Murder in Belgravia

by Lynn Brittney

  “Cook and I were not going to leave behind all her preserves and all the other delights she’s been preparing over the winter months,” Maud replied with gusto. “There’s a large ham in that basket by the way. Isn’t that right, Mrs Beddowes?”

  “Oh yes, Your Ladyship,” said Mrs Beddowes, unbuttoning her coat and fanning herself with her hand. “There’s a big jar of pickled eggs, some pickled cucumbers, relishes, jams, cured ham, sausages, bacon—oh, and there will be a basket of vegetables coming down on the train every week.”

  “We do have food shops in London, you know,” murmured Victoria, by way of protest.

  “Yes, but at what price, Miss Victoria?! At what price?”

  Victoria could think of no riposte to Mrs Beddowes’ observation and she suddenly noticed Arthur Tollman grinning broadly.

  “Ah, Mother, Mrs Beddowes, Mary, this is Detective Sergeant Arthur Tollman, he’s going to be staying here with us.”

  “Er … begging your pardon, Mrs Ellingham,” Arthur interrupted, “I shan’t be sleeping over. I’ve got my daughters to get home to. Don’t like to leave them alone at night. Besides, I only live in Clapham. The omnibus comes right to Park Lane. It’s no bother.” He suddenly realized that he had interrupted the introductions. “Begging your pardon, ladies, I am very pleased to meet you all.”

  “Ma,” Victoria said mischievously, “Mr Tollman plays a mean game of cribbage.”

  Lady Maud’s eyes lit up and she offered her hand immediately. “I’m exceedingly pleased to meet you, Mr Tollman! We shall get along famously.”

  “I have no doubt we will, Your Ladyship,” said Arthur, winking at Victoria.

  “But first, brandy!” pronounced Maud. “To revive the spirits and then we shall get this house organized and shipshape!”

  * * *

  Lady Harriet was exhausted. Despite her pain and the tightening grip of the infection, she had summoned her iron will and dealt with her solicitor and said prayers with her vicar. Now she could sleep and Caroline could tell that the fragile young woman did not care whether she woke again or not.

  “You must rest, Lady Harriet,” she said firmly to her patient. “We shall give you some more pain relief and nurse will feed you some nourishing soup. Your body needs to fight this infection.”

  Lady Harriet nodded. “You have all been most kind. But I needed to get my affairs in order. If it is God’s will to take me, he will, and it will be no reflection on the care you have given me.”

  Caroline left her and issued instructions for the patient to be fed before the morphine was administered. It was all she could do. Earlier, she and another female doctor had been called into Lady Harriet’s room to witness her signing the amendments to her will. Sir Arnold had been careful to fold the paper so that none of the contents of the new will were visible to those signing it. Caroline had lingered outside the door so that she could speak to Arnold as he left.

  “Sir, are you aware that your client has given a written confession to the police stating that she murdered her husband in self-defense?”

  Sir Arnold had looked grave. “I am aware of this, doctor, and I shall be contesting the matter. I do not believe that Lady Harriet, even severely provoked, would be capable of such a thing. I have known her since she became a ward of the court at the age of eleven. Besides, I am somewhat dismayed that such a confession was taken from her without her legal representation being present.”

  “The confession was not taken under duress,” Caroline had assured him, “Lady Harriet insisted upon it. However, I am in accord with your feelings on this matter. As a physician, I do not believe that her injuries would have allowed her to perform the act of killing her husband and I would be prepared to state that fact in the courts, should it come to it.”

  Sir Arnold had nodded in satisfaction.

  “One more thing,” Caroline continued, “because of the nature of the case, I should warn you that the police will probably want to know about the changes that Lady Harriet has made to her will.”

  Sir Arnold had looked grim. “The police must do what they see fit. I shall protect my client’s private wishes by whatever means possible. Good day, young lady.”

  Now Caroline could do nothing further. Lady Harriet would be fed and given pain relief. A nurse would sponge her down with cold water every two hours, in an attempt to bring down her fever, and they would continue to apply antiseptic to her surgical wound, in the hope that it would filter through to the infection beneath. Caroline left instructions with Matron to be called if Lady Harriet deteriorated, then signed off from her shift.

