by Granger, Ann
‘No, I doubt that very much, Mr Baggins.’
The murderer had either found what he sought in Jenkins’s room, or he hadn’t. Either way he wouldn’t return. ‘How thick are the walls here?’ I gestured at the room.
‘Reasonable,’ said Baggins cautiously. ‘You don’t hear no conversation. That suits me just fine. You’ve got to concentrate on taxidermy. You can’t go being distracted. The animal has to look lifelike. You can’t have one cross eyed or with a hump in its back. I take pride in my creations. Why, that owl over there, you’d swear it was about to swoop down on you. When I’m working, I generally don’t hear anything, not if you was in this room and spoke to me.’
I had been trying to ignore the owl in question. It had a decidedly unpleasant gaze fixed on me. I could see where this was leading. Mr Baggins, like Mr Weisz, would have seen and heard nothing. But I persevered.
‘Did you know Jenkins had a visitor or visitors this morning?’
He hesitated fractionally. ‘No, I would have to be out on the stairs to see that. I’ve been in here.’
‘Did you hear anything?’ I repeated. ‘Don’t deny it if you did, Mr Baggins. That would be withholding important information.’
His face crumpled in misery. ‘Someone came, about two hours ago. I can’t be exact. I didn’t see him. But Mr Jenkins must have opened the door to him and I heard him – Mr Jenkins – say, “What do you want?” I didn’t hear any reply. They must have gone into the room. I didn’t hear anything more.’
‘You didn’t hear voices raised in argument?’
‘No,’ said Mr Baggins firmly.
‘You didn’t hear furniture being moved? You didn’t hear, say, a crash?’
‘There was a bit of a bump at one point,’ he admitted, ‘but nothing to make me worry. It was about there.’ He pointed at the wall between his room and the next one. He had indicated the spot where, on the other side, the wicker basket of disguises had stood. That would have been when the killer upended it in his search, I thought.
‘Nothing more?’
‘Nothing, sir. I didn’t hear anyone leave. The first I heard was Ruby Poole screaming fit to bust.’
‘Who is in the remaining room on this floor?’
He looked puzzled then said, ‘Oh, you mean the little room next to this. That’s my living room, sir, and my bedroom, too.’
‘I should like to see it.’
Baggins pattered ahead of me to the remaining door on the landing, unlocking it after searching through a collection of keys on a ring. There were keys large and small, from sturdy house keys to modest cabinet ones, even tiny ones such as might have opened a tea caddy. I wondered why he needed so many, when he only had two rooms. He would need one for the street door, but that totalled no more than three. I asked him.
‘Keys is handy,’ he said vaguely. ‘I never throw away a key.’
He opened the door. The room was much smaller, what is sometimes called a boxroom. Somehow, leaving hardly any space to move between them, a narrow bedstead, a table and a single chair had been crammed in. A kettle stood on a trivet before an unlit hearth. The view from the window was of the same patch of rear garden. I asked if he knew what was in the shed.
‘Vegetables,’ he said, confirming what Weisz had told me. ‘A store for the greengrocery, downstairs.’
Prompted by the sight of the brick privy, I asked how he managed for necessary sanitation. Tenants all shared the privy in the garden below, I was told. Those upstairs such as himself and Jenkins and the milliner all had to go down to the street, round the corner and into the yard from a back alley through the door I’d observed.
‘And above here?’ I pointed upwards. ‘Apart from Miss Poole the milliner, who else lives up there?’
‘No one,’ he shook his head. ‘The back two rooms are unlet at the moment.’
‘Who owns the building?’
‘He does.’ Baggins pointed downwards.
‘Weisz, the greengrocer?’ I was surprised.
‘That’s him. He’s got a business head, he has. He wouldn’t give you a bruised apple for free.’
I thanked him and warned him not to gossip, and that a constable would come eventually to take down his statement.
‘I’ve got nothing to state!’ he protested.
‘You repeat what you told me, that you heard someone admitted to Jenkins’s agency about two hours ago. You heard Jenkins ask the visitor what he wanted. You later heard a muffled noise, a bump, and you indicate the spot you showed me. You see? You know more than you think you do.’
