by Joan Lock
‘She would take it to Pinner with her?’
Mrs Briggs shook her head, ‘No. But she would have taken it if she never meant to come back!’
After a decent interval spent slowly taking details of Matilda’s raggedy doll Best got back to business. ‘Had you noticed anything different about Matilda lately?’
‘Different?’
‘Was she happier? Sadder?’
‘Oh, she was always a cheerful girl,’ Mrs Briggs exclaimed, pushing the wristbands of her blouse back briskly as though about to roll out some pastry. ‘But now you come to mention it, she did seem even happier than usual.’ As she spoke Helen re-entered the room. ‘Full of life, glowing really and always singing to herself. Didn’t even seem to mind going off to sell the paintings, or to one of them artists’ houses to model.’
Best was stunned. ‘Say that again!’
‘F-full of life er …’
‘No! The last bit.’ Fury was now growing in him. ‘The very last bit!’ He turned to glare at the suddenly rigid Helen.
‘To … to model,’ whispered a startled Mrs Briggs. ‘That’s what she said … ‘She looked nervously back and forth from the furious Best to the blushing Helen.
‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I just don’t believe it!’
‘Oh dear what have I–’
‘You have done nothing, Mrs Briggs. It’s your mistress who has been less than honest with me! Criminally so!’ He turned to glare at her again. ‘You amaze me, Miss Franks! You really do!’
Mrs Briggs had gone, leaving Best and Helen Franks facing each other stonily across the plush-covered surface of the parlour table. She, looking neat and contained in a snugly fitting navy dress with a lace trim at the neck and wrists, making Best suddenly aware of the delicacy of her fair skin. He remained very angry, particularly as his outburst against her had failed to elicit any apology or excuse for withholding vital evidence beyond a stiff statement that she had her reasons and that they were good ones. Also, that she was convinced that Matilda’s occasional artistic posing had nothing whatsoever to do with her disappearance and that, in any case, she had made her own enquiries in that direction which had confirmed this opinion.
‘Why,’ said Best acidly, ‘did you bother to do that if you were already convinced enquiries would be of no avail?’
She refused to respond to this comment keeping the gaze of her hazel eyes fixed on a silver-framed picture in her hand as he spoke. He wanted to slap that pink and white cheek very hard.
‘I’ll tell you this, Miss Franks, unless you co-operate with me and give me full details of all Matilda’s contacts, I will withdraw from this enquiry. My superiors will support me and see that no other officer is required to waste his time as I feel I have.’
She looked up sharply. ‘You can’t withdraw from a murder enquiry! I must know whether she is dead or alive!’
‘I will not withdraw from the murder enquiry. But we have no proof whatsoever that your sister is the victim. As far as we are concerned she is merely a missing person – an adult missing person – whom we have no obligation to trace. She is perfectly entitled to leave home, leave the country, leave this planet, should she wish, without any interference from us.’ What was it about her that enraged him so?
‘She was seen walking near the scene!’
‘That proves nothing! If you are convinced that your sister may be the canal explosion victim and want us to pursue that possibility, I demand your full co-operation and any knowledge of anything which may back up that possibility.’
Helen contemplated the orange flowers decorating the green tablecloth absently tracing the outline of one of the larger blooms with her left index finger while in her other hand she still grasped the silver frame. Suddenly she looked small, defeated and weary but Best remained firm. He’d been fooled by her before, he reminded himself.
‘Very well,’ she murmured softly.
‘What?’ he snapped. ‘I didn’t hear you.’
She looked up and straight at him, sighed and more loudly did her penance. ‘Very well, I said,’ she paused, then rallied again. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’
‘I had to be sure,’ he rejoined, allowing only a small smile of triumph to light his lips.
