by Granger, Ann
Some of the animation left Patience’s manner and she fidgeted with her cuffs. ‘It is very difficult,’ she burst out suddenly, ‘and I do not know where to turn. Oh, Mrs Ross, Lizzie, you are the only person I can talk to about this!’
‘Your Aunt Pickford—’ I began in alarm.
‘Oh, no, Lizzie, not Aunt Pickford! She would write directly to Mamma, or worse, to Papa!’
Keep calm, Lizzie, I told myself. I knew I was about to be the recipient of information that, in some way, was going to be either embarrassing or downright alarming. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear it. But poor Patience was clearly in a terrible state about it and she was, after all, only nineteen and living in a strange city.
‘Patience,’ I said, ‘you had best begin at the beginning and go slowly, I beg. I hope you have thought about this and won’t tell me something you may later wish you hadn’t.’
‘But I can’t tell anyone else!’ burst out Patience, clenching both fists, so that the knuckles showed white and the sapphire engagement ring stood out. ‘It concerns my brother, Edgar.’
‘I don’t believe I’ve met Edgar,’ I said cautiously. ‘Does he know you are talking to me about this, this problem? Because, whatever it is, if it’s Edgar’s business—’
‘Only hear me out!’ begged Patience. ‘You’ll understand when I’ve told you. Edgar is older than me, he’s twenty-five. He came to London to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s College of Medicine. He is now a junior doctor and continuing his training at the hospital itself. They call it “Bart’s”, Lizzie.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said. Medical students were apt to get into scrapes. I knew this from stories my late father, himself a physician, had told me.
‘The trouble is that Edgar has a very good heart but not much commonsense,’ said Patience. ‘Perhaps I should not say that, but really, it is the truth, so I have to.’
Edgar was beginning to sound much like the younger Frank Carterton.
‘I do understand,’ Patience said earnestly. ‘Edgar came to London from our provincial town, as I have now done. Our town is thriving and over the last years many people have built fine houses. We have a new concert hall. People receive and entertain in style and are anxious to do things properly. But, well, London is quite different. One does feel, well, one does feel awkward. I make mistakes. I know I do. I should have let Aunt Pickford send a maid with me today, shouldn’t I? Not walked here all the way from Goodge Place alone? I saw Mrs Parry’s face when she heard I’d done that. Mrs Parry fears I will be an embarrassment to Frank, doesn’t she?’
‘No, Patience, of course not.’ I hoped I sounded convincing, but that was exactly what Aunt Parry thought. I am clearly a poor liar.
‘Yes, she does,’ said Patience, ‘and I don’t blame her. But I shall try very hard not to let Frank down. They all like him at home, you know, and are so pleased he is to represent our interests at Westminster. But, how can I put this? Because Aunt Parry already thinks I am a bit of a problem, I can’t let her find out about Edgar.’
‘What on earth has Edgar done?’ I demanded.
‘He’s been gambling and he owes a lot of money. He can’t pay it,’ said Patience. ‘I can’t tell my parents. I can’t tell my Uncle and Aunt Pickford, because the news will go straight home.’
‘Have you told Frank? Because, really, Patience, you ought not to tell me things you keep from Frank. It puts me in a very difficult position.’
‘I have told Frank that Edgar has been foolish, got in with a rakish set of other young medical men, and has been gambling. I have not informed him, because I really am unable to do so, that Edgar came to me and asked me for money.’
‘Asked you?’ I cried.
‘Yes, because I have a little money of my own, left to me by my grandmother. She stipulated that, if I remained unmarried, it would be mine to dispose of at twenty-one. But if I became engaged to be married before then, and was over the age of eighteen, I should be allowed to put some of it towards the cost of my trousseau and setting up home. Her intention was that, even if my father’s business should fail and he become poor, my prospects would be protected. I should be able to be married in style. Well, Papa’s business didn’t fail. It has done very well. He is paying for my trousseau and all the costs of the wedding. Mrs Parry has also settled a handsome sum of money on Frank, in recognition of the fact that he is about to be married. My Uncle and Aunt Pickford have been generous in allowing me to live with them in Goodge Place and paying nearly all my expenses. So my sum of money has remained untouched. Edgar knows it.’
