It had not been easy for Flora to arrange to take a whole day off from her duties at Laneglos. Despite her status as the most senior servant in the household, she was still a servant and as such was expected to be absent from the house for no more than a half-day each week. Nevertheless, she was delighted that Tom wanted to see her again and was equally eager for their blossoming relationship to move forward.
‘I may not be able to take another whole day off so soon, Tom, especially as Lady Hogg is unwell and still at the big house, so we may have to put off thinking about a train ride to Plymouth for a while . . . but we could certainly take a walk. On my afternoons off I sometimes used to go down to the River Fowey and walk along the bank. It is beautifully quiet there and you can occasionally see a kingfisher. They are beautiful little birds, have you ever seen one?’
Tom’s knowledge of river life had been gained from the commercially busy Thames, running through the heart of London and he confessed that the only water birds that had come to his attention were the noisy scavenging gulls that abounded on and around the London river’s heavily polluted waters.
Flora gave him a description of the brightly plumaged kingfisher, but she repeated on her earlier precautionary note, ‘You would enjoy a walk along the river bank, Tom but, as I said earlier, my being able to take an afternoon off at all will depend on how well Lady Hogg is. If she becomes any worse I probably won’t even be able to leave the house.’
‘What exactly is wrong with her?’
‘That’s the most puzzling problem of all.’ Flora replied. ‘Doctor Hollis says it’s something she’s eaten that is upsetting her and he has prescribed various medicines but nothing seems to be helping. He said much the same about Lord Hogg yet none of the medicines that were prescribed helped him either. To be perfectly honest, I think he has been practising medicine for too long. The medical profession has improved rapidly since the Crimean War but Doctor Hollis has not kept up with the various advances and is still treating his patients using methods he learned fifty years ago.’
‘That’s a pretty alarming state of affairs for his patients.’ Tom said, ‘Especially as there’s a new and very keen young doctor in Bodmin right now. Doctor Sullivan was trained in London and is the surgeon who carried out the post mortem on Enid. He is up-to-date with all that’s new in his profession. We get on quite well because he was once a surgeon at the hospital where my fractured wrist was treated and I am due to see him this week when he has promised to take the plaster cast off my arm and check that it has healed. I’ll speak to him about Lady Hogg. If he feels he might be able to help, you can ask Lady Hogg or her son, if they will allow him to examine her. What are her symptoms? ‘
‘They are very similar to those Lord Hogg showed shortly before he died. He complained of severe pain in his stomach and it was tender to the touch. He had a sore throat and towards the end he could hardly speak. He was very sick and once when I was in his room he had convulsions too. When I helped to hold him down I noticed his skin was a peculiar mottled colour, he was sweating heavily and didn’t seem to know what was going on around him.’
‘And you say Lady Hogg is showing the very same symptoms?’
‘Yes. Doctor Hollis thinks that something might have found its way into the water supply to the house and is upsetting their stomachs, but if that was the case we should all be suffering shouldn’t we?’
‘I would have thought so,’ Tom agreed. ‘I’ll have a word with Doctor Sullivan first thing in the morning and see what he thinks.’
For the remainder of the journey to Laneglos they spoke of more pleasant matters and, when they parted company, Tom kissed Flora for the first time and not only did she raise no objection, but responded in a manner that left him in no doubt that their relationship had moved on to an exciting new level.
Despite Tom’s happy state of mind as he drove back to the Hawke home, it did not prevent him from thinking of what Flora had told him about Lady Hogg’s illness and the similarity of its symptoms to those of Lord Hogg before his death.
When he reached the house Talwyn enthused about the Laneglos housekeeper and it was a while before she left the room to go to the kitchen and Tom had a few minutes alone with Amos to inform him of his conversation with Flora.
‘What are you suggesting, Tom?’ Amos asked, adding bluntly, ‘Do you think someone is trying to poison Lady Hogg - and possibly killed Lord Hogg too?’
