by Granger, Ann
‘My cab is waiting outside and we can go at once.’ I stood up.
At that moment the tea tray arrived, carried by a parlourmaid. She looked astonished at seeing us preparing to depart. Patience sent her and the tray back the kitchen where, no doubt, the girl would have a good story to tell of raised voices and arguments above stairs. If Edgar thought that, having let the genie out of the bottle, he could persuade it back in again, he was mistaken. What was more, it was only a matter of time – perhaps very little time – before the Pickfords got wind of dissension in their household, and demanded to know what was going on.
As for me, I knew I was already more tangled up in this than I wanted to be; but I had no idea how much worse it was about to become.
Chapter Five
Inspector Ben Ross
DEPTFORD, WHEN I reached it about two, had a subdued air about it. The little shops were all open and busy enough and the customers appeared respectable: housewives, for the most part, shopping for foodstuffs. The carousing seamen, who had given Phipps such trouble recently, were nowhere to be seen. They were either back aboard their vessels; or Phipps had them locked up in a police cell. Public houses had cleared the debris of the night before, and looked swept and clean. Last night’s roisterers were now sleeping off their excesses. New customers were beginning to arrive, but were, as yet, still sober and well behaved.
I passed the Clipper public house, where Raggy Jeb Fisher had heard the news of the murder. A brewer’s dray was drawn up outside, and the two magnificent shire horses waited patiently while the delivery was completed. Their coats shone with diligent brushing and the brass medallions fixed to the harness gleamed like gold. There was something of a competition between breweries to have the best turned-out teams.
The kegs of beer that had been unloaded were directed by a potman from the public house towards an open trapdoor in the pavement. Through this, the brawny draymen rolled the kegs down a ramp into the cellars. They crashed down into the depths with a tremendous rumble, as if a sudden thunderstorm had burst on a perfectly dry day. The drayhorses did not twitch so much as an ear.
An elderly man in a ragged coat, sporting a battered tarred hat such as sailors used commonly to wear, was searching patiently all around the frontage of the Clipper and in the gutters for cigar butts. Whatever he found, however small, he stowed away carefully in a cotton bag. When his bag was full, I knew, he would sell the contents to the makers of cheap cheroots. They would unpick the scavengings, dry out the tobacco, and reuse it. The old fellow even foraged among the hooves of the great horses, reaching under their bellies. They might occasionally turn their great heads towards him in mild curiosity, but otherwise were less troubled by his presence than by the flies that settled on their gleaming coats.
A few urchins ran about, and one or two old men stood talking together. In short, the area was looking its best, and its rough reputation unwarranted.
‘Wait until this evening!’ warned Morris, who had accompanied me, when I remarked on this.
I was curious to meet Inspector Phipps. He proved to be a middle-aged man of military appearance, standing very straight, with a fine sandy-coloured moustache. Otherwise his hair had receded to leave a polished dome of a head. What remained around the back and sides was also sandy in hue, with streaks of grey.
When we had shaken hands, he set forth a succinct account of the latest circumstances with the same military precision suggested by his bearing.
‘The witness, Harry Parker, is unfortunately not to be found this morning,’ he said. ‘I had already sent a constable to bring him in before I received your request. But he has flown the coop. Others in the house say he left his lodgings last night.’
‘To be expected, I suppose,’ I said with a sigh.
‘He’ll turn up again,’ said Phipps confidently, ‘unless he really does have something to hide. This is his natural haunt. He will be lost anywhere else. In the meantime, I have left word at the docks that, should he show his face there, I am to be informed. Sooner or later, he will need to earn some money.’
‘If he robbed the body and is successful in disposing of any valuables, he won’t be back until he’s spent his ill-gotten gains,’ I said.
‘I understand you have men visiting the pawnbrokers,’ said Phipps. ‘I have sent a man to seek out known handlers of stolen property. They have been told that if items are returned promptly, with information as to the person who brought them in, they will have done their duty, and need not fear arrest. Unfortunately we cannot be sure exactly what items are missing. However, they know there’s been a murder; and that is an incentive to them to be more helpful that they usually are.’ Phipps paused. ‘Though, frankly, I am not optimistic. The thief may decide to keep the items hidden until the hue and cry has died down.’
