He rounded on me. ‘Who let you in here?’
‘Myself.’
‘Then let yourself out, and don’t come back. I don’t need you. I never should have trusted you.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Yes, as I wish. I don’t need a bit of skirt with a high opinion of herself poking her nose in where she doesn’t belong. Get out, and when you see your adventuress friend, tell her she can pack her bags. We were all right till she rolled up.’
Retreat was most definitely in order.
He rushed ahead of me to the door, flung it open. ‘Out! Out!’
The captain did not follow. I guessed he would be checking his precious museum pieces to ensure there was nothing missing. His fury had unnerved me. I held onto the banister. The dog barked again. I hurried down the stairs, not wanting to be there when he completed his inventory of secrets.
A mighty yell of fury came from above. The door slammed shut. Half expecting to be run through with his sword walking stick, I reached the landing as his footsteps pounded down the stairs.
A concerned Miss Fell stood at her open door. She hurried towards me, and hastily drew me inside. Mistress of understatement, she whispered, ‘The captain doesn’t like anyone looking at his military accoutrements.’
‘He must have incredibly sharp hearing.’
‘It’s a sixth sense he has for protecting his weaponry.’
The dog darted at my ankles, yapping a warning to his mistress not to be so naïve as to invite me in.
‘Shut up, Peeko, dear,’ she said soothlingly. ‘This is an emergency. The captain is raving.’ With the triumph of a lonely person who has finally found a captive audience, she shut the door behind us.
I followed her into a large sitting room, furnished with an overstuffed sofa and chairs, smelling strongly of dog and weakly of lavender. The small creature dogging my heels, herding me in, might look like a muff. Its manner, yap and stink told a different story.
It leapt at my leg, demanding attention, its eyes saying with a mixture of pleading and arrogance, ‘I’m a proper dog, so watch out.’
Flattery is one of my stocks in trade, especially when I find myself in a tricky situation. ‘Fine fellow,’ I said, stroking the dog’s silky head. Peeko was not impressed. I tried again. ‘Clever fellow.’
That did the trick. Here was a dog that knew well enough he was a fine fellow and only wanted to have his intellect admired.
‘Peeko likes you,’ Miss Fell said. She waved an arm for me to take a seat.
I perched on the sofa. Matching her for understatement, I said, ‘I’ve upset your landlord.’
‘Take no notice. You were only looking for the bathroom I’m sure.’ She dismissed the captain with a flick of her wrist. ‘Now tell me what you thought of the play. I saw it twice. Haven’t seen a finer piece of theatre since the old queen was on the throne. Goodness me, it brought tears to my eyes to see Lucy taking her part so magnificently. It was like seeing a stranger, though I’ve known her since she was a tot. Do sit down, though it won’t be for long. He’s restless.’
I did not know whether she meant the dog or the captain who was now marching so loudly across the floor above that the light fitting shook.
My hostess glanced up. ‘He’ll be muttering and cursing,’ she confided sagely. ‘I’ve seen him this way before.’
‘It’s good of you to offer me sanctuary,’ I said. ‘You’ll risk the captain’s wrath.’
‘Huh! There’s nothing he can do about me,’ Miss Fell said confidently. ‘I’ve been resident here for many years. I came as companion to the captain’s aunt, a dear lady, the genuine article.’
‘Then you must like Harrogate, and this house . . . to have stayed, I mean.’
She sighed. ‘Harrogate is a wonderful place to live. So healthy, so very refined. But I’m afraid the house is not what it was in Miss Wolfendale’s day.’
Miss Fell settled herself for a Good Chat. The dog snuggled up to her. She tickled his head. As she did so, I noticed her hands. They were old, wrinkled and speckled, the nails ridged with age. On each of her ring fingers, she wore a buckled silver ring. The silver ring on her right hand was doing a job: it was holding secure a ring that was one size too big. I stared at the ring. I am no expert but felt sure that this was 18-carat gold. In a concave setting glittered three diamonds and, on either side, three raised bars. The ring exactly matched Mr Moony’s description of Mrs deVries’s ring.
