by Carol Hedges
Stride glances up from the notes he has made.
“Bad food and drink happen to all of us. I agree that is unfortunate, but I hardly think …”
“No – wait, Inspector, let me finish, please. You have not heard the full story. On Monday morning, a small box wrapped in brown paper was delivered to the house. It was addressed to me personally. My wife opened it and discovered several pieces of cake. We happened to be going out after I returned from work, so she handed the box to a servant to take down to the kitchen. In our absence, one of the maids helped herself to a cake from the box.”
He pauses.
“The poor girl immediately became violently ill and took to her bed. We sent for our local private physician. This morning, she died. The physician thought the girl may have been poisoned, and that her death should be reported. Given the incident with the chocolate creams and the port, I felt it desirable to come straight here.”
Stride sets down his pen slowly. He places the tips of his fingers together and observes Undercroft thoughtfully.
“Do you have any enemies, sir?”
“I am a lawyer by profession. I specialise in dealing with Wills and Probate. I hardly think that is conducive to making enemies – certainly not the sort who would try to poison me.”
Stride nods.
“And beyond the legal profession?”
“I belong to a Club. I have friends. I am fond of their company and they of mine. I believe I am known generally as a convivial fellow.”
Stride nods.
“Thank you, sir. As soon as I am able, my sergeant and I will come and view the body. We shall then want to question your servants. Please make sure the room in which the woman died is left untouched. I don’t suppose you have kept any of the cakes … or the chocolates?”
Undercroft shakes his head.
“Cook put both on the fire.”
“That’s a great shame, sir. Without evidence, it might be hard to prove that anybody is trying, as you suggest, to poison you.”
“One of my servants has just died!” Undercroft exclaims, his face flushing unpleasantly. “Isn’t that evidence enough?”
“When we have viewed the body, I’ll arrange for it to be brought to Scotland Yard for a post-mortem investigation,” Stride responds calmly. “We need to ascertain the exact cause of death before we proceed any further. Doctors have been known to get things wrong before now.”
He rises.
“Thank you, sir. If you’d care to leave your card with my sergeant, we’ll be in touch very shortly. Oh – if any more parcels of cakes arrive, or you notice anything unusual at table, I’d advise you to keep hold of it and let us know at once.”
Cully ushers the lawyer out, returning a short while later carrying a small card, which he places it on Stride’s desk.
“Downshire Hill, Hampstead. Very salubrious,” Stride remarks.
“What do you make of his story?”
“Nothing. Yet. We shall have to wait for the post-mortem results.”
“You believe what he said about having no enemies?”
Stride’s eyes narrow.
“If what he says turns out to be true, it tends towards the opposite way of thinking. Only an enemy, and a very bitter and vengeful one, would stoop to poison. Something does not quite add up here, Jack. But we shall work out what it is eventually.”
***
Meanwhile a cab is making its way down Hackney High Street. It slows, then halts outside a small red brick-built terraced house. The driver alights from the box, and opens the cab door.
Two people emerge and step down: a man and a heavily-veiled woman. They traverse the gravel path. The man (still called Mark Hawksley) rings the bell. A brass sign next to the door reads Edward May, Portrait Photographer.
The couple are ushered into a small parlour that doubles as a waiting area. There is a strong smell of chemicals overlaid with beeswax. They sit on unmatching chairs, in silence, until the door opens and a small bustling individual hurries in. He has uncombed hair, discoloured fingers, and a jacket stained with unidentified substances. He stands in the doorway, staring at the veiled woman.
“Ah,” he says. Then repeats, “Ah,” but slightly more warily.
Hawksley steps forward.
“No questions, remember.”
He slips his hand into his waistcoat pocket. There is the jingle of coins.
“Quite. Yes. Indeed. So, would you like to come this way, sir … and madam.” The photographer’s voice hesitates on the final word.