‘Really!’ I said angrily. ‘Edgar has no business to ask you. He should go to your father and make a clean breast of it! I am sure your father, though disappointed, would pay.’
‘Oh, yes, he would. And I told Edgar, when he came to ask me for money, to do exactly as you say. He should go to Papa and confess. I refused to give him any money because Frank and I may need it. It costs a lot to live in a suitable style for a Member of Parliament. We shall have to maintain two homes, one in the constituency and one here in London. Edgar said he would pay back any loan. But how ever could he? So, although I felt cruel and Edgar was disappointed, I refused.’
‘You did quite right, Patience’, I said. ‘I am relieved to hear it.’
‘After all, I know Papa would pay the money, if he must, and Frank wouldn’t be cast into some awful prison.’ Patience was anxious I should understand.
‘People are not so much imprisoned for debt now, Patience. It is not as it used to be twenty years ago,’ I consoled her.
‘It would still be a scandal and Bart’s might tell Edgar he must leave. “You have no choice, you must go to Papa!” That’s what I told Edgar. After all, any scandal in my family would reflect on Frank’s career.’
‘So, did Edgar take your advice and go to your father?’ I asked, without much hope.
‘No,’ said Patience. ‘He went to a moneylender. That paid his gaming debts, but now he is being pursued by the moneylender. Honestly, Lizzie, when I heard that, I could have— have thrown something at Edgar. We had a terrible quarrel. He said it was my fault, for not helping him out. I said it was his, because he gambled in the first place, and because he was too much the coward to go and confess to Papa. So we parted on very bad terms.’
There was a silence while I turned all this over and Patience sat watching me hopefully.
‘What do you think I can do?’ I asked bluntly at last.
Hope faded in Patience’s face. ‘You might have some ideas. You know about things. You live here in London. You are married to an inspector of police. I don’t know about anything!’
‘All right, Patience, here is my advice,’ I told her. ‘Although I dare say you will not like it. In the first place, you were right not to lend or give any money to Edgar yourself. It is certainly not what your grandmother intended in her will, and it would encourage Edgar to continue in a downward spiral. He cannot always be “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, as the saying goes. He will never be clear of debt, if that is what he tries. Things will get worse, because the moneylender will be charging interest.’
‘Yes, Edgar told me the interest on the original sum is mounting alarmingly,’ agreed Patience.
‘There is only one avenue he can take. He must go to your father. It will not be pleasant for him or for your parents. They are rightly proud of him for doing so well in his medical exams, and becoming a junior doctor at Bart’s, and it will be a shock to them. But your father will understand. Edgar is not the first young man to be led astray by wild companions. Your brother is ashamed and trying to hide it all from your parents. But he cannot. Either he must go to them and confess – or you must tell them.’
‘Oh, but I can’t!’ wailed Patience. ‘Edgar will say I’ve betrayed him!’
‘At the moment, Edgar is betraying everyone else. You have to do it, Patience. But, before you do, you must tell Frank all about it. You and he are to be married quite soon. It is no way to
start a marriage with a secret like this on your mind. What’s more, Frank’s career does leave him vulnerable to scandal. So it is vital this all be cleared up before you marry.’
‘You couldn’t tell Frank, I suppose, Lizzie?’ Patience asked in a very small voice. ‘Frank does think so highly of you.’
‘I am not the one about to marry Frank,’ I said firmly. (I fought back the memory of the occasion when Frank did ask me to marry him.) ‘You are. There must be trust between husband and wife, Patience. Frank is very understanding.’
‘Yes, Lizzie,’ said Patience dolefully.
‘And now,’ I said, getting to my feet and making toward the bell rope, ‘it is already getting dark. I shall summon Simms and have him go out and find a cab to take you back to Goodge Place. Have you sufficient money with you?’