So perhaps my hunch about the transposition of the house number had not been so wild after all. We were in 29 St Clement’s Road. The address for the mysterious Mrs deVries was 92. That would explain her odd behaviour yesterday at the mention of the name deVries. She was Mrs deVries. Who had she asked to collect her ring from the pawn shop? If Miss Fell herself had something to hide, she would not have invited me in.
As my mind ran over these details, I tried to think of how to tackle her. I must tread carefully. If she simply denied being ‘Mrs deVries’, there would be no trail for me to follow. While she went to make tea in her small kitchen, I looked at the photographs on the sideboard. One photograph showed a much younger Miss Fell, and her older companion, who held a walking stick. They wore tweed skirts, stout shoes and berets. The two of them were perched on a boulder, legs outstretched, knapsacks by their feet.
‘That’s me with Miss Wolfendale,’ Miss Fell called from the kitchen.
‘The captain’s aunt?’
‘Yes. And next to that, Miss Wolfendale with the captain, when he was a boy.’
I picked up the second photograph.
The woman and boy, aged about sixteen, looked out at me, the boy posing with a self-conscious air, looking into the lens and half-smiling into an unknown future. He stood to attention, wearing long trousers and a check shirt open at his smooth young neck. The woman wore a print dress and cardigan. Her hand rested affectionately on his shoulder. She had a longish face, slightly horsey. He had the same characteristic, but less markedly, which made me think he would have turned out classic-ally handsome.
‘I believe that’s taken locally?’
‘It is indeed. On The Stray.’
The resemblance between the woman and the boy was clear.
‘So the captain is Miss Wolfendale’s brother’s child?’
‘Yes.’ She brought in a tea tray, her rings glinting. ‘And her only relation. When Miss Wolfendale died, she left the house to the captain with a proviso that I be allowed to remain as a grace and favour tenant. I did not then expect that he would rent out the lower level which does rather give the old place the atmosphere of a lodging house. Not that I dislike the tenants.’
And one of those tenants was Dan Root, owner of a watch chain hung with a South African coin, just like the one Mr Moony’s assailant pretended to pawn. Being his own master, Dan would be free to take Monday morning off for a little light robbery in Leeds. But why would he have returned the ring to Miss Fell?
Of course I could be entirely mistaken. No ring is totally unique unless specially made. Having asked her yesterday about Mrs deVries, I tried to think of a way to raise the subject again. I did not need to. It was on her mind.
‘You rather threw me yesterday, dear, when you asked about your mother’s friend. I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful. This area teems with spinsters and widows, and we don’t all know each other. If we were younger, there would be some plan to ship us to the colonies without ado.’ The tea came from the fluted china pot so weak it looked in need of help. ‘Not too strong for you?’ Miss Fell asked.
I assured her it was not.
‘Of course it’s different for young women nowadays,’ Miss Fell said, offering me sugar. ‘Take Lucy, how wonderfully well she took her part in the play, not in the least self-conscious. But you see she acted in school plays and was fond of reciting. Even as a wee child she would climb on the table and give us a lyrical ballad or a comic verse. I taught her some poems myself.’ Miss Fell waved her hand towards a well stocked bookshe
lf. As she did so, several volumes fell from the arm of her chair. I moved to rescue them. They were detective stories from a private lending library. ‘Thank you, my dear. On the table please.’
As I stacked the novels on the table, I imagined Lucy, as a precocious child, reciting her heart out. Lucy could have been the robber. She could easily have dressed as a young man, borrowed Dan Root’s watch chain. Lulled poor Mr Moony into believing her just another customer, and then made her move.
Miss Fell waited until I had set the novels in a neat pile and then continued her praise of Lucy. ‘Her memory has always been phenomenal. She claims to remember her mother, though between you and me I believe it’s her nursemaid she recollects. I don’t disabuse her, though it’s odd that she should think of such a woman as her mother.’
‘Why odd?’ I asked.
Miss Fell stiffened suddenly as we once more heard footsteps on the stairs, and then on the landing. She waited. ‘He’s calmed down. Something in him snaps if he thinks anyone is delving into his precious junk room up there. We had it as our sewing room years ago.’
