by M C Beaton
She played her part, flattering Mrs. Tremaine and listening intently to her. Then, as they rose to take their leave, Rose said, “May I perhaps see my old friend’s bedchamber? An odd request, but it would help me to say goodbye.”
The rector muttered, “Pah!” But Mrs. Tremaine could not refuse a title anything. “Follow me, my lady.”
Upstairs, Rose stood on the threshold of what had been Dolly’s bedchamber and looked in. It was a bleak room furnished with a narrow bed, a desk, a hard chair and a wardrobe. Above the fireplace was a badly executed oil painting of a blond and blue-eyed Jesus suffering a group of remarkably British-looking children to come unto Him. The only other piece of furniture was a bedside table with a large Bible placed on top of it.
“Miss Tremaine did not have a diary or anything like that?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Thank you,” said Rose.
“May I visit you when I am in London?” asked Mrs. Tremaine eagerly.
“By all means,” said Rose, confident that the rector would make sure his wife would not.
Rose and Harry told Daisy and Becket the little they had learned. “Perhaps when everyone returns to London, I might encourage the attentions of Cyril and see what I can find out,” suggested Rose.
“You are engaged to me,” snapped Harry. “It would be regarded as most unseemly behaviour.”
“Pooh,” said Rose. Daisy and Becket exchanged looks. Their hopes of Rose and Harry’s marrying seemed farther away than ever.
Harry received a message from Kerridge the following morning, bringing him up to date on the latest development.
He rushed round to Scotland Yard.
“Who is he?” he demanded, after entering Kerridge’s office. All the way to Scotland Yard he had been praying that it would turn out to be someone Dolly had known, that the murderer had drowned himself in a fit of remorse, and that Rose would now be safe.
“Sit down,” said Kerridge. “I’ve just interviewed a retired prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs. He says he recognized our man from his photograph in the newspapers this morning. His name is Reg Bolton. He was doing time for stealing a reticule up the West End from a lady who had left it lying beside her on a chair in a coffee shop. He had a record of violence as well. His wife was found dead with her head bashed in but this Reg had various people to alibi him for the night she was killed, so he got off with that one. Reg had five hundred pounds in his wallet when we found him. And no, he didn’t drown. He was murdered.”
Harry sat down in the chair opposite Kerridge. “So it looks as if someone hired him to kill Lady Rose?”
“That’s just the way it looks to me,” said Kerridge gloomily. “This gets worse and worse. He had a lady’s purse pistol on him. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be the one that was used. Blast!
“Did this Reg have any visitors when he was in prison?”
“Wasn’t allowed any. If his wife had still been alive or if he’d had any children, then the authorities would have allowed them to visit, but no one else got in.”
“May I talk to this screw myself?” In Pentonville Prison in 1840, prisoners were supposed to turn a crank on a machine. If the prisoner was to be punished further, the screw was tightened, and so that was how prison warders came to be known as screws.
“I’ll give you a note. His name is Henry Barker.”
Giving Becket the rare treat of taking the wheel of his new motor, Harry went to Wormwood Scrubs. He saw the governor and gave him Kerridge’s note and Henry Barker was summoned.
“I have Detective Superintendent Kerridge’s permission to interview you,” said Harry. “I am Captain Cathcart.”
“I’ve heard about you,” said Barker. “Private detective, ain’t you?”
“That is correct. Now what sort of character was this Reg Bolton?”
“Brutal. He terrified a lot of the prisoners.”
“Did he say anything to you, anything that might give us a hint that someone might be paying him?”
“Well, these hardened criminals always like to brag, Captain. The day afore he was leaving, he was grinning all over his face.
“‘One more day to go,’ I says. He says, ‘I ain’t coming back here no more,’ he says. ‘Good,’ says I. ‘Mending your ways?’ He grins and says to me, ‘I’m going to be a gent. I got connections. Got a good job waiting for me.’ ”
“And what did you gather from that?”