‘Or throw them in the river, if he thinks they’ll hang him,’ I said.
Phipps slapped hands together. ‘On the other hand,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I do have someone for you to interview and her information might prove important. It is a young woman, a maidservant. She came in about half an hour ago to report her employer missing. The informant’s name is Britannia Scroggs. The employer is a Mrs Clifford; and Scroggs last saw her yesterday, early evening around half past six. In view of the victim being female, I thought you’d want to talk to the girl. We have her in our interview room. We have taken a basic report.’ Phipps produced a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
I read the report through quickly. It was very basic indeed. Phipps had no intention of doing Scotland Yard’s job for them.
Britannia Scroggs, aged twenty-three, stated a Mrs Stefanie Clifford employed her as cook-housemaid. Mrs Clifford was a widow and Britannia ‘lived in’, her room being in the attic. She rose early and Mrs Clifford some time later. However, her employer was generally downstairs by half past eight. But this morning Mrs Clifford still had not shown herself at ten o’clock. By then, the maid was beginning to fear her employer was sick. Britannia had gone to Mrs Clifford’s bedroom and knocked on the door. Receiving no answer, she’d looked into the room and found that the bed had not been slept in. She had eventually come to the police station to voice her concerns.
‘I should certainly like to talk to her,’ I told Phipps.
Britannia Scroggs was a pasty-faced young woman in a brown dress and a dark-green crocheted woollen shawl. What could be seen of her hair beneath an old-fashioned bonnet appeared to be fair. She looked older than her twenty-three years and her eyes held the wary expression of the London poor, mixed with defensive belligerence. Yet she did not seem displeased to see me. I suspected she was enjoying a moment of being the centre of attention in her downtrodden life. Mindful of Carmichael’s observation that hands could tell the observer a good deal, I glanced at the maid’s. They were already work-worn, and the distorted knuckles suggested rheumatism might be setting in. If that happened, Britannia would not be able to work. I felt a spasm of pity for her. She had probably toiled since childhood.
‘Well, now, Miss Scroggs,’ I said encouragingly, ‘tell me about your employer, Mrs Clifford.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Britannia bluntly.
When she moved her lips to speak, I caught a glimpse of a chipped front tooth.
‘I understand from the statement you made earlier at the police station that you realised she was missing at ten o’clock this morning.’
‘Didn’t come down to breakfast,’ said Britannia, nodding. ‘Generally half past eight, she’s there at the table and I serve up two lightly boiled eggs and four slices of toast.’
The chipped tooth, flashing in and out of sight as she spoke, was distracting to the eye. I concentrated harder to make up for it.
‘Lightly boiled eggs . . .’ I mused. ‘So, you cannot prepare the breakfast until she actually comes downstairs.’
‘Of course not’, said Britannia impatiently. ‘Or the eggs would be as hard as rocks, wouldn’t they? Gone cold, too.’
I sensed there wa
s a strict routine to Mrs Clifford’s household and it would be useful to know it. ‘What time did she lunch?’
‘Lunch?’ Britannia snorted. ‘She doesn’t eat fancy like gentry. She eats her proper dinner at half past twelve, in the old-fashioned way. Generally boiled beef and carrots, or beefsteak pudding or, on Friday, a bit of fish. She’s also partial to tripe and onions. What’s this got to do with it?’
I ignored her indignation and prompted, ‘And in the evening?’
‘Evening? Six o’clock sharp I take in the tea tray to the parlour, toast again or muffins, if the man comes round selling them. Half past six, I go back in to fetch out the tray and take it to the kitchen to wash up the crockery. Then I’m finished for the day.’
‘Do you go out of an evening?’
‘I don’t go round the pubs, if that’s what you mean!’ snapped Britannia. ‘I can’t afford it, I’m too tired, and anyway, Ma sent us all to the Methodist Sunday school when we was kids. No drink, no gambling, no bad language – that’s what they taught us, or you to straight down to hell.’
