A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4)

by Granger, Ann

  The twenty-five miles travelled from London had not proved far enough to shake off all traces of the fog. A perceptible mist filtered across the cemetery grounds, a huge area of parkland. It had been designed to be a resting place for the dead of London, for whom little or no burial space remained in the city and whose families could afford to buy a plot here. The mist snaked between the trees and around the headstones and monuments, hovering above the areas of green sward and restricting our view. The day appeared darker than it should have been at this hour. The sun’s rays had not penetrated the cloud cover at all that day.

  We walked in a sedate procession, our feet crunching on the gravel paths, passing by stone urns, decked with carved draperies; and angels who cast down their sightless eyes at us, spreading wings that would never flap free of the earth. It had grown much colder. The mist grew thicker by the minute. It was a fairly long walk at our slow pace and by the time we reached the appointed site, the light was failing fast. The clergyman who had come with us from the church, conveyed in the Tapley carriage, spoke the necessary words and poor Tom Tapley was lowered into the ground, amid the smell of freshly turned soil. We all set off back to the platform for the train.

  Now that the task was over, a sense of relief could be felt. Our disciplined procession had broken up and become more of a scattered group. The undertaker’s men walked in a little group, to one side. The stolid husband and wife had at long last approached Jonathan and Maria and were expressing some condolences. The Tapleys were accepting these with equanimity, although I had a strong suspicion they had no idea who these people were. Tom’s widow had dropped back and walked by herself. Ben was talking to Major Griffiths; Superintendent Dunn chatted with the stout gentleman in breeches. The little governess was whispering to the pair of solicitors, and Flora . . .

  I looked round, sensing a spurt of alarm. Where was Flora? Quickly I looked in all directions. I saw only trees, headstones and stone figures on plinths.

  I shouted out her name as loudly as I could, heedless of the impropriety in the surroundings. ‘Flora!’

  Immediately our party was in disarray and panic set in. Jonathan shouted, ‘Where the devil is she?’ His wife gave a shriek and fell back to be supported, unhappily, by the clergyman. The four gentlemen from Harrogate split up and ran in different directions. The stout gentleman in breeches was crying, ‘Halloo!’ as though he were on the hunting field and we saw he was pointing in the distance. Indistinctly, amid the trees and difficult to discern in the gloom and mist, something moved, some strange shape, constantly changing. Suddenly as it broke free of the sheltering trees it could be seen to be made up of a man and a woman, struggling. All the men, including the pallbearers but with the exception of the clergyman who was still encumbered with Maria Tapley, began to race in that direction, shouting. Ben was yelling, ‘Police! Stop!’ The male struggling figure broke away and the female one sank to the ground. Dunn began roaring, ‘Mas! Devil take it, it must be Mas! Catch the scoundrel!’

  Then the hunt was on, as the fleeing male figure darted and dodged among the monuments and headstones. The pursuers had spread out and were attempting to cut off his escape. Maria Tapley had recovered her senses, and she and the governess were both running towards the form of Flora collapsed on the ground. The clergyman, his surplice flapping, hastened behind them, clutching his prayer book and trying to keep some dignity. I looked for Victorine and saw that she was running, too, but not with the rest. She was heading in the opposite direction.

  I picked up my skirts and set off after her. I didn’t know where she was going, or her purpose, and I had no one to help me by heading her off. I made every effort, jumping over graves and sprinting across the grass. She knew I was behind her. She glanced back once and then dashed on. But I was younger and fitter and I began to gain on her. At that point, she stooped and picked up a small marble flower vase and hurled it at me with the force and accuracy of a bowler in a cricket match. I ducked and it whizzed over my head. Our chase was on again. But she had wasted time in stooping to take up her missile and hurl it. I had reached within a few feet of her. I hurled myself forward, arms outstretched, and grasped a handful of the material of her skirt.

  She turned on me, hissing in rage, and tried to shake me free but I was not to be cheated of my prey, now that I had her in my grasp. At that moment, she stumbled over the granite kerbstone of a grave and fell to her knees. I threw myself on her and wrapped my arms round her waist. She was abusing me ferociously in French. It awoke memories of those long-ago French lessons of my girlhood and I replied vigorously in the same language.

