Inspector Abberline and the Just King

by Simon Clark

  Thomas guessed that Billy was West’s first name. ‘He’s asleep in the next room.’

  ‘He will recover?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure of it.’

  Sutton gave a loud sigh. ‘I’m so weak. I … I can’t get events straight in my mind, sir. We went to the Professor’s cottage to interview him. The lights were out. When I opened the door …’ He coughed and immediately winced as if his throat was sore. ‘I opened the door, sir. I saw them lying on the stairs. The two ladies. They lay in each other’s arms. What happened, sir?’ His expression became troubled. ‘Billy and I examined the ladies. Then we found we couldn’t move … it was like we were suddenly drunk. Then that’s all I knew until I woke up here. There’s poison … the door opened … there they were. Eyes. I remember two staring eyes. My mother called me down to the coal cellar. My old dad … he’d fallen … I should have stayed back … way back when …’

  Thomas tried to soothe the man. ‘Rest. Everything is all right.’

  ‘My old dad. He fought in Egypt. Said scorpions could dance right over your face at night … when you were sleeping.’ He wiped his face. ‘Sir. Scorpions … will you get them off, sir?’

  ‘There are no scorpions. Try and sleep.’

  He began to mutter like his colleague in the next room. Thomas waited until his breathing became regular and he seemed to be sleeping normally before returning to the kitchen where Ludwig and Jo sat.

  Thomas said, ‘Jo, I should escort you back home. You shouldn’t be here without a chaperone.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Thomas.’ She gave a tired smile. ‘Thank you for your concern.’

  Ludwig stood up. ‘I’ll make tea. A large pot should suffice for an hour or so.’ He glanced at Thomas and Jo as if he suspected they were going to protest. ‘A king can make a pot of tea, you know.’

  He busied himself filling a kettle before setting it on the spirit burner. Almost two hours had elapsed since Thomas and Jo had brought the four people out of the nearby cottage. Mrs Giddings and her sister were dead. Ludwig’s domestic staff had taken the bodies to the palace. Professor Giddings had followed the sad procession through the wood, wringing his hands as he went. Thankfully, the two detectives showed signs of recovery. Thomas hoped there would be no permanent damage to their lungs. He’d not liked West and Sutton. They appeared thuggish and dull-witted – in fact, the very kind of policemen that belonged to the past, not to the modern world of detection. However, the pair must have experienced plenty of thuggery in the dockland areas of Hull. They were accustomed to meeting force with force. Thomas realized he shouldn’t have judged them so harshly.

  Ludwig spooned tea into a teapot. ‘Thomas, Jo – your actions were heroic tonight. You saved the lives of those two policemen.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Thomas said.

  Jo added, ‘Not that I felt particularly heroic. We did what had to be done.’

  ‘What an evil night,’ Ludwig said. ‘Imagine – it is possible to poison someone and then for the poison to generate toxic fumes that can kill people who approach the victim. I still find it hard to understand that such a thing could happen.’

  Thomas said, ‘That’s the nature of poisoning with a compound of phosphorus and aluminium. It reacts with liquid in the victim’s stomach.’

  ‘You’ve seen this before?’ asked Jo.

  ‘I once reported on the death of an undertaker. A farmer had committed suicide by swallowing the same compound. When the undertaker worked on the body, gas leaked from the corpse’s mouth and nostrils, and the undertaker was killed, too.’

  ‘But here?’ Ludwig shook his head as if unable to believe what had happened tonight. ‘The wife of one of my academy members dies in her own home in such bizarre circumstances?’

  Jo shuddered. ‘Decidedly bizarre.’

  ‘Suicide?’ ventured the king.

  ‘I can’t say,’ Thomas replied. ‘However, it seems to me that one of the women swallowed the poison, either deliberately or someone else had added it to her food. When she collapsed upstairs in the cottage the other woman tried to carry her downstairs. Perhaps she believed that fresh air would revive the victim.’

  Jo shuddered again as if feeling the touch of something icy on her backbone. ‘It’s all too easy to picture one sister trying to rescue the other. She’d carry her in such a way that the unconscious woman’s head was on her shoulder. All the time, lethal vapours would be streaming from the victim’s mouth, which the other woman would inhale. By the time they were halfway down the stairs both would be overcome – one by poison, the other by fumes.’

