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

by Granger, Ann

  ‘If a body is cooled rapidly, or kept at a very low temperature, it is true rigor may take longer to set it. But, mind you, once the surrounding temperature returns to normal, rigor not only proceeds but may even speed up. These things are notoriously hard to judge, Ross. Sometimes I’ve found it easier to state cause of death than estimate time it occurred.’

  ‘By the time you got the body to the hospital, what state was it in then?’

  ‘Stiffening nicely,’ he said. ‘But you want me to reconsider my estimate of time of death, I assume?’

  ‘I do, Doctor. Please don’t take offence, but on the night in question it was very late in the day, I’d called you from your dinner table . . .’

  ‘And I might, therefore, have been in a hurry to get back to it, eh? Made a quick judgement as to time of death when I should have looked around me and thought a bit more?’

  ‘Believe me, Doctor . . .’

  He waved the pipe stem at me again. ‘And so I might have done. However, does that mean that now, in retrospect, I am ready to change my opinion?’

  ‘Are you?’ I was on tenterhooks.

  Annoyingly – and I am sure on purpose – he puffed a few clouds of tobacco at me. ‘It’s important to you, eh?’

  ‘Doctor, it is very important.’

  ‘Well, then, Inspector, let me put it this way. I repeat that it is not always easy, and seldom possible, to be exact about time of death – especially if, as in this case, you have no other evidence than the body itself. I believe I gave the time of death as no earlier than five o’clock that afternoon?’

  ‘You did, sir.’

  ‘I could, you know, if I wanted to be awkward, stick to my guns and what I said then.’ Another wave of the pipe stem.

  ‘You could, Doctor, and I couldn’t blame you.’

  ‘Oh, couldn’t you? Personally, I hope I shall always be open to revising my judgement if necessary, and not become one of those touchy fellows who cling to a point, even when they’ve been proved too quick in reaching it! Now then, I don’t say that I was wrong . . . but I may not have been right. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I think so, Dr Harper.’

  ‘Mm . . . Given that the room was so very chilly and the deceased appeared to have been sitting in it reading for some time even before he was struck down, it is just possible that rigor was slightly delayed. If so, then it is also just possible that he died before five.’

  ‘How much earlier than five?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘Now that’s a tricky one to answer,’ he said aggravatingly. ‘Four o’clock?’

  ‘How about three o’clock?’ I asked.

  He frowned and my heart sank. ‘Three would be very early.’ He shook his head. ‘I would hesitate to put my money on three o’clock. Not even to oblige you, Ross. Half past three might be a possibility.’

  Mrs Jameson had seen Tapley walking up and down the street shortly after three. He was looking up at the house fronts. He might have glimpsed his cousin at the window upstairs and made a note of the room. He might then have gone away and returned twenty minutes later. That might give us a time of half past three.

  I was reasoning frantically. Why did he go away? Because just as Mrs Jameson noticed him, he, too, was aware that someone was looking out of a downstairs window? So he leaves, and returns at half past three, enters the house from the kitchen, unseen, goes upstairs and strikes down his cousin, then he leaves as he’s come . . . Oh, yes, oh yes! He could still have got back to his chambers in the Gray’s Inn Road by half past four. Only just, perhaps, but he could have done it. Then, clever fellow that he is, he sends out the office boy for half a roast chicken, making some remark about having just time to eat it before the people attending the case conference arrive. Thus the boy remembers with certainty what time he was sent out on the errand. If Morris can establish Jonathan Tapley wasn’t in court all afternoon, then I do believe we have him! Or at the very least, we have enough to bring him in and question him. And to think that, had Lizzie not served up a three-day-old meat pie with a remark about how well it had kept in a cold larder . . .

  ‘Dr Harper,’ I said, ‘I am exceedingly obliged to you. You may have to go into the witness box over this. Will you stand by it?’

  ‘I will say in the witness box what I have just said to you,’ said Harper. ‘Whether that proves good enough for judge and jury isn’t up to me.’

