A Necessary Murder

by M. J. Tjia

  “Please come inside and sit with Miss Pidgeon. You will only need to stay with her until her aunt arrives from Croydon. Obviously, she is in quite a bit of shock.” He climbs down from the buggy and takes my hand as I take the two steps down onto the road again. “Maybe you can find out if she knows something that can shed light on this affair.”

  He steers me in a wide semicircle around the carriage so there is no chance I might accidentally see inside, but just as we reach the bottom of the Pidgeons’ front steps, his driver greets another man on the pavement, and I hear him say, his voice low yet urgent, “His head had fallen fair in his lap, Roddy. In his lap! I’m not lying to you.” The driver lifts his pipe to his lips with shaking fingers.

  I almost glance back at the carriage, but Hatch takes my arm, says, “No, Mrs Chancey. You don’t want to look.”

  I look up at him. “Is it true?”

  He nods, as he leads the way into the house. “I’m afraid so. One of the more vicious crime scenes I’ve ever seen.”

  Isobel appears at the top of the stairs on the first landing. “Heloise. Heloise,” she moans. I hurry up the stairs to her.

  I wipe Isobel’s hair back from her forehead. It’s damp with perspiration and tears. She lies along the sofa, and her head rests in my lap. Besides stroking her hair, I don’t know what to say to her as her tears seep into my skirts.

  Anger builds inside me the longer I sit here. I don’t know much about McBride and Lovejoy, but who would want to kill Pidgeon, who was such a harmless, well-loved man? Fury billows up from my stomach through to my chest. Isobel’s sobs stoke the rage, until I feel the pressure of it in my head, in my fingertips and my jaw aches. I want to burst out onto the street and scream, “Who did this?” Closing my eyes, I imagine forming a fist and smashing it into the murderer’s face. But the picture shifts—the cheekbone, the chin, the eyes—for I don’t know yet who is the culprit. Is it really a Chinese person, as Cosgrove and the others suspect, or is it someone else?

  I glance back down at Isobel. I won’t trouble her with these questions. Her father is dead, and that’s all that matters to her, not the how and who.

  Picking up her left hand, I gently squeeze her fingers. “Why are your fingertips so orange, Isobel?” She still has an apron over her skirt, and she smells distinctly of something like mutton stew and onion.

  She sniffs, wipes under her nose. “I was teaching Cook a recipe for a curry I learnt while we lived in Burma.” Rubbing her fingertips together, she says, “It’s from the paprika. They don’t make curry quite like that at the Oriental Club, and as it was Father’s favourite, I…” She presses her hands to her face and sobs quietly. I rub her shoulder, helpless.

  Isobel’s aunt arrives about an hour later, and I leave the two women to weep together on the sofa. The carriage has been cleared away, along with poor Pidgeon’s body, and only one policeman remains, stationed on the bottom step leading onto the pavement.

  “Where is everyone, Constable?” I ask him.

  “The Detective Inspector has returned to the station, madam,” he says. He’s rugged up in his heavy uniform overcoat, but his cheeks and nose are pink from the cold. “Down on Vine Street.”

  I thank the man and walk home as swiftly as I can. My eyes tear up against the rising wind, but also from my sorrow for Pidgeon and his daughter. I bow my head as I make my way, wishing my hat had a veil attached that I could pull down over my face.

  Flinging open my front door, I call for Bundle. “Can you let Taff know I need the carriage as soon as possible?”

  I run up the stairs to my dressing room and sweep through my drawers until I find a short length of Chantilly lace, black with a pattern of roses, that I can swathe over my hat. I then return to the hallway and pace the floors, waiting for Taff.

  When I hear my carriage pull up at the door, I hurry out, call up to Taff, who’s seated on the driver’s box, “Don’t bother getting down, Taff. I’ll be fine. Take me to the police station in Vine Street, please.” A young couple passes by my house at that moment, and the man looks as though he might offer me his hand, but I manage to haul myself and my skirts into the carriage.

  I look out the window as we make our way, but I don’t really see anything. I’m anxious that Hatch might have left the station before I make it there. I want to know more of what happened and if they’ve managed to find any clues as to who has done this horrible thing. I feel if I don’t keep moving, keep busy, there will be nothing left for me to do except allow the tightness in my chest to dissolve so that I’m capable of nothing but blubbering on my bed.

