‘Oh, we’ll get Miss Maltravers’ murderer, sir,’ Dunwoody said with heavy significance. ‘Of that you can be sure.’
Killigrew stared at him in disbelief, understanding at last just what was going on here. ‘You think I did it?’
‘The victim was found in your rooms,’ Jordan said quietly. ‘By your own admission, you were the last person to see her alive.’
‘No, Nekrasoff and Ryzhago were the last people to see her alive, because they’re the bastards who murdered her! This is utterly insane! For God’s sake, I was going to marry her! I loved her, damn it! What possible motive could I have for murdering her?’
‘Why don’t you tell us about Sophronia Ponsonby?’
‘Who?’
Jordan took out another file and opened it to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. ‘We found this letter in the victim’s hand. How she found it we can only speculate, but it’s obvious that you continued to have at least one mistress after you became engaged to her. We’ve compared the paper to the notepaper supplied to the officers on board HMS Ramillies and it matches this exactly.’
‘You can pick that paper up at any stationer’s. This is ridiculous! I’ve never even heard of Sophronia Ponsonby! Look, that’s not even my handwri—’ Killigrew stared at the handwriting on the note. ‘Jesus Christ! That’s my handwriting!’
‘You freely admit that, sir?’
‘No, damn you! I mean, it looks like my handwriting. They forged it, obviously.’
‘“They” being these vanishing Russian spies, I suppose?’
‘Yes! Can’t you see? They murdered her, then tried to make it look as if I did it! Look… whoever forged that letter is the fellow who forged the letter that tricked her into coming to my rooms! Compare the two letters, you’ll see…’
‘That they were written by the same person. We’ve done that already. We’ve also compared it with your own handwriting in the written statement you gave Sergeant Hawkins. As you yourself can see, they clearly match.’
‘It was forged, I tell you! It must have been.’
‘Why don’t you just tell us the truth, sir? Miss Maltravers came to call on you the moment you returned from the Baltic. Somehow this love letter from yourself to Miss Ponsonby had come into her possession. She confronted you with it, there was a row, things turned ugly… perhaps she lashed out at you first; you were only defending yourself? You can tell us, sir. We’ll understand. You’d be amazed how often we come across cases like this.’
Killigrew managed a bitter chuckle. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’ve ever come across a case quite like this one, Inspector. If you think I murdered the woman I love in a row over some woman named Sophronia Ponsonby, then you find this Sophronia Ponsonby and bring her to me, and ask her if she’s ever seen me in her life. If she even exists, which I very much doubt. Sophronia Ponsonby indeed!’
‘We’re still following up that line of investigation,’ admitted Jordan. ‘However, I don’t think it will be necessary.’ He picked up the letter. ‘This is all the evidence the counsel for the prosecution will need to send you to the gallows. However… admit your guilt, sign a confession… judges can be lenient in cases of a crime passionnel. Perhaps with a good brief you might find your sentence commuted to transportation for life to the colonies.’
‘I’ve seen the penal colonies,’ Killigrew told him. ‘Frankly, I’d rather die.’
‘That’s your decision, sir.’
‘I want to see a lawyer.’ Jesus, thought Killigrew, I never thought I’d hear myself say that. ‘I’m not saying another word until I’ve seen a lawyer.’
Jordan sighed. ‘Mr Christopher Killigrew, I hereby charge you with the murder of the Honourable Miss Araminta Maltravers. Have you anything you wish to add to—’ Jordan broke off as a knock sounded at the door. ‘Come in?’
A uniformed constable thrust his head around the door. ‘Can I have a word, sir?’
‘I’m in the middle of charging the suspect, Constable,’ Jordan said testily.
‘It’s very important, sir. I think it has a bearing on the Maltravers case.’
Jordan smiled thinly at Killigrew. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, sir?’ He rose to his feet and followed the constable out, closing the door behind him and leaving Killigrew alone with Dunwoody. The plainclothes constable looked bored. He probably sent innocent men to the gallows every day, Killigrew thought bitterly.
Jordan returned a few moments later. ‘All right, take him down the custody cells.’
Dunwoody stood up and motioned for Killigrew to rise.
‘You realise this case will never reach a court of law, don’t you?’ Killigrew said as Jordan turned to the door. ‘The scandal would destroy Lord Bullivant, and he’s a personal friend of the Prime Minister’s.’ Playing a political card was the last thing he wanted to do, but he realised now his case was desperate and he had no other cards left to play.
Jordan turned back to face him. ‘Lord Aberdeen, sir?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘For the moment there is no prime minister. Lord Aberdeen resigned yesterday.’
Chapter 3
The Accused
Killigrew spent the next two hours sitting in a cell at Marylebone police office, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Except that he knew there was little sense behind any of it, and nothing to tie it all together. It was all simply an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances. Lord Aberdeen’s resignation had nothing to do with Miss Maltravers’ murder. It should not even have come as a shock: pressure from the opposition over the government’s handling of the war had been mounting for months.
So Aberdeen was gone. Killigrew could not have cared less: as far as he could see, the vast majority of politicians – be they Whig or Tory – were a bunch of pompous hypocrites; kick one out, and you could only replace him with another poltroon who told slightly different lies.
