The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne

by Andrew Nicoll

  The gunsmith at No. 5 Waterloo Road kept perfect records. He had everything written down in his ledgers, signed and dated. A Colt revolver, serial number 59830, purchased for twenty-five shillings from a Canadian, Charles Walker of 20 Waterloo Road on August 29. It was still in the shop and, yes, that was his picture. It all hung together. Arrested drunk on August 28, a night in the cells, sentenced on August 29, borrowed his fine from two kind policemen, sold his revolver to repay them.

  None of that proved his innocence of course, but it wasn’t Warner’s job to prove himself innocent, it was up to Mr Procurator Fiscal Mackintosh to prove him guilty, and every time that Warner or Walker or Ware told the truth about something, the stronger his alibi got.

  Standing on the pavement outside the door of 20 Waterloo Road, Mr Trench saw the thick layer of sooty street dust gathered in the corners of the window frames, the strand of fern thrusting from the wall where the cracked gutter pipe dripped rainwater kisses and soaked the bricks behind, the broken paint peeling from the door frame, and the only thing drowning out the noise of the cabs and the dray wagons and the omnibuses rolling towards the Waterloo Bridge was the screaming of the children behind the door.

  Mr Trench knocked.

  The screaming continued.

  Mr Trench knocked again and he heard the sound of movement inside, a thumping about, a heavy tread and the sound of a child’s screaming growing closer, the lock turning, a bolt shot, the door opening. There was a young woman standing there, half her hair unpinned, sleeves rolled up, red-armed, red-faced. There was a basket of washing on her hip and a child in her arm, chewing at a strand of loose hair, another peeking from behind her skirts and a long line of shirts hanging from a rope strung along the ceiling.

  “No veganzee,” she said and she went to close the door again, but Mr Trench put his hand against it and said: “A moment, please.”

  He showed her his warrant card: “Police,” and he watched the colour drain away from her face. “Don’t be frightened. You’re not in trouble. Nobody has died. I only want to ask a few questions.” Mr Trench was used to being an unwelcome visitor, but this girl was not afraid of him because she had done anything wrong. She was afraid because she had fled to London from someplace where it was always wise to be afraid of the police.

  The traffic went rumbling past. He had almost to shout to make himself heard. “May I come inside?”

  She hesitated, fearfully.

  “You are allowed to say ‘No.’ ” Without taking his weight off the door, Mr Trench reached awkwardly into an inside pocket with his left hand and brought out the photograph. “I only want to ask you about this man.”

  The woman’s eyes flamed. “Comm in plizz,” she said.

  Mr Trench walked into the lobby, pushing wet laundry out of the way with the handle of his umbrella as he went.

  “In kitchen plizz.”

  There was more washing in the way, but Mr Trench found his way to the kitchen table and opened his notebook. The woman poured some very black tea from a huge pot stewing on the stove and handed it to him. “Plizz,” she said again.

  Mr Trench put the cup down on the table and held out his two hands to her. The woman was still burdened with a child on her hip. Mr Trench nodded at the baby. “Let me. I’ll take him.”

  She hesitated for a moment and then, in a moment of relief, she handed the child over and sank into the chair at the head of the table.

  He smiled at her. She smiled back.

  “Now then,” he said. “Looking at the directory, I think I’m right in saying you are Mrs Florence Ohlendorf.”

  She nodded.

  He laid the picture on the table. “And you know this man?”

  “I know him, yes.”

  “He stayed here.”

  She nodded again.

  “Can you say when?”

  “I do not keep record of boarders. But I well remember about the end of August I had this man in my house.”

  “For how long?”

  “A week. Nearly.”

  “Could it have been the 24th to the 29th?”

  She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “Maybe. They come. They give money. They go.”

  “Was he an Englishman?”

  “No. Not English man. He was,” she searched for the word, “Canada man.”

  The baby was gnawing on the handle of Mr Trench’s umbrella. “Can you remember anything about him?”

  “I believe his name is Walker. He was addicted to drink. I must take all sorts in my house. When he is here about a week, he goes out for a night. When he returns about noon, he says he is charged with being drunk. He into his bedroom goes, and almost at once he again leaves and goes to the guns shop opposite. After this he stays about one night only more in my house then he says he is off. And then, about six weeks ago . . .”