The light was fading fast. Best gazed out of the full-length windows at the crowd of merrymakers strolling around the Eyre Arms Pleasure Gardens, the ladies’ gowns glowing like butterfly wings against the dark suits of their partners. Garlands of ornamental lanterns began springing into life, their beams causing jewels to wink and glitter like fireflies. He was transfixed. Best took a childlike delight in all things bright and beautiful. A legacy from his Italian mother, he felt, although she would not own it, claiming Italians had more taste. According to her, he had acquired his love of the gaudy from his English father. Others saw that it was his vivacity he should attribute to her.
With some effort, he dragged his attention back to the serious business about to take place around the long oak table – the inaugural meeting of the Regent’s Canal Explosion Relief Committee. Even this worthy gathering also had its more colourful side he noticed. Two or three ‘artistic gentlemen’ with floppy cravats and exotic embroidered waistcoats made the Sergeant’s attire appear positively discreet. He recognized them as successful artists who had no need to excuse their flamboyance, indeed, it was expected of them. The rest were sober-suited businessmen straight from the City, and a sprinkling of worthy clerics.
Many of those assembled had houses in the explosion area and so could class themselves as victims, but their stated agenda that evening was to find ways of assisting the poorer victims of the blast. That, and to consider the remedies of all – at law. They deemed it their first duty, ‘before hearts grow cold’, to make the decision to apply to the Lord Mayor to set up a public subscription.
As Best had expected, it did not take long for the matter of members’ insurance claims to take centre stage. Suddenly, one man, an MP, proclaimed piously, ‘I will be no party to any of the funds collected being used for the purpose of litigation.’
Since no one had suggested any such thing, there was some tightening of lips at this cynical seizing of moral ascendancy particularly when members of the Press were present. There was also a great deal of head nodding and calls of ‘Hear, Hear!’ Nodding particularly vigorously, the Sergeant noted, was the domed, pink head of Mr Van Ellen and that of a young man beside him whose features were of a similar cherubic appearance. The look sat better on the younger man. Who was he? Most likely another son. Odd that Van Ellen hadn’t mentioned another son. But then, had they asked? Should I be doing another job, Best chastised himself? I certainly seemed to be failing at this one.
‘There has been much talk of dangers on the canal, but what about the tumbril after tumbril of gunpowder which passes up Oxford Street daily?’ asked a Mr Pratt, to loud applause.
‘At least the railways are safe! We ought to be grateful to them for that!’ exclaimed Mr Van Ellen.
But when someone else tried, long-windedly, to take up this safety angle he was brought back to the main aim by one of the clergymen who pointed out that, ‘The cold wind blowing between the rough boards which still form the windows of the houses of the poor make the need for relief urgent.’
Another cleric pointed out that small shopkeepers had also been hard hit. Shop-fronts were damaged and windows broken. Then there were the lodging-house keepers who had lost residents as a result of rooms made uninhabitable by damage from falling plaster and glass. Not only that, lodgers were fearful of returning to the houses in case they fell down or there was another explosion.
Having seized the floor, the reverend gentleman held on to it.
‘Schoolmistresses, too, are having to turn away their pupils,’ he continued, passionately, ‘and, worst of all, laundresses have had their finished washing dirtied again by falling plaster and now, not only have to wash it all again without extra payment, but also have to buy more coal and cok
e at one shilling and eight pence a sack with which to do it. Such a loss is not a small one to such poor and hard-working people,’ he ended, looking accusingly around his dazed audience who, plainly, had never had to consider life in terms of re-dirtied laundry and the price of coke.
The clergyman’s impassioned appeal bore fruit. When the gathering dispersed soon after, the chairman’s table was, as The Times reported later, ‘agreeably covered with bank notes.’
But, before the meeting was formally closed, Best was allowed time to make an appeal for information regarding any missing young ladies and went on to field many eager questions about the progress of the police enquiries.
Then a reporter tried to provoke Best into voicing suspicions about the Fenians and added, ‘And what about the war between the railways and the canals? Have you considered that?’
‘War?’ countered Best innocently, ‘I didn’t realize feelings ran that high …’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Van Ellen and his companion leaving. That was an acquaintance he wouldn’t have minded renewing – in the informal manner this occasion afforded.