  Ludwig stared at the kettle as it began to boil. ‘Feasby shot from a tree. Mrs Giddings and her sister poisoned to death. The newspapers will cover their pages with this story. The academy’s reputation will suffer. Confound it.’

  Thomas watched the monarch of the tiny kingdom of Faxfleet pour boiling water into the teapot. Ludwig appeared to have devoted his life to the academy. In fact, Thomas told himself, he’s clearly obsessed with it. The sudden deaths on the island were of secondary importance as far as Ludwig was concerned. Thomas found that distasteful … no, he was disgusted. Three people had died.

  Jo touched Thomas’s hand. ‘Would you like anything to eat?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Sir?’ she asked Ludwig.

  He shook his head. ‘That’s kind of you, Jo. In truth, I feel sickened tonight.’

  For the next thirty minutes they said very little. They drank cup after cup of tea in a detached kind of way. Jo’s eyes were distant. Thomas realized that she probably could think of nothing else but tonight’s events. Thomas’s own mind was full of images that flashed with a terrible brilliance. He kept seeing the four victims in his mind’s eye. Two women lying dead on the stairs. The two detectives, unconscious. Inevitably, he recalled the time recently when he fell into the canal – drifting down through the black waters, unable to breathe. Death waiting with open arms. Tonight Death had succeeded in taking the two women.

  Jo lightly touched the back of his hand again. ‘Tired?’ she asked.

  ‘My body feels like a lead weight, yet my mind’s racing. I keep seeing them in the cottage again. Lying there.’

  ‘Me, too.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I will try to sleep, however. I’ll go home, unless you need me any more tonight?’

  ‘I don’t think we can do anything until morning.’

  Ludwig nodded. ‘Try and sleep, Jo. That will help settle your mind.’

  ‘Then I shall bid you good night, gentlemen.’

  Thomas said quickly, ‘I’ll walk you home.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not necessary. It’s just a moment’s stroll away.’

  ‘I insist,’ Thomas told her. ‘There’s a real danger that there’s a murderer on the island.’

  ‘Then I accept. Thank you.’

  Ludwig opened the door for her. ‘Shut all your windows, and do what you can to bar the door.’

  Thomas added, ‘Everyone here should fix locks and bolts to their doors. The practice of leaving them unlocked should be stopped.’

  ‘I agree, though with a heavy heart.’ Ludwig sighed. ‘I’ll order strong bolts, and have them fitted in all the houses by tomorrow night.’

  Thomas stepped into the garden with Jo. He carried a lantern to light their way. Carefully, he looked around him. He saw no one, certainly no lurking stranger that might commit murder (although his imagination supplied him with plenty of images of assassins lying in wait with knives and pistols). The moon shone down onto the lane. He saw its light playing on the river in the distance.

  Thomas said, ‘Put a table behind your front door. Pile plates onto it. If someone opens the door that will send the plates crashing. That will tell you there’s an intruder.’

  ‘Thank you. I will.’

  ‘Keep your bow and arrows nearby, too.’

  ‘You care about my safety, don’t you, Thomas?’

  ‘Of course. I wish you weren’t spending th
e night alone in your cottage.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Thomas glanced at her. The woman’s eyes shone brightly in the moonlight.

  ‘Ssss.’

  Thomas spun round at the sound of the hiss.

  ‘Mr Feasby. I didn’t see you there,’ Jo said in that pleasant way of hers. ‘You rather startled us.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jo. The bald truth of it is I cannot sleep.’

  Thomas said, ‘Would you prefer to come to my cottage, Mr Feasby?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Lloyd, that is most kind. However, I shall stay here. I feel as if I should keep watch on my neighbours tonight.’

  Thomas held up the light to reveal the man who was over eighty years of age. Thomas wanted to applaud his courage and his care for the people who lived nearby.

  ‘Mr Feasby, I shall join you in a moment,’ said Thomas, ‘if I may?’

  ‘I would welcome that, sir.’

