable: a dishevelled, haggard, twitching caricature of what he had so recently been. This was to be a very different sort of interview to the previous one.

  ‘I am not a murderer,’ he repeated. ‘I swear it.’ The man was almost in tears.

  ‘I am not accusing you of murder, not as yet, anyway,’ I told him. ‘But I am accusing you of obstructing our enquiries into two murders, that of Allegra Benedict and also that of Isabella Marchwood. To impede the police in that way, as you will know, is also an offence.’

  ‘How am I obstructing you?’ he exclaimed, clutching his head in his hands. ‘I know absolutely nothing about it!’

  I leaned forward. ‘Fawcett, I must know for sure whether or not you were conducting an affair with the victim, Allegra Benedict.You probably thought you were being discreet. But some other person or persons certainly knew of it, in addition to Isabella Marchwood who was a party to it from the first. It is possible that other person, or persons, used the knowledge to send a false message to Mrs Benedict, luring her into the park that afternoon. Do you want the true murderer found?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ he shouted at me. ‘Until the murderer is convicted, I remain a suspect! How you think that makes me feel? I don’t want to swing on the gallows for another man’s crime!’

  ‘Then help me find our villain, Fawcett,’ I said and sat back, waiting.

  He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, sagging in defeat. ‘Very well, I’ll admit it. Yes, it was a stupid thing for me to have done but – I became involved with Allegra Benedict. Normally I wouldn’t have taken the risk. I have never done so before. It is not for lack of opportunity.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘I am not boasting. But you should understand, Inspector Ross, that there is a certain type of woman who falls under the spell of a successful preacher, or any man in any kind of authority. It is not just that she believes his words implicitly, but she develops a passion for the man himself. Don’t ask me why or how. But not infrequently that is what happens. I have always been aware of it and the danger it presents so have always tried to avoid it. But Allegra was different.’

  He fell silent for a while. I did not press him to continue. There was something in his face I had not seen before and, I dare say, few people had: a genuine expression of regret.

  ‘You did not see her when she was alive, Ross. She was not just very beautiful, although her beauty was remarkable, but full of some hidden desire, a – a yearning; and possibilities no one had yet discovered.’ He gave a shame-faced little laugh. ‘I sound like a writer of lurid fiction but in her case it was so. You know the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, I expect. She was in some ways like that. Any man would long to kiss her and bring her back to life.’ His smile was now a sad one. ‘And that is what I did.’

  ‘But you found you had awakened a dangerous sleeping creature,’ I suggested.

  He nodded. ‘Oh yes, it was only a matter of time before the husband realised what was going on. The situation, had it become known to him, would have led him to drastic action. He was a man with influential connections, in a position to bring a divorce action against his wife. I would be named.

  ‘I tried to impress on Allegra the serious nature of the risk, the need for absolute discretion and the necessary deception that required constant awareness. But she had no understanding of any of these words. Both discretion and deception really meant nothing to her. The risk thrilled her.’ He sighed. ‘Despite all that, I really did think that others had not yet become aware of the affair.’

  He gave an irritable shrug. ‘Oh, Isabella Marchwood knew and was necessary to our plans, but otherwise I thought I had a little while still. I knew that eventually I would have to cut and run. But I did not think that moment had yet come. I persuaded myself it had not.’

  ‘You were in love,’ I said softly, surprising myself as well as Fawcett.

  He thought about it. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose I was.’

  ‘Did you ever meet her in Green Park?’

  ‘Yes, several times. We would then take a cab to a small hotel I know of where they are discreet.’

  There were several such establishments in London, hotels only in name. Some were as good as brothels, with girls supplied if needed. Furtive lovers and other people in need of a private place to discuss very secret business might also go there. At any rate, those who took rooms often stayed only an hour or two during the day. But a blind eye was turned and no member of the ‘hotel staff’ (as the brothel madam and her bully-boys called themselves) would pass the knowledge on.

  ‘When I heard of her death, I was utterly dismayed,’ Fawcett was telling me earnestly. ‘But I couldn’t show it. I had to appear calm and normal. You cannot imagine how difficult it was, Ross. You will say I have plenty of experience at deceiving others, but that required an effort from me that took all my talents. I did speak to Miss Marchwood, impress on her that she must not tell anyone about – about my friendship with Allegra. Marchwood was the weak link, if you will, but I believed she was too frightened ever to speak.’

  Yes, I thought, that is the little scene Lizzie witnessed at the meeting. You were not consoling the distraught woman but giving her what amounted to an order. Be silent. Say nothing. Lizzie later tried to get the wretched companion to confide in her without success, probably because Fawcett’s instructions were too fresh in Isabella Marchwood’s mind. But on the following day, that of her murder, she had taken the train to London with some express purpose. Overnight she had had time to reflect. I strongly suspected she’d meant to come to the police . . . or to try and find Lizzie.

  ‘Did Mrs Benedict ever give you money, for your so-called work or for any other reason?’ I asked Fawcett, who was staring glumly at his fingernails.

  He looked up and hesitated.

  ‘Come along,’ I urged him. ‘I don’t propose to charge you with anything in that regard. You’ll face those kinds of charges in Manchester and all the other cities where you’ve persuaded gullible people to part with money or valuables. I only want to know if Allegra Benedict would have accepted a suggestion that she sell some jewellery, for example, to fund you.’

  ‘I made no such suggestion!’ he shouted. ‘She never had such an idea from me!’

  ‘But did she ever do such a thing, sell some jewellery and give you the money?’

  ‘Yes, she did but it was her own idea.’ He leaned towards me. ‘She once sold a string of pearls. But not, I repeat, not at my suggestion. That is the truth, I swear. She told me the pearls had belonged to her mother. She said her husband knew nothing of them, would not miss them nor ask where the pearls were. She did it without a word to me, and then brought me the money, as pleased as a child. I – accepted it. Yes, I did that, unwillingly, though you will not believe me. I was afraid, you understand, that if I refused, she would be upset and there would be an argument. She would go home in distress and Benedict would observe it and want to know what had upset her. I was even more afraid what would happen if she started making a habit of it. I had already learned, you see, how unpredictable she could be.’

  He pulled a wry expression. ‘In fact, it set me thinking that perhaps the time was at hand when I’d have to leave London and return to the provinces. Provincial ladies are not above making eyes at the preacher, but they live in smaller communities where everyone’s business is known. They have sharp-eyed family and friends all around them. They are less likely to behave foolishly. Gossip is meat and drink to small town society, Inspector! They flirt but it goes no further. If they commit adultery, it is
only in the mind.

  ‘But Allegra, well, I wasn’t sure what she’d do next. After all, a sale of jewellery involves two parties, the seller and the purchaser. She might not have told her husband; but the jeweller who had bought the item might take it on himself to do so. I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘Did you ask her to sell a brooch; or did she ever mention to you she intended to do so?’ I asked.

  He shook his head, his long hair flying. ‘No, no! I told you. I was afraid the husband would find out. Perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed the jewellery was missing, as she said, or perhaps he would. I wasn’t prepared to risk it. After I accepted the money from the sale of the necklace, I told her she must never do such a thing again.’

  I thought he was probably sincere. Missing jewellery that his wife could not explain might well have set Benedict on the track of the truth. Or a jeweller, suspicious that Mrs Benedict had fallen into the hands of a confidence trickster, might well have contacted Benedict, just as Fawcett described. Old Tedeschi, who had known Allegra since her childhood, would not have done that. But Fawcett didn’t know it. Despite his pleas to Allegra never to do such a thing again, she had gone ahead, selling the brooch in order to surprise him with the money.