That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Frank stood up, sending his crate crashing into the wall. “Bert Isaacs! Bert bloody Isaacs! I knew he’d be behind this!” He pointed a bony finger at Poppy. “You can tell Isaacs to go to hell! Do you hear me? He can go to hell!”
Delilah stood up and put a soothing arm around his shoulders, making shushing noises as if calming a hysterical child. “It’s all right, Frank; it’s all right. Bert is dead.”
Frank absorbed this for a moment then smiled, revealing the ravages of seven years of hard living. “Then justice has been served.”
“Actually, Mr Wilson, justice has not been served. Not for Gloria or Elizabeth or…” – she almost said “Dot” but thought better of it – “or Delilah here, who deserves to know the truth about what really happened to her mother. And that’s why we’re here. Can you try to answer some questions please?”
Frank nodded. “All right. I’ll tell you what I can. But be prepared: you will not like what I’ve got to say.”
It was Poppy’s turn to nod. “We’ll take that chance, Mr Wilson.”
After Frank had sat down again on his crate, Poppy took out her notebook and gave him an edited version of the events of the last week, including her trip to Paris to see Sophie. She did not tell him about Alfie Dorchester and the VC, and she tried to play down any mention of her aunt. She did tell him about Elizabeth being unjustly held in the asylum and their suspicion that Gloria might have been murdered. This did not shock him as much as she’d thought it would. So she asked him whether or not he remembered any mention of a box on the day Gloria came to see them. He said he didn’t, but he did confirm Sophie’s story that she and he were “occupied” and so neither of them could have been at Slough at the time of Gloria’s death. Poppy noted to herself that they could both be lying, sticking to the same story they concocted seven years ago. Neither of them were paragons of virtue and she had no reason to assume they were telling the truth. But neither did she have evidence to the contrary.
“Were you aware of rumours of a mole in the Chelsea Six?” Poppy asked.
“You mean the seven.”
“Yes, sorry, the seven. Do you think there was a mole, Mr Wilson?”
Frank thought about this as he picked at the dirt under his fingernails. “Yes, I do. We all did. Too many times Easling and his men were ahead of us. That’s how Gloria and Elizabeth got arrested. They were waiting for them at Lord’s.”
“Do you have any idea who it was?”
Frank looked intently at Poppy and leered. “You look a lot like her, you know?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Do you also have unnatural inclinations?” He looked curiously from Poppy to Delilah.
“I do not. And whether or not my aunt does –”
“Whether or not? Well, I can tell you it’s a definite ‘whether’! That lesbian bitch ruined my life.”
“Frank, please, there’s no need for that,” said Delilah, using her most soothing voice.
“I won’t apologize.”
“You don’t have to,” said Poppy. “You’re entitled to your opinion, but I don’t want your prejudice against her and your ex-wife –”
“We’re not divorced. I wouldn’t give her one.”
“Your wife then. I don’t want your prejudice against Dot and Grace to influence what you tell me about the mole.”
“You mean you don’t want me to tell you that your aunt was the mole.”
“No, I don’t. Not unless you have more than your jealousy to back it up.”
Frank leered again. “Well, Miss-high-and-mighty Denby, what would you say if I said I had?”
“I’d say I didn’t believe you.”
“But if I did? Would you use it in your story or would you try to cover it up?”
“If there was any conflict of interest I would hand over all evidence to my editor.”
“And I should believe you?”
Poppy flushed in anger. “I don’t care if you believe me, Mr Wilson, because I don’t believe you. I am sorry for your… your… situation, but all I see is a bitter man who has drunk himself into oblivion and is looking to blame anyone but himself. Marriages sometimes come to an end. It shouldn’t happen, but it does. Whether my aunt was the cause of that, or whether it was you and your adultery with Sophie, I don’t know, but you and your wife both had a choice in the matter. How you lived your life then and how you live now. What I’m interested in is the truth. The truth about what happened to Gloria and Elizabeth – and yes, what also happened to my aunt, whether you care about her or not. So if you’ve got nothing to contribute to that, then we will not waste any more of your time.” She got up. “Come on, Delilah, let’s go.”