  Thomas continued walking along the lane with Jo. They’d only taken a few steps when Mr Feasby said:

  ‘We are being exterminated, aren’t we? Everyone on this island, one by one, is being murdered, and we can do nothing to stop it happening again.’

  Chapter 9

  A mist lingered that following morning. Thomas stood on the jetty as the boat steamed away in the direction of the mainland with the two bodies on board. They would be taken to the hospital in Hull for a post mortem examination. That would determine which woman had swallowed the poison, and which had been killed by poisonous gas leaking from the mouth of the corpse. The detectives West and Sutton had boarded the ferry, too. Thomas watched them sitting, round-shouldered, with their heads hanging forwards. They were recovering from inhaling the toxic fumes. They were still weak, however. The pair would go to hospital, too, though it was likely that they would be allowed home within a matter of hours. The ferry also carried one of King Ludwig’s footmen. He would deliver a letter to the police asking for immediate assistance on the island.

  Thomas decided to take a stroll, relishing the fresh air as he did so. Just the thought of holding his breath in that gas-filled cottage last night made his throat feel unpleasantly tight. He watched seals hunting for fish in the shallow water near the shore. From further out in the river came the lowing of foghorns as ships moved through the mist. He’d slept for around five hours last night after standing guard with Mr Feasby in the lane that ran by the cottages. They’d seen no one. If anything, the hours after the removal of the bodies to the palace had been peaceful ones. Early that morning King Ludwig had organized a search of the island. The fishermen from the island’s northern tip, along with the other inhabitants of the island, arranged themselves into groups, armed with cudgels, axes, rifles, longbows and kitchen knives. Two groups worked their way along the beaches. The other groups attempted to form a line across the narrow island before moving from the south to the north in the hope they could trap the killer. The density of the forest meant that to keep everyone in sight so no assassin could slip through wasn’t easy. Thomas knew that it would require a large number of police officers, together with bloodhounds, to conduct the search properly.

  The ferry returned later that morning. Day-to-day life had to continue, of course. The boat carried a cargo of fresh milk, eggs and other foodstuffs. The boat also delivered the morning papers and a sack of mail. Ludwig arranged for the newspapers to be handed out at no cost to the islanders. When Thomas’s copy of the Yorkshire Post arrived at the cottage, he took the paper down to the beach where he found a rock to sit upon.

  He leafed through the newspaper, reading about a fire that had destroyed a theatre in Wakefield. An escaped bull in Pontefract had knocked over market stalls before being trapped in the back yard of a tavern. Huddersfield’s mayor pledged funding for a new bridge over a canal. Thomas’s heart lurched when he saw the headline INSPECTOR ABBERLINE BAFFLED BY LATEST WHITECHAPEL MURDER. Thomas read the first few lines of the news report. Inspector Abberline, the detective who led the hunt for the murderer known as Jack the Ripper two years ago, has returned to pursue the villain again. Mrs Ruth Verity was found in a derelict house on Tuesday. She’d been murdered. The killer had used a knife to disfigure her body.

  Thomas sighed. Part of him wished he was back in London, shadowing Abberline as he searched for the Ripper. He also realized that he needed to continue gathering information about the island and its population. Yet he felt as if nothing would progress substantially here until Abberline was back on the island. He returned to the cottage and wrote a letter to Abberline, telling him what had happened in the Giddings’ household last night. Once he’d sealed down the envelope, he returned to the jetty in time to see the arrival of the ferry. This time it brought six policemen in uniform together with three detectives. Thomas felt enormous relief at the arrival of the police. The population of Faxfleet would feel much safer now.

  He handed the ferryman the letter, which would be posted on the mainland. After that, he strolled back in the direction of the cottage. Groups of islanders passed by as they returned from their search, which had found nothing at all. Even so, Thomas looked into the eyes of each man and woman and wondered if they harboured a grim secret. Competition for both the prize and the opportunity to remain on the island as part of the academy was fierce. Was one of the academy members trying to eliminate their rivals? At that moment, every single one of those people looked suspicious to him. They were all ambitious. They had so much to lose if their year’s work was considered to be inferior to that of their neighbours. If they were judged to be failures they would be evicted from their rent-free cottage and the island within hours. Was it possible that one of these men or women was the murderer?