“Villains never change. I thought maybe one of the other villains had put him in touch with a gang.”
“Did he have a particular friend?”
The warder shook his head. “The others detested him, even the real hard ones. He was a nasty bit of work. I mean, I’m only guessing one of them offered him a job. But I never saw him talking much to anyone all the time he was here.”
“How long he in here for?”
“Two years.”
“And no one visited him during all that time?”
“No, sir. Not a one.”
Harry turned to the governor. “Would it be possible to find me his home address?”
“I’ll get my secretary to look up the records,” said the governor. “Thank you, Barker, that will be all.”
Harry left and headed for Bermondsey and to the address the governor had given him. He changed his mind when he saw the attention his Rolls was getting from bunches of sinister-looking men on street corners. “Turn around, Becket,” he ordered. “We’ll leave the car somewhere safe and take a hansom.”
They returned later, told the cabbie to wait, and stared up at a rat warren of a building.
They entered a narrow hallway, edging around broken prams and soggy boxes of detritus. There was no reply on the ground floor and so they mounted the rickety stairs. The smell was appalling. Harry knocked at a door on the first landing.
A slattern of a woman answered it.
“I wondered if there was anyone living here who remembers Reg Bolton?”
“Never ’eard o’ ’im.” The door began to close.
Harry put his foot in it. “Is there anyone who has been living here for some time?”
“Try old Phil at the top and get your bleedin’ foot out o’ my door.”
Holding his handkerchief to his nose, Harry, followed by Becket, went on up the stairs. He knocked on one door and there was no answer. He tried the other one. There came the sound of shuffling feet behind the door and then it opened.
An old man stood there, or perhaps, thought Harry with sudden compassion, he might not be that old but aged by poverty. Behind him was a bare room with an iron bedstead.
“Are you Phil?” asked Harry.
“Right, guv. I’d ask you inside but there ain’t nowheres to sit down.”
Phil’s face was marked by scabs and his clothes were ragged.
“Do you remember Reg Bolton?”
“That’s over two years ago. Flash fellow, he were. Wouldn’t spend the money to get his missus out of this rat hole. She said she was leaving him and he beat her to death. But he got loads o’ villains to testify he was somewhere else at the time. Shame, it was.”
“Did he know any grand people?”
“Naw, only villains.”
“How old are you?” asked Harry.
“Fifty-five, come Tuesday.”
“And how did you come to land up here?”
“The wife went off and left me. I adored my Elsie. Went to pieces. Lost me trade as a joiner. Shut up in the asylum, and when I got out I was done for. Just existed here ever since.”
Harry could not bear to leave him. A voice in his head was screaming at him that he was surrounded by hundreds of other cases of dismal poverty and to leave Phil alone. But he found himself saying, “Come with me. I think I can find work for you. Have you belongings you can pack?”
“Got nothing but what you see.”
“Come along.”
Phil meekly shuffled down the stairs after them. Becket opened his mouth to protest
and then shut it again as he remembered how Harry had saved him from a life of poverty after Becket had collapsed from hunger while working as a porter in Covent Garden.
The driver of the hansom told him that he wasn’t going to allow Phil in his cab until Harry promised to pay extra.
“What is your name?” asked Harry.
“Phil Marshall.”
“Well, Phil, first of all we need to get you cleaned up and get you some decent clothes.”
“What can he do?” asked Becket.
“That cleaning woman is finishing work for us at the end of the week. Do you think you are fit enough to do some cleaning, Phil?”
“Reckon I could, guv. I feel a bit weak, mind.”
“When did you last eat?”
“Maybe Tuesday.”
“Dear me, and this is Friday. Becket, summon the doctor when we arrive. He’ll need to treat those scabs.”
Phil began to feel as if he had died and gone to heaven. A warm bath was run for him and Becket laid out clean underwear and a suit for him.
After that, he was checked by the doctor, who said the scabs were caused by untreated bedbug bites and malnutrition and suggested a gentle diet of soup and light meals to begin with.