  No, I thought ruefully, it is up to me.

  Morris arrived back at the Yard nearly an hour after I returned there. I was on tenterhooks by then.

  ‘Well?’ I asked him eagerly.

  Morris permitted himself a smile and my heart began to rise. ‘Seems, sir, that proceedings were interrupted in the case in which Mr Tapley was appearing. Court had just reconvened after lunch when one of the main witnesses was suddenly taken ill, in mid-testimony. There was no likelihood the witness would be able to continue that day, so the case was adjourned. Court rose at a little after half past two. Tapley was conferring with fellow counsel for a further ten minutes or quarter of an hour. After that, the gentlemen of the bar concerned all dispersed for the day. As far as I could find out, no one else there saw or spoke to him. The other cases being heard were proceeding, and those involved were in attendance on those. I asked ushers and doorkeepers and such, and while none of them can swear to the exact time he left, they are sure it wasn’t late.’

  ‘Let’s say he left at about ten minutes to three,’ I conjectured. ‘He could have jumped in a cab . . . there’s always plenty waiting around there. Yes, he went directly by cab south of the river. He had the cabbie set him down a couple of streets away from his destination. By twenty minutes past three he was outside Mrs Jameson’s house. She is not exact as to time, but says it was “some time after three”. I take that to mean before half past. If he then went away and came back when he was satisfied she was no longer at her window, he could still have returned by a quarter to four. He slips into the house, up the back stairs, comes upon his cousin, strikes him down, and leaves. He probably goes to the railway station and picks up another cab there. At half past four he is entering his chambers in the Gray’s Inn Road.’

  ‘It’s a tight timetable, sir,’ warned Morris.

  ‘But not an impossible one. Let me speak with the superintendent.’

  ‘Yessir,’ said Morris, looking relieved. ‘Best have Mr Dunn on our side, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dunn, when he’d heard me out. ‘I must consult the deputy commissioner about this, given who Tapley is. But I suggest you proceed immediately, without waiting for me to return, and let me deal with objections from on high. I will take responsibility. Go on, man. Strike while the iron is hot!’

  I hastened back to Morris. ‘All goes well, Sergeant. I think we may invite Mr Jonathan Tapley to call upon us here at the Yard!’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  * * *

  ‘WELL, INSPECTOR, I am here at your request . . .’ Jonathan Tapley seated himself in my office and placed his folded hands over the skull pommel of his cane. ‘I take it you have something of interest to tell me? Since you have the culprits safely under arrest, I cannot imagine what it is that necessitated my coming here with such urgency.’

  Morris had stationed himself discreetly behind our visitor and, even more discreetly, young Biddle had slipped into the room and sat in a corner with notebook and pencil in hand. I was sure that Jonathan Tapley had not yet noticed him. He’d have remarked on it, if he had done.

  ‘I do indeed have something of interest to tell you, sir,’ I began politely. ‘New information has reached us.’

  ‘How? From the French police?’

  ‘No, Mr Tapley, fresh evidence from a witness.’

  He stiffened slightly. ‘A witness? To what?’

  ‘This witness has come forward, admittedly a little late, to tell us you were seen on the afternoon of the murder, at some time shortly after three, walking up and down outside the house where the m
urder took place. You were seen to glance up at the front of the house, as if seeking something.’

  Coldly, Tapley said: ‘My movements on the day, and particularly for the period during which my cousin’s death could have occurred, have been accounted for. I have given you a list of witnesses.’

  ‘You have give us a list of witnesses from four thirty onward.’

  He looked annoyed. ‘Well, then! That is sufficient. The medical man gave his opinion my cousin died after five of the afternoon.’ He tapped the cane on the floor. ‘What is all this about?’

  ‘The medical man has reconsidered the time of death. He is now of the opinion it could have occurred as early as four or even before that, possibly half past three.’ I waited to see how he’d take that.

  Any other man with a heavy conscience might have betrayed shock or panic. But Tapley was used to courtroom tactics, including a witness making an unexpected and unwelcome statement.

