The Ring

by M. J. Trow

  While the enquiry agents thought of the next useful question, they turned Maisie around and headed back home. They could think as they walked, even if Maisie couldn’t. Batchelor suddenly had a brainwave.

  ‘Maisie, is the woman young? Pretty?’

  Maisie didn’t have to think this one through. Even the younger one wasn’t what you could call pretty. She shook her head.

  Grand tried a long shot. ‘Did she have all her fingers?’ He knew that to the young, youth and age were somewhat flexible.

  Maisie was horrified. The woman had worn gloves, so it was hard to tell, but still … she nodded her head emphatically.

  The two men decided to stop asking questions and just get home as fast as possible so they each tucked one of Maisie’s arms through theirs and set off at a jog-trot. That night, checking for her bruise, Maisie would remember that half mile as the best in her life.

  When they got back to the house, Maisie dived down into the area and let the men go in through the front door. Batchelor used his latchkey and as he wrestled it out of the stiff lock, Grand bent and picked up something from the mat and shoved it absent-mindedly into his pocket.

  ‘Mrs Rackstraw?’ he called. ‘Mrs …’ but before the housekeeper could appear, the door to the sitting room flew open and Miss Moriarty stood there, every outmoded ribbon a-bristle.

  ‘Mr Grand,’ she said. ‘You have been an unconscionable time. You were expecting me, surely?’

  ‘Miss Moriarty.’ Grand was nonplussed. ‘I’m very sorry. Did we have an appointment?’

  ‘No,’ the old lady snapped. ‘But I assumed as the picture of Molly had appeared in the newspapers, you would want to see me.’ She tilted her head back and looked from Grand to Batchelor and back again.

  Batchelor was as confused as his partner. ‘Picture?’

  ‘Molly?’ Grand chimed in.

  Miss Moriarty was annoyed. Beyond annoyed, in fact, but she didn’t have the vocabulary to let them know it. ‘I am very annoyed, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Enid and I have travelled up from Eastbourne, at no little discomfort and, if I may be so bold as to discuss finances, at no small expense. And now, I find you are not expecting me.’ She gave a snort and gathered herself together for a huge shrug which used her entire body from her toes to the top of her head. ‘I must ask myself what kind of business you purport to run.’

  Grand opened his mouth, but she hadn’t finished.

  ‘I don’t expect you are even looking for my niece Emilia any more, are you? No. I thought not.’

  Batchelor had spotted a flaw in her conversation. ‘I thought you mentioned someone named Molly.’

  ‘Of course I did, you stupid man,’ Miss Moriarty said, raising the umbrella ready to strike. ‘Molly Edwards. Emilia’s maid.’

  Things were beginning to fall into place. ‘You’re here about the maid,’ Batchelor said.

  The old woman’s eyes opened wide and she was lost for words but only for a moment. ‘Did I not just say so?’ She turned to Enid, waiting patiently at her shoulder as always. ‘Enid. Did I not just say so?’ Her cheeks were beginning to look a little purple.

  ‘Miss Moriarty did mention Molly,’ Enid said, in calming tones. ‘And I think, if I may be so bold, gentlemen, that a sit down and a cup of tea …’ she caught her mistress’s eye, ‘… with a spot of something warming in it, perhaps, just for the cold, you know …’

  Grand jumped to attention and switched on the old down-home charm. ‘Miss Moriarty,’ he said, his accent thick enough to spread on toast, ‘I’ll call for some tea of course. There is something to go in it right there, on the sideboard. Something to eat, ladies? Scones? Cake?’

  The two Eastbourne ladies looked at each other and twittered. A little cake never went amiss. Enid nodded. ‘Cake, yes. Cake would be nice.’

  Grand stepped into the hall to call down for Mrs Rackstraw but, as ever, she scared the bejabbers out of him by stepping out of the shadows at his elbow. ‘I’ll bring some up, sir,’ she said, all the venom of a ruined afternoon in the last syllable. Grand returned to the sitting room, wondering again whether it was worth keeping her, even for her pig’s feet pie or whatever it was that sent Batchelor into a happy stupor.

  ‘It’s on its way,’ he said, ushering the women to seats by the fire. ‘Now, let’s start again, shall we? You’re here to tell us about Molly’s picture in the paper …’

  The Gothic monstrosity that was Holloway Gaol stood in Parkhurst Road. Poplars and rhododendrons screened its gates but the red-brick towers beyond held inmates who had little interest in botany. Increasingly, because of the way society was going and they now allowed women to vote in municipal elections, female prisoners were taking over the prison world.