‘He’d tell you more about that,’ said the reporter, following his glance.
‘A shareholder?’ smiled Best, careful not to betray his quickened interest.
He grinned wickedly, ‘That’s an understatement.’
‘With the railway, not the canals, I would guess?’ They both laughed. ‘Is that his son?’
‘Yes, one of them.’
‘He in the City as well?’
‘Oh no!’ the man laughed. ‘But Van Ellen wishes he was.’
‘What then? Army or…?’
‘No, no, nothing like that. He’s beyond the pale to Van Ellen. He’s an artist – or, at least I think, would like to be.’
Chapter Ten
‘I must know whether she is alive or dead!’
Helen’s cry kept coming back to him as, early next morning, Best rode underground on the Metropolitan Railway.
He tried to recall her manner as she said it. With true anguish for Matilda? Or had he glimpsed self concern? Calculation, even? After all, before she could claim any of Matilda’s inheritance she would need either a body or at least proof that her sister had disappeared for good. She could be using him to that end. What better ally and witness than a police officer who had done his utmost to find Matilda? She was such a cold fish it was hard to read her.
He repeated over and over again in his head, ‘I must know whether she is alive or dead!’ trying to remember the correct emphasis. ‘I must know,’ she had said – he was sure of that. Or was he giving emphasis on hindsight? And the expression, ‘alive or dead’ – wasn’t that a harsh way for a loving relative to put it? More natural, surely, to have said, ‘I must know what has happened to my sister!’ or ‘I must know where she is!’
Why should she even imagine Matilda was dead?
Yes, why? She could have run away with a lover. Many girls did. He had to admit that when Helen had first come to him she had seemed to care – been desperate even in her pleas. Oh yes, but then she was clever, Mrs Briggs had insisted on that, ‘very clever’ and she had needed to convince him he must take up the case.
Why hadn’t she gone to her local police? Why jump to the conclusion that the body in the canal might be Matilda’s? Why hold back information from him? But, maybe, that was her way of drawing him in further. Ah, but she had produced that photograph which, as Cheadle would have put it, ‘took her out of the frame’. So, he was wrong. She was seriously trying to find her sister. Wasn’t she?
Smoky as it was down there, Best was usually grateful that the coming of the Metropolitan Railway meant that he could now make some direct uncomplicated journeys across London. Unlike some, he didn’t feel it was unnatural to travel underground – the lack of distraction gave him more time to think. This time all he seemed to be doing was getting more and more confused but comforted himself by remembering that it was often later, when he had plonked in all the ingredients, stirred them up and left them to bubble and stew for a while that a solution suddenly appeared.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t it he who had unearthed the information Helen had withheld about Matilda’s modelling? Had he been led into that? Could Mrs Briggs be involved? No, surely, that nice woman … He began to feel dizzy from chasing his own tail and from hunger. He should at least have had a slice of bread and butter before leaving home that morning. Emma would have made him.
But surely no woman could be as cold and calculating as he was imagining? He knew they could, of course, like in that recent poisoning case. Well, what was her motive – ambition? She was ambitious. She had already spent some of her sister’s money on furthering that ambition and, it seemed likely that she had even deliberately avoided marriage in pursuit of that ambition! Mrs Briggs said she had had her chances, many chances. How much more proof did he need of her strangeness?
Why hadn’t she told him about their different mothers? What good reason could she have? He tried to remember Helen’s exact words when he first spoke to her, ‘Our mother died’. That was it. Or was it just, ‘Mother died’, or ‘Matilda’s mother died’? He had been so busy just taking down the facts he had not bothered to note the form in which they had come. Of course, if she was innocent she may have thought that mentioning two mothers might have added confusion. Indeed, she might regard the second woman as a mother.