This did not appear to cheer Mr Baggins at all. He trailed gloomily back to his glassy eyed companions.
A clump of footsteps on the stairs heralded the constable brought by the child. After a brief conversation I left him guarding the scene of the crime and went back to the shop.
Someone had put up a ‘closed’ sign, but when I tapped on the glass, Weisz emerged from the back room and led me there. The family was gathered around Miss Poole who was still sniffing noisily into a handkerchief. Mrs Weisz ushered her brood, all with eyes shining with curiosity and excitement, into a little room next door. She then went to stand by her husband facing me. Both looked despondent and wary. I felt sorry for them. They had worked hard in their adopted country, even becoming owners of property. Now they were involved with the police in a serious inquiry. Their experience was that, however innocent, it was not a good situation to be in.
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience this is causing you,’ I said to Mrs Weisz, hoping to reassure her.
She murmured, ‘Thank you, sir.’
I turned to Miss Poole. ‘If you feel able, Miss Poole, perhaps you would return upstairs with me.’
‘I can’t go into his room!’ wailed Miss Poole.
‘No, no, you don’t need to do that. But I’d like to talk to you in private.’
I also needed to take a look into her room. She got up and I followed her out of the shop into the street and up the staircase. We squeezed past the constable on guard, Miss Poole giving him a fearful look, and arrived on the top floor. Before going into her room I glanced up at the ceiling of the top landing. It had a small hatch in it. There was an attic, but the hatch showed no sign of having been disturbed, nor was there any way a person could reach it without a ladder.
The milliner’s room was more comfortable than Jenkins’s, but gave an impression of hard-working poverty. There was a threadbare carpet on the floor. The tools of her trade, in the form of a motley collection of scraps of fabric, ribbons, false flowers, cotton reels and so on, lay spread across a worktable. The oil lamp also burned there, giving the glow we had noticed from the street. On a low cupboard, in pride of place, stood a silver-plated container with a tap, fixed above a spirit stove. Having seen similar things before in immigrant homes, I recognised it as a samovar. I wondered from where Miss Poole had it. Perhaps she had bought it from a street stall or taken it in payment of a debt. A teapot stood beside it and, on a shelf above, a collection of cups.
As in Jenkins’s room, a corner was curtained for privacy. Miss Poole slept up here.
I invited her to sit down and she did so, folding her hands in her lap. She answered my questions in a docile manner, giving no sign of concealing anything. From time to time she removed her spectacles to mop at her eyes.
She had known Mr Jenkins since he had moved in below this room. That was nearly a year ago. Yes, there was an arrangement that he would rap on his ceiling – her floor – when he wanted tea for a client. Otherwise she had no way of knowing who called on him. She might notice someone come to the street door, from her window, but she had to concentrate on her work. She didn’t have time to sit staring down into the street. She had not seen anyone that day. Jenkins had been a good neighbour, very kind and helpful. How helpful? Well, he had put up a shelf for her, that one over there with the cups on it. He had carried up water in a bucket, from the pump in the yard. She could get water from Mr Baggins, who had a sink and
a tap, but she didn’t like to disturb Mr Baggins too much. Truth to tell, his room full of dead creatures gave her the creeps. The taxidermist himself also made her uneasy. What can you make of a man who spent his entire life messing around the dead things, skinning them, curing the skins and mounting them on frames? He sold the skinned carcasses to the dog meat trade, or so he said. It was her opinion that cat carcasses were trimmed and secretly sold to unscrupulous butchers, who in turn sold them as rabbit to unsuspecting purchasers. It was all horrid, in Miss Poole’s view. She, personally, did not work with fur for her millinery, although Mr Baggins had once offered to cure a skin for her. But she left that to the professional furriers. It had been nice to have Mr Jenkins live below because he had been a professional gentleman. His had been clean work.
Some might have questioned that.
