The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne

by Andrew Nicoll

  Miss Ann Myfanwy opened the letter and showed the signature, no more than the signature, just so Mrs Graham might reassure herself. She read the letter again. Suddenly it seemed almost funny. She threw it in the fire.

  The constable said: “He never made any reference to Scotland.”

  It was almost over. Like the agony of a tooth being pulled. One last wrench and then the agony would be past.

  The inspector said: “And this statement is all truth? Sign here, Miss. Thank you, Miss. You’ve been most helpful. You can go.”

  She stood up. The constable opened the door for her and she walked down the corridor, alone, to where Father was waiting. He gave her his arm. He knew all about the money and he forgave her completely. He said: “I think you’ve had a lucky escape, Nancy. And I’m not angry. Not angry in the slightest. Perhaps a little disappointed, but not at all angry.”

  One last wrench and then nothing there. The gap of a missing tooth forever and ever.

  23

  AS A CONSEQUENCE of the message from Superintendent Neaves, Mr Sempill placed another reckless charge upon the ratepayers of Broughty Ferry and hailed a cab for the castellated glories of St Pancras station, where he caught a train which took him – by second-class carriage – to Tonbridge, in Kent. He was careful to keep the ticket stub as a proof of his expenditure, to be reclaimed at later date.

  It was November 12th, fully nine days after poor Miss Milne had been discovered dead, and, to judge by the newspapers, not far short of a month after her murder. Still, Mr Sempill entertained the fond hope that close examination of the villain brought to his notice at Tonbridge Court might yet provide the evidence required.

  Accompanied by Mr Neaves, he sat down in the public benches. He stood up again and moved to another spot. He wanted the best possible view of the man when he came up from the cells to take his place in the dock.

  An elderly gentleman, a worthy of the town now given a position of respect and a little income in his old age, stepped onto the dais with heavy tread and announced the arrival of the magistrates with a long, wavering cry of “Court!”

  Everyone stood. The three magistrates took their places and bowed solemnly. Everyone sat down. The business began.

  Mr Sempill was cheered to find that crime in Tonbridge was not so very different from crime at home in Broughty Ferry. It gave him a homely feeling. There was the usual tragic mix of drink, stupidity, nuisance and desperation but very little of genuine evil about it. And then, they reached Charles Warner.

  He was led upstairs from the cells by a mountainous policeman. Following on behind, Warner was a tall, slim figure with a springing step, elegant and gentlemanly and, somehow, strangely cat-like.

  Mr Sempill said: “A night or two in the cells seems to have done him no harm.”

  “My guess is he’s quite at home there,” said Mr Neaves. “It’s not the first time he’s seen the inside of a jail, I’ll wager. And he’s fit, I’ll say that for him. So far he has totally refused to give any account of himself, beyond the fact that he walked from London overnight, with the intention of making his way to Dover and getting a boat across to the Continent.”

  The clerk stood up and read from a sheet of paper. “Are you Charles Warner, 210 Wilton Avenue, Toronto, Canada?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You are charged that on November 5th, nineteen hundred and twelve, you obtained board and lodgings at Ye Olde Chequers Inn, High Street, Tonbridge, in the county of Kent, without paying or intending to pay and that you did so by fraud. How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty, sir.”

  He was, well, Mr Sempill couldn’t quite decide what he was. Calm, certainly. Composed. Arrogant? Cocky? No, that’s not the way of the confidence trickster. He had to be cleverer than his victim, he had to be smart, but he couldn’t afford to be sneering. You can’t win confidence by sneering. You must be friendly: “Hail, fellow, well met.” Warner had that all right: approachability, affability and something else too – authority. He seemed a little frail, with his jacket buttoned high at his throat, but he had the look of a man born to command. Officer class. Chief Constable Sempill recognised it at once. He had striven after it for years.

  “There’s no doubt at all in my mind that that man is a foreigner,” Mr Sempill whispered, “even if he is a Canadian subject.”