  That, in a way, was why Daddy Bliss was there that day; not in search of an inmate who had blotted her escutcheon, but of one of the staff, who had not.

  She hadn’t changed a scrap. And scrapping was what Bridie O’Hara did for a living. She was actually the Chief Wardress at Holloway, but it amounted to the same thing. Bliss had not seen the woman for years and yet he recognized the set of her shoulders and the width of her back even in silhouette on the first landing. Her voice hadn’t changed either. Someone was singing in her cell, ‘Villikins and His Dinah’ but it ended in a falsetto shriek that a eunuch would have been proud of. Bridie O’Hara didn’t approve of singing. Not on her watch.

  He saluted as she swept past him and he waited until they were alone in the wardresses’ office. ‘Bridie, my little vixen.’ He let his arm creep around the solidity of her waist.

  Her response was short and sharp and definitely not in the Women Wardens’ Handbook. It was accompanied by a slap round the side of the head. ‘Don’t you “vixen” me, Daddy Bliss; I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘But, Bridie …’

  She placed her hands on her ample hips and scowled at him, like a bulldog chewing a wasp. ‘Bridie, my arse,’ she growled. ‘That’s Wardress O’Hara to you, Inspector. Or are Mrs Bliss and all the little Blisses a figment of my imagination?’

  ‘Now, B … Wardress O’Hara,’ he got as close to her as he dared. ‘I had hoped we could let bygones be bygones.’

  ‘Would that be the bygone when you failed to turn up at St Bartholomew’s-the-Less on Wednesday 13 June 1862? The very same day that I was there in my best dress with a bridesmaid in tow and a nice old boy of a vicar? You’re lucky I didn’t do you for breach of promise.’

  ‘I am,’ Bliss agreed. ‘Very lucky indeed. But there’s been much water under Waterloo Bridge since then.’

  ‘Ah.’ She let her hands fall. ‘So this is not a social call, then? Mrs Bliss, inexplicably, hasn’t left you. And you haven’t come to rekindle the flame.’

  ‘Bridie,’ he said softly, ‘when I hear your Irish lilt …’

  ‘Bliss!’ she snapped. ‘Come to the point.’

  ‘Escapees.’ The inspector knew when it was time to obey an order. ‘Or the recently released.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘You’re trying to place that corpse in the Thames, aren’t you?’ she asked.

  Bliss smiled and shook his head. ‘As smart as you are beautiful,’ he said. She ignored him and flipped open a ledger on her desk. The writing was copperplate, the photographs unflattering.

  ‘Take your pick,’ she said. ‘These five are the latest releases. But the last two have got out since your body turned up, so you’re looking at these three.’

  Bliss was. Carmen Valladolid was black as his patrol jacket, so he could discount her. Annie Parminter was six foot two with a hare lip. He had to look twice at Veronica Cartwright. The short-cropped hair was certainly a possibility, but the details recorded a withered left arm, so Bliss had to let her go too.

  ‘They’re all ticket-of-leave women, of course,’ Bridie went on, ‘so we have addresses on them all. If you’ve got access to some real policemen, they could check for you.’

  Bliss ignored the slur. ‘And the escapees?’

  Bridie paused
for a moment until the blood stopped pounding in her ears. ‘Escapees?’ she muttered. ‘Escapees? This isn’t Broadmoor, you know.’

  Daddy Bliss was aware of that, but he found the comparison odd anyway. ‘Broadmoor?’ he repeated.

  ‘Lunatic asylum,’ the wardress explained, as though to an idiot.

  ‘Yes,’ Bliss said. ‘I know. I wondered …’

  ‘Well, they do let people escape. I’m thinking of the murderer Bisgrove. Scarpered over the roof and just vanished. He’s been on the run for weeks now, months, even.’

  ‘We haven’t seen him on the river,’ Bliss assured her.

  ‘Nobody’s seen him,’ Bridie said. ‘That’s not the point. What I’m saying is, at Holloway, nobody gets out. Nobody at all.’

  And she cracked her knuckles, by way of confirmation.