“Just hold your horses.” Frank stood up and shifted a few piles of newspapers until he emerged with a rusted old cigar tin. He held it before him like a supplicant at an altar. “What would you say if I gave you proof about who the mole was?”
“Well, I’d look at it and then have the newspaper’s legal team look at it too.”
“Oh no, you won’t take it anywhere. This is my insurance.”
“Your insurance against what?”
“False accusations. I know people thought I was the mole, and that’s why so many people turned against me: all my creditors, all my family; but they were wrong.”
He opened the box, took out a letter and handed it over to Poppy. She opened it. It was dated 7th October 1910 and was addressed to Ms Dorothy Denby.
Ms Denby,
I cannot and shall not call you Dear. I could call you a lot of things, but there will be time for that later. So to business. This is to inform you that the transfer has been made to your bank account as per arrangement. In return, I expect full compliance, as we discussed.
Lord Melvyn Dorchester
Poppy showed the letter to Delilah and then turned her attention to Frank.
“What is this supposed to prove?”
“That your aunt was the mole, obviously.”
“No, not obviously. This could mean anything.”
Frank laughed mirthlessly. “You sound just like Grace.”
“You showed this to Grace? When?”
“Soon after I found it. I came across it sometime in 1913 when I was sorting through Dot’s receipts for the WSPU. She could never keep anything in order.”
“And what did Grace say?”
“Just what you did. So I said I was going to confront Dot with it.”
“And did you?”
“No. Grace went through the roof. Accused me of trying to discredit Dot.”
“So what did you do then?”
“I kept quiet about it. I didn’t want to rock the boat.” He sighed and sat down on the crate, leaning his head back against the wall. “I still thought my marriage had a chance.”
“Was this before or after the day Gloria died?”
“A few weeks before, I think.”
“So ‘saving your marriage’ included having an affair with Sophie Blackburn while my mother was being murdered in a train yard?” It was Delilah, all pretence of soothing gone.
Frank snapped his head around to look at her. “Don’t judge me, girl. I’m not proud of it. But I’m not a murderer and I’m not the mole. You’ll have to look elsewhere for that.”
“Can I take the letter?”
“No, you bleedin’ well can’t. If this ever comes to trial I’ll produce it then. You have my word on that.”
Poppy wondered if Frank Wilson’s word was worth anything; she didn’t have a choice but to comply. She did though ask his permission to transcribe the letter word for word into her notebook. He agreed and poured himself a large glass of foul-smelling alcohol and swilled it back. Then he looked at the dark-haired girl waiting for her friend to finish.
“It’s been good seeing you, Delilah; you’ve grown into quite the young woman.” He leaned towards her.
She sidestepped and grabbed Poppy’s arm. “Are you done?”
CHAPTER 26
“You’ve done well, Poppy; very well. You have the instincts of a first-class newshound.”
Poppy flushed with pride and took another sip of coffee so that Rollo would not see how ridiculously pleased she was.
“So, let me get this straight… ah – ah –” Rollo sneezed into his handkerchief with all the force of a transatlantic hurricane.
Poppy recoiled and put a hand over her coffee cup. “Bless you.”
“Thank you. Righto, this is what we’ve got so far…” Rollo, who had been taking notes as Poppy recapped her latest adventures, turned around his book so that Poppy could see what he had written – or rather drawn. It was a timeline with arrows leading to boxes of text, which in turn led to other boxes and circles spreading across two pages. Poppy leaned in closer to see as Rollo guided her through his mindmap using a pencil as a pointer.