  ‘Indeed?’ he said drily. ‘And what has caused this medical fellow to revise his opinion, originally made at the time with my cousin’s body on the floor in front of him?’

  ‘I don’t recall telling you the body was on the floor,’ I said. ‘I told you, I think I am correct, that the assassin came upon your cousin as he sat reading in a chair.’

  ‘Pah!’ Tapley dismissed this as a quibble. ‘Chair . . . floor . . . If he was sitting in a chair when he was struck, then he presumably fell on to the floor? Do you agree?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he did that,’ I had to admit.

  ‘It seems obvious to me. I repeat, what has caused the doctor to change his mind? It seems extraordinary that he can reduce the time of death from five in the afternoon to, what, a full hour and a half earlier?’

  ‘The doctor has been reconsidering,’ I said carefully, ‘because he is now taking into account the very low temperature of the room. That can slow the onset of rigor. It was the absence of rigor in the body that had prompted him to make his first assessment of five o’clock.’

  By now he knew what this was leading up to, and he was ready for me.

  ‘I do not practise in the criminal law courts,’ Tapley said with a touch of disdain. ‘But I have heard cases discussed between those who do. I understand, from such conversations, that a corpse left in a cold place may remain remarkably flexible, as you say. Equally, however, the body might not. There is no hard and fast rule about it. If your doctor were to be questioned in the witness box, he would admit that. He is unwise to revise his estimated time of death on that alone.’

  A rustle in the corner as Biddle turned a page of his notebook caused our visitor to look over his shoulder.

  ‘Why is that young fellow writing all this down?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘It is the procedure, Mr Tapley.’

  Tapley permitted himself a faint smile. He leaned back in the chair. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘I might be tempted to imagine you mean to charge me with the murder of my cousin, Inspector.’

  ‘You might be right, sir.’

  ‘You would be foolish. Even if my cousin died earlier than five, something that is not established fact despite the vacillations of your doctor, I was—’

  ‘You were not seen in court after about ten to three,’ I interrupted. ‘A witness in the case with which you were concerned that day was taken ill. Court rose at half past two. You chatted with fellow counsel for a few minutes and then you left.’

  ‘You have been thorough, Inspector,’ Tapley said after a pause. ‘You have a witness who saw me leave the building?’

  This I did not have. He had unerringly picked a weak spot. This was not going to be easy. ‘No, sir, but no one in the building saw you or spoke to you after that time, a little before three.’

  ‘No witness, in other words. Tut, tut, Inspector. Another supposition on your part. Another statement you cannot back up. I dare say that you’re about to claim, in another flight of fancy, that I leaped into a cab and was carried immediately to where my cousin lived?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I think that is what happened. I suspect you asked the cabbie to take you to Waterloo railway station, because that would have allowed you to ask him to make all possible speed. You had a train to catch, you told him. If you’d asked him to set you down in the street where your cousin lived, he might have remembered you and the address – should we find the cabbie. We are looking for him, by the way. But you would have calculated that no cabbie troubles to remember a particular fare among many delivered to a railway station. The destination is too commonplace.

  ‘You could not have planned it, because you could not have known court would rise early. But you were intending at some point soon to face your cousin. You had earlier learned that your cousin was back in London. I think you had also learned that your niece, Miss Flora, had been in contact with her father. I fancy your coachman told you of the escapade when he drove the young lady, in disguise as a young boy, accompanied by a friend, to the vicinity of the house. The coachman had told your wife. She was anxious you did not learn of the adventure and asked the coachman not to tell you. But you are his employer. It is upon your recommendation he depends. I think he did tell you. You quizzed your wife. She admitted it.

