The Dead Woman of Deptford: Inspector Ben Ross mystery 6

by Granger, Ann

  ‘Of course, you are right, Sergeant,’ I agreed. ‘But someone has been trailing us around London, either in person or using a street urchin. I believe every move we’ve made has been observed by, or reported to, that person. It is the same person whom Parker feared so much; who watched Midge’s house the night of our visit; someone everyone is reluctant to speak of, even a tough fellow like Jethro Smith. Remember, too, the man’s shirt you observed dripping on the old woman’s washing line. He has been there all the time, Morris, and I am determine we’ll meet him face to face!’

  Our arrival, and by cab, caused a stir around the cottage where Ma Scroggs lived and something of a crowd, including the usual small boys, gathered around us as we descended. I went to pay the cabbie and saw he was looking around him nervously. He snatched the money from my hand. My request for a receipt was met with a scowl.

  ‘I don’t want to hang about here,’ he said. ‘So don’t go asking me to wait for you. I don’t like the look of those brats. Like as not, they will start throwing stones at the horse’s legs.’

  ‘I must have a receipt,’ I said sternly. ‘Our business is official.’

  He drew a stub of pencil and a crumpled piece of paper from his greatcoat pocket and scribbled on it. ‘Good luck to you, if you mean to arrest anyone in there. This lot will start throwing stones at you!’

  He was probably right but a faint heart would not save us now. ‘Come along, Sergeant,’ I said briskly to Morris and we marched into the building.

  Obviously, the interest outside had warned anyone indoors that we were on our way. Billy Scroggs, if he had been here, had now had ample time to scuttle out some back exit and make off into the maze of lanes. But we threw open the door in determined fashion and entered.

  There was no wet wash strung across the room; but it was in a disordered and unswept state. There was a smell in the air I couldn’t for the moment place although it seemed familiar. Not wet laundry; yet something damp and fetid. I had smelled it the last time I’d been here.

  Both women were there – but, as I’d feared, no one else. Despite the fact that both mother and daughter had been alerted by the commotion outside, both chose to scream.

  ‘Oh, my dear Lord!’ cried Ma Scroggs. ‘Whatever is it? I do believe it is that there p’lice sergeant as came before with you, Tanny, and frightened me half to death.’

  ‘It’s him all right, Ma,’ confirmed Britannia, belligerent as ever. ‘And he was too scared to come on his own.. He’s brought the inspector with him!’

  ‘Good day to you both,’ I said. ‘You remember me, Mrs Scroggs? I am Inspector Ross.’

  ‘I remember you,’ retorted Ma Scroggs, taking her grimy apron by the corner and wiping it over her face. ‘Not likely to forget you, am I? Or the other fellow. Why don’t you lot leave my girl alone?’

  ‘We have not come here seeking your daughter, Mrs Scroggs. Where is your son, Billy?’

  Both women gaped at me and this time the reaction was genuine. Even Britannia was silenced for a moment. Then the volcano erupted.

  ‘Billy?’ shrieked Ma Scroggs. ‘Oh, my poor dead son! It’s not enough that they come tormenting the living, but these rozzers have come seeking the dead!’

  ‘We have reason to believe your son, Billy, is alive,’ I told her sternly.

  ‘Oh? Have you?’ shouted Britannia. ‘Well, we don’t, do we, Ma? He left this house when he was a boy, not fifteen, was he, Ma? Left here and never seen again in more than twenty years. If you want to speak to my brother, Billy, you’ll have to ask the Angel to blow his trumpet and summon him up from the dead.’

  ‘Not fifteen,’ agreed Ma Scroggs and burst into tears. ‘Oh, it’s too much! I shan’t be able to bear it, indeed I won’t.’ She clasped a hand to the bosom of her dingy gown. ‘My heart is going like a steam train, I swear. It will burst! I will drop down dead on this very floor! Tanny, just help me over to that chair, my pet.’

  Britannia did look slightly startled at being addressed so affectionately; by the parent who had refused at first to take her in. However, she rallied to play her part. She threw her brawny arm around the old woman’s shoulder and guided her to the chair. Ma Scroggs dropped into it in a heap of crumpled garments and tangled grey locks. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock back and forth.