‘Yes, Lizzie.’ Patience made an effort to regain some poise. ‘And in future I will take a cab when I come here from Goodge Place, I promise.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it because it will set Aunt Parry’s mind at rest. Oh, do make sure you always take a closed cab, a four-wheeler. Only fast women ride around unchaperoned in open-fronted hackney cabs.’
‘Do they?’ Diverted by this information, Patience brightened. ‘I shall look out for them! I don’t think I’ve ever met a fast woman.’
‘When you are going about in fashionable society, I am sure you will,’ I told her.
Chapter Four
Inspector Ben Ross
I ARRIVED at Scotland Yard the following morning with a guilty conscience. I had arrived home so late the previous evening, after my visit first to Cambridge and then to Deptford, that Lizzie had quite given up waiting for me and had gone to bed. It had, after all, been just on midnight. My dinner sat between two plates on the hob, keeping warm, but I had little energy to eat it. If I’d been hungry earlier, my hunger had worn off with tiredness. I crept into bed, trying not to disturb my wife. She muttered, ‘Ben?’ and I replied back, ‘Yes.’ And that was the sum of our conversation.
I had completely forgotten that Lizzie had spoken yesterday morning of going to visit her Aunt Parry in Dorset Square. It was not until Lizzie began to tell me, at breakfast this new day, about some diet or other Mrs Parry was on; and something about Miss Wellings, the girl Frank Carterton was to marry, that I remembered. But I was unable to disguise the blank look on my face and the conversation went no further.
It occurred to me, before I rushed out again, that Lizzie looked preoccupied. Then on my way to work I began to think that it was not so much preoccupied as offended. Perhaps she thought I neglected her? She never complains at the irregular hours I am obliged to keep. That evening, I decided, whatever happened during the day, whatever progress or lack of it, we might make into the Deptford murder, I would arrive home at an earlier hour and have some civilised conversation with my wife.
The road to Hell, the saying goes, is paved with Good Intentions.
My first task of the day was to send a message to Deptford, asking that they bring in Parker again for questioning. Following this, I had to make a necessary but unpleasant visit to the mortuary at St Thomas’s Hospital, where Dr Carmichael was to carry out a postmortem.
Carmichael is a surgeon of the old-fashioned school and had only recently been persuaded to accept new ideas about infection. The result was that the mortuary reeked of carbolic, and moisture from the spray that had dispensed it trickled down the tiled walls; so the atmosphere was not only pungent, but damp. It practically took my breath away and had me spluttering. At least it masked other noxious odours about the place. When I had mopped my watering eyes, and greeted the surgeon, I saw that scientific progress had not succeeded in parting Carmichael from his dissecting coat: an old and dirty frock coat. He was proud of that garment. Its stains were honourable, he had told me, a record of his career as good as any written account.
Nor had he been parted, I saw on arrival, from his assistant, Scully. Scully is a pale-faced creature with lank, long dark hair and pale protruding eyes. He stood nearby now wearing a long rubber apron. He had put out Carmichael’s instruments on a table and waited patiently to hand them to his master. His pallid features wore an oddly satisfied expression. Scully enjoyed his work.
‘I have examined the victim,’ said Carmichael briskly. ‘But only externally, you understand. However, I do not expect, when we begin the investigation proper of the body, to find anything to add to the conclusions I have already formed. She was severely beaten about the head with some heavy object. It could have been almost anything. You will need to find the murder weapon, so that some comparison can be made to the injury. There is no indication that she struggled. No other injuries, I mean, such as might have been inflicted if she had raised her arm to ward off the blows. No torn fingernails from scratching at her assailant.’
‘More than one blow, then?’ I asked.
‘Decidedly. A quite frenzied attack, and I would suggest she was taken by surprise.’
‘How old do you think her?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, not more than five and fifty. Perhaps not even that. She is a sturdy female, well nourished. She was not accustomed to manual work.’
Carmichael lifted one of the corpse’s stiff hands as much as he was able. ‘See here, the nails, as I have already mentioned, are undamaged. They are neatly shaped, the palms of the hands are smooth. But if you will look closer, Inspector Ross . . .’