  The police station is hidden behind a forbidding brown façade. The strident windows are covered with black metal bars and a large lantern perches over the entrance. A constable leads me down a dingy corridor and leaves me in a poky room, windowless, and only furnished with a table and four sturdy chairs. I’m reading the names nicked into the table-top when Hatch enters the room.

  “Mrs Chancey.” His expression is slightly surprised, but without reproof. “How can I be of assistance? I only have a moment, I’m afraid. How is Miss Pidgeon?”

  “Not well. But that is to be expected. I left her with her aunt.” I watch as he takes a seat opposite me. “Have you any clue yet to who may have done this?”

  He takes in a big breath and lets it out noisily. “We are back at the beginning, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I first questioned Pidgeon’s butler, and it seems Pidgeon received a message earlier in the morning that caused him to finish his breakfast abruptly and call for his coach.”

  “Did you see this message?”

  Hatch nods. “We found it in Pidgeon’s pocket.”

  “And…?”

  “What can you tell me of Jedediah Hunt?”

  Hunt. I think of the last time I saw the older man—his whiskery face, his loud, querulous voice—in my drawing room the night McBride was murdered on my doorstep. “Not a lot.” I tell Hatch that he’s just one of the group of explorers who frequent my soirees. “I think there was talk of a time when they were all stationed together in… was it Mandalay or Sarawak?” I try to think back to the night at my place, but what with the amount of champagne I’d had and McBride’s death, the evening is a bit of a blur. “Why do you ask? Was the note from him?”

  Hatch doesn’t answer, he just frowns down at the table, traces his finger across the word “hell” that’s been etched into the timber.

  “And the kris,” he finally says. “You are sure the kris we found is the one from your display cabinet?”

  I nod. “Quite sure. But, if you want to confirm that, you are welcome to show it to Bundle, my butler. He will know.”

  “Yes. I was going to question your servants today, in any case.”

  “Were you? About the kris?” I stiffen a little, wondering how poor Bundle and Agneau will take to being interviewed.

  “Yes. See if they saw anyone suspicious around the time of McBride’s death.” He shifts in his chair. “The thing is, if the kris was from your home, then the culprit had access to it. I’m afraid I’ll have to question both your servants and your guests.”

  I swallow. “What of the coachman? Did not he see who murdered Pidgeon?”

  Hatch blinks twice as he stares at me. He seems to be weighing up how much to tell me. “He says he was sitting on his box, thought he felt a bit of a commotion below in the coach but put it down to Pidgeon just trying to make himself comfortable. He didn’t know anything was amiss until he was pulling out from the kerbside and a man jumped from the carriage and ducked around the corner.”

  “Could he describe him?”

  “Said he looked Asiatic.”

  I take a sharp breath in. “The Chinaman.”

  Hatch shakes his head. “I’m not so sure, although I’m no expert on the subject.” He’s frowning again. “When I asked him to elucidate, he said the fellow was dark and tall, and had a long red cloth of some kind swathed around his h
ead.”

  I try to picture what he’s described.

  “Fortunately, at that precise moment, a midwife was leaving a house further down the road and told the constable on duty that she also saw the man lurch from Pidgeon’s carriage. Her description was similar. Tall, dark man. Long loose clothing. Foreign. But she called his head covering a turban. Said she’d worked in a household once who employed Indian servants. She was sure the fleeing man was of Indian blood.”

  I sit back in my chair, flummoxed. “Well, that’s a strange twist.”

  Hatch’s frown takes on an irritated cast. “Yes. Just what I was thinking.”

  CHAPTER 29

  As Bundle lets me in through the front door, I feel faint, jittery, and I realise it’s late afternoon and I’ve not drunk or eaten since a cup of tea and toast at my dressing table this morning. My face feels flushed, but at the same time as if all my blood is dropping to my feet. As I peel off my gloves, I see that my hands tremble.

  “Bundle, Detective Inspector Hatch will be here sometime to talk to you and the staff. Please let Agneau and Taff know. It’s about the kris that went missing.”

