Sick of Shadows

by Marion Chesney

  Her life with her missionary parents in Burma had been full of danger and she had taken many great risks to supply the War Office in London with intelligence. She did not feel as confident as Harry and did not want to worry him. She had bought an old breastplate in an antique shop and was wearing it under her gown. She also had primed Harry’s pistol and put it in her own desk.

  She heard a step on the stair and stiffened. There was something furtive about that step. The nobility who usually frequented the office would come crashing in, full of bluster, demanding that some scandal or other be hushed up or some missing dog found.

  Ailsa slid open the drawer and took out the pistol, laid it on top of the desk and covered it with her scarf.

  The door opened and a man in a tweed coat, knickerbockers and a flat cap came in.

  “Where’s the captain?” he demanded.

  “Out of town. Please leave.”

  He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. “Go in there.” He jerked his head at the inner office. “Open the safe.”

  Ailsa’s hand crept towards the gun.

  Finch saw the movement and shot her full in the chest. Ailsa crashed backwards in her chair and fell to the floor and lay still.

  He searched in her desk until he found the keys. He went into the inner office and opened the safe. He was just reaching into it when a shot caught him on the shoulder. He grabbed his wounded shoulder and turned round. White-faced but stern, Ailsa was holding a pistol on him. He looked wildly for the gun, which he had put on Harry’s desk, but keeping him covered, Ailsa picked it up and threw it onto the floor.

  As he groaned and clutched his shoulder, she picked up the receiver and said in a crisp voice, “Police.”

  After she had made a statement to the police and they had left with Finch, Ailsa telephoned Harry. He listened in horror and said, “But you said he shot you!”

  “I was wearing a breastplate,” said Ailsa.

  “You are sharper than I am. I’ll come straight back. Meanwhile, you will find a negative and a photograph in the safe.

  They are in an envelope. Do not look at them. I do not want the police to see them. Please call Phil Marshall and tell him to come and pick them up. The police did not find them, did they?”

  “No, I told them he had no time to take anything.”

  “Go home, Miss Bridge. I shall go directly to Scotland Yard.”

  Harry was ushered in to see Kerridge. “This is a bad business,” he said. “The chap who tried to kill your secretary is an unsavoury character called John Finch. He says he was hired by Lord Berrow, furnished with a gun, told to kill you if necessary and to get a negative out of your safe. We sent a man back and he retrieved the negative. It was nothing but a negative and photograph of a saucy lady in the altogether. Miss Bridge said a client of yours had paid you to get the negative and photo back. She said Berrow knew of the photograph and might use it to ruin her reputation.”

  Oh, excellent Miss Bridge, thought Harry.

  “That is true. I never thought Berrow would go to such extremes. Furthermore I cannot, of course, give you the name of the lady. She has done nothing criminal. What are you doing about Berrow?”

  “The police commissioner in York is going out to his estate to arrest him personally.”

  Oh, the magic of a title. If Lord Berrow had been Mr. Bloggs of nowhere, the police would have pounced without warning. But the police commissioner made the mistake of phoning Berrow first and saying he was coming to see him on a grave matter and bringing the chief constable with him.

  Berrow rushed to find Cyril, who was potting balls in the billiard-room. Cyril had highly approved of the plot to hire Finch.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “The game’s up.” He told Cyril about the impending visit of the police commissioner and the chief constable.

  “What’ll we do?”

  “Get out the bloody country, that’s what!”

  NINE

  Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

  —SAMUEL BUTLER

  Berrow and Cyril fled as far as Glasgow. Scottish law was different from English law, so surely, they felt, they would feel safe for a while.

  They booked into the Central Hotel beside the railway station, sharing a suite and calling themselves the brothers Richmond.

  “I say,” said Cyril moodily, looking at their great pile of luggage, “we are drawing attention to ourselves with all this stuff. We had to employ a squad of porters to get the few yards round from the station. And I’m sick of this disguise. It’s hot.” Like Berrow, Cyril was sporting a false beard. They had managed to work their way north by means of several branch railway lines before they arrived tired and weary in Glasgow.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Berrow. “You know that big motor car Cathcart has?”

  “What about it?”

  “We could get something like that. It would take us and all the luggage. We could then make our way by country roads to Stranraer, get over to Ireland. Great place to hide out, Ireland.”

  Both had taken with them a considerable amount of money and valuables. The timely warning call from the police had also enabled them to transfer their accounts to a Swiss bank.

  “Good idea,” said Cyril.

  That evening, they inquired at the reception desk for the whereabouts of a motor car salesroom and got directions to a large one in Giffnock.

  The following morning, they set out. Pride of the salesroom display was a Rolls-Royce, and Berrow decided that it would be ideal. He paid cash, to the delight of the salesman, who then discovered that neither knew how to drive.

  Cyril was taken out on the road for a lesson. After two hours, he decided he knew how to start up and go forward. So long as he was not expected to reverse, he felt he could manage pretty well. They returned to the centre of the city and bought leather motoring coats, leather hats and goggles, and Berrow embellished his ensemble with a long white silk scarf.

