Death at Bishops Keep scs-1

by Robin Paige

  Kate watched as Sir Charles turned around, to look at a row of light two-wheeled chaises arranged along one side of the main building. The second carriage leaned tipsily to the right, one red-painted wheel missing. He studied it for a moment as if he were measuring it with his glance.

  "Where," he asked, "is the wheel that belongs to that chaise?"

  Prodger jerked his head in the direction of the smith. "Trotter's got it," he said. "He's ironin' it."

  "Ironing it?" Kate asked, wondering how one ironed a metal wheel rim.

  "Ironing it!" Sir Charles exclaimed. "For God's sake, man, that wheel's evidence!"

  Kate stared at him, uncomprehending. "Evidence?" she asked. But Sir Charles paid no attention to her. He hastened after Prodger to the smithy, with Kate trailing along behind. Trotter was standing over a wooden wheel, about to cut the iron tire with a chisel. Behind him, a group of workmen were creating a terrible din, clanging and shouting.

  "Stop!" Charles shouted, holding up his hand.

  The smith looked up, hammer poised over the chisel. His face was charcoal, his eyes white marbles. "Sez 'oo?" he retorted, and struck the chisel a ringing blow.

  Behind the smith, Kate saw that two journeymen and two apprentices were working on another, larger wheel, which rested flat on a circular stone platform. A red-hot iron rim was being fitted to the wooden wheel and driven into place with blows of the journeymen's sledges. The apprentices doused the smoking rim with water from sprinkling cans. Steam replaced smoke with a great hissing and a stench of charred wood, while the iron tire contracted violently and the wheel snapped and creaked. Kate watched with fascination. So this was how one ironed a wheel.

  Sir Charles turned to Mr. Prodger. "I need to examine the wheel," he said loudly, over the noise. "The last man to hire the carriage from which it came was murdered."

  "Murthered?" the smith exclaimed, and dropped his chisel.

  Kate stared at Sir Charles. How could he be so sure?

  Prodger raised his hand to quiet the workers. Into the sudden silence, he said, "Murdered? D'you mean that the gent I read about in the Exchange was Monsoor Armand?"

  "That was the name of the man who hired this carriage?" Sir Charles asked.

  "That was the name he give me for the ledger," Prodger replied cautiously.

  Armand, Kate thought-a French name. A Frenchman with a scarab ring.

  "I would like to photograph this wheel," Sir Charles said. "It is evidence in a murder case. I am assisting Inspector Wainwright," he added, by way of explanation.

  "Wainwright needs assistin'." Prodger's chin whiskers quivered disdainfully. Then, with an air of resignation, he addressed the smith. "Well, Trotter, I don't suppose it'll harm that wheel to let the gentleman make a photograph of it."

  By way of answer, the smith leaned the wheel against a tree and turned his back on it, going to oversee the progress of the men with the sledges and sprinkling cans. While Kate waited beside the wheel, Sir Charles went to the chaise, got his camera and tripod, and set them up. As she watched curiously, he unfolded his ivory rule, propped it against the wheel, and photographed the wheel and the rule, following that with several close-up views of the break in the iron rim. Then he marked the spot where the break touched the ground, carefully rolled the wheel one revolution until the break touched again, and measured the distance with his rule.

  "Twelve feet seven inches," he muttered to himself. He turned to Prodger. "I would like to photograph and examine the chaise from which this wheel came."

  Prodger led him back to the row of carriages. "What I want to know," he said, as Sir Charles set up his camera, "is how you knew which wheel you was after."

  "The break in the rim," Sir Charles said, taking a photo. "It left a mark at the scene of the crime, which revealed itself in the photographs I took. As good as a fingerprint for identification."

  "Fingerprint?" Prodger asked, mystified. "What's that?"

  Kate spoke quickly, forestalling Sir Charles's inevitable lecture. "The distinctive mark left by a person's fingertips," she said. "A fingerprint can be used to distinguish one person from another."

  Prodger grunted. "Seems to me a man's face ought to be bettern' his fingers, for that purpose."

  Sir Charles straightened up. ' 'Did Monsieur Armand offer any identification?" he asked, changing the plate in the camera. "An address, perhaps?"