They follow him into a well-lit back room. Boxes, metal stands, tripods and trays of paper occupy most of it. By the window there is a high-backed chair, draped in crimson velvet. Fake pillars have been placed on either side.
“I thought maybe a side view – as being more appropriate?” May suggests.
“Whatever you think best.”
The woman is placed on the chair. Her hands are arranged in her lap. Then the veil is lifted and folded back to reveal her face.
“Oh, my goodness!” May gasps.
Hawksley shoots him a warning look.
The photographer blinks, swallows, then sets up one of the cameras on a tripod. He places the black cloth of the camera over his head.
“Please sit exceptionally still.” His voice is muffled.
The woman does not move a muscle. It is as if she has been carved from alabaster. She remains absolutely motionless, until May emerges from under the cloth, rubbing his hands.
“It is all done.”
Hawksley nods in a satisfied manner. The woman replaces her veil.
“I shall require a few days to get the photographic likeness printed,” May says.
“You wrote that you wanted a hundred cartes-de-visite, is that correct?”
“And some posters. To begin with, yes. Obviously, if all goes well, I may require more in time.”
The photographer inclines his head. Looks expectantly. Hawksley dips into his pocket. Money changes hands.
“I shall let you know when everything is ready,” May says.
“Thank you. And remember – absolute secrecy. As we agreed.”
Hawksley beckons to the woman. She rises and they leave the studio, quit the house and get back into the waiting hackney cab. Not a single word has passed between them the entire time. Nor does it at any time during the return journey.
***
Mr Frederick Undercroft, lawyer, lover of pink silk waistcoats and chocolate creams, walks out of Scotland Yard into the grey drizzle of a London autumn morning.
He decides to seek some diversion before returning to a home which was, when he left it earlier, a chaos of wailing servants and his whey-faced wife. It will probably still be so on his return, with the addition of members of the Detective Division of the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Undercroft adjusts his black top-hat (best quality silk Paris nap, lined in white silk and made by his regular hatter, Daniel Digance & Company) and heads towards the Strand.
If you were to ask him about his pleasures and pastimes, Mr Undercroft would inform you that he is, and always has been, an avid reader and great supporter of authors.
However, if pushed, he might reveal (to the appropriate interrogator) that he derives much of his reading matter from certain specialist bookshops in Holywell Street, and it is thence that he now directs his footsteps.
***
Let us pause at this point, and consider Holywell Street, that double affront to Victorian propriety: site of obscene and pornographic literature and Jewish old-clothes dealers. It is labyrinthine, made up of tall old-fashioned buildings whose crumbling upper storeys extrude over the narrow-pavemented street.
Behind them, warehouses and dark fetid alleys lead to dirty backyards containing printing works, and shabby lodgings which are rented to numerous families by the room or floor space.
Marginally affected by the 1857 Obscene Publications Act and subsequent police razzias upon its shopkeepers, Holywell Street is stagnant,
quaint and corrupting, a picturesque symbol and survivor of old London. It is a great dark spider at the centre of the web of obscenity.
Nowhere is the web more tangled, or the spider more scuttling, than at number 39 Holywell Street. Situated next to a small barber’s shop advertising Shampooing, Cutting, Shaving and Hats Ironed, number 39 is the domain of Edwin Gregious, bookseller and printer. Or, as he prefers to describe himself, niche bookseller specialising in expensive and exclusive limited editions.
Undercroft arrives at his destination to discover the usual crowd of Hogarthian street-types lounging in front of the shop window, attracted by the pavement baulks of cheap books and prints.
A few young women also linger, staring in horrified fascination at the semi-nude prints of cavorting nymphs and generously-endowed satyrs displayed in the flyblown windows.
He brushes past the gawpers, mentally noting one rather attractive young woman in a pretty blue-ribboned bonnet. They exchange a quick glance before the woman lowers her eyes modestly, a becoming flush appearing on her cheeks. Undercroft smiles as he enters the dark shop. He enjoys the piquancy of a brief erotic encounter.