  “Can you tell me the date?”

  “I don’t know dates. I don’t know. All I know is he comes back to my door and he says he is just then come from Amsterdam, and he would come again to stay here but he needs first a little money and borrowed half a crown from me. I have not seen him since. I remember it was on a Friday when he called.”

  Mr Trench took half a crown from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Mr Walker wants you to have this,” he said.

  40

  H. M. Prison Dundee

  December 1, 1912

  Friend Aubrey,

  Pay particular attention to this letter as I am in Scotland charged with murder. You spoke of going South but I sincerely hope you are still in Antwerp. You remember you told me you walked from London to Dover in two days. Well, I stole an overcoat in London and started to walk to Dover but was arrested at Tonbridge. I had lodging and breakfast and could not pay so was sent to Maidstone Prison for 14 days under the name of Charles Warner. On my discharge I was arrested and charged with murder in Scotland. I was never in Scotland and have given Police full account of my movements since landing at Havre, 19th. Go and see Mr Cox, Vice Consul and tell him everything you know about me and dates and also name I lived under at your hotel. Tell him exact date, how you got my parcel at Station and put me in small room over night. Tell him about my putting my name in Book next day. And also about writing to Turkish Consul. Be careful about dates. Tell about maid locking my room on me and then letting me in. Your Boss can prove everything. Don’t forget about young American that you took to ship. When the Officers come, tell them everything – I mean the Boy I borrowed 5F from Browning I think. Mention about Mr Thomas, ‘The Cowboy’. He came to Antwerp on same train as I did from Rotterdam. Get the date he registered at your hotel. Try also and find out exact date I first spoke to you, and you told me about a cheap Hotel in Brussels. Take young Boy from Terminal Hotel to Mr Cox and tell about Raincoat with German. In case this letter is forwarded to you write the Police here or Mr Cox in Antwerp. Be sure and speak about the Warrant you told me Boss took out. Bad pen.

  Truly yours

  C. S. Walker

  Also tell about Transvaal Hotel and Rhinelander Hotel

  41

  CHIEF CONSTABLE SEMPILL was not a traveller. “Go out on deck, dear. So long as you can see the horizon, you’ll be fine,” that’s what Mrs Sempill said, but the fog had closed around the ferry the moment it left the quayside and he saw nothing but the heaving deck and a widow’s veil of grey mist all the way across.

  The passage was agony, but the final moments, when the lights of Antwerp drew close and yet never drew closer, when they left the sea and rolled into the Scheldt and the rhythm of the engines changed and the ship slowed as it approached the dock and rose and rolled over the wash of its own bow wave, bouncing back from the harbour walls until, at last, the sailors shot their ropes and the ship was tied up and the ferry lay there, rolling greasily but hardly at all, and the smells of hot engine oil and funnel smoke hung in the air with no breath of wind to carry them off, and securing the gangplank took an age and queuing for it took even longer and those last steps onto dry land sp
rung and bounced under his feet – those were torment.

  When he finally stood again on solid ground, Mr Sempill was chilled to the bone and flooded with nausea. He stood against a lamp post with his bag between his feet, his two boots planted on the granite cobbles, his back braced against that iron pillar, and he battled to control his heaving stomach. The torture of it went on, the terror of shaming himself by vomiting right there on the pavement, the sudden flush of icy sweat he could feel soaking his hatband, so he failed to notice the large man standing just a little way off to his left.

  Sergeant Cosgrove was a caricature policeman: large brown boots sticking out from brown trouser cuffs, a rubberised raincoat that gave him the look of a mushroom and, above it, an enormous brown moustache under a brown bowler hat. “Rough crossing, sir?” he said, holding out a silver-topped flask.

  “Not really. But I’m no sailor.”

  “Brandy, sir. That’s the ticket. Just a drop, mind, a tiny drop to swill round the gums and take away the taste. Spit it out. Don’t worry, sir, nobody’s looking.”

