Gallows Court

by Martin Edwards

  *

  ‘Forgive me for calling upon you unannounced, my dear,’ Gabriel Hannaway said in a croaky wheeze. ‘I have business in the vicinity, and the thought of you cooped up here on your own pricked my conscience. I have been remiss. I owe it to your late father to make sure that, after so many years cut off from the world on Gaunt, you are settling happily into London life.’

  Rachel smiled, entertained by the notion that Gabriel Hannaway possessed a conscience.

  ‘You are very kind,’ she murmured. ‘But I enjoy my own company, and the Truemans and Martha cater to all my needs.’

  Hannaway had been the Judge’s confidant and personal legal adviser. She’d first met him on one of his rare visits to Gaunt, a shrivelled little man who might have worn the same black frock coat for the past forty years. Advancing years and the ravages of emphysema had done nothing to enhance his charms. His skin, a shade not quite yellow and yet not quite brown, had been leathery and wrinkled for as long as she could remember. His small black eyes danced around as if in constant search of means of escape – or legal loopholes. He reminded her of a malevolent reptile, a sharp-toothed iguana that skulked in cracks under desert boulders, tiny snout sniffing the air to seek out prey before it pounced.

  ‘A fine-looking young lady like you deserves better than the company of servants.’ His false teeth clicked in disapproval. ‘I reproach myself for having seen you only once since your arrival in the city, but my failure is not for want of trying.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m irredeemably unsociable. I’m happiest when solving an acrostic, or doing battle with Torquemada’s fiendish crosswords, with the latest gramophone record for company. I’m especially fond of the modern American music.’ She gave an innocent smile. ‘Do you care for “Makin’ Whoopee”?’

  Hannaway snorted. ‘Jazz, is it? Whatever that word means. Utter tripe, my dear!’

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, the lawyer faltered. ‘Really… puzzle games and recorded music are all very well for the halt and the lame, but we cannot have you mouldering away with such solitary pastimes. May I repeat the invitation to come and dine with Vincent and me?’

  He paused, but Rachel said nothing. ‘The two of you will get along famously. Who knows where such a friendship might lead? My son certainly admires a woman with spirit.’

  ‘How very civil of him.’

  ‘A rich young girl, recently arrived in an unfamiliar city, is easy prey for adventurers seeking to take advantage of her trusting nature. It is always wise to grasp a helping hand proffered by a trusted friend.’

  ‘On Gaunt, I learned to look after myself,’ she said. ‘I’m not entirely feeble.’

  The iguana eyes flickered. ‘Please do not take offence, my dear. I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. Another reminder that it is time for me to pass on the role of your trusted adviser to a younger and fitter man. Vincent is as capable a solicitor as you will find in London, and his gifts are not confined to skilful draughtsmanship and tenacity in litigation. His judgement is impeccable. You may repose complete confidence in him.’

  ‘I’m overjoyed to hear it. However, I have no pressing need for his wise counsel at present. As you will recall, under the terms of the Judge’s will, I gained control of my inheritance on my twenty-fifth birthday.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Hannaway was struggling for breath. ‘I was alarmed that you withdrew your funds from Pardoe’s Bank with your father still barely cold in the grave. You have led such a sheltered life…’

  ‘You think so?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Gaunt was no place for a child to grow up. It’s as isolated as anywhere in the kingdom.’ He flapped one of his claws. ‘We live in desperate economic times. Should our government be so feckless as to desert the Gold Standard… suffice to say that, had you cared to discuss your intentions, I could have suggested suitably discreet and rewarding havens for your fortune.’

  Rachel bared her teeth. ‘After last night’s events, I won­dered if you’d called to congratulate me on my foresight.’

  The wizened features crinkled. ‘Really, my dear! Pardoe’s Bank remains in the best hands, despite the… tragic demise of its chairman. Vincent and I happen to be members of the board, and the other directors are equally well-versed in matters financial. The chairman’s death will not provoke a run on the bank. Investors in Pardoe’s are a select band, shrewd enough to resist any foolish impulse to panic.’

  ‘Perish the thought.’