  When she arrived at the house, Billy opened the door, which lifted her spirits, and he protectively cupped her elbow in his good hand to guide her through the maze of opened boxes and baskets in the hallway.

  “It’s like Christmas here, miss!” he said gleefully as they arrived at the drawing room. “I’ve been unpacking a feast, I have!”

  Caroline laughed as he opened a box and showed her some beautifully labeled jars of honey. He picked up the box as though it were filled with feathers and said, “Everyone’s down in the kitchen helping out. Cook’s giving us all instructions and even Lady Maud is putting stuff on shelves in the larder. It’s a right do!”

  “That I have to see!” Caroline felt the cares of the hospital drop away as she followed Billy down the stairs.

  “Caroline, my darling!” called Lady Maud from the larder doorway. “Come and give me a big hug!”

  Caroline duly obliged and Maud surveyed her at arm’s length.

  “Mm. A little thin, I think. All you modern girls are the same! I think we shall have to put you on the same feeding regime as Victoria! Lots of steamed puddings, Cook!” she called over her shoulder to the beaming Mrs Beddowes who was busily unpacking what looked like green beans in glass jars.

  “Well, you’ve certainly come prepared to feed an army, Maud! Look at all these provisions!”

  “Well, of course I have, Caroline! We may not be quite an army but we have three hungry policemen—I mean look at this young man!” She pointed to Billy, who grinned. “He looks as though he eats his own weight every day! And then we have two working young ladies, who are far too thin and need to be fattened up and, finally, myself, Cook and Mary, and our ample girths signify that we are rather fond of our food.”

  Mary giggled and Cook tutted with mock disapproval.

  Arthur Tollman appeared from the butler’s quarters with an armful of dust sheets. “Where shall I put these, milady?” he enquired.

  Maud thought for a moment. “I think that all the dust sheets can be put in the servants’ quarters at the top of the house, because we shan’t be using those. Mary and Cook are sleeping down here. We’re going to turn my husband’s old study into a bedroom for PC Rigsby here, and Victoria, Caroline and myself will sleep in the bedrooms on the first floor.”

  “Very well, milady.” Arthur walked over to Billy and dumped the dust-sheets into his arms. “You can run up the stairs with those, lad. I’m a bit long in the tooth to be doing that.”

  “Righto,” said Billy obligingly and bounded off up the kitchen stairs, two at a time.

  Arthur extended his hand to Caroline. “You must be Doctor Allardyce, Miss; I’m Detective Sergeant Arthur Tollman. I’ve heard a lot about you from Mrs E.”

  “Mrs E? Oh, you mean Mrs Ellingham! Pleased to meet you, Mr Tollman.”

  Caroline shook hands and smiled. “Well, isn’t this jolly?” she said, to no one in particular. “Where’s the rest of ‘the team?’ ”

  “Ah,” said Lady Maud, “Peter is rearranging the study so that PC Rigsby can bring down two of the camp beds to sleep on. There is a sofa in there but when he laid down on it, it was a good two feet too small! He’s such a giant, bless him! And Victoria is removing all the dust sheets in the bedrooms and airing the beds before Mary goes round and lays fires for everyone. Would you like to go and give them both a hand, Caroline? The sooner we all get sorted out, the sooner we can have
supper. It will only be cold ham and pickles, I’m afraid. We can’t expect Mrs Beddowes to start cooking tonight.”

  “No, ma-am,” said Cook, “this range will need cleaning out and a fire laid. I shall let it burn all night, then it will be nice and warm for bread baking in the morning.”

  “This is all such fun!” Lady Maud said conspiratorially to Caroline. “It reminds me of my youth, camping on Lady Marchmont’s lawn in the summer with my cousins!” She turned back to the larder with a satisfied chortle and resumed her shelf stacking.

  CHAPTER 7

  Supper was an egalitarian affair; everyone sat together at the huge dining table upstairs. Cook was flustered by this notion but Lady Maud insisted.

  “Just this once, Mrs Beddowes,” she stated. “It won’t signal a complete breakdown of society.”