  ‘Oh, my, it’s too cruel, it is, I swear. Seven children I had . . . seven of you there was, weren’t there, Tanny?’

  ‘Seven of us!’ snapped Britannia, glaring at us. ‘And now she’s only got me, ain’t you, Ma?’

  ‘Only my dear girl here,’ confirmed her mother. ‘This here is my one child left to me out of seven, who has looked after me and kept me from the work’us.’

  ‘And how am I going to do that now?’ demanded Britannia. ‘With you p’lice turning up at every place I work and putting the frighteners on anyone wanting to employ me?’

  ‘Burst into my own home without so much as a by-your-leave,’ lamented Ma Scroggs. ‘Come here and ask to see my poor dead boy. Oh, he was the first to go, wasn’t, he, Tanny? He signed on as cabin boy when he wasn’t fifteen. Oh, he was so young to go sailing off to foreign parts and be among savages, as very likely ate him.’

  Morris had had enough. ‘Don’t talk rubbish!’ he growled. ‘Of course he wasn’t eaten by cannibals!’

  ‘They has cannibals in some places,’ insisted Ma Scroggs. ‘They eat missionaries, so why wouldn’t they eat my poor boy? And if it wasn’t head-hunters got him, then he perished in some awful storm. Shipwrecked and drowned. Or he might have got a fever. Anyhow, my poor son is dead and gone and I know it.’

  ‘You were officially informed of his death?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course we weren’t!’ snapped Britannia. ‘He wasn’t in the Royal Navy. He was aboard a merchant vessel.’

  ‘Then we can research its fate by consulting Lloyd’s List,’ I told them. ‘What was the name of the ship? If it went down with all hands, its loss will be recorded there.’

  They replied promptly and in unison.

  ‘I forgot!’ said Ma Scroggs.

  ‘I never knew it,’ said Britannia. ‘I was only a kid myself when he left.’

  ‘I know my poor son is dead,’ declared Ma Scroggs magnificently, ‘because I am a mother!’ She sat up straight in the chair and struck her fist against her heart. ‘Here, that’s where I know it! If he had lived, he’d have come back to see us when he returned to port. He’d have let us know somehow he was well. He’d have written. He could write. I sent all my children to Methodist Sunday School, didn’t I, Tanny? And you all learned your letters there and to read your Bibles.’

  ‘And do you still read your Bible, Miss Scroggs?’ I couldn’t help but ask.

  For once, Britannia looked briefly disconcerted. Then she rallied. ‘When have I got time to read anything? I work my fingers to the bone, don’t I?’ She held up her distorted hands.

  I admit to a feeling of shame for the moment. But I quelled it. ‘See here, Britannia,’ I said to her. ‘We suspect that your brother is alive and is – or was until very recently – in London. We suspect he came to see you at Mrs Clifford’s house and you let him in. He set about robbing the house, either with or without your prior knowledge. He was disturbed by Mrs Clifford, and killed her.’

  ‘Oh, the wickedness of it . . .’ whispered Ma Scroggs and did turn so pale I was worried she might pass out.

  But Britannia’s reaction to my accusation was quite different. ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Well, you must be desperate, Mr Inspector Ross, that’s all I can say. Can’t you find no one else? What about that young fancy fellow that came calling on Mrs Clifford that evening, what about him, eh? He admits he was there, doesn’t he? He owed her money, didn’t he? He and her had a yelling match, didn’t they? Why don’t you go and arrest him, eh? Go on, lock him up! But you don’t, do you? Because he’s got airs and graces, and friends you don’t want to offend, I dare say. So you’re looking around for so
meone else. Well, don’t come harassing a respectable poor working woman and an old lady who has lost all her children, excepting the one, and lives like this!’ She flung a hand out to indicate the poverty-stricken surroundings. ‘We haven’t even got the money to buy food or firewood or coals. If I’d robbed a house, I’d have money.’

  I gambled a last throw of the dice. ‘We think the earrings, Mrs Clifford’s earrings, have turned up.’

  Britannia narrowed her eyes. ‘What, them ruby ones what I drew for you?’

  ‘Some earrings identical to the ones you sketched for us – but sapphires. You are sure Mrs Clifford’s earrings were rubies?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ snarled Britannia at me. ‘I ain’t an idiot!’