  Not wanting to cope with the Glasgow traffic, they took a cab back to their hotel. They waited until the following morning and had to hire two of Glasgow’s new motorized taxi-cabs to take them and their luggage out to the salesroom.

  With Cyril at the wheel, scowling in concentration, they set out on the road. Berrow studied ordnance survey maps. The idea was to go by country roads to Stranraer and take the ferry to Ireland. They planned to hide out in Ireland for a time and then sail to France and make their way to Switzerland.

  The weather was fine, with feathery clouds decorating a pale blue sky. The fresh scents of the countryside blew into the open car. Cyril relaxed as he grew more confident.

  The trouble began when they motored through a village and a pretty girl stared at the car in open-mouthed admiration.

  When they were clear of the village and Berrow saw a long straight stretch of road ahead, he called, “Stop!” Berrow had become jealous of Cyril at the wheel.

  Cyril pulled to a halt. “What’s up?”

  “Let me take the wheel for a bit.”

  “You can’t drive.”

  “Show me. Just how to move it along.”

  “Oh, all right.” Cyril got out and they changed places.

  After several attempts and crashing gears, Berrow managed to get the car to move forward. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. Although the speed limit was thirty miles an hour, the Rolls was capable of doing a hundred.

  Hedges hurtled past in a blur as Cyril screamed, “Ease off the accelerator!”

  “What?” shouted Berrow. “This is fun.”

  As he hurtled down a bend in the road and straight at a hump-backed bridge, his scarf blew across his face. Panicking, Cyril grabbed the wheel. With a great crash, the car hit the parapet sideways on. The ancient stonework crumpled. Cyril was catapulted onto the river bank. He hit a stone with the full impact of his head and lay still.

  Berrow stared down at him in horror. “Are you all right?” he called, but he was
sure Cyril was dead.

  He felt the car lurch. He got out carefully and went and looked at the damage. The wheels were hanging over the edge where the parapet had once been.

  He struggled down the river bank to Cyril. He felt for a pulse but found none.

  Berrow climbed back to the car. He would need to walk back to that village for help. His hands were shaking. He stood at the back of the car, lit a cigarette with a vesta and tossed the lighted match on the ground, unaware of the lake of petrol that had formed.

  There was a terrific explosion as Berrow and the car went up in a fireball of flame.

  Harry was to escort Rose to a luncheon party and she prayed he would not cancel.

  They were accompanied by Daisy, Turner, the lady’s maid, and two footmen. Rose began to wonder if she would ever have a chance to speak to Harry in private.

  She was not seated next to him at table and so talked a little to the gentleman on her right—the weather—and the gentleman on her left—the state of the nation—picked at her food and thought the wretched meal with its eight courses would never end. How wonderful it would be, she thought, if I were to pick up the table-cloth and bundle all this food and take it down to the East End.

  At last the hostess signalled to the ladies to join her in the drawing-room and leave the gentlemen to their port.

  “Why are you looking so nervous?” whispered Daisy.

  “Nothing.” Rose wanted to tell Harry about her discovery first. A little twinge of guilt warned her that she should have confided in Daisy first, but Rose wanted to impress Harry, to show him she could detect as well.

  At last the gentlemen came in. Bridge tables were being set up and Daisy’s green eyes gleamed like a cat’s. She was a killing bridge player.

  Harry joined Rose. She whispered urgently, “I must talk to you in private.”

  “There’s a conservatory at the back of the house. Let’s walk there.”

  In the steamy warmth of the conservatory, they sat down on a bench in front of a marble statue of Niobe.

  Harry was the first to speak. Rose listened in amazement when he told her how Berrow and Banks had hired Finch and how his secretary had nearly been killed. “The police commissioner in York is going to arrest them. Don’t you see? You are safe now. They must have been the ones behind the murder of Dolly.”

  Rose’s splendid deduction was losing its glow, but she said, “I have discovered something as well. I am sure it was Jeremy Tremaine who hired Reg Bolton.”

  “Why?”

  “There is this Cockney who comes to the soup kitchen. He found God in prison. Don’t you see? Jeremy is a divinity student. He could have been visiting prisoners and found a useful one.”

  “I really do think we’ll find out it was Berrow and Banks.”

  Rose looked so disappointed that he said hurriedly, “To put your mind at rest, I can leave now and go to Wormwood Scrubs and check the book for visiting clerics.”

  “Take me with you. Please!”

  “Very well. Tell Daisy to take Turner home in a cab.”

  Normally Daisy would have been curious, but she was so addicted to cards that she only nodded.

  At the prison, the governor protested that he was too busy a man to keep dealing with Captain Cathcart’s requests.

  Rose gave him a blinding smile and the governor thawed. He not only produced the required books but suggested that he take Rose on a tour of the prison.

  Wormwood Scrubs proved to be even larger than Rose had imagined. It generally contained a thousand male and two hundred female convicts. They walked round the laundries where the women worked and then to the bakeries where the prisoners in their ugly uniforms were baking bread. There was also shoemaking and tailoring going on.

  What Rose found unnerving was that all the labour was done in complete silence. It was like being in a Trappist monastery.