  “Definitely foreign,” said Mr Neaves.

  The trial was a simple and routine affair, although it began in the unfamiliar English manner with the prosecutor setting out the circumstances of the case in a long series of unproven accusations instead of the civilised Scottish custom of moving directly to evidence.

  “We will show,” he told the magistrates, “that the accused Warner mercilessly preyed upon the good nature and trusting manner of Mrs Strange, the proprietrix of Ye Olde Chequers Inn, to obtain board and lodging to the value of ten shillings and nine pence, that he deceived Mrs Strange by means of a crude stratagem and that he personally benefitted by fraud.”

  The chairman of magistrates looked down from his bench. “Is there anything you would like to add, Mr Warner?”

  “Your Honour, it’s all a simple misunderstanding and I’m very glad to have this opportunity to clear matters up.”

  “Please, no speeches from the dock, Mr Warner. As you are representing yourself – which is of course your right – I will endeavour to give you every possible assistance, but there are certain forms which must be observed.” The chairman dipped his pen in a large bottle of black ink and drew an inexplicable heavy line across his blotter. “Call your first witness.”

  And so it went on for an hour. The landlady, Mrs Strange, was called to give evidence that she was, in very fact, the owner of Ye Olde Chequers Inn and that the accused Warner had arrived and requested two nights’ board and lodging.

  The poor woman was downright apologetic about the whole business, as if it had been the proudest moment of her life to be defrauded by such a fine gentleman. “I should like to tell Your Honours that Mr Warner was a gentleman in all his dealings with me and with my staff,” she said.

  “Even when it came to paying his bill?” the chairman of the bench asked.

  “Well, p’raps not that.”

  The chairman dipped his pen and drew another thick black line.

  “But in every other respect, Your Honours, a perfect gent, and I’m heartily sorry it has come to this, Mr Warner, truly I am, on my life.”

  Warner made a soothing gesture from the dock as if to say: “There, there, dear lady. Please do not distress yourself.”

  Mrs Strange told a story that Mr Sempill had heard a hundred times before. An unknown gentleman arrives at the hotel carrying a large, heavy bag. He engages a room for two nights. He dines very well, from soup to nuts, and he selects a good bottle to wash the whole thing down. The gentleman is charming, generous and open-handed. Indeed, he insists on buying a drink for the girl behind the bar, much to the annoyance of the cellarman, who is secretly in love with the girl behind the bar, and “Just put it all on my bill,” says the gentleman.

  In the morning, the gentleman rises early and enjoys a hearty breakfast, conversing merrily with the landlady all the while. “Would it be possible,” he wonders, “if it’s not too much of an imposition, dear lady, would it be possible for me to leave something in your safe?

  “I am en route to the Continent,” he says. You will please notice the “en route”, never “on my way” but always “en route”. “I am en route to the Continent and I have a number of letters of introduction and a considerable number of cheques drawn on the American Express. I don’t wish to carry them with me. Might I leave them in the hotel safe, until I leave?”

  And, of course, he might. Of course it would be no trouble at all. The gentleman takes a thick envelope from his pocket. It is carefully placed in the safe. The gentleman is extravagantly grateful and now he must conduct some business in the town, but he hopes there will be some more of that excellent beef and porter again in the
evening. The gentleman leaves and in all likelihood the gentleman will never be seen again.

  But the girl behind the bar is also the girl who cleans the rooms and she gives the most awful cry when she drops the gentleman’s case and two house bricks fall out on her toe and that brings the cellarman, who runs upstairs and takes in the whole scene with a glance.

  Then he runs downstairs and opens the safe and finds that the gentleman’s envelope contains nothing more than a torn newspaper, and then the cellarman – who never liked the gentleman – runs out into the street and find a constable, who apprehends the gentleman on the coast road to Dover.

  “What identifies that bundle of paper as my property?” Warner asked the cellarman.

  “You gave it to Mrs Strange.”