‘It sounds as though you and Miss Wolfendale got on very well.’
‘Oh we did. She was more like an older sister to me than an employer. We went on holiday each year, out into the countryside, staying on a farm, walking in the hill country. I came here in 1897, in answer to an advertisement in The Lady. And Miss Wolfendale was a lady. Of course I was a young woman then, thirty years old. Didn’t think myself young of course. Thought myself old and past it.’ She laughed heartily. ‘Don’t we always think that we’re as old as we’re ever going to be? I was companion to Miss Wolfendale until her death in 1903, at the age of sixty-six.’ She sighed. ‘I did think I might have to find another place when she died. But the executors of the will asked me would I stay on, until matters were settled.’
‘And here you are still.’
‘As it transpired, Miss Wolfendale kindly made provision for me to receive a small annuity.’
A little piece of the jigsaw fitted into place. Mr Moony had said that Mrs deVries pawned her ring annually. No doubt this coincided with the period just before Miss Fell’s annuity went into her bank account.
Peeko perched himself on the window ledge, looking down into the street below with the appearance of a creature expecting an important delivery of horseflesh.
‘And you haven’t regretted staying on, Miss Fell?’
‘Not a bit of it. I felt I owed it to dear Miss Wolfendale, especially when the captain arrived with his granddaughter in tow.’
‘Lucy must have been very young?’
‘She was two years old, and the prettiest little creature you ever saw. The nursemaid became homesick and went back where she came from. I’ve since wondered whether she might have stayed on if he’d paid her more. But of course she did attract rather a lot of attention in Harrogate.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Didn’t I say? She was African, what they used to call a Kaffir girl.’
‘Poor Lucy, to lose her parents and her nursemaid so young. And it can’t have been easy for a man of his age to bring up a child.’
‘He could not have managed without me. Forgets that now when he’s busy resenting my very presence. Lucy spent more time with me than downstairs when she was little. And it is such a pity that Miss Wolfendale wasn’t aware of the existence of her great niece, or if she was, she never mentioned her to me. The captain said his son made an unsuitable match you see, as did the captain himself from what I can gather, though of course he doesn’t say so outright. That would explain why Miss Wolfendale never mentioned family.’
The more she talked, the more the questions raced through my mind. Whose was the other uniform hanging in the wardrobe upstairs? An uneasy feeling stirred inside me. When I had told Inspector Charles about Monsieur Geerts seeing his wife with Mr Milner, I thought I had done the right thing. But perhaps I had sent the enquiry off in a wrong direction. It seemed that there might be a stronger connection between Milner and Wolfendale than any of us guessed.
The captain had something to hide. If Milner knew what that something was, it would have given him a powerful lever. Powerful enough to induce the captain to part with money and to be forced into renting out rooms. Milner had blackmailed Wolfendale. And the clue as to why lay in the attic, and this explained his fierce reaction to my poking about there.
I took another look at the photograph of Miss Wolfendale and her nephew. ‘How sad for Lucy, to be orphaned so young and not to have met her great aunt.’
She sighed, and offered more tea. ‘Who can fathom God’s mysterious ways?’
‘What happened to Lucy’s parents?’
I knew the captain’s account of what had happened, but wondered what he had told Miss Fell, when he first arrived in Harrogate.
‘Lucy’s mother died of typhoid. Her father in some sort of accident.’
So he had been consistent.
Miss Fell leaned forward in a confidential manner. ‘When she was small, the captain told Lucy that her mother had left her a letter, to be read when she was twenty-one. When she came of age, on the sixth of this month, she asked him, and he said it wasn’t true. There was no letter, no money, there was nothing. That infuriated her, naturally. She became very hard about it. Wouldn’t sit and chat. Oh she would walk Peeko, but further than the poor little chap wanted to go. She would end up carrying him back in a state of exhaustion. Her hair all over, losing her gloves, acting like nobody’s child. If she hadn’t put her energies into the play, I do believe she would have run mad when she found out there was no inheritance.’