I asked her what had brought her downstairs when Lizzie and I were there. With much blushing and hesitation she whispered that she had been on to her way to the privy in the backyard. She then began to weep again.
My ear caught movement below; the officers from the Yard had arrived. I thanked her and left the poor soul to her grief.
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
Elizabeth Martin Ross
ON ARRIVING at the Yard with my news and message from Ben, I had been subjected to a brief but pithy lecture from Superintendent Dunn.
‘You see, Mrs Ross? This could well be the result of your keeping information to yourself; information you should have brought immediately here. Someone would have been sent to interview Jenkins yesterday. If he’d had anything to tell, we’d have learned it. He might have led us to his client. He might be alive now. I am not blaming you for the actions of a murderer. But it might all have been different!’
‘If’ is a wonderful word, my father used to say. I did not repeat this to Dunn. I managed to listen in silence to his homily and nod.
‘And now,’ he announced, ‘you will stay away from further investigation into this matter. Leave it to the professionals.’
Considering the professionals would not have known about Jenkins, his clown disguise, his being hired by a French lady to find Tapley and all the rest of it I was tempted to point out that my contribution had been very valuable. But this would not have been well received. I had to admit to myself, if not to him, the superintendent did have a point. Delay might have cost poor Jenkins his life.
‘But I have to return to Camden,’ I said, ‘with Sergeant Morris.’
Dunn’s eyes bulged.
‘There is a lady witness, a Miss Poole,’ I went on hurriedly. ‘She is very distressed, on the verge of fainting away. Of course the police will take a statement from her. But if I sat with her she would be reassured by a woman’s presence . . . and she might talk more freely to me.’
I thought Dunn would burst out angrily, denying me permission to approach a witness. But I was underestimating him. After surveying me thoughtfully for a moment, he folded his hands on his desk and leaned towards me.
‘You are a shrewd woman, Mrs Ross. I do not approve of your interference in police matters or condone it in any way. I have been quite clear about this; and I don’t want you to imagine I can be ignored. However, I confess I sometimes wish some of my officers had half your quick mind. I will agree to your return to Camden with Morris, and to your sitting with Miss Poole and comforting her. You will not talk to any other witness. You will not quiz her. You will not put any leading questions to her. You will not put ideas into her head. But should she, of her own free will and unprompted, confide in you about anything at all, no matter how trivial, you will tell either your husband or another officer at once.’
‘Of course, Superintendent!’ I promised.
Ben was surprised to see me back again and not pleased. ‘There is nothing you can do here, Lizzie! I have spoken to Miss Poole. She has nothing of interest to say.’
‘Superintendent Dunn thinks it a good idea.’
This silenced Ben completely for a full thirty seconds. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually, ‘how you managed to twist Dunn round your finger. But whatever trick Dunn has up his sleeve, or whatever permission he has given you, this remains my investigation. He has put me in charge of running it and in that capacity I – not Dunn – agree to your speaking to Miss Poole. Go ahead and comfort her. But I want a complete report back to me detailing every time she mops her eyes or blows her nose.’
‘You shall have it,’ I promised.
Miss Poole seemed unsurprised to see me and raised no objection to my making tea for us both. She watched me inspect the samovar and light its little spirit stove.
‘It was a gift . . .’ she said almost inaudibly.
‘The samovar? It’s very pretty.’
‘It came from my former employer, with whom I trained in millinery. She was obliged to retire when her sight failed. I started up on my own here. She wished me well and gave me the tea urn. Yes, she called it a samovar. She had brought it with her when she left her original home, in Russia, I think.’ Miss Poole’s voice has gained in volume and confidence as she spoke of this domestic object. ‘She always put a lump of sugar in the teapot with the tea leaves and poured the hot water over it. She never drank milk with her tea in the English fashion. She sometimes took a slice of lemon. I’m afraid I have neither . . .’ Her voice faltered and she began to sound distressed. ‘I was not expecting to entertain . . .’
I brought the teacup to her. ‘Dear Miss Poole, don’t worry about that. I seldom take milk with my tea. I prefer it without.’