Napier was gone, too, ordered to haul down his flag and made into a scapegoat by Graham. That hurt. Napier had been Killigrew’s patron, the one man of influence who had always tried to promote his career prospects, if only by putting him in harm’s way so often that he had every opportunity to make a name for himself. But more important than that, Killigrew had liked the irascible old Scot, and respected him as a good admiral. Certainly Napier had been no Nelson; but Nelson was long dead, and with the possible exception of Rear Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, of whose actions in the Black Sea Killigrew had heard good things, Napier was the best of an otherwise damned bad bunch.
And Araminta was gone. That was the coup de grâce. One of the things he had always fought for in the navy was the preservation of an England where that kind of thing simply did not happen. But that England did not exist: it was a chimaera, a cloud-cuckoo-land; just another of the lies he told himself to justify his role in defending an Empire that served as a cloak for too many instances of exploitation and repression.
Why? Killing Araminta had not enabled Nekrasoff to retrieve the stolen plans (what were those plans?). It had not helped anyone win the war. Silencing a witness? Punishing Killigrew… for what? There was no sense to it. There was no sense to any of it.
At last – after turning these thoughts over and over in a mind battered by too many twists of fate and getting nowhere, just as his pacing back and forth in his cell got him nowhere – a key turned in the lock and the door opened to reveal the custody sergeant.
‘You’re free to go.’
‘Free?’ The word, like everything else, no longer had any sense for Killigrew. In a daze, he followed the sergeant upstairs, where his personal effects were returned to him.
On the street outside, he looked around for a hansom cab, but the only one in sight already had a passenger, a heavily muffled man whose face was largely covered by the comforter wrapped around his mouth and nose against the chill January weather, the brim of his Bollinger hat pulled down over his eyes. Killigrew walked up the street as far as the Marylebone Road and caught a horse-drawn omnibus to Paddington.
&nbs
p; When he got back to his lodgings he paused on the landing outside the door. Nekrasoff and Ryzhago were doubtless halfway back to Russia by now; but he had thought they would leave him alone after he had delivered the plans to the Admiralty, and had been proven lamentably wrong. He pulled out his revolver, taking a deep breath before he unlocked the door to his rooms, afraid of what he might see. That Nekrasoff and Ryzhago had been in here, had murdered Araminta in here… he had heard that people who had been burgled experienced a feeling of violation on discovering that evil-doers, strangers, had been in their homes; but that was not the feeling that troubled him now. Since he had started living here, he had spent so much time overseas that he hardly thought of this as his home; if he had a home, it was his cabin on board HMS Ramillies. Nevertheless, some of his happiest memories revolved around the bedroom, and Araminta in it.
On the bed where she had been garrotted.
He choked back the bile that rose to his gorge and forced himself to go to the bedroom now, to get it over with. Her body was gone, of course, but the mattress remained. The first thing to do was buy a new mattress. He could not sleep on that one now. He was not sure he could ever sleep in these rooms now.
And then it finally sank in: Araminta was dead.
His legs buckled and he fell to the floor, blubbering like a child. And he despised himself for it, even though he knew he had as much right as any man to weep. When he had first started courting her, whenever some problem had troubled him, he had always been able to turn to her for advice, and she had always given it kindly but firmly, even when she knew perfectly well it was not what he wanted to hear, even if it was for his own good. And he had learned to trust her advice, and follow it, and had never regretted it. And now she was dead he wanted her advice – or her words of comfort, at least – but he could not turn to her because she was dead. She had been there when he had learned of the death of his grandfather, his last surviving immediate relative. She had let him mourn a week, and then told him: people die. Get used to it. Life goes on. Get on with it.
Harsh words, but true. She would not have been impressed to see him blubbering now. Touched, perhaps, but not impressed.
So he cuffed the tears from his cheeks and pushed himself to his feet.
Life went on.
He crossed to the window and looked down into the street below. A hansom was parked across the way. Killigrew could not see the occupant from that angle, but he fancied the cabbie looked like the one driving the cab he had seen on Marylebone High Street. He chuckled bitterly. No wonder the police had let him go: they were tailing him. Who did they expect him to lead them to, Sophronia Ponsonby? He shook his head with a grimace.
He took his full-dress uniform from the wardrobe, folded it and carried it to his local hummums. A Turkish steam bath, a cold shower bath, and a massage helped him clear his head as well as clean his body. Afterwards he put on his full-dress uniform and left his other clothes in the locker there.
When he emerged from the hummums, he saw the hansom parked on the opposite side of the street. He walked across to it. Sure enough, the heavily muffled man in the Bollinger hat turned out to be Detective Sergeant Dunwoody.
‘I’m going home now,’ Killigrew told him. ‘I don’t expect I’ll be going out tonight.’
Dunwoody met his gaze levelly, but said nothing.
‘Just so you know.’ Killigrew turned away and looked for another hansom, but there was none in sight. He turned back to Dunwoody’s.
‘Since you’re going my way anyhow… I don’t suppose you could give me a lift to Paddington, could you?’