  "He offered th' hire in advance, an' a generous tip," Prodger replied with dignity. ' 'In this business, that were sufficient identif'cation."

  "Did he mention his purpose for traveling to Colchester?" Kate asked. She ignored Sir Charles's irritated frown. He wasn't the only one who could question an informant. "Or the name of someone he planned to meet while he was here?"

  The jobmaster pulled his mouth first to one side, then the other. ' 'He asked after a street-Queen Street, I believe. But I disremember th' number."

  Kate felt a stab of excitement. Queen Street! Perhaps they were getting somewhere!

  Sir Charles stepped out from behind the tripod. "Would you object to my examining the interior of the chaise?" he asked.

  "Examine all you like," Prodger said with a shrug. "But our carriages is clean swept after ev'ry hire." He dragged over a wooden block and placed it under the axle of the missing-wheeled chaise, balancing the vehicle. "If it'll help t' have a look, climb up."

  Kate looked on while Sir Charles examined the carriage carefully. Prodger was right. The floor had been swept, the leather seat polished, the side panels wiped clean. But on the smooth handle of the whip, Sir Charles pointed out a clear fingerprint, which he photographed. ' 'Well, that appears to be it,'' he said, stepping out of the chaise.

  "You've missed the feather," Kate said.

  Sir Charles frowned. "Feather?"

  Kate picked it out of the corner of the seat and held it out. The feather was of an iridescent blue hue, such as she had never before seen. It was broken.

  "Aha!" Sir Charles exclaimed. With a triumphant smile, he grasped it and held it up to the light. After studying it for

  a moment, he folded it into a piece of paper and put the paper carefully into his pocket.

  Kate frowned. "You're welcome," she said pointedly, feeling in her heart the unfairness of playing Watson to this self-absorbed Holmes.

  Sir Charles turned to look at her for a long moment, his smile fading. "Forgive me," he said, very seriously. "Thank you, Miss Ardleigh, for spying the feather. You have sharp eyes."

  Kate smiled.

  "What c'n you tell from a brok'n feather?" Mr. Prodger asked.

  "That depends upon whether it is possible to locate the remainder of it," Sir Charles replied.

  "Indeed," Kate said, "and upon who has possession of it."

  Mr. Prodger gave his whiskers a rueful shake. "I've heard of lookin' for a needle in a haystack, but lookin' for one partic'lar feather in a town the size of Colchester-" He barked a laugh. "All I c'n say, sir, is if you find it, you're a sight sharper'n Wainwright. He couldn't find a feather if the bloody thing was stuck in his cap. Or ticklin' his arse." He looked at Kate. "Beggin" yer pardon, ma'am."

  22

  "Until the end or the nineteenth century, British jurisprudence was ruled hy oral and documentary evidence. New investigative technologies, such as fingerprints, ballistics, and toxicology were often regarded as irrelevant and even frivolous by those whose task it was to summon the criminal hefore the tar. What

  counted was the criminal's confession, which every effort was Lent to obtain."

  — ALISTAIR CARRS, Criminal Detection in the Nineteenth Century

  On Saturday morning, Charles applied himself to solving a murder. The jobmaster Prodger had given the victim a name-Monsieur Armand. Whether it was the man's real name remained to be seen. Charles offered the information to Inspector Wainwright, whom he found once again seated at the small table in the chilly basement office, surrounded by stacks of papers.

  "Armand?" Wainwright asked irritably, when Charles had f
inished the narrative of his investigations. The pallid light fell upon the table drrough the dingy window, illuminating a wire basket containing official memoranda, an inkstand and fragment of much-used blotter, and a Prince Albert red-and-gilt ashtray filled with a quantity of cigarette butts. The inspector scraped back his straight wooden chair, rose, and went to warm his hands over the kettle, which was heating on the gas burner.

  "Armand," Charles repeated. He took the other chair, which was missing two of its wooden turnings.