  Mr Sempill did as he was bid and tasted the brandy, just a sip – he barely tipped the flask – but it was enough to let the fumes flood his head, and the moment he tasted the brandy he felt his gorge begin to rise. He was helpless to prevent it and he doubled over, vomiting up a stream of yellow bile.

  “That’s the way, sir. Better out than in. There’s a good gentleman.” Sergeant Cosgrove was as tender as a mother. “You’ll feel better now.”

  “I’ve been sick,” said Mr Sempill.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On dry land. They’ll imagine I’m drunk. I’m not drunk.”

  “No, sir. Don’t give it a thought, sir.”

  “I take it you’re Cosgrove?”

  “Yes, sir. Rodney, sir.”

  “Sergeant Rodney?”

  “No, sir, Sergeant Rodney Cosgrove. Try another little drop. You’ll feel better, sir. See if you can swallow this time, sir. Try and hold it down this time, sir.”

  Mr Sempill obeyed meekly. The brandy filled his nose and burned its way down his throat. He managed to raise himself against the friendly lamp post and he wiped his face with the handkerchief he habitually carried, took off his hat and dabbed it inside. “Right,” he said. “Better now. Thank you, Cosgrove.”

  “Let me take your bag, sir.”

  They walked off together, slowly, a little unsteadily, the mist glowing around the street lamps and forming in tiny cobweb beads on Sergeant Cosgrove’s rubberised overcoat and meeting and joining and trickling down to his ankles and falling away as he walked along.

  “Another drop, sir?”

  “No thank you.”

  A wind came up from the pier head and began to shift the fog away. There was a tired orange sun trying to break through, just above the horizon, like one of those fashionable Impressionist paintings Mr Sempill hated so much. Mr Sempill hoped he was not a philistine. Mr Sempill was sure he was not a boor, but he believed in accuracy and he was convinced it was every bit as important in art as in police work. Just because the sun might sometimes, very rarely shine that way, in a way that meant it was almost unrecognisable as the sun, that did not mean it should be painted that way. Such things were needlessly confusing.

  “We could stop for breakfast, sir. I knows of a nice hotel.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I could face it. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to get straight to business with Mr Cox in town.”

  “As you like, sir.”

  They stopped on the station platform for a cup of coffee and took the next train with nothing much to say and Sergeant Cosgrove quietly mourning over his breakfast.

  “Do you know Mr Cox?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “What sort of a man would you say he was?”

  “Oh, the middling sort, I’d say, sir.”

  “Yes, but what does he do?”

  “Do, sir?” The train went slowly round a queasy curve and they found themselves, quite suddenly, in the heart of the town. “He’s the Vice Consul, sir. He does much as I do, sir. He keeps one ear to the ground and both his eyes peeled and represents ’is Majesty amongst the ’eathens.”

  They left the station, still with Sergeant Cosgrove carrying the bag, as he led the way to an ordinary-looking building in a street of ordinary-looking buildings. Beside the door leading onto the stairwell there was a board with a column of brass nameplates screwed on, including the name of Mr Cox and his designation as “His Brittanic Majesty’s Vice Consul”. The two hooks where the flagpole was meant to hang, proudly displaying the Union Jack, were standing empty.

  “Is he in?” said Mr Sempill.

  “They tend to keep bankers’ hours, sir. Never open too early, never shut too late. But Mr Cox is always in, sir. I’ve never known the man to sleep.”

  They climbed the gloomy staircase, gas lamps burning faintly on every landing, until they reached the fourth floor, where Mr Sempill felt the worn wooden boards turn to linoleum under his feet.

  The outer door stood open, and from inside, a bright oblong of yellow light fell onto the landing through etched glass bearing the Royal Arms of England.

  “In we go, sir,” said Sergeant Cosgrove and he opened the door without so much as a knock. “Mr Cox? Mr Cox? Sergeant Cosgrove, here.”

  “This way, Sergeant. Back room. I’m making a cup of tea.”

  A man in morning dress, a black claw-hammer coat and dove-grey trousers emerged from the back room carrying a tray. “You must be Sempill. Welcome to Antwerp, Chief Constable.” Mr Cox nodded towards the tray he was carrying. “Forgive my not shaking hands. One feels so silly.” Mr Sempill admired his snowy-white spats.