  During all this exchange, Morris had been moving slowly and methodically around the room. Now he came back to stand beside me. ‘First time I was here,’ he said to Britannia, ‘there was a cooking pot on a trivet over there, in the hearth. I don’t know what your mother was cooking but it smelled something awful.’

  ‘She couldn’t afford best cut of beef,’ said Britannia sourly. ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘I expected to see the pot and trivet still in place,’ said Morris calmly. ‘But I see it’s gone.’

  ‘We had to sell it,’ said Ma Scroggs sadly from the chair. ‘I couldn’t afford to buy nothing to put in it and it was a good iron pot. I got four shillings for it.’

  We could do no more here for the moment. Morris had been right to have misgivings. We had been indeed tossing pebbles in the air; and they had fallen badly for us.

  The crowd outside had waited to see what would happen. When we emerged, they jeered and followed us to the end of the road, shouting abuse all the way.

  When we were finally free of them, I asked Morris, ‘What was that about the cooking pot?’

  ‘It wasn’t there,’ said Morris simply. ‘It could be that they had to sell it. They’ve got precious little else to sell. It’s just that, Mr Ross, I can’t put the smell of that meat, or whatever it was, out of my mind. It really stank. I thought at the time, I couldn’t imagine eating it.’ Morris sighed. ‘Sorry, sir, but I think I missed something there.’

  ‘In what way, Morris?’

  ‘If they had something to hide, sir, something small – say jewellery – or even a packet of a papers, like those missing IOUs, if it was well wrapped in an oilskin cloth . . .’

  ‘They could have put it in the bottom of the cooking pot and then stewed something so disgusting on top of it, that a policeman might not investigate.’ I slapped my hands together. ‘Confound it, you may be right, Morris!’

  ‘I missed it, sir, I missed it on my first visit,’ said Morris gloomily. ‘I should’ve asked them to tip it all out.’

  ‘You had no search warrant from a magistrate, Sergeant. You only went there to take Britannia to her mother. You could hardly have asked them to volunteer to throw away their dinner, on the grounds it was unappetising and smelled foul.’

  But Morris was not to be consoled. ‘I missed it,’ he repeated. ‘Billy was there and gave the loot to his mother to hide. I saw him leave with my own eyes! I should have stopped that fellow and asked him why he was so shy.’

  ‘Well, we missed him again today, I fancy,’ I said. ‘We are a good quarter of a mile from the river here, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Easily, sir,’ agreed Morris. ‘Nearer half a mile, I’d reckon.’

  ‘Yet there was an odour of Thames mud in the place. Perhaps not as bad as the stench of the stew you spoke of, but bad-smelling and pervasive, all the same. He was there, Morris, just before us. He heard us arrive and he fled, but he left the odour of Father Thames behind him; a man who lives on or near the river. Deckhand Billy Scroggs, visiting his sister and dear old ma, I’d wager my last penny on it!’

  When we returned to the Yard, we found that officers sent to look for the man who had given the seamen’s hostel as an address to Mrs Smart had had no more luck than us. The sailor who brought in the earrings had given the name of Jones. Not surprisingly, there was no Jones in the register at the hostel, nor, for that matter, had anyone registered in the name of Scroggs. The man who ran the place had obligingly turned back the pages for the whole of the previous month, but no Jones or Scroggs graced the page. Well, that was no surprise. The hostel was run by a charity, dedicated to the welfare of seafarers. The register had probably been an accurate record.

  ‘We should not be surprised sir,’ I said to Dunn. ‘The customer gave that address to Mrs Smart because she could see he was a seaman; and he knew she’d recognise the name of a well-known hostel. As hostels go, it’s respectable. Mrs Smart would have been encouraged. Wherever he was staying in London, it was somewhere else.’

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Ben came home that evening more depressed than I had seen him about a case in a long time. When Bessie had cleared the dinner dishes, Ben and I sat before the parlour fire. From the kitchen came the noise of Bessie clashing the crockery together. Ben was staring moodily into the flames. He was tired, I could see that, and angry, and above all frustrated that he could make no progress. From time to time he rubbed a hand over his forehead, tousling up his hair. It was still as black as ever without a sign of grey. Perhaps, I thought, he will be one of those lucky people whose hair never whitens, only fades to a duller shade.