‘I see,’ I said, impressed by the warlike glint in her eye, and hoping she was not going to demand that I sign the Pledge. ‘So, what do you do, after work?’
‘I mends me clothes or washes me hair,’ said Britannia, after some thought. ‘Once a week I goes to visit Ma. Generally I get into bed early and fall asleep. I get up at half past five of the morning, you know. Mrs Clifford likes the house all straight, dusted and polished before she comes down to breakfast. That’s so I don’t disturb her later. Anyway, last night I never went out.’
‘Right,’ I said, coming back to recent events. ‘When Mrs Clifford didn’t appear at the normal time, at ten you went to see what was wrong.’
‘Well,’ said Britannia, ‘I thought she might be ill. Until I knew, one way or another, whether she was coming downstairs, I couldn’t get on with my work. I needed to know what she wanted for dinner. I’d have to go out to the butcher, if it was meat. I knocked and she didn’t answer, so I opened the door a crack and just peeped in, you know. I could see straight away the bed was all made up, never slept in, if you ask me. But I thought she might have gone out for something. You know, made up the bed herself although she didn’t do that usually. That’s what she pays me for, ain’t it?’
‘But you hadn’t heard her.’
‘No, so I went to look in the cupboard, to see if she’d taken her cape and boots. But they were still there. The cape is a wool one, dark blue, and she always wears it in winter. It’s got velvet ribbon stitched round it, really nice. She’s got a bonnet goes with it, small, sits on top of her head, tied with ribbons. That was on the shelf and the boots was on the floor of the cupboard, so she hadn’t gone out!’ concluded the maid triumphantly.
‘What time was it by then?’ I asked. The maid said she thought probably about a quarter to eleven. ‘But,’ I said, ‘you did not come to report her missing until half an hour ago, so Inspector Phipps tells me.’
‘She might’ve come back, right? I had to wait a bit.’ Britannia clenched her fists and burst out fiercely, ‘You’ve got to understand! Mrs Clifford is a very private person. She don’t like anyone knowing her business. I daren’t even go and ask the neighbours if they’d seen her, because it would have started some gossip. If she’d come back, and found I’d done that, she’d have skinned me alive!’
‘So, what changed your mind, Miss Scroggs?’ I asked her.
‘The hearthrug,’ said Britannia. ‘When I went into the parlour to straighten up, same as usual, I noticed the hearthrug was in the wrong place. I thought she must have moved it but I still thought it was a funny place because it was in the middle of the floor, on top of the big Turkey carpet in there.’
‘Where should it have been?’ I asked foolishly.
Britannia gave me a withering look. ‘In front of the fire, where d’you think? Anyway, I thought I’d ask Mrs Clifford, when I saw her, why she’d moved it. But when I hadn’t seen her, I began thinking again. First I wondered if she’d left me a note, in the parlour, and I hadn’t noticed it. So I went back in. No note, but there was that rug in the wrong place and it really annoyed me, you know? It’s a rag rug and it looked odd, stuck in the middle of the floor. Because the Turkey carpet is a really nice one, so why would she want to go covering up the middle of it with a rag rug?’ She paused and glared at me.
I realised I was supposed to indicate I followed her reasoning. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said.
Britannia nodded acknowledgment that I was keeping up. ‘So, I decided I’d move it back where it should be. I was thinking that today everything was out of sorts. I didn’t know where she was, her breakfast eggs were still sitting in a bowl out in the kitchen and now it was nearly dinner time and I didn’t know what I was supposed to cook for her dinner. So I thought to meself, right, my girl! At least you can put that rug back where it should be.
‘So, I rolled it up, to be easier to carry over to the fireplace. Then I saw that, underneath it, there was a big damp stain on the Turkey carpet. I thought, she must have spilled tea, the evening before, only I hadn’t noticed it when I’d gone to fetch the tray and she hadn’t said nothing. Well, the Turkey carpet is patterned all over, mixed-up colours, so I couldn’t have said for sure it was tea, but I thought it. I went out to the kitchen and got a bowl of water and a clean rag, come back to the parlour and got down on me knees to try and clean it up. Only it wasn’t tea, because the rag was stained a rusty-red colour straight off and had a smell to it. It was blood.’