Phil was given a small room in the basement and told to rest as much as possible.
He lay on the bed after Becket had gone, tears of gratitude pouring down his cheeks. He swore that from that day on, he would die for the captain if necessary.
Harry called on Rose later that day. She listened in alarm as he described the body fished out of the Thames and how they feared that Reg had been a hired assassin.
“But I think you will be safe now,” he assured her. “A story has gone into all the newspapers that you held nothing back from the police.”
“So I suppose you will feel free to go back to ignoring me.”
“On the contrary,” said Harry. “I have been remiss and I do apologize. But you cannot have any social engagements in August. Everyone is away.”
Rose bit her lip and then said in a small voice. “I’m bored.”
“Then next week, I will take you for a drive if the weather is fine.”
“I wish I were a man,” raged Rose later to Daisy. “He can call at Scotland Yard any time he likes and be part of the investigation, but all I can do is sit here and rot and get letters from that dreary Mrs. Tremaine, oiling all over me in print. I am not interested in the fact that she and her dear husband have gone to Cromer on holiday.”
Daisy brightened. “I am.”
“Why, pray?”
“It would be interesting to go down to that village while the Tremaines have gone and ask around about them and about Dolly. See what we could find out.”
“That is a splendid idea. I must find out how to get there.”
“We could take one of the carriages.”
“They’ve all got Pa’s coat of arms on the panels. That would occasion comment. Better to travel by rail to the nearest town and take a carriage from there. We need not trouble to tell Aunt Phyllis where we are going. She is only concerned with ordering the servants around and eating vast quantities of food.”
They took the train to Oxford and changed onto a local line and took another train to Moreton-in-Marsh, where they hired a waiting carriage to take them to Apton Magna.
“It is pleasant to be back in the country again,” sighed Rose. “When all this is over, I shall go back north to see Bert and Sally.”
“And how will you do that?” asked Daisy. “If your parents are at home, they are certainly not going to let you go all that way to see a mere village policeman.”
“Perhaps the captain can arrange something,” said Rose. “Oh, do look at that sweet cottage.”
“All I see is the pump at the front for the water and no doubt the you-know-what will be out in the back garden. I can smell the cesspool from here.”
“You have no romance in your soul,” admonished Rose.
“I have memories of poverty in me soul,” said Daisy.
“Don’t say ‘me.’ ”
They told the cabbie to wait for them at the entrance to the village. They had both decided to wear their plainest clothes.
A woman was sitting outside a cottage, holding a baby on her lap. “Excuse me,” said Rose, “we were wondering if you could give us some information about the Tremaines.”
The woman got to her feet and, disappearing inside the cottage, slammed the door behind her.
They met with the same lack of success at other cottages.
“Perhaps one of the more well-to-do residents would be more forthcoming,” suggested Rose.
“There don’t seen to be any,” replied Daisy. “We’ve forgotten our village ways. We’re too direct. We need someone friendly. Ask them something like where we can get a cup of tea, enter into conversation about the weather and so on, and then slide in some remark about the murder.”
“That sounds a very good idea,” said Rose. “That is, if we can find anyone amiable.”
“I remember there was a cottage up by the rector’s place. It looked in better shape than the others,” said Daisy. “Why is the rector called ‘doctor’?”
“Because he’s a doctor of divinity. Remember that Gilbert and Sullivan opera? ‘A doctor of divinity/Who resides in this vicinity.’ ”
The cottage they approached was small and thatched and made of Cotswold stone, unlike the red brick cottages of the other villagers.
It had a front garden crowded with flowers. They opened the gate and walked up the path. Rose knocked on the door.
A woman answered it. She looked washed-out and faded, as if some grim laundress had boiled her, mangled her and hung her out in strong sunlight to dry without ironing her first. Her simple muslin gown was creased, and the dry flaky skin of her long face, lined with wrinkles. Her eyes were of such a pale grey that they looked almost white and she wore her sparse grey hair under a crumpled linen cap.