  I fancy it was that, hearing me speak to her in French, which surprised her so much. She ceased struggling. We were both on the ground now, the pair of us exhausted and breathless. My bonnet had fallen off my head and was caught round my neck by its ribbons. Victorine was collapsed with her back to a gravestone, drawing breath in ragged gasps. Her fine Parisian milliner’s creation with its ostrich feathers had also fallen off . . . but with it so had her gleaming black hair. The elaborate wig lay on the ground. Victorine’s own hair was short and almost white. It was an old woman who sat, panting and still spitting defiance, opposite me.

  Ben pounded up to us, out of breath. He, too, was hatless. ‘Are you all right, Lizzie?’ he demanded anxiously.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I assured him. ‘But how is Flora? Is she harmed? Did you catch that man who was running away?’

  ‘Miss Tapley has had a fright, but is recovering. She had lagged a little behind and suddenly, she says, an unknown man stepped out from behind a monument, put his hand over her mouth and began to drag her away from our party. Enterprisingly, she bit his palm. He relaxed his grip and the tussle began which we saw. We didn’t catch him, I’m sorry to say. The light is poor and we found ourselves running into another funeral party. In the confusion, he got clean away.’

  Ben turned his attention to Victorine, still sitting on the floor. ‘But I think I know who he is. It was Hector Mas, wasn’t it, madame? What was he trying to do? Strengthen your claim on the estate by removing the other main claimant?’

  Victorine had regained her composure. She stretched out a hand to pick up her wig, and set it carefully on her head. Turning to me, she asked, ‘Is it straight?’

  ‘Yes, quite straight,’ I heard myself say.

  ‘You speak very good French,’ she told me.

  I heard Ben give an exclamation of impatience. ‘It will not do, madame. You cannot play the innocent as if nothing had happened! You are under arrest for plotting the kidnap, with Hector Mas, of Flora Tapley with intent to do her some grievous harm. You will also be charged conspiracy in the murders of Thomas Tapley and Horatio Jenkins.’

  ‘Monsieur Mas’, she said coldly, ‘has returned to France. I don’t know who that man was you were chasing. Probably some tramp, intent on robbery. To say that I plotted to murder my poor husband is disgraceful! Of course I did not. As for Jenkins,’ she shrugged, ‘anyone might have killed him.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it further at the Yard, madame.’

  Proceedings now took an ironical twist, for there was nothing for it but for the funeral party to return on the special train to London, all sitting together, as before, in one carriage. The only difference was that this time, Victorine Tapley sat between Ben and Superintendent Dunn, and no one looked in her direction except for John Bull. From time to time, he remarked, ‘By Jove!’ He seemed pleased he would have a tale to tell when he got home.

  The governess had learned the identity of the stout couple. She whispered to me that the woman’s mother had, when young, been in service with the first Mrs Tapley. At the terminus, we all parted, Ben, Dunn and Victorine in one cab, the Tapley family in their carriage and others by cab. Mrs Jameson and I walked back to our street. Before her front door, we paused to say our goodbyes.

  ‘It is an extraordinary business, Mrs Ross,’ said Mrs Jameson, in the first comment on the events at the Necropolis made in my hearing by
anyone. (I did not count the ‘By Jove!’ remarks of the gentleman in breeches.)

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘And we haven’t heard all of it yet.’

  ‘No, indeed.’ She was silent a moment. ‘Can it really be that the Frenchwoman, wearing that extraordinary hat with the feathers, is the widow of poor Mr Tapley?’ she asked next.

  ‘It would seem so,’ I said.

  ‘And that fine-looking gentleman in the beautifully tailored coat, that is his cousin?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Jameson, he is.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Jameson. ‘It’s very puzzling and I shall have to think it over. Goodnight, Mrs Ross, I am glad to have had your company today.’

  With that, she went indoors and I continued to my own home, where Bessie was waiting agog to hear about the day. I had rather more to tell her than she’d expected.