  I said, only to break his introspection, ‘It’s a wonder we have an unchipped plate left.’

  ‘What?’ he raised his eyes to my face and frowned.

  ‘Bessie is washing up,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, is that what she is doing? I thought she was practising juggling with the dishes.’ After a pause, he said, ‘Fairgrounds.’

  ‘What about fairgrounds?’ I asked. ‘I don’t think Bessie is intending to run away and join the circus.’

  ‘Morris was speaking of fairgrounds this afternoon. He said we were like the fortune tellers you sometimes see in such places, reading the future from cards, or casting pebbles or, Morris’s favourite, ivory sticks.’

  ‘You are no further forward?’

  ‘Not a jot. Every step of progress we make is almost immediately reversed.’ He leaned forward, his hands loosely clasped. ‘Listen, Lizzie, perhaps you can untangle some of this puzzle.’

  ‘I can try.’ I could not help adding demurely, ‘If you think Superintendent Dunn would not mind.’

  ‘Don’t tease me, Lizzie, I beg of you! I was never more serious about a case in my life. Yet, this is not a victim one can pity. She was a hard woman plying a heartless trade of usury. But Mrs Clifford lived in a city we like to think we police, and keep safe. She should not have been battered to death in her own home, or left in that dismal, dirty yard. But she was; and so far we have been able to do nothing about it.’

  ‘And that is what troubles you? Professional pride?’

  ‘That and the sense that I am being made a fool of.’ Ben went on to describe the visit he and Morris had paid to Mrs Scroggs and her daughter. ‘I cannot understand Britannia Scroggs, Lizzie, that’s the heart of it! I feel sure she has told a pack of lies. No, that’s not correct. I think she only lies when necessary. Otherwise she has twisted the truth. I believe she has misled us, taking us down all sorts of alleys and by-ways. What evidence we have comes to us largely courtesy of Britannia, what she reported – beginning with the disappearance of her employer and the discovery of blood on the carpet – and the detailed drawings she made of missing items of jewellery. She is apparently very helpful. Yet, when we examine it, that evidence is not what it seems.

  ‘When we think we have some of the missing items, the earrings, they cannot be the same earrings, because the ones we have are set with sapphires and the ones Mrs Clifford wore, says Britannia, were rubies. She insists she knows the difference between the two. But if she meant to mislead us, by describing the wrong stones, why make such a detailed, and apparently accurate, drawing of the settings?’

  ‘I remember you telling me of that,�
� I told him. I sat for a moment puzzling it through. ‘Ben, didn’t Britannia say she had practised drawing at Sunday School, creating religious pictures using wax crayons?’

  Ben gave an unwilling smile. ‘Yes, she was very proud of having been told by the teacher that she had “an eye”.’

  ‘She is not pretty, I think? No, she isn’t, for I saw her myself briefly at the house.’

  ‘Not pretty at all. If she ever had a sort of girlish charm, it’s long gone. Hard work, I suppose. Her hands are swollen and the joints distorted from so many years scrubbing floors, washing dishes . . .’ Ben paused. ‘Lizzie, I would not wish our Bessie to finish up like that. It is a wretched life.’ He looked worried.

  ‘I do help Bessie in the kitchen. No, Ben, what I want to say is, I don’t suppose Britannia ever received much praise in her life. She has no looks, no particular skills, no chance to improve herself. But once, when she was a child, a Sunday School instructor praised her drawing talent. She has savoured that praise ever since. Believe me, I am sure of it.’

  Ben was listening carefully, his dark eyes fixed on my face. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yet, even if she does have that one skill, she has never since those childhood afternoons at Sunday School had the chance to repeat her little triumph. No one since had ever asked her to draw a picture until you did. She could not resist drawing the earrings as accurately as she could. It was a point of pride with her, do you see? To show you she still has “an eye”.’

  ‘I do understand that,’ he said. ‘But why, then, make such a stupid error as to describe blue stones as red ones? Just to confuse us? It is a clumsy lie, if so, and Britannia, to use Morris’s description of her, is as artful as a cartload of monkeys.’

  ‘Ben, you saw Mrs Clifford’s clothing at the morgue, didn’t you? What colour was her dress?’

  ‘She’d worn a skirt and fitted bodice, both dark blue.’