‘What?’ I shouted, jumping up. ‘Are you sure? For goodness’ sake, girl, why didn’t you tell us this straight away?’
‘I’m telling you things the way they happened,’ said Miss Scroggs primly, ‘like I tried to tell them here when I came first. Only I didn’t get a chance, did I? As soon as I started telling ’em about her being missing, that other inspector with the moustache, he said perhaps I should be telling my story to a plain-clothes inspector, who was on his way over here from Scotland Yard. “You must give all the details to him,” he says. “He will be here directly.”’ Britannia managed a fair imitation of Phipps’s manner and speech. ‘That would be you, wouldn’t it?’ she demanded unexpectedly.
I nodded, silenced for a moment by her complete confidence.
‘So I didn’t have to wait long, did I? Because here you are. Anyway, once I saw it was blood – and I do recognise blood when I see and smell it, thank you! – once I saw that, I took another good look round. One of the brass fire-irons is missing too, from the companion set. The poker,’ concluded Britannia. She sat back, her work-worn hands folded in her lap, and looked at me in triumph.
After that, we all returned to the Clifford house en masse. With Sergeant Morris and myself came Inspector Phipps. He was clearly seething. I guessed he felt he had ‘lost face’ as the Chinese say, in not finding out about the bloodstains on the carpet. He had previously passed the case to the Yard and had been resolutely refusing to know about it. But now, in the light of Britannia’s revelations, he’d decided he wanted to be part of the investigation. He had brought along Constable Barrett. We marched down the road, led by a grumbling Britannia Scroggs.
‘Look at us all!’ she accused us. ‘Like a blooming parade! What’ll the neighbours make of it? Bring along a brass band, why didn’t you?’
The house, like its brethren in the terrace, was in the plain but pleasing style of the Regency, brick built then stuccoed and whitewashed. The terrace would have been built early in the century as homes for respectable artisans and aspiring clerks. Many would have been employed in the naval dockyard. The black-painted front door was reached via a well-scrubbed and whitened pair of stone steps, doubtless Britannia’s work. The gleaming brass knocker also bore witness to her energetic polishing skills. Above the door a projecting ledge, supported by fat stone cherubs, shielded callers from the rain. The house was narrow but tall. The main parlour window was to the left of the entrance. On the floor a
bove a pair of sash windows indicated the rooms behind and, above them, a dormer window projected from the steep, tiled roof, indicating Britannia’s bedroom in the attic.
‘Hm,’ observed Phipps, studying the exterior, ‘does Mrs Clifford rent this?’
‘No, she owns it,’ said Britannia. As she spoke, a curtain twitched at the parlour window of the house next door. Britannia produced a key. ‘Come on,’ she said impatiently, ‘everyone’s gawping at us. Come inside.’
We all squeezed into the narrow hallway with the exception of Constable Barrett, who was left outside to deflect inquiries.
This did not please Miss Scroggs. ‘What do you want to leave that bluebottle out there for everyone to see?’
She led us into the parlour and we could see for ourselves the ominous stain on the carpet. Britannia produced the rag and bowl of water she had used when trying to clean the damage away. The water in the bowl was an unpleasant brownish-orange shade and the blood had dried on the rag. Phipps and I exchanged glances.
‘Miss Scroggs,’ I said to her, ‘do you know of any relatives of Mrs Clifford? What about her husband?’
‘Never heard her mention him,’ said Britannia. ‘He might’ve died, or he might’ve run off, like some of them do. Leastways, she’s never said a word about him.’
I looked around the parlour. Mrs Clifford did not follow the current fashion for cluttering up the place with knick-knacks, potted plants and antimacassars. There were no pictures on the walls other than a small framed sampler reading ‘Be Wise Today’ and with a border of cornflowers. There was a mirror above the hearth and a pair of china dogs on the mantelshelf, together with a hideous black marble clock with brass pillars. There wasn’t a cushion anywhere. I had seen convent parlours more comfortably furnished. Struck by the absence of photographic portraits, I asked Britannia if there were any of Mr Clifford elsewhere about the house.