  “And Abigail, Mrs Chancey?”

  I’d forgotten Abigail. “Yes, her too. Although, Bundle, I’m not sure he’ll need to talk with Amah.”

  Bundle just bows and returns to the back of the house. How thankful I am for the man. He always understands me.

  Amah appears at the top of the stairs. “What is it, Heloise?”

  I beckon for her to follow me into the drawing room, where I sink onto the sofa, and say, “Pidgeon is dead. Murdered.”

  Amah pauses by the card table.

  “Did you hear me?” I say, exasperated. “I said Pidgeon was murdered this morning. Just like McBride and Lovejoy.”

  She shakes her head slowly. “Terrible. Do they know who did it?”

  I shrug. “The coachman and another witness claim it was someone of Asiatic appearance.” Asiatic. The general term for a brown foreigner. Lucky the midwife knew a thing or two. Or did she? Really, she might have been as mistaken as anyone.

  I stare down at my bag, at the embroidered leaves that match the colour of my skirt. I remember that Amah never liked the Pidgeons. She probably doesn’t care. But when I glance back up, her face is as pale as rice pudding, and a small frown flickers between her brows.

  I sit forward. “Take a seat, Mama. You don’t look well at all. What is the matter?”

  “Nothing, it is nothing, Jia Li,” she says.

  Abigail treads past the open doorway with a heavy pail that swings against her knees. She opens the front door, closes it behind her and we can hear the brush’s bristles scrub across the tiles of the front steps. A bit late in the day for that, I would’ve thought.

  “I need to go out, Heloise,” says Amah, as she walks from the drawing room. “I might be late home.”

  “But where…?” She’s already trotting up the stairs and out of earshot. I roll my eyes. What bee does she have in her bonnet this time? I pull the box of Turkish delight onto my lap.

  Bundle places a cup of tea on the side table, already sugared, and I smile my thanks to him.

  “Maybe you would like an early supper, Mrs Chancey?”

  My stomach rumbles at the thought, despite my low spirits. “Yes, please, Bundle.”

  After a few sips of the sweet brew, I can feel my heartbeat settle, my fingers steady. Placing the cup back in the saucer, I pick up a square of Turkish delight and take a bite. Licking the powder from my lips, I am transported back to the night before with Cosgrove.

  Cosgrove. I wonder if he’s heard from Hatch. If he’s heard the terrible news.

  I take to my feet, almost upsetting the box of sweets. I quickly sip more of my tea and then pop the rest of the Turkish delight into my mouth as I hurry into the hallway.

  “Bundle, Bundle,” I call, walking towards the back of the house. “I won’t need my supper just yet, thank you. Can you tell Taff I am very sorry, but can he take me out again?”

  Bundle appears in the kitchen doorway. “I’m afraid Amah just left with him, Mrs Chancey. I assumed you knew.”

  I’m nonplussed. Amah must be very flustered indeed to take the coach without letting me know. “Not to worry, Bundle. Can you please fetch me a cab, then?”

  The cab passes along a line of identical Georgian terraces in Holborn. Luckily, I know Cosgrove’s directions from the frequent times I have needed to address invitations to him, and the driver leaves me outside a house with a door painted the shade of a glossy horseshoe. I rap on the knocker, glancing left and right. The sun has set, and I wonder if Cosgrove would be embarrassed if his neighbours were to see him receiving a solitary, female visitor.

  A middle-aged man with short, dark hair oiled flat to his head answers the door, but almost immediately Cosgrove is at his elbow, saying, “Heloise, Mrs Chancey, this is a surprise. Meadowes, there’s a good man, fetch us some tea, would you?” He ushers me past his man into a room to the left.

  I find myself in a small sitting room that also functions as a study. A desk, piled with books and loose sheets of paper falling to the floor, sits under the front window, next to an overcrowded bookcase, its glass doors ajar. In a semicircle before the fireplace is a setting of two lounge chairs the colour of oxblood, which are divided by a low-set marquetry table. A fine Turkish rug covers the floor. The room smells of smoke, books and leather.