  “That is a matter of contention. Was a receipt issued? Was it signed for? Is there anything on that bundle of worthless papers to suggest that it has anything to do with me?”

  “Well, I . . . We both know . . .”

  “Did you have a lawful warrant?”

  “A warrant?”

  “A search warrant, entitling you to break and enter the property?”

  “What property?”

  “The envelope.”

  “Of course not.”

  Warner rocked back on his heels and addressed the bench. “I would ask Your Honours to discount the envelope entirely. Not only is there no connection to me, but it has been unlawfully obtained.”

  The clerk of the court stood up. The chairman of the bench leaned down. The clerk of the court whispered in the chairman’s ear. The chairman sat down in his seat with a thump, dipped his pen and scored another black line. “Continue,” he said.

  “I have no further questions.”

  After that, there was nothing left to deal with but the closing statements when Mr Prosecutor was able to show the court overwhelming evidence of guilt and a clear and deliberate attempt to defraud. “I invite Your Honours to convict,” he said, in a voice that scraped like a coffin lid closing.

  The chairman of the bench seemed eager to do just that, but a tug on the sleeve reminded him that the accused had yet to speak.

  Warner, of course, had not given evidence. He asked the bench to note that and to recall that they could make “not the slightest implication of guilt or innocence as a result”.

  “So noted,” said the chief magistrate. “We also note that your closing statement is not open to cross-examination.”

  “And you are right to do so, Your Honours. In which case I ask you to consider what has been shown against me. I concede that I asked for two nights’ board and lodgings. The reason that I did not avail myself of two nights’ board and lodgings at Ye Old Chequers is that Kent Constabulary insisted, rather vehemently I might add, on providing board and lodgings of their own. It is claimed my luggage contained two bricks. Is it an offence in Kent, in England or anywhere in the British Empire for a man to carry a brick? Your Honours, many an honest builder would find himself where I stand today if that were so.

  “The matter of the envelope has already been dealt with, and in short, all that has been shown against me is that I went for a morning walk, during which I was arrested. That dear Mrs Strange has been bilked of her payment is a fault which lies entirely at the door of the police.”

  With a flourish of the hand and a deep bow, he said: “I throw myself on the mercy of the court, secure in the knowledge that the fine tradition of English justice means I must soon walk free from this place, an innocent man with no stain on my character.”

  The three magistrates conferred together for a moment, nodded at one another, and the chairman scored another black line across the paper, banged his gavel and announced: “Guilty!”

  With an icy smile, he said: “You wanted board and lodgings, Warner and you have already had a week’s worth, courtesy of the ratepayers of Kent. You may now look forward to fourteen nights’ more, with their best wishes. Take him down.”

  The mountainous policeman began the process of herding him down the stair, but before he gave way before the avalanche, Warner managed another courteous bow and he raised his finger to the brim of the hat he was not wearing in an insolent salute as he vanished into the pit.

  Mr Sempill wasted no time. “The longer I observed him,” he told Superintendent Neaves, “the more convinced I became that this man answers the description of the suspect seen at Broughty Ferry.”

  “I agree, wholeheartedly.”

  “Quite clearly this is an educated man with considerable pretensions of being a gentleman, and from the able manner in which he cross-examined the witness, I was inclined to think he had had a legal training. Neaves, would you oblige by instructing one of your men to have the prisoner’s clothing examined?”

  “Certainly. But, after all this time, you can’t expect to find any evidence.”

  “It’s no time at all, man. He’s been in jug for a week, locked away from his own clothing and forced into prison uniform. From what you told me, he walked down here from London the day before – the day the body was discovered. I think he was flushed out of hiding by the news and making his way to the coast to flee to the Continent. If he had any money he would have gone by train, and a man who has no money might very well not have a change of shirt either. And I want him photographed too. If that’s possible.”

  “Of course, that’s easily done.”

  “Excellent. I look forward to inviting you to a hanging!”