Reluctantly I edged nearer to the table. I thought I saw Scully hide a grin and glared at him, but he had already turned aside and was fidgeting with the array of tools. I looked down on the victim. It is always a distasteful moment and any officer dislikes it. It evokes both horror and pity, for even the most fearsome bullyboy seems a poor, vulnerable creature laid out flat on a mortuary slab. The carbolic spray canister set up nearby still dispensed its droplets over the corpse so that the glistening skin looked like marble.
I saw her first last night, in the mud of Skinner’s Yard, I thought. But now I am meeting her for the first time. Last night she was only ‘a body’. Today she is the enigma of a human experience.
I had not been able to make her out clearly the previous evening. Now I saw that she was a stout person, with a round face, snub nose and skin marked by faint scars, probably from some childhood illness, such as chickenpox or measles. Her hair was reddish-brown, streaked with grey. It had been worn in a bun at the base of her skull, but events had loosened it and I could see that it was strong and coarse in texture. Well fed, I thought. Not a poor woman.
I turned my attention to her hand, held up by the surgeon.
‘There!’ declared Carmichael. ‘See there? These dark stains on the fingertips, and dark traces beneath the nail of the index finger on the right hand? Also, although there are no other calluses on the hand, there is a slight one here, just above the knuckle of the same finger, on the side, facing the thumb.’ Carmichael put down the hand. ‘Now then, Ross! What does that say to you?’
‘She was right-handed,’ I said.
Carmichael showed signs of impatience. He wanted more from me than that. The stains? They were bluish-black. But not bruises, I decided, so what else?
‘Ink?’ I suggested.
Thank goodness I was right. Carmichael was nodding. ‘Yes, ink. The hands always tell a lot about a person. So, she did not wash dishes or scrub floors. But she did a powerful amount of writing; enough to stain the finger almost indelibly and form this small callus. She worked with her pen, sir!’
‘Copying documents?’ I mused. ‘She would have to write quantities of private letters to stain a hand like that. But if she copied legal documents, for example, that might do it.’
‘Book-keeping!’ Carmichael voiced his own opinion in a decided manner. ‘Mark my words, Ross! You may depend upon it. You will find out that she kept a regular ledger, or more than one, probably to do with monies. You know, columns of figures.’
‘A counting house usually employs male clerks,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she helped
to run a small business? A shop?’
‘Well, you will find out, no doubt,’ said Carmichael, showing a cheering confidence in my abilities. ‘Now, the left hand . . .’
He moved round the table and lifted the left hand in order to demonstrate. ‘See here? The ring finger? The pressure mark? She normally wore a ring on this finger. I would guess a wedding band.’
‘We did not find it,’ I said. ‘I noticed that she wore no jewellery of any sort.’
‘The ears.’ Carmichael was moving towards the woman’s head and gently moved aside her hair. ‘Pierced to take earrings and the large nature of the holes suggest she habitually wore them.
‘But see here . . .’ Carmichael reached towards Sully, who promptly handed him a magnifying glass. ‘Look, both earlobes have some damage to the holes for jewellery, small tears. The earrings, I would suggest, were pulled out in haste.’
‘The body was robbed,’ I said. ‘I had expected as much.’ We would have to quiz Harry Parker closely.
‘I took a look at her clothing. It is over here, on this bench.’ Carmichael led me to a high bench against the far wall. He put a hand on the neatly folded pile.
It consisted of a dark-blue skirt and a matching fitted bodice, separately made. The light woollen cloth was of good quality, and of plain design. There were three narrow braid trims stitched around the hem of the skirt. The bodice had a simple lace collar and plain, cloth-covered buttons down the front. Chemise, corset, petticoat and drawers were of equally plain but fine cambric. She had not worn a crinoline. (My wife informs me this fashion is on its way out, not before time, in my opinion. But if you cannot afford to be changing your clothes with every season’s whim, you cling to the old.) I wondered if the absence of any crinoline meant this woman had been of a practical rather than a fashionable turn of mind. A folded pair of black lisle stockings and light but sensible shoes stood to one side. Two crumpled lengths of ribbon lay neatly stretched straight, side by side: her garters. I found the sight unexpectedly pathetic.