  Miss Moriarty had, in the end, been quite succinct in telling her tale. A slug of brandy to within an inch of the top of the teacup had made her rather less bellicose and – for the moment at least – rather more forthcoming and less judgemental. Enid would have to reap the whirlwind of the aftermath as they went back to Eastbourne, but she was used to that and knew that it would bring the advantage of an evening of peace with her employer spark out on the sofa.

  The old lady could tell them little about the maid, save that she had been with Emilia for some while without a blot on her character. Being found in the river without certain essential body parts Miss Moriarty was prepared to overlook – it was thoughtless, true, to bring such unwonted attention to the name of Westmoreland. She had broken off at this point to smack her lips and look enquiringly at Grand.

  ‘Is this a Westmoreland special blend?’ she asked, sucking it through her teeth and looking wistful.

  ‘It is,’ said Grand, impressed. ‘In fact, Mr Teddy Westmoreland blended it just for me and it is called, in fact, Grand Blend.’

  Miss Moriarty’s eyes opened wide. ‘What an honour,’ she breathed and then blushed. ‘I have a blend named after me as well, you know; well, not after me, but in my honour.’

  Batchelor, who had rather tired of Grand flashing his special blend status about, smiled thinly. ‘What is it called?’ he asked. Surely not Annoying Old Bat – that just wouldn’t sell well at all.

  ‘Amore,’ the old lady said, lowering her eyes. Then, she looked up at them defiantly. ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Ah.’ Grand looked at Batchelor, eyebrows raised. Would someone please change the subject? After what seemed like an age, his help came in the shape of someone at the door.

  Batchelor beat him to it by leaping up and, with a cry of, ‘I’ll get that,’ left the room at a trot.

  Miss Moriarty, recovered from her sentimental moment, began to gather up her umbrella, bag and other sundries. ‘I hope I have been of help, Mr Grand,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that this may have brought us little further in your search for poor, dear Emilia. I fear that the finding of Molly’s body must only make us think the worst. But hope springs eternal, does it not?’

  ‘Indeed it does, Miss Moriarty,’ Grand said, extending a hand. ‘Can I call you a cab to take you to the station?’

  Miss Moriarty inclined her head. Colonials were so polite. ‘Thank you, Mr Grand,’ she said. ‘I had thought to visit my nephew-in-law, but I think that your tea may have been a little strong.’ She put an age-crazed hand to her brow. ‘I feel a little giddy.’

  Grand caught Enid’s eye but the maid gave nothing away. Stone-faced was an understatement. ‘Perhaps you should go straight home. We could visit Mr Byng for you, to give him your—’

  ‘Regards,’ Miss Moriarty broke in. ‘My regards. Not kind regards. Just … regards.’ She pressed a lace handkerchief to her lips. ‘I blame him, Mr Grand,’ she said, in a strangled mutter.

  Grand’s eyes almost popped out of his head. ‘Blame him for … murder?’

  ‘Good grief, no,’ she said, fetching him one with her umbrella. ‘I mean for causing poor Emilia to go missing. If it wasn’t for his …’ she closed her eyes tight and raised her chin resolutely, ‘… carnal, animal lusts, she wouldn’t have come to visit me, would not have been on that train where clearly a maniac was lurking. Poor Molly would still be with us.’ She glared at Grand. ‘In short, if he had been at all able to control himself, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.’ She looked towards the door. ‘What has happened to Mr Batchelor? Did you not have someone at the door?’

  Grand frowned. She was quite right. ‘I’ll go and check …’

  As he spoke, the door opened and Batchelor sidled in. ‘My apologies, Miss Moriarty,’ he said. ‘I just need a short chat with my colleague. Would you?’ He tossed his head in the direction of the door, his smile a rictus grin.

  Grand, nodding his apology, followed him into the hall. ‘What?’ he snapped.

  ‘We have visitors,’ Batchelor announced.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Not them. Two other visitors. The Westmoreland brothers.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you show them …’ Memory dawned. ‘Ah, I see. It didn’t work out.’

  Batchelor cast his eyes up. It always dawned eventually. ‘Yes. I thought perhaps it still rankled.’

  Grand was surprised. ‘Still? Surely, it must be … I was going to say centuries, but decades, at least?’

  ‘Even so.’ Batchelor looked towards the closed door. ‘Still delicate, perhaps?’

  ‘You’re right. I’ll show the ladies out. You keep the gents busy. Did they say why they were here?’