“We are visiting the countryside and wondered whether there was anywhere in Apton Magna where we could get some refreshment,” said Rose.
“Oh, there’s nothing nearer than Moreton-in-Marsh. They do ever such a nice tea at the White Hart Royal. I remember being taken there by a gentleman friend when I was just a girl.”
“Perhaps you would like to join us?” suggested Rose. “We have a carriage waiting at the end of the village. I am Lady Rose Summer and this is Miss Daisy Levine.”
“That’s is so kind of you. May I present myself? I am Miss Friendly.” She plucked nervously at her gown. “I am not perhaps quite properly dressed.”
“Nonsense,” said Rose bracingly. “You will do very well.”
“I don’t know. Dear me. Afternoon tea! Such a luxury.” She looked at them wistfully out of her pale eyes.
“I’ll go and bring the carriage,” said Daisy quickly, and ran off.
“Please step inside,” said Miss Friendly. “The sun is very strong.”
Rose followed her into a front parlour. There was very little furniture. There were light squares on the dingy wallpaper showing where pictures had once hung. Fallen on hard times, thought Rose, with a feeling of compassion.
“Do you live here alone, Miss Friendly?”
“Yes. Papa died ten years ago. He was rector of Saint Paul’s before Dr. Tremaine. The church kindly allowed me to have this cottage.”
Rose heard a rumble of carriage wheels outside.
“Ah, there is our carriage and Miss Levine. If you are ready, Miss Friendly?”
Seated in the pleasant gloom of the White Hart Royal over an enormous afternoon tea, Rose again felt a sharp pang of compassion as she watched Miss Friendly try not to gobble the food. The woman was obviously starving. Rose talked about the weather and about the beauties of the countryside until she saw that Miss Friendly’s appetite was at last beginning to be satisfied.
“You must have been very upset over the news of Miss Tremaine’s murder,” she said.
“Oh,
shocking. Very shocking. Poor Dolly. She often came to my little cottage. Such a beautiful girl. But very much a country girl. I always thought she would have been happy marrying a farmer, or someone like that, but her parents had such ambitions for her.”
“I knew her in London,” said Rose. “She was very unhappy.”
“Of course. Lady Rose Summer! I saw your name in the newspapers. You found her. How awful. Yes, it was awful. But she must have been missing… Oh, I shouldn’t gossip. Poor Dolly.”
“My fiancé is a private detective,” said Rose. “He is helping Scotland Yard to find the killer. Anything you can tell me would be of great help. Who was Dolly missing?”
“Roger Dallow.”
“And who is this Roger Dallow?”
“He’s the blacksmith’s son. I think he and Dolly were very much in love.”
“And is he in the village? May I speak to him?”
“Oh, he left, right after Dolly went up to London.”
“And where did he go?”
“Nobody knows. You see, his father is a brutal man. I think that was the bond between Roger and Dolly. They were both bullied by their parents. I am sorry I cannot tell you any more. I assume that is why you invited me for tea.”
“I could just as well have asked you these questions at your cottage,” said Rose. “Do you find it difficult to make ends meet?”
For the first time colour appeared on Miss Friendly’s pale cheeks. She hung her head. “Papa was fond of hunting and hunting is an expensive sport. When he died I had to sell his horses, my jewellery and pictures and furniture to pay his debts. The church charges me a low rent but I have nearly reached the point where I do not think I can go on paying it. Forgive me. Ladies should not talk of such things.”
“Oh, we talk about anything,” said Daisy. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“Can you sew?” asked Rose.
“Yes, I am a very good seamstress. Do not judge me by my clothes. It is a long time since I have been able to afford any material and… well… I gave up troubling about my appearance.”
“Our lady’s maid, Turner, is not very expert with a needle but is an amiable creature and I would not like to lose her.” The main reason Rose liked Turner was because Turner never reported any of her doings to Lady Polly. “Perhaps you might consider working for me? You would have a comfortable room and board and you would not need to worry about the rent.”