The detective sergeant sighed wearily, and moved up the seat. ‘Come on, get in.’
* * *
‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?’
The sun shone brightly in a February sky. Killigrew cast his eyes over the faces of his fellow mourners as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Lord Bullivant, glaring daggers at him as if he really believed it was Killigrew who had murdered his daughter; Lady Bullivant in bombazine, no tears for her child beneath the veil, but tragedy writ large on her grim features; and countless other friends and relatives, mostly aristocracy, all of them regarding Killigrew with lofty contempt or avoiding his eyes altogether.
He felt Mr Strachan’s comforting hand on his shoulder to steady him, and mechanically reached up to pat it in acknowledgement. A tow-headed, blue-eyed man wearing wire-framed spectacles, Strachan had been the assistant surgeon on Killigrew’s previous two ships, HMS Tisiphone and HMS Venturer. The young Scotsman leaned on an ebony cane to keep the weight off his wooden foot, which had replaced the flesh-and-bone one he had lost in the Arctic.
It was at times like this you really found out who your friends were. Some fellow naval officers had been talking in the library of the Army and Navy Club the other day, without taking the precaution of finding out who had been reading the newspaper in the high-backed chair turned away from the rest of the room; the fact that it was the Manchester Guardian should have given them a clue.
‘…Read about a similar case he was mixed up in, in the Far East a few years ago. Another young woman who made the mistake of becoming romantically involved with him was killed. Bad business. Always was a question mark over that.’
‘They say lightning doesn’t strike twice.’
‘Exactly! Then there was that whole Pall Mall child-killer thing.’
‘Thought he was exonerated?’
‘He was. But damned odd, all the same. Probably his grandfather, pulling strings.’
‘Is it true his mother was a foreigner?’
‘So I’ve heard. Greek, they say.’
‘Greek! Ah, that explains it. Saw him in here earlier today, you know. Thought there was something shifty about him. I wonder the membership committee haven’t done something about it yet.’
‘I suggested it to Withers, but he said we had to give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Well, he’s in it this time.’
‘Yes; and no grandfather left to pull strings for him.’
Killigrew had chosen that moment to fold his paper and rise from his seat, smiling pleasantly and wishing his fellow members a good evening. They had blanched satisfactorily as he passed, and rumour had it that one of them had been obliged to rush home for a clean pair of trousers afterwards.
Now the bishop was reciting the ‘ashes to ashes’ bit, and the chief mourners filed past the grave, each tossing a handful of soil on to the coffin.
As the collect was read, Killigrew glanced across to the church and thought about God. It was not a subject he usually chose to dwell on, but he had been raised in the Church of England and had always considered himself a Christian. Yet who could have faith in God at a time like this? Araminta’s death had served no divine purpose; no purpose of any kind that he could fathom. Today he was not a Christian; not today or any other day from now on, because to him Christianity was a creed of forgiveness, and he did not feel much like turning the other cheek. The God he wanted to believe in was the God of the Old Testament, a God of wrath and vengeance.
‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore,’ concluded the bishop. ‘Amen.’
After standing in silence for a few moments, the mourners began to move away from the graveside to where their carriages waited outside the churchyard to take them back to Bullivant Hall. Most of them crowded around Lord and Lady Bullivant; no one had any words of comfort for the bereaved fiancé.
Captain Crichton had come to the funeral: he had known Miss Maltravers, but only for a short while, so it was reasonable to presume he was there to see Killigrew. As the other mourners departed – all but Strachan – Crichton appr
oached, clutching his cocked hat awkwardly before him. In his mid-sixties, he was a tall man of imposing build with wild white hair and watery eyes that bulged from his fish-like face.
‘Damnably sorry, Killigrew. Don’t know what to say… she was a lovely girl…’
‘Thank you, sir. That’s much appreciated.’
‘Not at all, not at all. By the way, have you spoken to Vice Admiral Napier since your return?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘I sent him a copy of the same written report I submitted to Admiral Dundas, but he hasn’t replied yet. I’ve thought about calling on him in person, but I don’t like to trouble him: he’s got enough concerns of his own.’
‘Molineaux said something about some secret plans you found?’
Killigrew nodded. ‘The technical drawings for some kind of contraption. Heaven knows what it was supposed to be, but the Russians obviously think they’re important because they went to a lot of trouble to stop me from handing them over to Sir James Graham.’
‘And what did Graham have to say?’
‘He was dismissive of the whole thing,’ Killigrew said bitterly. ‘Said he’d passed them on to his top men, and if you believe that you’ll believe anything. Most likely they’re tucked away at the back of a drawer somewhere in the Admiralty by now.’
‘Can you blame him? I mean, so far we’ve received countless warnings of these damned infernal machines the Russians are supposed to have invented, but no one’s actually run into one… perhaps that’s what these plans are: the design for one of their infernal machines?’
Killigrew shook his head. During the previous summer’s campaign in the Baltic, there had been much talk of infernal machines – explosive devices moored just below the water, that somehow exploded when a ship passed over them – although no ship had ever encountered one.
Killigrew and the Sea Devil Page 7