“Ah, Mr Undercroft, how good to see you once more,” Gregious murmurs, coming out from behind the counter. He lifts up a book. “And how timely is your arrival. I have just obtained a brand-new edition of The Wedding Night, or Battles with Venus.”
He holds the book, stroking it with his fat white fingers.
“Lovely binding,” he breathes. “Take a look. It is lavishly illustrated too.”
Undercroft takes the proffered volume and turns the pages. It is indeed lavishly illustrated. He peruses the illustrations carefully for some time, then hands it back to the bookseller, nodding his approval.
“A nice copy, as you say. I shall purchase it.”
A short while later Frederick Undercroft takes his leave, a brown paper parcel tucked under one arm. He walks briskly to the Strand where he hails a cab, giving the driver instructions to take him to Hampstead.
As the cab bowls through the lunchtime traffic he thinks about the events of the past week. Undercroft knows he is considered by his male acquaintances, and members of his Club, to be a thoroughly nice bloke. It’s disconcerting to contemplate that somebody out there in the teeming metropolis seems not to agree.
When he arrives back at the smart Regency townhouse overlooking the Heath, it is to find the two detectives from Scotland Yard already at work. Stride is waiting in the drawing room, seated on a hard chair amidst the dark gleaming furniture. He looks about as comfortable as the collection of stuffed birds who perch uneasily under a bright glass dome.
Seated opposite is Mrs Georgiana Undercroft, the lawyer’s tightly-corseted, tightly-reserved, tight-lipped wife. Anybody can see that she must have been beautiful once: she still has a clear complexion and large blue eyes, though time has caused her chin to sag and her lips to grow thin and feathered.
She glances up as her husband enters the room, and her eyes flick towards the brown paper parcel. Her expression subtly changes.
“Detective Inspector,” Undercroft says smoothly, placing the parcel on a side table and sliding into a chair. “I apologise for not being in situ. A slight delay … But I am here now, and ready to answer any questions you may wish to put to me.”
Stride produces his notebook, licks the end of a pencil and begins.
Meanwhile, two floors up, Jack Cully (who has drawn the short straw) is standing in the servants’ attic bedroom. He has viewed the body, made copious notes, and is now questioning the other housemaid, who stands in the doorway, small and downcast of expression, pleating the edge of her apron.
“We were in the kitchen helping Cook with the clearing up after breakfast when the parcel was delivered,” she tells him. “It was a small box wrapped in brown paper. The mistress brought it straight down to the kitchen and said: ‘Cook, somebody has sent round some cakes for Mr Undercroft as a gift. As we shall be out today, I wonder if you could put them somewhere safe until we return.’ So, Cook put them on the window ledge.
“There were three cakes: a cheesecake, a piece of gingerbread and a slice of plum cake. They looked very nice and fresh, as if they’d just come out of the oven. Later that morning, while we were having a break from our work, Molly said: ‘I don’t think the master will eat all that cake, and Mrs Undercroft never touches sweet stuff. Shame to waste them.’ Then she opened the box and helped herself to the gingerbread.”
“Just Molly had some cake?”
“Oh yes, sir. Just Molly. The rest of us wouldn’t take any. But Molly was …” she pauses, bites her lower lip. “Mr Undercroft was particularly fond of her. Molly always used to bring his shaving water to his dressing-room in the morning. Nobody else was allowed to.”
“What happened next?” Cully prompts.
“She ate the whole cake. Then a short while later she said: ‘I don’t feel well.’ She said her throat was burning. Then she began to rub her stomach and started shaking. Next thing, she was sick. And Cook said: ‘I think there must be something wrong with those cakes, best get rid of them,’ and she threw them and the box they came in into the fire. By now, Molly was white as a sheet and crying out in pain. We helped her up to bed but she kept on being sick, even when there was nothing left inside her to bring up. It went on all night. This morning, she died.”