  She was also taken to a room where the triangles were. Prisoners were strapped to these triangles and either birched or lashed with the cat-o’-nine-tails. The cat-o’-nine-tails was kept in a drawer. The governor lifted it out for Rose to examine. “Doesn’t look much, but it can inflict some damage.”

  Rose repressed a shudder and suggested they return to Harry.

  He was just closing the books when they entered the governor’s barrack-like office.

  As he and Rose got into the Rolls, he said, “Jeremy Tremaine visited the prison on six occasions in the months before his sister’s death. One of the prisoners he visited was Reg Bolton.”

  “I wonder what Jeremy will say when we ask him?”

  “We? I thought of going myself with Becket tomorrow.”

  “You must take me with you! It was my idea.”

  “I suppose your parents will agree if we take Becket and Daisy.”

  Lady Polly was in a fury when they got back, demanding to know where they had gone, Rose without either her maid or companion. Rose took Harry’s arm and smiled up at him. “Only for a little drive,” she said. “We wanted to be alone.”

  Harry’s heart gave a lurch and then he realized that, of course, she was acting.

  Nonetheless, it took a great deal of persuading to get permission to go “for a little drive” with Harry the following day with just Becket and Daisy as chaperones.

  But Lady Polly finally melted. She saw the way Rose smiled up at the captain and was sure her wayward daughter was in love at last.

  They all set out the following morning in high spirits that even the damp mist clouding the day could not dim.

  Daisy had won too much at cards to be angry with Rose for not having told her about Jeremy.

  When they turned down Oxford High, the mist was hiding the spires and pinnacles of the colleges, and even the top of Cairfax Tower was lost to view.

  Daisy and Becket were told to stay in the car while Rose and Harry made their way up the shallow stone steps to Jeremy’s rooms.

  “We’re in luck,” said Harry. “He’s not sporting his oak.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “These are double doors. If the outer door is closed, that’s called sporting the oak and it means you’re either out or do not want visitors.”

  Harry knocked and a faint voice called, “Enter.”

  Harry held open the door for Rose and followed her in. Jeremy was dressed in gown and mortar board.

  “What do you want?” he demanded harshly. “I was just going out.”

  “You visited a certain Reg Bolton in Wormwood Scrubs on several occasions just before his release. He is the man who tried twice to kill Lady Rose.”

  “I visited him along with other prisoners. I was doing my duty, bringing Christian hope to the suffering.”

  “Nobody seems to think of bringing Christian hope to the victims,” said Rose.

  “Don’t you think it odd,” pursued Harry, “that after your sister is murdered, a hired assassin called Reg Bolton tries to kill Lady Rose, a man you visited?”

  Jeremy’s face was wax-pale and his eyes burned with fury. “Get out of here,” he shouted. “How dare you? You are accusing me of killing my own sister.”

  “You haven’t heard the end of this,” said Harry. “I am sure the police will want to interview you. Come, Rose.”

  “Well, I didn’t expect to get a confession out of him,” said Rose as they walked together across the quadrangle.

  “No, the purpose was to rattle him and see if he betrays himself in any way.”

  Daisy and Becket sat in the front seat in sulky silence. Becket had sprung the idea on Daisy that maybe they could one day save enough to buy a little pub in the country. Daisy could work behind the bar. Daisy had said furiously that she was not going to sink to be a barmaid. Becket had called her a snob and said she had acquired ideas above her station.

  Becket was driving, so Rose and Harry climbed into the back.

  They went to the Randolph Hotel for luncheon. Daisy and Becket sat at a separate table, staring angrily at each other in dead silence.


  “I think,” said Harry, “that I should go to Scotland Yard on our return and tell Kerridge about these visits.”

  “Good idea. I shall come with you.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a man’s world. There are people at Scotland Yard who view my visits with disfavour. They feel Kerridge should not be wasting time with amateurs. The presence of even a beautiful lady like yourself diminishes me.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “As I have just pointed out to you, it’s man’s world.”

  Now Rose was, like her companion, too furious to speak. Harry tried several times to talk about various things, but she sat glaring at him and refused to utter a word.

  It was a carload of silent and sulky people who returned to London.

  Harry went straight to Scotland Yard. Kerridge was out on a case, so he waited patiently while the mist thickened on the river Thames outside the window.

  At last Kerridge returned and listened in surprise to Harry’s story about Jeremy’s prison visits.

  “I’ll pull him in for questioning.”

  “It won’t do any good at the moment. All he has to do is look outraged. No one else is going to believe he had a hand in his sister’s murder. I’d like to examine that house they rented for the Season.”

  “What do you expect to find? It’ll have been scrubbed from top to bottom.”

  “There might just be something.”

  “All right. I’ll come along with you.”

  “Are you sure the servants that were there at the time didn’t hear or see anything?”

  “With the exception of a temporary footman hired from an agency, the servants were all the country ones. I gather Apton Magna is a pretty poor place. They weren’t going to say anything that might mean they’d lose their jobs.”

  The thin house in Clarges Street that had been rented by the Tremaines was standing empty. They got the key from the factor and let themselves in, then searched high and low, Harry crawling along the floor-boards, to see if one bloodstain might have been overlooked.