  Wainwright rubbed his thick hands together. His brown wool coat was worn at the elbows and in want of brushing, and his collar had already seen several days' service. "Don't know that a name takes us anywhere," he said, his voice heavy with an irreversible gloom. He took the tea canister from the shelf and shook out the last spoonful of loose tea into a cracked white china teapot. He poured hot water from the kettle into the pot, took down a tin of My Lady's Tea Biscuits, and returned once more to his chair. "We already knew he was French, from the coat label. 'Armand' probably isn't the real name."

  "Perhaps," Charles said. "But I have found something

  else that may help us." He took out a piece of paper and unfolded it carefully.

  The inspector opened the biscuit tin. "What's that?"

  "A fragment of feather," Charles said, turning it over with a pencil. ' 'Certainly a nonindigenous species. Pavo christatus, I believe. From the breast of a male bird. This specimen does not bear the familiar 'eye' of the splendid tail plumage, of course, but the iridescent blue color reveals its-"

  Wainwright pulled out several crumbly biscuits and put them on the table. "Where'd you find it?" He gestured at the biscuits. "Tea will be ready shortly. Have a biscuit."

  "No, thank you," Charles said. "It was found in the chaise hired by the victim." By Miss Ardleigh, he thought to himself, but did not say. The interested, interesting Miss Ardleigh, who absolutely refused to relate the reason for her interest.

  The inspector made a growling noise deep in his throat.

  "Observe that the feather is broken," Charles said, pointing. ' 'With the aid of a microscope, it would be possible to match it to-"

  "Haven't got a microscope." Wainwright picked up a biscuit and bit it. It crumbled in his hand. With a muttered curse, he dropped the crumbs on the floor. He got up, fetched the teapot and two cups, and brought them to the table. "Anything else?"

  Charles retrieved the feather, folded it into its paper, and put it back in his coat pocket. From his portfolio, he took an enlarged photograph. "This," he said, laying it on the table. ' 'Tell me, Inspector, has Monsieur Armand yet been buried?''

  "Yesterday." The inspector squinted suspiciously at the photograph. "What is it?"

  "It is the enlargement of a fingerprint on the whip handle of the chaise hired by the victim." Charles picked up a pencil and pointed to a ridged whorl. "Observe this unique configuration."

  "And just what d'you expect to prove with that?" As Wainwright picked up the teapot and began to pour, his voice was laden with something like scorn.

  "It is regrettable that the corpse has been buried. If it were

  to be exhumed and the man's fingerprints compared to-"

  Wainwright set down the teapot so smartly that hot tea splashed onto the photograph. "Exhumed!" he exclaimed.

  Charles retrieved the photo hastily. ' 'Have you read Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson?"

  The inspector stared at him.

  Charles tried a different tack. "It is unfortunate that fingerprints are not generally in use. But with the proper equipment and training, an astute police officer like yourself could make quite a name-"

  "Not got proper equipment," Wainwright growled, picking up his cup, "and not likely to get it." He blew on it, bitterly. "Have to buy even my own tea and biscuits. The superintendent won't give me a farthin' for fingerprints or photos or feathers, when he won't give me a telephone or a typewriter. Or a microscope. Of course," he added with ill-concealed resentment, "a learned gentleman like yourself wouldn't understand that."

  Charles frowned. He felt, he thought, the same frustration that Dr. John Snow must have felt forty years before, when he tried to explain his theory of the transmission of typhoid to the Ministry of Public Health. Such stubborn unwillingness to accept anything new!

  "But my dear fellow," he said urgently, "if this fingerprint does not belong to the victim, it must belong to the killer. Don't you see? We have here the opportunity to establish-''

  "A confession," Wainwright said into his teacup.

  "Beg pardon?" Charles asked.

  "A confession." The inspector set his cup down. "That's what we need to solve this murder. That's what a jury would understand."

  "I see," Charles said. He cleared his throat. "I wonder, though," he said mildly, "just how a confession is to be obtained from a killer who has so far eluded detection?"

  "Your tea's gettin' cold," the inspector said. "Drink up."

  23

  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

  Hotspur: Why so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call tor them?

  — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I, III,

  On Saturday afternoon, Kate, as a proposed neophyte, was to be introduced to the Order of the Golden Dawn. She and Aunt Sabrina drove to Colchester, where the Temple of Horus was to meet at Number Seven Keenan Street.