  ‘I was also distressed to learn that you have liquidated your equity holdings. Forgive my bluntness, but it takes time for a young woman, however confident and independently minded, to become wise to the ways of the world.’

  ‘Are men really more reliable?’ She took another sip of Darjeeling. ‘Every morning I read news of the latest stockbroker to swallow cyanide or be thrown into Pentonville.’

  ‘Your father knew his own mind too,’ Hannaway murmured. ‘Though I dare not speculate what the Judge would say about your taste for investing in all this fancy French furniture, and… supposed works of art.’

  He glared at a Sickert with vivid splashes of black, gold, and pink. A voluptuous courtesan, admiring her fleshy reflection in a gilt-framed mirror.

  ‘Given the calamities befalling the markets, he might be impressed by my eye for a good investment. The pleasure I derive from Ruhlmann’s designs and the artists’ insight into human nature is an agreeable dividend.’ Rachel waved a slim hand at the Sickert. ‘Didn’t Claude Linacre persuade you of the virtues of the Camden Town Group?’

  ‘Virtues?’ Hannaway coughed. ‘Hardly the word I’d choose. Young Linacre was feckless. Rumour had it that he was addicted to drugs.’

  ‘Perhaps we will find that Lawrence Pardoe was equally… weak.’

  Hannaway swallowed. ‘Stuff and nonsense! Lawrence Pardoe, a murderer and suicide?’

  ‘Possibly he succumbed to a severe temporary derangement. The moment he came to his senses, he was overcome by the horror of his crime, and took the honourable way out.’

  A phlegmy sigh. ‘The whole business is appalling. Not least the report in that vile rag, the Clarion. When I rose this morning, and heard the news, I studied a report written by the man who was first on the scene.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  The iguana eyes fixed on her. ‘What struck me was his unexpected mention of your late father.’

  ‘The Judge made a great impression on everyone he met.’

  ‘The reporter is your age,’ Hannaway hissed. ‘He never met the Judge, nor saw him in court. I fear he will make trouble for… everyone.’

  He struggled to his feet, striving to conquer yet another spluttering cough. Rachel wondered if Sir Eustace Leivers of Harley Street was any more optimistic in his prognosis than he had been with Lawrence Pardoe. It seemed unlikely. She watched Hannaway’s gaze roam around the room until it fell on the far corner, and a chess board inlaid on an exquisitely carved mahogany table. Shuffling towards it, he bent over the board, and peered at the arrangement of the pieces.

  ‘Chess problems are another of my solitary pastimes,’ she said. ‘You play the game, don’t you? I’m sure you recognise Taverner’s famous puzzle. Fascinating, don’t you agree? Such beautiful cruelty.’

  The old lawyer’s mottled complexion turned grey.

  Rachel pointed at the board. ‘What happens next creates zugzwang. Black is compelled to move, yet whatever he does inevitably puts him in greater danger.’

  As if by accident, the sleeve of Hannaway’s frock coat caught the white queen, and sent it tumbling to the floor.

  ‘Whatever game you are playing, my dear, don’t make the mistake of playing alone.’

  *

  ‘The crossing sweeper’s name was Sear,’ George Poyser, the news editor, told Jacob. A seasoned journalist renowned for his memory for detail, he’d made sure he was first on the scene once the Clarion learned that one of its reporters had suffered a potentially fatal accident.

  ‘You met him?’r />
  ‘Slipped him a few bob as a thank-you. Decent young chap. But for him, Tom might not even have made it as far as a hospital bed.’

  ‘According to his story.’

  Poyser’s nickname was Pop-Eye, thanks to the protuberant eyes forever blinking behind huge horn-rimmed spectacles. He was portly and bald, and his unprepossessing appearance made him the butt of many a joke, but those pop-eyes didn’t miss much.

  ‘Are you suggesting that he exaggerated? You think he wanted to make himself out a hero?’

  ‘Just checking.’ Jacob didn’t want to start a fluttering in the dovecote. ‘I’m going to visit Tom in the Middlesex, and I’m sure he’d like to know more about the lad who helped to save his bacon.’

  Poyser wrinkled his snub nose. ‘Don’t hope for too much. I saw Tom the day before yesterday. If he’s going to make it, then I’m a Dutchman.’

