The Dead Woman of Deptford: Inspector Ben Ross mystery 6

by Granger, Ann

  ‘Britannia had to stay in the house. There was nowhere she could run to! But there was a slim chance Billy might yet find a place as crew and escape. So they concocted a plan and, I must say, it was a clever one. I wonder which of them thought it up? Billy is not a thinker. Britannia, on the other hand, has a hard head and a quick brain. The money and the IOU’s went to her mother’s hovel where, as Morris suspected too late, they were hidden beneath a foul-smelling stew. The cashbox went into the river with the murder weapon. Father Thames has received many objects into his watery bosom throughout history! The IOU’s were moved from Ma Scroggs’s home when the police showed a disconcerting habit of turning up at the door. We were just in time at the old chandlery to prevent Raggy Jeb’s daughter burning the lot completely.’

  ‘There is little to be said in her defence,’ said Lizzie with a sigh.

  I sought to cheer her, since Britannia’s fate seemed to worry my wife. ‘She has turned Queen’s Evidence. Now she realises her brother is going to hang, she’s laying everything she can at his door. Possibly she will get away with a lengthy prison sentence. I only hope she has the sense, when the trial takes place, to show remorse. It won’t come naturally to her. In her conversations with me the only regret she’s expressed was that there was less money in the house than she and her brother had expected. That wouldn’t go down well with a jury. But if she can manage to look as if she’s repented; and if the jury takes account of the fact that she was under the influence of her brother; and her desperation at the thought of losing her place as maid because of the advancing rheumatism in her hands . . . She might escape the death penalty.

  ‘If you have pity for anyone; save it for Raggy Jeb Fisher. He knew nothing of the robbery until Scroggs came to fetch him to move the body. Unfortunately, his ignorance may not save him from the gallows. Fisher recognised me as a police officer that same evening. He couldn’t resist asking about the murder.

  ‘The other thing that went wrong for the villains was that Harry Parker saw them and was curious. He followed them, discovered the body and, in his flight, cannoned into Constable Barrett. They had not thought the body would be discovered so quickly.

  ‘Mind you, they had a bit of luck, too. Edgar Wellings, accompanied by you and his sister, obligingly turned up at the door the following day while the police were at the house. Fate must have appeared to be smiling on the Scroggs siblings. Britannia was able to point him out to us as a likely suspect. You know, Lizzie, young Wellings has been very lucky to escape standing in the dock on a charge of murder himself! I think Superintendent Dunn has impressed that on him.’

  ‘The child, Sukey,’ said Lizzie sadly, ‘she and her brother and mother will all end up in the workhouse, I suppose. Old Mrs Scroggs, too.’

  ‘It probably can’t be avoided, at least, as far as the old woman is concerned. The children’s mother may find some way of keeping herself and her children from going on the parish.’ I paused. ‘It is the way of the world, Lizzie, that the innocent suffer from the wrongdoing of the guilty.’

  Lizzie sighed. Then, making an effort to brighten the mood, said, ‘Frank and Patience are to be married in the spring.’

  I groaned. ‘I never want to see eyes on that young fellow again!’

  ‘It cannot be avoided. You will need a new coat for the wedding.’

  I groaned again.

  ‘Edgar Wellings is not to stay in London.’

  ‘Well,’ I told her, ‘that, at least, is good news!’

  ‘Bart’s told him they didn’t want him back. But his family has insisted he return home, anyway. They wouldn’t hear of his remaining so far away from them. They want to know what he is doing. He has been found a place as a junior doctor in a local hospital, in their town. I think Frank may have had some influence there. Frank was anxious to remove Edgar from London, too.’

  ‘Lizzie,’ I said, ‘if the Wellings family imagine that Edgar will not get into trouble in his hometown, they will be sadly disillusioned. Can you imagine that young dandy being satisfied with toiling on the wards of a provincial hospital? Or, when he is not working, be content with the limited entertainment available? To say nothing of living in a town where everyone will know who he is! He will be recognised and his comings and goings reported back to his parents. The family will also be watching him like a hawk. He will not last there above a year; and then he will be off and getting into trouble somewhere else, mark my words! But, so long as it is not here in London, I don’t have to worry about it.’

  ‘You are right, of course,’ said my wife. ‘But I do worry a little, all the same, because whatever Edgar may do in the future, it will affect Frank and Patience.’

  I leaned forward and took her hands. ‘Lizzie, my dearest, if there is one person in the world you don’t have to worry about, it is Frank Carterton. Edgar may be the sort who will always get into scrapes and have to be helped out. Frank, I am convinced, is a born survivor.’

  Lizzie looked at me, her gaze sombre. ‘And you, Ben? That man could so easily have killed you. Or he might have injured you so severely you could no longer work as a police officer.’

  ‘You would send me back down the pit, would you?’ I asked. It was a poor joke but I wanted to lighten her mood.

  ‘Don’t be foolish!’ she said sharply.

  ‘Then there is only one thing for it,’ I gasped out. I had been talking too much and my throat now felt as if Billy Scroggs still had his hands clamped round it. ‘I shall have to work even harder and get promoted. If I can ever make superintendent,’ I whispered, ‘I shall be able to sit at a desk like Dunn and criticise fellows like me who must take care of the donkey work.’ I remembered to add, ‘Ably assisted by you, my dear, of course!’

  Then my voice gave out completely. But my wife looked satisfied.