  “I’m first to arrive – again – I’m afraid, so I must fend for myself. This way, gentlemen.”

  Sergeant Cosgrove opened the door into the private office and stood aside as the Vice Consul carried his tea tray across a thick Persian carpet and laid it on his enormous desk in the bow window looking out over a square.

  “I can’t get through the day without tea,” said Mr Cox. “May I offer you some, Chief Constable?”

  “Thank you.” Sempill was awkwardly eager to get in with the business of disproving Warner’s alibi, but good manners dictated that everything must wait for tea.

  Mr Cox handed him a cup and saucer. “A pleasant crossing, I hope, Chief Constable.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Very pleasant.”

  “Yes? Good show. I’ve never enjoyed the Channel, I’m afraid. Always sick as a dog. The great thing is to try to forget that one has the return journey to look forward to.”

  Mr Sempill sniggered thinly. “Indeed,” he said. “How true.”

  They sipped tea for a moment and then, putting down his saucer, Mr Cox said: “Now then, I understand from Sergeant Cosgrove that we are caught up in a murder inquiry.”

  Mr Sempill took out his wallet and produced the photograph he had ordered from Maidstone jail. He leaned forward in his chair and slid it across the desk.

  “That’s the very chap,” said Mr Cox. “No doubt about it. I’ve definitely met that scoundrel before.” He rose from the desk, crossed the room to a large filing cabinet and returned with a ledger. He found a space next to the tea tray and began to leaf through the pages. “The man in that picture,” he said, “came to this office October 17.”

  “The 17th? Are you absolutely sure, sir? It’s just that we have him in Broughty Ferry very close to that date.”

  “No doubt about it. He represented himself to me as,” Mr Cox consulted the ledger, “as Charles S. Ware, born at Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and previously of 16 Palmer Street, Royal City. He stated he was destitute and anxious to get back to Canada. Claimed he had tried to get a passage by one of the regular lines leaving Antwerp for the United States or Canada but had been unsuccessful. I’m afraid I was completely taken in. I believed he was a British subject in distress and we issued him a pass to London at the expense of the British Poor Fund.” />
  “You mustn’t blame yourself, sir. He’s an extremely plausible villain. We’ve had exactly the same story from what you might call your ‘colleagues’ in the Canadian High Commission back in London. He walked in there, bold as brass, and swindled them out of nearly £2 for a ticket to Liverpool and some money for his pocket – a loan, mind you, all to be repaid upon his honour – and all on the strength of being a Mason back home in Canada.”

  “Really?” said Mr Cox. “How extraordinary. And I take it you are not, yourself, a member of the Craft, Chief Constable? Well, that’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid, unless perhaps Sergeant Cosgrove has something more to say.”

  The sergeant opened his notebook and he began to address the court. “I have the honour to report,” Mr Cox rolled his eyes and drank some more tea, “that inquiries have been made in Rotterdam regarding the porter John Starfield mentioned in the prisoner’s statement. He no longer works at the Hotel Victoria. It seems there was some difficulty over money. He borrowed several small sums from colleagues and then there was the matter of a minor theft and he has moved on, possibly to Antwerp.

  “Inquiries were also made with Mrs Schmidt at 2 Stationsplien, where Starfield lodged until about a month ago. Money problems again. Couldn’t pay the rent. But it seems there is absolutely no doubt that the prisoner Warner was with him for a week at the end of September. They shared a room with a curtain down the middle and Starfield seems to have acted like a brother towards him. Paid for breakfasts for himself and Warner. He sold Warner’s razor and strop for him,” Sergeant Cosgrove went back to his notebook, “to a Mr Vreds, the hall porter of the Victoria, for the price of a ticket to Antwerp.

  “Mrs Schmidt believes the man went to live with her on September 24. She won’t make a formal statement, but she’s told me he stayed for seven days and once afterwards he wrote to Mr Stanfield from Antwerp.”

  Mr Cox settled his teacup in its saucer with barely a rattle. “Seems quite an irregular type.”