  ‘Do you have Sear’s full name and address?’

  ‘Bear with me.’ Poyser burrowed in the drawer of a desk overflowing with galley sheets, and retrieved a dog-eared notebook. ‘There you are. A place for everything, and everything in its place, see? Iorwerth Sear, yes, that’s him. Number twenty-nine, Balaclava Mews, Kilburn.’

  Thirty minutes later, the story of the accident had unravelled. Jacob could find no trace of anyone called Iorwerth Sear in London. There was no Balaclava Mews in Kilburn, or anywhere else in the city. A young man who earned a crust as a crossing sweeper might have his own reasons for concealing his identity from the authorities and the press. But what if he’d been paid to lie about what had happened to Tom Betts?

  Rachel Savernake’s cool words echoed inside Jacob’s head.

  ‘How unfortunate if your promising career were cut short, just like your predecessor’s.’

  Juliet Brentano’s Journal

  30 January 1919 (later)

  After Henrietta told me about my parents, I ran up to my room. I’ve stayed here all evening, listening as the wind and rain pound this bleak lump of rock in the sea. I won’t go down to dinner. I never want to eat anything again.

  On the stairs, I passed Rachel. Neither of us uttered a word, but she knows exactly what has happened, I can tell. Excitement shone in her eyes. She is triumphant, and sees no need to hide it.

  She’s despised me from the moment my mother and I arrived, when my father went off to fight in the war. Because Rachel and I were born a matter of weeks apart, my father thought the two of us would become fast friends. Her mother had died, and the Judge was sick and solitary. Father said she must be lonely on Gaunt. He didn’t know her.

  Rachel has no use for friendship. She regards herself as queen of this godforsaken island. She hates sharing it with another girl. Once she learned my parents weren’t married, she taunted me for being a bastard.

  Now she has what she wanted. And with my mother and father dead, I am at her mercy.

  4

  ‘You still want to visit the art gallery?’ Trueman asked.

  Rachel picked up the chess piece that the old solicitor had knocked over, and squeezed it in her palm. ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Pardoe’s associates will cluster round you like moths to a flame.’

  ‘Performing fleas would be nearer the mark. If only their attentions were due to my delightful personality, it might turn my head. As it is…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I expect some unpleasantness.’

  Trueman shrugged. ‘If you’re determined to go ahead…’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rachel said. ‘I am determined.’

  Flinging open the door to the sitting room, Mrs Trueman bustled in. ‘Levi Shoemaker is here. I asked him to wait downstairs while I see if you’re available.’

  ‘What does he want?’ her husband asked.

  ‘To tender his resignation,’ Rachel said. ‘Pardoe’s death will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.’

  ‘You’re willing to see him?’

  ‘Why not?’

  The Truemans left without another word. A minute later, the housekeeper ushered in a middle-sized man with wispy, greying hair. He had a sallow complexion, small, deep-set eyes, and an air of gentle melancholy, as if he’d peered inside too many unhappy lives. He might have been any age between fifty and sixty-five, and nothing in his cast of features suggested his racial origins. His only distinguishing feature was an unceasing watchfulness.

  ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Mr Shoemaker. May I offer you afternoon tea?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I shan’t detain you for long.’

  Rachel felt his hand tremble as she shook it. She found his nervousness strangely thrilling. Levi Shoemaker was made of sterner stuff than most men. He’d worked for the police in Kiev prior to being dismissed in a purge of Jews. His wife and brother had been burned to death during a pogrom, and he’d suffered torture before escaping to England. In London, he’d set up as a private investigator, and his single-minded zeal meant his reputation soon became as formi­dable as his fees. Yet he lived in a modest manner, charging heavily simply because it enabled him to pick and choose assignments.

  ‘You have read the news,’ she said.

  ‘Concerning last night’s events in South Audley Street?’ His hand fumbled in a coat pocket, and he pulled out a copy of the Clarion. ‘Given my enquiries on your behalf concerning the late Lawrence Pardoe, I was intrigued to learn of his sudden death. Also to see the name of the first reporter to arrive at the scene. Young Flint’s story has prompted me to come to a decision.’