  24

  FEELING HIGHLY SATISFIED with the outcome of the trial and justified in his own powers and abilities as a police officer, having employed the most thorough methods of modern policing to pursue the evil-doer almost from one end of the country to another, Mr Sempill decided that a damned good lunch was in order.

  Superintendent Neaves knew of the very place, an old-fashioned inn with low, beamed ceilings and a roaring fire where they served excellent beer and quite a passable meat pie. The two men were sitting together in the back parlour, finishing off a handsome lump of Cheddar cheese when they heard a man calling out “Mr Neaves? Mr Neaves?”

  “Through here, Bowles. In the back.”

  Bowles arrived, a young man, lanky, with the eager look of a new recruit. He had taken his helmet off and carried it folded against his ribs, to stop it scraping on the smoky ceiling of the parlour.

  He stood at attention and said: “Begging your pardons, gentlemen.”

  “Stand easy, Bowles. Have you news for us?”

  “Yes, sir. I beg to report that I have but lately returned from Maidstone jail, where I was escorting the prisoner Warner.”

  “And?”

  “May I consult my notebook, sir?”

  “No, you may not, Bowles. Tell the Chief Constable what happened.”

  “Well, sir, when we got to the prison gates I noticed he had not a shirt on. He had his jacket buttoned up high and a muffler at his neck, but he loosened it on the train and I said to him: ‘Where is your shirt?’ Just exactly in that tone, sir: ‘Where is your shirt,’ I said, and he said: ‘I have made off with it because it was dirty. I have wrote for some money to come, and it will be here next week.’ ”

  “For God’s sake, man, was that all he said?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What else, then?”

  Bowles seemed to be struggling to recall. There was a long, silent period of effort, as if he had been doing long division in his head, until Mr Neaves said: “By all means, consult your notebook.”

  Constable Bowles opened his front pocket and began to read: “Sirs, whilst we were in the train going to jail the prisoner said in a conversation that I had with him about different things and what he said was ‘I shall not come back to England again, as I have had enough trouble since I have been here. I landed on the 2nd August, 1912 at Liverpool and went to London, and then back to Scotland—”

  “Scotland? Where in Scotland”

  “I don’t know, sir. He only said ‘Scotland’.” Bowles went back to reading aloud
. “ ‘. . . to Scotland and then back again to London. That is where I made off with my money, stopping at different hotels. I did not mean to stop in England long because I came over for a change. I pawned my ring, watch and chain to get money, until I had some come from Canada. I have wrote for some, but it has not arrived yet. I have cabled for money before and got it all right. I can’t make it out why it did not come, and that is the reason I pawned my stuff to get the money.’ ”

  Mr Sempill gave way to swearing again, as was his habit and, with many exclamations of profanity, mixed with cries of “The villain! The rogue!” and “Scotland!” he hurriedly paid the bill.

  “We must telephone at once to Maidstone jail,” he said. “Get me the head warder. By God, the day is coming and it is not long off when I will see this vicious, murdering blighter dangle at a rope’s end. His judgement cometh and that right soon!”

  They hurried back to the police station, running up the steps, banging the doors open, rushing through to the back office, everything fuss and bother and flurry. Mr Neaves was no philosopher, merely an ordinary policeman following an honest calling, but he was warm and sanguine after two pints of beer and a good meat pie with plenty of potatoes. Sitting at his desk while Mr Sempill roared into the telephone, he found himself musing on the many inconveniences of modern life: how, in times past, a letter might have been dispatched to Maidstone jail and it might have taken all the day to get there and all the next day for a reply to come back. In a matter of great urgency he might have signed for a railway warrant, but now there was the telephone and instantaneous communication across distances of miles was a mere matter of routine, but the moments that it took to bring the warder to the instrument became infuriating agonies of nervous expectation. The telephone, the railway, the telegraph, they all made life faster and yet, despite them all, there were no more hours in the day. Mr Neaves let out a gentle belch and paid no attention to Chief Constable Sempill’s roaring.