  The sun shone by midday. Thomas sat on a bench outside Samarkand Cottage. The local detectives from Hull came and went from the house where the deaths had occurred last night. The detectives interviewed Mr Feasby, Jo and Thomas.

  ‘I’m not a member of the king’s academy,’ he’d told them, ‘I arrived here with Inspector Abberline.’

  They nodded, wrote down what he’d said in their notebooks, then asked him if he’d seen any strangers on the island. On this occasion, Thomas realized he was being treated as a member of the public, not a participant in the investigation. Thomas didn’t see that there would be anything to be gained by trying to become part of the detection team. Therefore, he sat on the bench, making notes, while keeping his own eyes and ears open.

  At one point, a detective emerged from Professor Giddings’ home. Thomas clearly heard the man say to a colleague: ‘We’ve found it. It was in the bowl of rice.’

  Thomas felt pretty confident that the ‘it’ referred to by the detective was the poison. So, the poison had been put in a rice dish? Thomas made a note.

  Jo rode up to the garden gate on her horse. ‘Good morning, Thomas. How are you?’

  ‘Good morning. I’m fine, and you?’

  ‘Bad dreams, Thomas, I had plenty of those. I’ve never been in a house filled with poisonous gas before.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t. I have to deliver my prospectus to Ludwig. Cheerio, dear Thomas.’ With a flash of that brilliant smile, she waved, then urged the horse into a trot.

  Thomas watched the woman ride away. Once again, she wore the short leather kilt and what appeared to be pantaloons in white silk. She really was extraordinary. A crackling, dazzling firework of a human being. He mulled the word she’d used: ‘Prospectus’. That must be something to do with the academy members’ annual submission of their work to King Ludwig. No doubt the prospectus would be assessed along with examples of Jo’s work. He wondered if Ludwig would approve of her work, whatever that work was, and permit her to continue living here, or whether she would be sent back to the mainland. He hoped she’d win through and stay.

  ‘Telegram. Telegram for Mr Lloyd.’

  Thomas looked up. ‘Inspector?’ He rose to his feet, smiling. ‘Hello. I didn’t know you would be coming back so s
oon.’

  He opened the gate for Inspector Abberline, who carried a leather case in one hand and an envelope in the other.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Thomas said warmly. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, Thomas, and good to see you.’ He smiled. ‘Here’s your telegram. I can tell you what’s written here because I wrote it. I sent the telegram first thing this morning but I caught up with it on the way.’ He shrugged. ‘Communications with this island are slow, to say the least.’

  ‘And I sent you a letter with news of last night’s events. Though I daresay it won’t reach your office at Scotland Yard for another day or so yet.’

  ‘You’re referring to the death of Mrs Giddings and her sister?’

  ‘You’ve heard?’

  ‘The ferryman told me as we made the crossing.’

  ‘I’ll give you a detailed account. Firstly, though, you might like to put your things in the cottage.’

  ‘Oh, they can wait, Thomas,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘Besides, it’s best to hear what happened while it’s still fresh in your mind.’

  Thomas gave as thorough a report as he could about the events of the previous evening when he, Jo and Professor Giddings found Mr Feasby outside the cottage. Abberline listened carefully as Thomas revealed how they’d found four figures on the stairs – two dead, two unconscious. In a matter-of-fact way, he described how he and Jo had held their breath each time they went inside the cottage to retrieve the men and women. He finished his account with the information that he’d overheard just a few minutes ago, that the detectives had identified a bowl of rice as the source of the poison.

  Abberline digested what he’d heard for a moment. ‘Use of the phosphorus and aluminium compound as a poison is extremely unusual.’

  ‘Indeed, murderers often use our old friend arsenic.’

  ‘Hmm, the so-called inheritance powder. Arsenic as a murder weapon is so commonplace that newspapers wouldn’t report its use at length. But death by such an exotic compound that was used here yesterday is so rare, and the fact that it led to three people being gassed will guarantee front-page news far and wide.’