Reluctant to commit himself, even though Amos had put his own suspicions into words, Tom replied, ‘I am no expert, Amos, but in my early days as a constable in a richer part of London than Hoxton, I went with an inspector to a house where there was a woman with the same symptoms as Lady Hogg is showing. The inspector had been called in by the woman’s doctor, who suspected she was being poisoned with arsenic by her husband. He was right, even though we were too late to save the life of the wife. I found a chemist who had sold arsenic to the husband "to kill rats in the cellar". There were no rats and it turned out that the husband was having an affair with their maid-of-all-work. He eventually confessed to what he had done and was hanged.’
‘So you do think someone is poisoning Lady Hogg and probably did the same to her late husband?’
Amos put the question to Tom, fully aware of the consequences to himself - and the Cornwall constabulary - if Tom’s suspicions were investigated and proved to be unfounded.
Aware of Amos’s dilemma, Tom said, ‘We know there is someone it Laneglos who is prepared to kill - and if he’s done it once and got away with it I doubt if he would hesitate to do it again . . . especially if he stood to gain enough by his actions.’
‘Or . . . in the case of Enid Merryn, lose a great deal by not killing.’ Amos mused.
Both men looked at each other without saying anything for long moments until Amos broke the silence by saying, ‘Are we both thinking of the same suspect, Tom? Someone who fits the bill for all that has happened at the house? Who has motive and opportunity - and is probably desperate enough to commit murder?’
Tom nodded, ‘I believe we are, Amos. The doctor who dealt with the case in London that I mentioned referred to arsenic as "inheritance powder" - but we would be walking a tightrope trying to prove it. One false move and we would both be out of a job and as Chief Constable Gilbert will be aware, he would go down with us.’
Amos nodded his agreement, ‘There’s no doubt about it. . . I think the Honourable Charles Delville might be our man but the most important thing is to see that Lady Hogg gets no worse. It’s too late in the day to do anything now. We will go and speak to Doctor Sullivan first thing in the morning.’
CHAPTER 29
In the darkened main bedroom of the Hawke home that night, Amos and Talwyn were discussing Tom’s theory and he told her who both he and Tom suspected of being responsible for two deaths, attempting the murder of a third, and who they believed of planning a robbery and the appearance in Cornwall of a small multi-talented criminal army.
‘It beggars belief.’ Talwyn said, incredulously, ‘Such a theory can’t possibly be right, surely?’
‘I can’t be absolutely certain, not until we gather some real evidence against him but we do have a strong circumstantial case. We know he is desperately short of money and deeply in debt and whoever drew up plans for the London villains to descend upon Cornwall with the Laneglos ball as their main target had an intimate knowledge of Cornish society. He could have obtained a ticket for the ball in order for Conrad Shannon to make excellent forgeries, knowing that if he used genuine tickets for the number of men involved it would not only cost a great deal of money, but purchasing such a quantity would immediately call attention to him. He probably also provided Jimmy Banks with a forged letter of recommendation enabling him to gain employment to Laneglos. When I questioned Flora about accepting it without making inquiries about its authenticity she said that Delville was present, with his mother, and it was he who persuaded them that the reference should be accepted. The Hoxton men who came with th
e Banks’s also knew which mansions to burgle while the owners were at the ball - and when Laneglos was burgled only items of the greatest value were taken - and they knew exactly where to find them. Jimmy Banks knew where each particular room was, of course but he lacked the knowledge to identify which items were of most value.’
Talwyn thought over what her husband had said before saying, ‘You have made a circumstantial case against Delville, but even if he did have something to do with the robberies, why should he want to murder poor Enid?’
‘There are a couple of possible reasons. We know Alfie and Jimmy Banks had been skulking around the Laneglos gardens, Enid could have seen them talking with Delville - and he couldn’t afford to have her pass that on to anyone. There is another possible motive too. Enid was four months pregnart when she was killed and it’s likely Delville was responsible. She might have threatened to make known what he had done and the robbery gave him an opportunity to put her out of the way. He would know that suspicion was bound to fall on the burglar - and he probably believed they would never be caught.’