  Cosgrove pulls the curtains together across the window to the street. “Take a seat, Heloise.” He lowers himself onto the lounge chair opposite to mine. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  His words are polite, yet the gleam in his eye is cheeky, gives a hint of other pleasures. My chest feels heavy. He mustn’t know about Pidgeon.

  I reach out, place my hand on his knee. “Maurice, have you not heard from the police?”

  A slight frown. “No. Why? What has happened?”

  At that moment, Meadowes enters the room, bearing a tray of tea things. I draw back into my chair, wait for Cosgrove’s man to lay out the cups and teapot, the plate of bread and butter.

  When Meadowes finally leaves, closing the door behind him, Cosgrove repeats, “What’s happened?”

  “Pidgeon is dead.” I can’t think of any other way to say it. I can’t see him appreciating me trying to soften the blow. “He was found this morning.”

  “But how?”

  “The same as McBride.” I don’t want to describe the ghastly details, give word to how my good friend—our great friend—was murdered. As I watch Cosgrove’s head sink, as he covers his face with his hands and groans, “No”, I again feel anger rise in me. Who is the bastard who killed poor Pidgeon?

  I stare down at the carpet. The white fringe has grubby ends, and in the port-coloured weave there is a patch worn thin from silverfish.

  Cosgrove’s face is red when he lifts his head again. “What of Isobel?”

  “She is fine. She’s still at their home but will travel to her aunt’s house tomorrow.”

  Cosgrove’s face is haggard as he stares at me. “Where was he when it happened?” he asks, through clenched teeth.

  “Outside his home, in his carriage. He seemed to be in a hurry to meet someone.”

  “Whom?”

  “I think it might have been Hunt, but the Detective Inspector wouldn’t elaborate.”

  “Hunt? Do you know where they were to meet?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “And like I said, I cannot be sure it was him he was called on to meet.”

  “Surely someone saw the culprit this time? It was morning, you said.”

  I nod. “They did. Said he looked to be from the East.” He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “No, not the Chinaman, apparently. Someone from India maybe, foreign clothing, a turban on his head.”

  He stares at me. “What new devilment is this?”

  I just shake my head.

  “And Isobel? How is she?”

  “Not g
ood.” I lift the teacup to my lips and am mortified when my fingers tremble so that some tea sloshes into the saucer.

  Cosgrove takes the cup from my hand, clasping my fingers. “This must have really distressed you, of course.” He draws me to him.

  I’m happy to be ensconced in his lap but loath to have him believe I am too weak to cope with this situation. “No,” I say, laughing a little. “No, it’s just that I haven’t eaten today. I’m feeling faint from lack of food.” I lean over and take a slice of bread. “I will be right after I eat this, I’m sure. Then we can plan how we are to go about finding Pidgeon’s murderer.”

  I’m torn—I know it’s almost indelicate to eat at such a time, but I’m really hungry.

  He squeezes me tight, burying his face against my throat. His body is rigid with grief and fury, his eyes are pressed shut. I’m sure he must be thinking of his friend. Like a prickle in my brain, it occurs to me for the first time that he might also be worried for his own safety.

  Dropping the bread back onto the plate, I nuzzle into the hollow of his neck, breathe in his scent. His lips find mine and for a few minutes we sink into each other, our unspent rage finding passage in desire. His hands snake up my thighs and I yank his collar apart so his blue lapel pin hangs loose. I kiss his smooth chest, his muscles quivering as I slide my hand across his warm flesh. He lifts me from the chair, lays me down onto the carpet, and we fuck until we’re spent and panting amongst the silks of my skirts and petticoats.

  He rolls onto the floor beside me and we lie like that, the warm fire crackling next to us. I’m just thinking of retrieving that slice of bread and butter when Cosgrove’s head lifts. “Did you hear that? Someone at the door?”

  “No, I didn’t hear anything,” I say, alarmed. I sit up, straightening my stockings and pulling my skirts down. I back up to the armchair and heave myself into it.

  “I’m sure I heard something.” Cosgrove gets to his feet and walks to the door, buttoning his trousers and readjusting his collar.

  I try to neaten my hair, while taking bites of bread. I hope it’s not Hatch. Surely, though, Cosgrove wouldn’t expose me to another man’s censure.