What about the fact that she had been in Paris when Matilda had gone missing? Well, they only had her word for that, hadn’t they? In any case, even if she had, money could buy someone else to do your dirty work. But Matilda had been seen near the canal, walking towards the very bridge where the explosion took place. That couldn’t be a coincidence!
One thing he was sure of was that at that moment he should not have been in what Londoners called ‘the Drain’, en route for Holland Park, but down at City Road Basin forming a welcoming party for Minchin who was due back that day.
The popping up of some pertinent factor from Best’s mental stew occurred rather more quickly than usual on this occasion. Just as he was stepping out of Notting Hill Gate Station a thought hit him like a thunderbolt, shocking him far more than the sudden glare from a shaft of late autumn sun which caught him unawares as he emerged and caused him to shut his eyes abruptly.
Helen had lost two mothers – and now a sister. Wasn’t that more than just bad luck?
‘Don’t look so ferocious, Sergeant,’ said a low voice. Helen was at his elbow. She was dressed in a soft grey gown and matching short cloak trimmed with velvet, an ensemble which had the effect of making her look tiny, vulnerable and demure – quite the reverse of the demon she had become in his mind. She looked up at him with a slightly playful smile. ‘After all, I am co-operating with you now.’
The soft grey matched her eyes. The contrast with his thoughts was too much. He felt angry. It was all a pose, this deliberate lack of vivacity in her appearance, this mouse-like sinking into the background. In reality she was a demon. ‘You had no choice,’ he snapped bluntly and unkindly, then shivered. Despite the brightness from the low, slanting sun, there was a distinct nip in the air. He should have worn his overcoat. Like her, the sun was deceitful.
They were on their way to the studio of the artist for whom Matilda had sat. According to Helen, the man for whom she performed this service was an old friend, ‘very respectable’, middle-aged and with a family on the premises. He was also an RA. When Best ventured to comment that, for such a modern woman, she was very anxious to claim repectability, Helen retorted angrily, ‘It is not my obsession, Mr Best, but that of the world. We women have anxiety about respectability thrust upon us whether we like it or not!’
‘But since you profess no wish to get married …’
‘We were not discussing me! We were discussing my sister. Artists’ models are given a bad reputation, no matter how innocent the circumstances. This damages their chances of marriage – or at least the choice of whom they marry.’ She glared at him. �
�I want Matilda to be happy.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Allowing Matilda to spend her inheritance on pretty clothes instead of subsidizing a trip to Paris might also have made her happy while increasing her chances of matrimony.
As if she read his thoughts, Helen announced, ‘Matilda does not need decking out like a Christmas tree to attract a husband, she is pretty enough and loveable enough without that. But she does need a good reputation – as do I so as to continue selling my works in “respectable” places. Men have no conception of the tyranny that respectability exercises over we women – and I don’t think they care much either. It is to their advantage after all.’
Best said nothing. Despite appearances, she was clearly in fighting form this morning and he did not feel inclined to do battle with her. But the ensuing silence soon got the better of him and he couldn’t help asking, ‘But as to your reputation, would not marriage – your marriage I mean, be a help?’
‘Oh yes,’ she laughed bitterly, ‘marriage would help me move in “respectable” circles’ – the word hissed out of her – ‘while denying me the time to paint. A wife’s duty, don’t forget, is to look after her husband and children. Would you care to hear the list of talented women artists who have fallen at that hurdle?’
Best shook his head. ‘But, surely, if the man is wealthy?’
‘Then I become a hostess with a charming little pastime to while away the hours while my husband is at his club. A husband who, I assure you, would not countenance his wife putting her reputation at risk by drawing from life.’ She sounded as though she spoke from bitter experience, not speculation. ‘In any case, I have no wish to become a rich man’s plaything.’ Best nearly exploded with laughter at the unlikely thought. ‘I wish to remain independent.’
‘I’m sure you will remain so without the least trouble!’ Best retorted. Helen Franks was, he decided, the coldest and most unappealing woman he had ever set eyes on – and probably even a murderess to boot.