  ‘You wish to terminate our retainer?’

  ‘You make a good detective, Miss Savernake. Always one step ahead.’ His English was careful, but almost accentless; he weighed his words like a lawyer. ‘Yes, I am here to end our relationship. In fact, I am retiring from business altogether. This time next week I shall be overseas. Warmer climes will be good for my health in more ways than one.’

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. ‘All because a banker blows out his brains?’

  The enquiry agent shook his head. ‘I have been followed several times. A nuisance, nothing more, but I prefer to be the watcher rather than the watched.’

  ‘Did you recognise the person who followed you?’

  ‘Three different men are involved, and I have yet to identify them. My working hypothesis is that their activities are connected with my work for you.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Rachel snapped.

  Shoemaker lifted one arm, as if to ward off an imaginary blow. ‘Please, Miss Savernake. Don’t let my honesty rile you. My duties for you were all-consuming, and I have turned away all other prospective clients – a duchess and a bishop among them, I should say. There is no other reason why my activities should suddenly attract attention from someone rich enough to hire a team of men to shadow me. You said at the outset that your enquiries would prove complex and sensitive. Was that a euphemism for life-threatening?’

  Rachel’s dark eyes glittered. ‘You never struck me as a coward.’

  ‘The horrors I witnessed in the Ukraine hardened my soul, Miss Savernake. That said, I prefer not to meet my Maker before reaching my allotted span. Call it cowardice if you will, but Thomas Betts has already paid the price for finding out too much. A similar fate presumably lies in store for his young henchman, Flint.’ Shoemaker jabbed his forefinger at the front page of the newspaper. ‘Did you send him to South Audley Street last night, and if so, why?’

  She ignored the question. ‘Has anyone threatened you?’

  ‘Nobody has said a word to me. I find that oddly intimi­dating. I’m too old to swim in such shark-infested waters. It’s dawned on me lately that I am drifting out of my depth.’ He waved the inky sheets of newsprint in her face. ‘Young Flint’s story proves it.’

  ‘In that case, I shall waste no more of your time.’

  He considered her. ‘You never made a secret of the fact that, in addition to hiring my services, you engaged others to pursue enquiries on your behalf. No doubt they can assist you in the future.’ />
  ‘Quite.’ She gave a curt nod. ‘It only remains for me to thank you for your help, and to urge you to take care. Distance yourself from me now by all means. But it may already be too late.’

  *

  Lydia Betts was a small, colourless woman who had lived in her husband’s angular shadow for twenty years. Even her Yorkshire accent was barely discernible, one more aspect of her personality she’d learned to suppress. She greeted Jacob politely when he turned up unannounced on the doorstep of her flat, on the ground floor of a small block close to Farringdon Road, and insisted on offering him a cup of weak tea and digestive biscuits. Yet he could tell her mind was elsewhere, at her husband’s bedside in the Middlesex Hospital.

  ‘Mr Gomersall has been ever so kind,’ she said, ushering him inside. ‘The Clarion is covering all the costs of Tom’s treatment, and more besides. Heaven only knows how I’d manage without the money.’

  She led him to a sitting room that was spick and span, yet made dingy and dismal by an inescapable mood of despair. On the sideboard stood a framed picture of Tom and Lydia Betts on their wedding day, smart and smiling and scarcely recognisable to Jacob. A palm drooped in one corner, next to a shelf occupied by half a dozen books. An old family Bible, a complete Shakespeare, David Copperfield and Great Expectations, Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and a well-thumbed copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

  Jacob murmured platitudes, recalling Tom Betts’ advice about putting nervous witnesses at ease. Neither of them had envisaged that one day Jacob would be seeking clues from Betts’ wife about an attempt to murder her husband.

  ‘I tried to get in touch with him,’ she said when Jacob mentioned Iorwerth Sear. ‘He’d been so kind to Tom, tried to save his life. A poor fellow like that, a crossing sweeper – it just goes to show, doesn’t it? But the police took down the wrong address. The house doesn’t exist. Nor the street. There must have been some mistake – it’s easily done. I checked on places with a similar name, but I had no joy. Such a pity.’