Tears begin to run down her pleasant pink face.
“It could have been me,” she gulps. “I nearly ate the plum cake. I was very hungry and we never get any cake; the master always eats it all.”
Downstairs, Stride is making slow progress with the Undercrofts. Trying to elicit anything useful out of them is like wading through treacle. No, Mrs Undercroft tells him, she did not recognise the handwriting on the box.
There was no note in the box with the cakes. They had never received parcels of cake through the post before, although they regularly got groceries delivered from Fortum & Mason and wine from Justerini & Brooks. No, she didn’t think it unusual.
Undercroft seems bemused by the whole interview process – Stride guesses he is more used to asking the questions than answering them. He merely corroborates everything his wife says with a curt nod.
Eventually, when the men arrive to remove the body to the police morgue, Stride decides to call it a day. He has elicited as much as he can. He tells the Undercrofts he will be in touch when the autopsy report has been written, and rejoins Cully in the hallway.
“Mark my words, there’s certainly something strange going on,” Stride says as they step out into an afternoon whose sky is tawny and lucid with incipient rain. “Neither of those two were saying anything significant.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because they weren’t saying it loud and clear,” Stride tells him. “But I shall get them to tell me what they’re not telling me. Sooner or later.”
“It certainly looked like some sort of poisoning to me,” Cully remarks as they retrieve their hats from the rosewood hat stand in the hall.
Stride waves a dismissive hand.
“First rule of detection, Jack: assemble the facts. Then digest the information and consider the implications. We’re not jumping to any conclusions until we have read the police surgeon’s report. I’ve heard of flour being contaminated accidentally. Chances are it was something on those lines.”
“Then shouldn’t there be other cases?”
“There may well be. Perhaps they just haven’t been brought to our notice. Yet.”
***
As the two detectives make their way back to Scotland Yard, and the rain starts falling, a slender figure alights from an omnibus and walks with a determined step towards Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury. She carries a covered wicker basket on her arm.
Under the neatly-trimmed bonnet you may recognise the face of Emily Benet, now Mrs Emily Cully. Since we last saw her on the arm of Jack Cully, Emily Benet’s life has undergone many changes. She is a wife, and a housekeeper of rented
rooms in Kennington.
But more importantly, she now runs her own small dressmaking business. Once, Emily and her friend Violet Manning had dreamed of owning their own dressmaking business, sewing gorgeous gowns for ladies in high society. When Violet was brutally murdered, that dream died with her.
Yet, miraculously, it has risen from the ashes. And now, Mrs Emily Cully, private dressmaker, is shown into the parlour where two young women are seated side by side on a chintz sofa.
One of the women has a long pale-complexioned face that reminds Emily of the horses she sometimes sees trotting in the park on a Sunday afternoon. Difficult to find a colour that flatters, she thinks.
As the young woman rises awkwardly, Emily also notes that she is thin, flat-chested, and angular, her bony wrists protruding from her sleeves. Difficult to fit, too. Her companion, who has not risen, catches the edge of her expression, and, as if reading her thoughts, smiles knowingly.
Emily Cully looks away. She is here to measure for a dress, not to have any opinion, verbal or non-verbal, or to show any complicity. Nevertheless, as Grizelda Bulstrode falters her way through the opening politenesses, she steals a glance at the pretty young woman introduced as ‘my companion Miss Keet’.
The glance encompasses the nicely-made grey silk gown the companion is wearing. Emily’s professional eye takes in the intricate lace detailing of the collar and cuffs and prices it up.
She wonders how a companion could afford a day dress like this. A closer glance reveals that the dress, though clearly new, looks as if it were originally made for a slightly larger person. It doesn’t sit quite right around the neck and on the shoulders.
There is an anomaly here, but now Grizelda Bulstrode is asking her opinion on styles and colours, so Emily quickly shelves her thoughts away and concentrates on the lanky young woman.