‘But why should he murder Enid even if he had made her pregnant? From all I have heard, he has fathered children born to more than one Laneglos servant girl and none of them have ended up dead.’
‘That’s because Lord Hogg always took care of them - but it seems he had declared he was not going to pay for any more. Not only that, Delville was aware that if he didn’t change his ways he was likely to be banned from Laneglos and receive no more money to finance his irresponsible way of life. He couldn’t allow that to happen, especially after the elaborate plans he had made with Alfie Banks and his accomplices were foiled. He is deeply in debt and desperate for money. If Enid had said she was going to report her pregnancy to someone, or had seen him talking to the Banks’s then you have a couple of motives for murdering her.’
Still not entirely convinced, Talwyn asked, ‘But why kill Lord Hogg and - if what you believe to be true - now be trying to kill his own mother?’
Talwyn had great faith in Amos’s ability as a policeman but she was finding it hard to accept his theories about the Honourable Charles Delville.
Building on his theory, Amos said patiently, ‘Lord Hogg was a sick man and probably didn’t have too long to live anyway. Delville might even have convinced himself he was being kind to the old man . . . but Delville’s reasoning doesn’t matter. What is more certain is that he expected to gain financially by Lord Hogg’s death. If not directly he would have expected money to be left to his mother and she would have got him out of the deep financial trouble he is in. Instead, Delville was cut out of Lord Hogg’s will entirely and the money left to Lady Hogg was very cleverly tied up to prevent her from squandering it on her son. The only way Delville can get at her money and property now is if she dies!’
‘But . . . killing his own mother! It’s unbelievable.’
‘Perhaps, but it is certainly not unheard of and as a result of Alfie Banks and his friends having had a wasted journey to Cornwall, the Honourable Charles has made some very dangerous enemies, he will be desperate to get money in order to pay them off.’
There was silence in the bedroom for a very long time before Talwyn asked, ‘Even if all this is true, Amos, could you prove it in court?’
‘Not at the moment. If young Jimmy Banks had lived we might have been able to prove Delville’s involvement in the burglary - and that could have given us some helpful information about Enid’s murder. But Jimmy is dead and Alfie Banks has probably fled the country, so I will need to look elsewhere for answers - and I think I’ll begin by following Tom’s suggestion and have Doctor Sullivan take a look at Lady Hogg.’
Having Andrew Sullivan examine Lady Hogg proved simpler than Amos had anticipated. He called at the surgeon’s home on his way to the Bodmin police headquarters and, although it was early in the day, he found him putting medicines and instruments into a leather bag.
When Amos told Doctor Sullivan of his reason for calling at such an early hour, the surgeon said, ‘You are not the only one to be concerned about Lady Hogg’s condition, Superintendent. I had supper with Doctor Hollis yesterday evening and we were discussing her case. When he described the symptoms I asked him whether he had considered the possibility of arsenic poisoning. He dismissed the idea out of hand immediately but later in the evening he came back to it, recalling a case where a number of miners were poisoned as a result of arsenic finding its way into the drinking water on a moorland tin mine. He agreed the symptoms were similar. As I have up-to-date knowledge of both diagnosis and treatment for such a condition, he has asked me to accompany him today on a visit to Laneglos. I am packing my bag right now with medication that will be useful if it is arsenic poisoning . . . but that brings me to an obvious question, Superintendent. What is the police interest in the case and, if it turns out to be arsenic poisoning, do you have a particular suspect in mind?’
‘No one I am in a position to name as such,’ Amos replied, circumspectly, ‘but you might be able to help if you can learn how it is being administered - if in fact it is arsenic poisoning. ‘
‘It all sounds quite intriguing.’ Closing his bag and preparing to leave the house, Doctor Sullivan said, ‘I have to carry out a post mortem in Lostwithiel after seeing Lady Hogg, but will you be in your office all day?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Then I will call in and see you sometime later today and give you my diagnosis.’