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  Inspector Benjamin Ross

  AN ATTEMPT to interview Victorine Guillaume that evening, on our return to Scotland Yard from Brookwood, proved unproductive. At first, the lady simply refused to speak. She had unpinned her hat with the feathers and placed it on the table between us where it reminded me irresistibly of a dead game bird laid out like a trophy. She sat with her eyes fixed on it and her hands folded in her lap.

  ‘You do yourself a disservice, madame,’ I told her. ‘By saying nothing at all, when your behaviour has been so strange, it suggests you have some guilty motive for your silence.’

  At that, she did ask, in her normal composed manner, ‘What behaviour?’

  ‘At the cemetery. When all were either hastening to help Miss Flora, or running in pursuit of her attacker, you ran in the opposite direction and resisted my wife’s attempt to prevent you.’

  That earned a flicker of an eyebrow. ‘I did not know what was happening. I am in a foreign country. My husband has been murdered here. We were gathered in that cemetery to bury him. My mind was occupied with that and nothing else. Then, for some reason I had not understood, all began to shout and run. So, I ran. In the poor light I did not realise it was Mrs Ross behind me. I thought a gang of ruffians had set upon us in that lonely place. Why did Mrs Ross run?’

  ‘Because you ran, madame.’

  ‘Then I suggest it is your wife who behaved illogically, not I.’

  And with that well-placed dart she’d found her target and would say no more.

  ‘We’ll leave her in a cell overnight,’ I told Dunn. ‘She may well have changed her mind about talking in the morning. Or we may have heard from the French police. I certainly hope so, because at the moment we can’t charge her with anything . . . except running away when everyone else was panicking and running. We’ll have to let her go tomorrow if we learn nothing new. We risk making fools of ourselves. If we can find the man who attacked Flora Tapley, and if he is Hector Mas, then that changes the picture. He may talk. In any case, she will find it hard to deny complicity.’

  I knew I sounded frustrated and bitter. Dunn shared my mood.

  ‘If that fellow in the cemetery was Mas,’ he fumed. ‘Where the devil is he now? Find him! He should stick out like a sore thumb, wherever he is!’

  I went home to my wife, there being for the moment nothing else I could do that day. It was now late but Lizzie was waiting up for me.

  ‘There has been no time to cook today,’ she announced. ‘I thought I’d be home from the cemetery in time to make something, and you would be here, too, so I didn’t tell Bessie to get anything ready.’

  ‘I’ve eaten Bessie’s dry meat pies and scorched rice puddings,’ I replied. ‘I’m glad you didn’t ask her. After being made to look and sound an idiot by Victorine Guillaume, and having lost Mas at the cemetery, Bessie’s cuisine would be the last straw.’

  ‘She is improving as a cook,’ Lizzie defended our maid. ‘But as it happens, there is the rest of the steak and kidney pie we had two days ago in the larder. It’s still quite fresh. It’s cold in the larder even in warm weather and at this time of year, there’s no fear of anything going off in a few days.’

  So we ate three-day-old steak and kidney. I must say, it tasted fine.

  The following morning when I reached the Yard I found that, at long last, something had gone right for us. The French police had sent a long communication answering our queries.

  The marriage between Thomas Tapley and Victorine Guillaume had been conducted according to French law and properly registered. The groom had declared himself a widower. The bride had described herself as a spinster. The lady was not altogether unknown to the police. Before establishing herself as owner of a respectable lodging house, she had been a dancer, the mistress of an exporter of wines and spirits and, at the same time, a procuress of young women to train up as the better sort of courtesan. This had eventually led to the close interest of the police and the subsequent loss of her protector. Before matters got too hot for her, she had vanished from Paris and been absent some years. It was believed she had moved to England. When she had finally returned it was to buy the property in Montmartre. Though she had never been imprisoned, she was a known acquaintance of a range of petty criminals. These included one Hector Mas, about whom we had also enquired; although much younger he was widely believed to be her lover.