  Nevertheless, everyone unconsciously seated themselves in their own social group—Lady Maud, Mr Beech, Caroline, and Victoria together—Arthur, Billy, Mrs Beddowes, and Mary in their own foursome. Mary had laid the table and Mrs Beddowes carved the giant ham. Any awkwardness was dispelled by everyone watching in awe as Billy ate as fast as Mrs Beddowes could carve successive slices of ham.

  “Somewhat like a combine harvester,” murmured Lady Maud.

  Billy suddenly became aware that everyone was watching him and paused, ham on fork, raised toward his mouth, embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly, “got used to eating fast in the army.”

  “Gracious, my dear! It is we who should apologize,” offered Lady Maud, “for being so rude as to stare at such a healthy appetite in progress!”

  “He’s a growing lad,” said Mrs Beddowes fondly, as she carved him another slice of ham. Mary, meanwhile, unable to take her eyes off Billy, ladled him another spoonful of chutney.

  “I certainly hope not!” spluttered Lady Maud, “we have no more camp beds to put together!”

  Following the ripple of laughter around the table, all awkwardness was dissipated and the company settled down to an agreeable supper full of conversation about Lady Maud’s “horrendous” journey into London.

  “I shall be more than happy to wrap a little something up for you to take home to your daughters, Mr Tollman,” whispered Mrs Beddowes into Arthur’s ear.

  “That’s most kind of you, Mrs Beddowes,” Arthur whispered back, “but young Billy, over there, may not leave much to wrap up.”

  “Bless him,” she said, watching Billy resume his feast, albeit a little slower than before.

  After supper, Mary and Mrs Beddowes cleared away and Lady Maud pronounced that she would go to bed, as it had been a long and tiring day.

  “That will leave you and your team, Peter, to discuss your special work in private, in the library. Mary will bring you up a pot of coffee and you can beaver away.”

  And so the team retired to their allotted work room and proceeded to inform each other of what nuggets of information had been picked up during the day.

  Beech started.

  “Rigsby and I went to see the forensic pathologist but I will spare you the details, for the sake of the ladies present …”

  “Oh for goodness sake, Peter! I am a doctor!” protested Caroline.

  “And I have spent the last few months working as a voluntary nurse!” added Victoria. “I’m sure that neither of us will be shocked by what you have to say.”

  Beech shrugged. “Very well then.” He spoke matter-of-factly, looking directly at the two women, as if to challenge them. Billy, meanwhile, looked at the floor in embarrassment, as he knew what was coming. “Lord Murcheson was in extreme pain from either bullets or shrapnel that were located near to his spine, which the surgeons felt unable to remove. He was also, according to the pathologist, dying anyway from drug addiction, pneumonia, and … er … syphilis.”

  Neither woman flinched but there was a small silence.

  Caroline spoke first. “What did the pathologist note about the body, with regard to drug addiction?”

  “Um … Rigsby took detailed notes. Rigsby?”

  Billy stood up and retrieved a small notepad from his jacket pocket and read “Liver and kidneys were shot … White matter of the brain was degraded … signs of small strokes … signs of perpetual scratching himself … pneumonia caused by shallow breathing … inside of his nose was decayed …”

  “Heroin,” both Caroline and Arthur spoke together and startled each other.

  “How did you know that, Mr Tollman?”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it before, doctor,” explained Arthur, “only in the last ten years, mind. This heroin stuff is fairly new. Some of the East London gangs sniff the powder and when they croak, the post mortem always describes this kind of damage to the body.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” said Caroline, “I think heroin is going to become a grave problem in the coming years. It’s highly addictive but some doctors still, would you believe, give it to patients addicted to morphine as an alternative! And, of course, there are some patent medicines and ‘tonics’ on the shelves of pharmacies that contain the drug as well. Madness.”

  “I am a little concerned about the syphilis …” Victoria said suddenly, and Billy looked at the floor again in embarrassment. “Could he have passed it on to Lady Harriet?”

  “Oh God!” Caroline exclaimed. “As if that poor woman doesn’t have enough problems right now

  “Although,” Victoria continued, “she did confess to me that her husband was impotent in the last couple of months.”

  Billy was biting his lower lip by now, unsure of how to react to this clinical discussion between two ladies.