  ‘Mmm …’ Batchelor had heard the door opening and was stuck for anything intelligent to say.

  ‘Why who was here?’ Miss Moriarty might be old and a touch raddled, but she had the hearing of a twelve-year-old.

  ‘Umm … clients,’ Batchelor said. ‘Confidential, you know the sort of thing … umm …’

  Miss Moriarty looked at him with gimlet eyes. ‘You look very guilty, young man,’ she observed. ‘And in my experience, young men of your stamp don’t look guilty for no reason.’ She tapped him smartly around the ankles with her umbrella and crossed the hall to fling open the study door. The two men thus revealed froze; they looked like a tableau vivant, just not very vivant.

  ‘Teddy. Micah.’ Her tones were cut glass and froze the blood.

  ‘Miss Moriarty.’ The brothers spoke in unison, lifting their hats politely.

  She shut the door and looked with clamped lips at the enquiry agents. ‘I believe I will go straight to the station. I believe my nephew-in-law lives at Milner Street, number eight. Do you know it?’

  Grand looked at Batchelor. He knew London like the back of his hand and Grand had never really bothered with the minutiae. After all, one didn’t keep a Londoner born and bred and bark oneself.

  ‘Joins Cadogan Square and Lennox Gardens, doesn’t it?’ he checked.

  She nodded. ‘It is just on the corner, where Clabon Mews crosses the street,’ she said. ‘I have no idea how he affords such an establishment. I would imagine that his father helps him out, though that old skinflint would see his own mother starve before he gave her a penny. Or at least, that has always been my impression. I don’t gossip, so I can tell you no more.’ She flung an acid glance at the closed door behind which Mr Teddy and Mr Micah cowered. ‘I will wish you good-day, gentleman,’ she said. ‘I hope your … visitors … help you.’

  And with that, with Enid in her wake like an enormous liner propelling a tiny tug, she swept out.

  Teddy and Micah Westmoreland sat on either side of the study fire, as if they had been there all their lives. The glow from the flames lit their soft white hair and their pink cheeks; they looked like two men without a care in the world until they looked up and then it showed in their eyes.

  ‘I am so sorry about that,’ Batchelor said, crossing the room to take a chair next to Micah. ‘She just …’

  ‘Oh, yes, she would,’ Teddy said softly. ‘Jane was always very headstrong. And beautiful, in her day.’

  Micah le
aned forward. ‘Don’t dwell, Teddy,’ he advised. ‘It didn’t work out and that’s that. Cousins marrying. Not a good idea. It might have been all right for the Egyptian pharaohs but that was so then. Surprised the prayer book doesn’t have something to say on the matter. Anyway,’ he cleared his throat and didn’t look as his brother used a discreet handkerchief to dab a corner of his eye, ‘we’re here on rather more germane matters, gentlemen. We have received this.’ He rummaged in a pocket and came up empty. ‘Do you have it, Teddy?’

  The other brother looked perplexed and then also rummaged. ‘Sorry, Micah,’ he said. ‘I do have it, yes.’ He pulled out a piece of paper which he smoothed out on his knee before passing it to Grand, who had pulled up a chair from behind the desk. ‘We got this this morning. We thought … well, we thought you should see it.’

  Grand leaned over with the paper so that Batchelor could see it. In crude, pencilled letters, the message was clear. ‘If You wunt to see yur nice agen, Yu’d better let that money go. No Trust is Wurth a Lif. Believe me. If Yu dont do it, she’s ded.’

  Batchelor took it and folded it neatly. ‘May we keep this?’ he asked and both men nodded.

  ‘I never want to touch it again,’ Teddy said with a shiver. ‘It has made me feel quite unwell.’

  ‘Was there an address?’ Grand asked. ‘A postmark, even?’

  ‘No. There wasn’t even an envelope. Someone gave it to the old watchman on the main road outside the warehouse and he brought it round.’

  Grand, who had met the man, held out little hope but asked anyway. ‘Could he describe the man who gave it to him?’

  Teddy snorted. ‘He couldn’t describe his own reflection,’ he said. ‘We should move him on, really, but he does no harm. But for once even he had to notice who he was talking to. It was a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’ Grand and Batchelor spoke in perfect unison.

  ‘Yes. She was dressed in black from head to toe, he said. But a fine figure of a woman, apparently. Tall, with … what was that word he used, Micah?’