She took off her spectacles and blinked at me myopically. I thought sympathetically that so much close work, often in poor light, had affected her eyesight as it had affected her former employer’s. If Miss Poole were obliged to retire, what would she do? Had she managed to save a little money? How long would it last, if she had? Had she family to whom she could turn? I put her age at about forty-five or -six.
I couldn’t but think, as I looked around me, how easily I might be living in a room like this, above a shop, doing whatever I could to earn a living. Aunt Parry, with all her faults, had rescued me from that.
‘My husband tells me that Mr Jenkins would carry water up here for you.’
‘Oh, yes, he was always so helpful. That is why I was always happy to make tea for his visitors.’
‘Did you carry the tea down to his office?’
‘Yes, but I never went in. I just knocked at his door and he would come and take the tray from me. I didn’t meet his visitors. He explained to me that his work was very private. Often his clients, as he called them, were very shy.’
They probably often had good reason, I thought. ‘You didn’t see the French lady who called to see him?’
She hesitated. ‘He seldom had lady visitors. I cannot imagine a lady wanting to consult a private detective! There was an occasion when a lady and a gentleman came together to see him. It was a few weeks ago. I only saw them from the doorway, you understand, when I took the tray down. So I didn’t see their faces. They appeared well dressed.’ Miss Poole’s voice gained a professional enthusiasm. ‘The lady’s hat took my eye. Her hair was a deep chestnut red and quite elaborately dressed. Atop it sat a small round hat, with a lace edging at the brim and lavender silk rosebuds applied all round it. The top was decorated with dark green silk ruffles. A pair of lavender satin ribbons kept it in place, passing behind her ears and tied in a bow at the nape of her neck in a most becoming way. I should like to have seen the hat from the front, but she didn’t turn her head. I thought it a very fashionable item and very much a spring design, just as you might see in a ladies’ magazine. It would not have done in winter. Rain would have ruined it.’
‘Silk rosebuds and ruffles? Yes, bad weather would have destroyed it. You didn’t hear either the man or the woman speak?’
Miss Poole had not. ‘I thought I might copy the hat, for example as a wedding item if a customer wanted such a thing. Not with lavender rosebuds, of course, un
less the wearer were in half-mourning. Pink, perhaps.’
She fell silent and I guessed, from the way the animation drained from her features, that the memory of the hat had been replaced by a sadder memory. ‘His room was in such disorder earlier, when I came upon you and your husband there. Did you do that?’
‘Turn it all out? No, his killer almost certainly did.’
‘But why?’ She turned her gaze back to me, blinking back fresh tears. ‘Wasn’t it enough to kill him? Why do such an awful deed, anyway?’
I picked my words carefully, mindful of Superintendent Dunn’s warning that I should not put ideas into her head. ‘The two things were probably connected.’
‘He disturbed a burglar, you mean?’
‘Not an ordinary burglar, perhaps. Rather someone who was looking for something particular, something the murderer believed Jenkins had hidden.’
‘Oh . . .’ said Miss Poole thoughtfully.
I should never get anywhere if I followed Dunn’s instructions to the letter. ‘Miss Poole . . .’ I put my hand on her arm. ‘Did Mr Jenkins ever ask you to keep some small item of his up here in your room? To hide it for him, I mean. He knew you were a friend.’
I knew at once I had hit the mark. She turned a furious shade of red. ‘Well, I . . . I suppose now that he is dead, I should give it to the police.’
‘Indeed you should,’ I urged her, ‘anything at all. I could accompany you downstairs now and you could hand over the item to my husband.’
‘Yes, yes, what a good thing you are here, Mrs Ross. I should be so nervous of going downstairs to the police alone. I’ll fetch it.’
She rose and went behind the curtain hung across her sleeping area. After a moment she returned holding an envelope. ‘This is it. It’s nothing much. He asked if I wouldn’t mind just keeping it for a little, lest he lose it.’
I longed to rip open the envelope and see what it contained, but I must let Ben do that. I hurried Miss Poole back downstairs where she handed over the envelope to Ben, with trembling hand.