  As they rode through the warm autumn sunshine, past fields hazy with the smoke of burning stubble, Kate considered whether she should tell Aunt Sabrina that she and Sir Charles had the day before discovered the name of the dead Frenchman. But Aunt Sabrina seemed to be in quite a gay mood, talking animatedly about this and that. Perhaps she was relieved that the matter of the dead man was behind them. In any event, Kate hated to bring it up again, and to disclose her mischief. Aunt Sabrina had terminated the investigation. If she knew that her niece had violated her expressed wish by going detecting with Sir Charles, she would be deeply disappointed.

  Furthermore, Kate told herself, there was nothing concrete to report. That the dead man had given the name of Armand

  to Mr. Prodger meant very little. It could have been a false name. No, the only real evidence they had turned up was the fingerprint and the blue feather. And the name of a street- Queen Street-which, on the one hand, might have been the murdered man's destination and, on the other, might have nothing to do with his death. Kate would not know unless she could go there herself and inquire, and she could not for the life of her think how she might accomplish that.

  But although the jaunt seemed to have yielded little useful information, Kate could not regret the fact that she had gone. For one thing, Beryl Bardwell had enjoyed the opportunity to exercise her wits. For another, Kate had enjoyed the hour she spent with Sir Charles, observing his methods of patient and painstaking analysis. She had not thought that so much was to be learned from a single wheel.

  As Sir Charles drove her back to the Marsden carriage, waiting at the railway station, Kate had renewed her request to see the photographs of the dead man, somewhat diffidently, since her aunt had instructed her not to pursue the matter. To that request, she added that she would like to see the photographs of the wheelprint that he had taken at the site. In reply to his surprised, "Why?" she had replied evasively, "I hope it is not too much trouble." She could not tell him that Beryl Bardwell was toying with the idea of using a broken,wheel as a clue to the solution of a murder.

  Number Seven Keenan Street was a three-story brick house, with a modest frontage on the street. The parlor and the dining room directly behind it were quite crowded, Kate saw, and she thought as she was introduced to her hostess that the gathering looked more like an afternoon soiree than a meeting of magicians. Beryl Bardwell, who viewed the afternoon as a time for research, was making mental notes.

  "Miss Ardleigh, my dear." Mrs. Farnsworth extended her hand with a warm smile. "It is kind of your aunt to bring you. She says you are making wonderful progress in yo
ur research."

  "Research?" Kate asked. She was momentarily startled, before she realized that Mrs. Farnsworth was referring to her

  secretarial work, not Beryl Bardwell's covert inquiry, of which Mrs. Farnsworth herself was the current object. ' 'Oh, yes. The membership lists."

  "Indeed," Mrs. Farnsworth replied. "The Order is growing so fast that it is well-nigh impossible to keep account of its membership." She smiled easily at Aunt Sabrina. "When you leave, my dear Sabrina, be sure to take with you the packet of letters and other documents I have assembled for you."

  Mrs. Farnsworth was oddly fascinating, Kate thought. Her figure was petite, spritelike, almost a child's figure, but it was her face, under a wealth of brown hair, that captured and held the viewer's attention. Her luminous eyes were brown, with large, dark irises; her lips were full and sensual; her mercurial mouth seemed capable of almost any expression, and with every change of expression her face seemed completely remade. Unlike her guests, most of whom were conventionally garbed, her costume was dramatic: an emerald green robe with a low-cut gauze-sleeved green bodice, decorated with blue-green feathers with exotic markings. She wore a gold pendant at her throat which, Kate saw in an instant of startled recognition, was similar to her aunt's.

  Mrs. Farnsworth's theatrical dress was no doubt explained by the fact that she was a retired actress. Quite recently retired, it seemed, from the collection of colorful playbills Kate had remarked in the hallway. Two of George Bernard Shaw's were prominently featured, Widowers' Houses and Arms and the Man, and Shakespeare's As You Like It, which had apparently enjoyed a long run at the St. James. Mrs. Farnsworth had recently changed her name, it seemed: on the playbills, she appeared as Florence Faber. Kate couldn't help but think she must have made a fetching Rosalind.