CHAPTER 30
When Amos arrived at the Bodmin police headquarters he found his late arrival had caused some consternation. A relieved station sergeant explained, ‘A woman arrived on the overnight train from London and came here asking after her son. She’d been told he had been arrested here, in Cornwall, and had come here to see him. She got quite angry when I wouldn’t tell her anything, but I managed to quieten her down and put her in the interview room until you were able to speak to her.’
Slightly annoyed, Amos said, ‘We have no one in the police cells at the moment, you should have sent her to Bodmin jail, they probably have him there.’
‘I was going to, sir . . . until she mentioned the name of her son. I thought you’d want to speak to her before anyone else did. She’s the mother of Jimmy Banks.’
The news took Amos by surprise, but he said, ‘You did the right thing, sergeant. I’ll go and speak to her now. In the meantime, find Sergeant Churchyard, or Sergeant Halloran - better still, both of them. Send them to the interview room right away . . . and have some tea sent there, I think we are all going to need it.’
Entering the interview room Amos saw a tired, lank-haired woman wearing cheap clothing. He guessed she was probably in her mid-thirties, although she had the weary expression of a woman whose hard life had aged her beyond her years. He had seen many such women in the East End of London during his police service there.
When she raised her glance to him, he said, ‘Hello, Mrs Banks! I am sorry you’ve been kept waiting. I am Superintendent Hawke. I understand you have travelled overnight from London? It’s a long journey and I’ve asked for some tea to be brought for you . . . but have you eaten since leaving London?’
Looking at him scornfully, the woman said, ‘Don’t try the old "I’m your friend, you ‘elp me and I’ll ‘elp you" malarky with me, I’ve ‘ad dealings with far too many coppers to be sucked in by that. All I’m ‘ere for is to find out where my Jimmy is and what it is ‘e’s supposed to have done.’
‘What makes you think he’s done anything, Mrs Banks and who told you he was here?’
‘Like I told you, I’m not answering any of your questions.
At that moment the door opened and the powerful figure of Harvey Halloran filled the doorway. Seeing the woman he said, ‘Hello, Mary.’ Then, a pained expression taking over his face, he added, ‘I’m sorry to see you here.’
‘Harvey Halloran!’ She pronounced it ‘arvey ‘alloran ‘What the ‘ell you doing so far away from ‘oxton . . . and wearing a rozzer’s
uniform?’
‘I came here because Mr Hawke is here, Mary. He was my captain when I was in the Royal Marines.’
Mary glanced at Amos once more but there was no scorn in her look this time and he seized the opportunity to speak to her again. Grave faced, he said, ‘I especially asked Harvey to join us, Mrs Banks, because I have bad news for you . . . very bad news, I’m afraid.’
As he spoke Mary Banks’s expression changed to one of consternation, ‘Is it about Jimmy? What’s he done . . . and where is he?’
Amos looked at Harvey and it was the big sergeant who replied bluntly to her question. ‘I’m afraid Jimmy is dead, Mary.’
A strangled scream escaped from Mary and, looking from Harvey, she said, ‘No. . .! It can’t be true, you’re trying to trick me for some reason. Alfie said Jimmy had been arrested, that’s all. . . .’
Amos’s interest quickened immediately. Her words meant that Mary must have seen Alfie since the robbery. He was about to ask her where and when she had spoken to the wanted man, but he checked himself in time. Instead, he said, ‘Alfie was lying to you, Mary . . . and for a very good reason. He and Jimmy burgled a large manor house near here and got away with the proceeds in a wagonette they stole from the stables. When they were some distance from the house they had an accident and it seems Jimmy was hurt . . . he broke a collarbone. Instead of staying with Jimmy and looking after him, Alfie took the pony and rode off, leaving Jimmy hurt and alone in a wood. He was there all that day and into the night and we believe he got hopelessly lost in the rain and fell into a river that flowed down off the moor. He was battered against rocks and was found the following day by some children. A doctor was eventually called but there was nothing he could do for him.’
Churchyard and Hawke Page 17