  “Well, that’s another side effect of heroin, of course. Let us hope that it has proved her salvation. We have no way of knowing whether she is in the primary stage of syphilis until she displays the usual symptoms.”

  Fearful that Caroline was about to list the symptoms, Billy suddenly blurted out, “I found out some useful information from the staff at the house!”

  All eyes turned toward him.

  “Yes, Rigsby,” said Beech, realizing Billy’s discomfiture, “time to move on to our other evidence I think. Tell us what you found out.”

  “Right—” Billy relaxed a little “—well, there were four women present: the cook, Esme the lady’s maid, a parlormaid called Anne, and a laundry woman called Betsy, who comes in three times a week. The footman valet had gone off to war and the only man left was the butler, Mr Dodds. He, apparently, had also been acting as the master’s valet, so, if anyone knew what the state of Lord Murcheson was, it was Dodds. The women told me that there was usually a scullery maid called Polly, aged fifteen. She is an orphan, taken in a year ago by Lady Harriet from Barnardo’s Girls’ Village at Ilford in Essex. Polly was … is …, apparently, very close to Her Ladyship, who would give her regular Bible lessons every day, after afternoon tea. The cook was a bit huffy about that, ‘cos she wanted the girl to wash the tea things, but she said she wouldn’t hear a word said against Polly, who was a good and kind girl. Esme said the same but I got the feeling that she was keeping something back. The laundry woman didn’t really know Polly that well and the parlormaid was two bob short of a pound, if you don’t mind me saying, and I couldn’t get much out of her except giggling. The cook said Polly had disappeared without a trace, the night of the murder, and Esme said her bed hadn’t been slept in. None of them had much time for the butler. The cook even called him ‘a weasel.’ All of them were very fond of Lady Harriet, saying she was ‘a poor slip of a girl’ really, had led a very sheltered life, shouldn’t have been married off to Lord Murcheson, who was a bit of a lad before his marriage, and that Lady Harriet was very religious. That’s it.”

  “Extraordinary—” Beech looked in admiration at Rigsby “—and you found all that out in half an hour?”

  Billy grinned. “It wasn’t any hardship, sir.”

  Arthur laughed. “I can see, Chief Inspector, that you have no experience of how a gaggle of women relish a good gossip—er, present
company excepted, of course.”

  Victoria chimed in. “Well, that pretty much squares with what I found out.” She decided to ignore Arthur’s misogynist comment. “Lady Harriet told me that she, too, was an orphan and was sent to live in an Anglican convent at the age of eleven until—and pardon my description but I can find no other way of putting it—the Church sold her into marriage with the son of one of their rich patrons.”

  A collective utterance of dismay went around the room.

  “Poor woman!” said Caroline with feeling. “That, I may say, explains a great deal.”

  “Doesn’t it just?” said Tollman.

  “Anyway,” Victoria continued, “she describes her husband as violating her, brutally, in the first couple of months after his return from France, but then not being able to remember anything about such acts the day after they occurred.”

  “The heroin again,” muttered Caroline.

  “And when she found herself pregnant and told him, he became violent, refusing to believe the child was his, and accusing her of having a lover.”

  “So he obviously stamped on her abdomen in a deliberate attempt to kill the child,” stated Caroline. “It’s a pity he’s not still alive otherwise we could have him hung!”

  “Then,” said Victoria firmly, overriding Caroline, “when I went to the house to carry out Lady Harriet’s request to have Esme send the vicar to the hospital, Esme burst into tears and said it was all her fault.”

  “Eh?” Beech was startled.

  “What she meant was that she hadn’t played her part in keeping His Lordship away from his wife. Apparently, the little scullery maid, Polly, used to sit on a chair outside her mistress’s door every night and, if His Lordship came a-knocking, would tell him that her mistress was ill and could not be disturbed.”

  “That must have taken some courage on her part,” observed Arthur.

  “Exactly, Mr Tollman. Courage that Esme lacked. Polly had asked her to take turns but she wouldn’t; she was too frightened. But she said that she used to cover for Polly, so that she could take naps during the day. She also expressed some scorn for the butler whom she felt should have protected Lady Harriet and the other females from the deranged husband.”