“Sometime between 1905 and 1909, Lady Maud Dorchester, a friend of Emmeline Pankhurst, gathered together a group of women – and one fella – that became a militant cell of the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union, the WSPU. They were her daughter Elizabeth; Elizabeth’s friend Sophie Blackburn, a nurse; Maud’s friend Gloria Marconi, who was married to a relative of Elmo Marconi; and then your aunt, Dot Denby, a leading lady on the West End stage. After that, Dorchester’s accountant Frank Wilson and his wife Grace also became involved. They eventually became known as the Chelsea Six, despite there really being seven. And somewhere in this mix – although how many of them knew about it is still unclear – was our dearly departed Bert Isaacs, who was secretly engaged to Sophie Blackburn.”
Poppy sipped her coffee and nodded in agreement.
“They – but not Bert, I’m assuming – were involved in a number of high-profile campaigns, including chaining themselves to the railings of Downing Street and the protest outside Westminster in November 1910 that became known as Black Friday. On that day your aunt and a number of other women were injured in clashes with armed police, and one of them later died. Of the injured women, your aunt was the most serious, being left crippled and in a wheelchair. Your aunt and her friends suspected that she was deliberately targeted by the then mounted PC Richard Easling at the behest of Maud’s husband, Lord Melvyn Dorchester, an ardent anti-feminist at the time. How am I doing?”
“Spot on, so far.”
“Good. Loads of angles we can use: scandal in high society, police corruption, and we haven’t even got to Marie Curie, and Alfie lying to get his VC yet!” Rollo rubbed his hands in glee.
Poppy, with her personal connections, did not feel quite as gleeful. “We’ve still got to find proof of all this…”
“Well yes, otherwise this would all just go into a Jazz File, but hopefully that’s where the ledger page will help. Shall I continue?”
“Please do,” said Poppy and cleared a space on Rollo’s desk to put her empty coffee cup.
“So, 1911 to 1912, despite Dot’s devastating injuries, the WSPU and the Chelsea Six continued their campaign and were involved in a number of violent protests, including those following the death of Emily Wilding Davison under the king’s horse at Epsom. Am I correct in saying she was a personal friend of your aunt?”
“Yes, you are. She was from Morpeth, my home town. I met her a few times when I was a girl.”
“Good, good. So we’re at June 1912 then. Oh, hold it, where does the Titanic come in?”
“That was April, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right. OK, hang on…” Rollo scrawled an arrow from a text box to the timeline, moving the Titanic back a few months. “Righto, here you are. Maud Dorchester dies on the Titanic in April 1912. Why was she on it, again?”
“Because Melvyn had become increasingly violent in response to what he considered her embarrassing association with the women’s suffrage movement, which he publicly decried in the House of Lords on a number of occasions. Here’s a list of his speeches – I asked Ivan to get them for me from the archive.”
Rollo raised a shaggy red eyebrow and grinned. “Good girl. So, 1912. Maud leaves her abusive husband to join the sisters Stateside and dies in a freak shipping accident. Elizabeth increases her campaigning in memory of her mother and, a few months later, her friend Emily; she becomes increasingly militant.”
“Yes, that’s when Dorchester starts trying to have her committed to the asylum.”
“But fails.”
“Initially, yes.”
“So now we’re in 1913 and the Chelsea Six, who really are now only six, start planning the firebombing of the members’ pavilion at Lord’s.”
“But when Gloria and Elizabeth do the job and try to leave, Richard Easling is waiting for them.”
“They are arrested and jailed for six months at Holloway, where they go on hunger strike and are force-fed.”
“However, they’re unexpectedly released three months early. I’m not sure why…”
“Probably the Cat ’n Mouse Act,” said Rollo. “Ask Ivan to give you the file on it.”
Poppy made a note.
“Righto,” continued Rollo. “So it’s Guy Fawkes night, 1913, and Gloria and Elizabeth are on their way home from prison. But for some reason Elizabeth goes to the train yard at Slough instead. Why?”
Poppy chewed her lip thoughtfully, trying to piece everything together. “From what I can gather, she was going to go to America and asked Gloria to arrange to get a ticket for her from the Chelsea crowd. They were going to meet at Slough station.”