  ‘Unlike your wife, you did not imagine Flora had made a romantic tryst with some unsuitable young man. You immediately and rightly guessed it was her father she’d gone to see. You were furious and alarmed. Thomas had broken his word to you about returning to England. You already knew that because Fred Thorpe had told you. You had been hoping your cousin had returned to France. Now you had discovered he was living in London and, even worse from your point of view, he had contacted his daughter. This had led to a potentially scandalous escapade involving Miss Flora dressed as a boy. You and your wife had set your highest hopes on Flora marrying her highly connected young suitor. Now the possibility of dangerous gossip loomed. I don’t think the noble family into which you plan Flora to marry would take kindly to news of her travelling round London in male attire. As for Thomas appearing, like Banquo’s ghost, at the marriage festivities . . . You had to take some action.

  ‘As soon as you learned what Flora had done, you had your coachman take you to the same spot where he had set down Flora. It did not take long, asking around, to locate your cousin and where he lived. You did nothing there and then; because the less Joliffe saw or heard, the better. You had him drive you home again to Bryanston Square. While you were still debating what to do, a few days later, court rose unexpectedly early in the afternoon. You seized the opportunity to go to the house, face your cousin and have it out with him. You meant, perhaps, only to insist he write out a formal consent to the marriage, then return to France immediately, after which there must be absolutely no more contact between him and Miss Flora. You would not allow, could not allow, Thomas to ruin everything.’

  I concluded my exposition of the situation leading up to the murder as I saw it, and fell silent.

  ‘Even if I did all that, Inspector, and I am not admitting any such thing, it is a far cry from “having it out with him” to killing him in cold blood,’ Tapley pointed out. He had been listening carefully to my case as I laid it out, just as he would have listened to an opponent in a courtroom.

  I was not finished yet. But I had to go slowly and carefully, because I was now dealing not with what Jonathan Tapley must have felt, but with what he did.

  ‘You entered the house secretly. You did not announce yourself at the front door because you did not want to be seen and remembered. There must be no link with Bryanston Square! You slipped in through the kitchen in the absence of the single maidservant, went up the back stairs, located the room, opened the door quietly . . . Your cousin sat there reading peaceably. The sight fuelled your anger. There he sat, the man who had broken his word and caused so much trouble, apparently without a care in the world. Your rage overcame you. You raised your cane – that cane . . .’ I pointed at it. ‘You struck the back of his head and he toppled from his chair to the floor. You struck him a
gain when he lay on the carpet, to make sure he was dead. Having struck him once, you could not risk that he might be conscious enough to identify his assailant, or survive to tell of the attack.’

  Tapley rested the cane against his knee and placed his fingertips together. ‘You are ingenious, Inspector, I’ll grant you that! You make me curious. How did I know – again I ask without admitting anything – which room my cousin was in?’

  ‘You had a bit of luck. You were looking up at the front of the house – the witness saw you do that – and glimpsed him through an upstairs window.’

  ‘Did I indeed? I must ask you again, Inspector, to identify your witness. Otherwise, how do I know such a witness really exists?’

  ‘The owner of the house saw you, through her parlour window.’

  ‘The owner of the house?’ He looked stupefied. ‘Do you mean that elderly Quaker lady who attended the funeral?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She did not know me. When she saw a stranger in the street how on earth could she tell it was I?’ Anger broke into his voice.

  ‘She recognised and identified you, having had a good opportunity to observe you closely, during the short train journey from the church to the Necropolis on the day of the funeral.’

  ‘That was quite some time later than the day my cousin died,’ he objected. ‘She could not be sure I was someone she had, she claims, seen briefly, for the first time in her life, at a distance, through a window, and many days earlier! Good heavens, Inspector, you have been an investigating officer long enough to know that even several witnesses of one event can give wildly differing accounts. Asked to describe someone, one witness will say he was tall, another that he was short. One swears he saw a walking stick –’ Tapley indicated his cane – ‘but to another this same object appeared to be an umbrella! They cannot all be right, obviously. So, how can you, Inspector, who have a single witness, be so sure she is not mistaken? The lady is of advanced years, I recollect. She is a religious female and no doubt spends much time reading her Bible. I doubt her eyesight is first rate. She probably wears spectacles to read.’