  Mas was originally from Marseilles. He had lived for a number of years in Paris where he made his living chiefly as a small-time confidence trickster and cardsharp, who preyed on newcomers to Paris from the provinces. He had served two prison terms, one in his native Marseilles and one in the capital. Mas had not been seen in Paris in recent months. Neither had Victorine Guillaume. The lodging house still existed, run, in the absence of the owner, by a manager. As a business, it appeared to be perfectly in order. A suspicion, a few years earlier, that it operated as an unregistered brothel had not been supported by enquiries.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Dunn. ‘So Mas is the usual sort of smooth-talking petty crook. London is also full of rogues like him, plying the same trade fleecing the gullible.’

  ‘And despite what that woman insists, he is not at present in France. We know that now!’ snorted Dunn. ‘He is lurking somewhere around London. He knew the details of the funeral, where and when, and only Guillaume could have told him that. He waited in the cemetery for a chance to abduct Flora Tapley. It was a bold step but our conspirators have grown desperate.’ Dunn shook a thick forefinger at me. ‘The discovery of Flora’s existence was a development with which they had not reckoned when they followed the wretched Tapley to England. It must have come as a real shock to them.’

  ‘I think, sir,’ I said, ‘that with the new information to help, I am now ready to interview the lady again.’

  ‘Well, now, madame,’ I said when I found myself seated opposite that lady a little later. ‘I hope you did not spend too uncomfortable a night.’

  She did not deign to reply to that but cast me a look of scorn and spite that spoke volumes.

  She was still neat, still in her widow’s weeds, and the black wig was firmly in place. Her composure must be assumed, but it was convincing enough at the moment. I hoped to shake it very soon.

  ‘You should know, madame, that we have now heard from the French police.’

  Her eyelids drooped briefly over her dark eyes but then she was staring at me again in her usual direct manner. ‘Then they will have informed you my marriage was legal,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, madame, they have told us that . . . and a good deal more. You have led an eventful life, madame.’

  ‘You are not a fool, Inspector,’ she said coldly. ‘You know that the world is not kind to women who find themselves alone. I was born the illegitimate child of a singer in the cabarets of Montparnasse. She placed me in the ballet school at a young age in the hope I would have an occupation that would keep me from the streets; and, eventually, help me find a protector rich enough to take care of both of us. My mother died only a few years later of consumption. I have always had to rely on my own resources, and survi
ved because I have always done what it was necessary for me to do. But I have never been charged with any crime, Inspector.’

  ‘There is always a first time, for everything, madame, or so they say. The French police also inform us that you were once accused of procuring young girls . . .’

  Her eyes snapped with anger! ‘One girl! One girl only and let me tell you about her, Inspector, before you lecture me! She was being forced by her parents to marry an old man, an old man she detested and feared. So she ran away from her home. I found her begging on the streets. I took her home with me and I tried to help her by finding her someone who would take care of her. I did find her a protector, a decent man who would have treated her well. But then, of course, the parents reappear. They must have their daughter back! I have seduced their innocent child into a despicable and immoral life. They complain to the police. The police come to me. The wretched child is forced back to her parents’ home. Because they want to be reconciled to her? No, because they fear the gossip and scandal. The old suitor comes forward again and this time, having no hope of escaping him, the girl swallows rat poison, arsenic. It is a terrible death, Inspector. The police suddenly have no further interest in pursuing me. No charges were ever brought against me in court. No one, of course, pursues the parents or the filthy old lecher who was the cause of it all.’

  ‘Yet the matter remains upon your police file, madame. If what you tell me is true, that is indeed unfortunate.’

  ‘Policemen, in the whole of Europe and probably even further afield, like to keep files,’ Victorine Guillaume said. ‘It encourages the taxpayer in France and here, I suppose, to believe their money is well spent.’

  I decided to abandon this line of enquiry. But I was getting very tired of being out-argued by her.

  ‘Let us talk of your associate, Hector Mas. Now, he’s a different kettle of fish. His police file is fat and none of the reports in it has been doubted. He has spent at least two spells in gaol. He has not been seen in Paris or elsewhere in France for some time. He is here in London, isn’t he? We believe it was Mas who attempted to abduct Flora Tapley from the cemetery. The only explanation for his knowing where to position himself for the attempt is that you told him: the hour, the place and the day. I assure you, madame, you will be charged with conspiracy to kidnap.’