“So where does the box come in?”
“That’s the thing. We don’t really know if there was a box. Only Elizabeth’s word for it. And even though I think she’s sane and doesn’t deserve to be locked up, I won’t discount that she might have imagined this – or simply lied outright to get us to help her.”
“Assuming though there was a box, and it does contain the rest of the ledger that your torn page comes from, then she was going to hand the box over to Gloria in exchange for the train and shipping ticket. Is that right?”
“I think so, yes. But not one of the Chelsea Six remembers anything about a box. My aunt wasn’t there when Gloria came home, but Grace, Frank and Sophie have all independently said that no box was mentioned. So Elizabeth could have imagined it.”
“Or perhaps Gloria never told them for some reason.”
“That’s a possibility. I wonder why…”
“Didn’t Frank say everyone thought there was a mole?”
“He did. And Sophie said they had suspected it for a while.”
“Well then, maybe Gloria got wind of the mole and decided not to mention the box. If it did contain damning evidence, then if it got into the mole’s hands it would be passed on to Dorchester.”
Poppy jumped up and started pacing excitedly, much to Rollo’s amusement. “Yes, that’s it! It has to be. We need to get hold of that ledger – if it exists. What progress have you made with getting Elizabeth out?”
“Some. But I was out of the loop for a few days when I was in bed with flu. Last I heard the legal boys have looked into her initial sectioning and have determined that it wasn’t a permanent thing. In other words it has to be reassessed every year. Thing is, no one but the hospital does the reassessing. And if they’re in the pay of Dorchester…”
“Can’t there be an independent psychiatrist on the panel? Could we arrange for that?”
“Yes, if Elizabeth becomes a client of our solicitors. They’re trying to arrange that now. They say they’ve been struggling to get to see her. Last time they tried – yesterday – they told them she was being prepared to be transferred to Swansea.”
“Swansea! But we’ll never see her if she’s there.”
“I think that’s the idea.”
“So what can we do?”
“The legal guys say they’re trying to get a court order to stop it, but as Elizabeth is not formally their client, they’re not optimistic.”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“That doesn’t leave us much time…”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Poppy sat down again, deflated.
“More coffee?”
“Please.”
When Rollo returned with the coffee, Poppy was going over her notes from Paris. “I think we have two different stories here: the 1913 ‘murder’ and cover-up of the 1910 bribery of Easling, and then the 1915 VC fraud and the Radium Institute blackmail leading to Dorchester’s backing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act and the award of the X-ray contract. Or are they four different stories?”
Poppy took the coffee from Rollo with thanks.
“And what about Bert’s death and the attempt on your life outside the hospital? Are they a story or stories on their own?” asked Rollo.
“Probably not. We’re not important enough.”
Rollo laughed. “Sad but true. It’s yours and Bert’s connection to these other stories, and the possibility that Alfie and Melvyn Dorchester are trying to keep a lid on it all, that’s the story there.”
Rollo stepped on a stack of books that he used as a makeshift stool and clambered into his office chair. It was the first time since they’d met that Poppy fully apprehended his “difference”. Most of the time his personality and brilliant journalistic flair outshone his lack of stature. But she knew – simply from her own “handicap” of being a woman in a man’s world – that he would have had to work doubly hard to get where he was now. She registered a new level of respect for him.
He noticed her watching him. “What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking. This is all very confusing.”
“Ah, but it’s a confusion that will keep this paper in business for a few months yet. This is what’s called a wave, Poppy, and we’ll ride it for as long as we can. Big scandal stories are always like this. Stories within stories. And no doubt as we go we’ll find more angles and more stories… and then, when the public are finally bored with the lot of it, we hope that another wave will come along.”
“Or you make one.”
Rollo raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup. “My, you’re a bit young to be so cynical, aren’t you?”
The Jazz Files Page 20