It seemed treacherous to involve Miss Fell in a scheme to unmask her darling Lucy as a robber, but I had to do it. ‘Miss Fell, I’m going to confide something that may shock you. And I shall ask you to help me.’
Miss Fell turned pale. ‘It’s to do with your question yesterday. Did I know a Mrs deVries.’
I could have gone all around the houses, but I decided to be direct. ‘Yes. You are Mrs deVries, I believe. You gave a false name and address to Mr Moony to hide your embarrassment at pawning the ring.’
It felt cruel. My words hit her hard. In an involuntary movement, she drew her hands to her chest, twisting the diamond ring on her finger. ‘I thought pawnbrokers kept a person’s confidence.’
‘They do, as a rule. But Mr Moony was robbed of his pledged items, and no ticket was presented for that ring.’
Her eyes widened in astonishment. ‘That can’t be possible. I gave the ticket and the money to Lucy. She told me she had collected it. Last Monday.’
March 1922
Captain Wolfendale sat by his hearth. Wind rattled in the chimney and blew smoke back into the room. His visitor, Lawrence Milner, had brought a drop of something warming, a good port wine. He raised his glass thoughtfully. ‘We’ll have cause for celebration later this year.’
‘Oh?’ The captain poked the fire. ‘I don’t know what’s to celebrate.’
‘Why, of course you do. Your Lucy comes of age in August.’ Milner took it on himself to pour another two generous measures.
The captain placed a shovel in front of the fire, and a newspaper over it, to draw smoke up the chimney and get the coals cracking. He watched carefully, snatching the paper just as it scorched. Smoke still curled into the room.
In a reminiscing vein, Milner said, ‘Do you remember that old tobacconist fellow? His son-in-law was a Kent man. He boasted that with eyes tight shut, this son-in-law could name any English apple by its smell. Cox, Bramley, Russett, any of them and more. Well, that’s you and baccy, eh mein Kapitän?’
‘Less of that.’
‘Less of what?’
‘That mein Kapitän business.’
‘Insubordination, beg pardon, Captain. And me a lowly corporal. Shame, eh?’ Milner plonked his glass on the Called to Arms board, on the square titled ‘Court Martial’.
The captain moved the glass, leaving behind a small red circle of port. It
would stain. ‘What are you leading up to, Milner? You know it’s finished. You know I’ve not a penny left.’
‘We’ve done well, my friend. We’ve done well. Look on these years as an investment. And now it’s time to make something of it.’ Milner had that bantering mood on him, teasing the older man. He had let the old fellow win two games of Called to Arms. Butter him up now, do no harm to butter him up. ‘I bet you can guess the name of this twist of baccy I’ve brought you.’
‘Bugger off with your tests. We’re not schoolboys.’
‘Humour me. I’ve a little bet with myself.’
Wearily the captain closed his eyes. ‘Go on then.’
How had he let this idiot get the better of him all these years? There was a rustling as Milner brought out the tobacco. The captain recognised the blend straight away. It was a mix he had bought from that tobacconist years ago, his favourite. Milner was reminding him, reminding him of the chains that bound. One of these days he would get the better of Milner.
‘Well? What does your snitch say?’ Milner asked.
Just for devilment, the captain wanted to come up with some nonsense, as if he did not know. But his pride would not let him. ‘Light Virginia, mixed with Latakia.’
‘Exactly! It’s your lucky day, Captain.’ Milner put the tobacco on the table.
The captain picked it up and placed it in his jar on the shelf. Milner was a lout. A bloody jumped-up corporal, he now had minions doing his bidding, in his car showroom, his motor repair works, and at his home. He had driven his wife to the grave and now kept his son under the thumb. He wanted to be liked too, damn his eyes. He not only wanted to bleed the captain dry – well, he had done that – but he wanted to be liked for doing it. The captain moved the board. He took it to the kitchen and wiped at the wine stain.
The captain returned the Called to Arms board to its box, along with dice and tokens.
Milner lit a cigar. ‘And how is our Lucy?’
A Medal For Murder: A Kate Shackleton Mystery Page 18