Murder in Paradise

by Alanna Knight

  A shrewd guess indicated that they would be found hidden somewhere in house or gardens after Sir Philip had used the excuse of the theft of his wife’s jewellery to add them to a substantial claim for insurance, badly needed to ease his dire financial situation.

  Faro felt certain that Mrs Lunn and Bess Tracy were also involved, although he had yet to work out their exact roles and whether they were innocent victims or accomplices.

  In the police office, Constable Muir had a visitor. Faro recognised Mrs Tracy, looking very excited despite her bruised face.

  Muir grinned at her. ‘This will relieve your mind, Faro. Bess is alive and well.’

  Mrs Tracy held a note in a trembling hand. ‘This is from Bess. It was pushed through the door this morning. I brought it straight here. It says,’ pausing, she handed it to Faro, ‘it says this is to let me know that she is well and happy and being well looked after and that we are not to worry about her. Isn’t that right, Constable?’ she asked Muir.

  ‘Quite correct,’ he replied and she said sadly, ‘I never learnt to read and write – he—’ the sudden quaver in her voice indicated the identity of her husband, ‘he did all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Has your husband seen this?’ Faro asked.

  She gave a slight scream. ‘No! For God’s sake, I daren’t let him know I’ve heard from her – he never wants to see our lass again, has barred her from crossing the threshold. So I brought it straight along to the constable here.’

  Faro turned the note over. There was no indication of when and where it had been written and Mrs Tracy frowned as Muir said to her, ‘Well, you’ll be happy now,’ and to Faro, he grinned, ‘No missing girl, case closed.’

  Mrs Tracy however did not look happy. Glancing at the two men, she frowned and shook her head vigorously, pointing to the note. ‘I hope you’re right. That definitely isn’t the way my Bess writes. I know I can’t read but I’ve seen things she’s written, like her school books about the house—’

  Faro read, ‘Dear Mum, this is just to let you know that I am well and happy and in a very comfortable lodging with my young man. I will write again soon.’

  It was a perfectly ordinary note, the kind any girl who left home in a hurry after a quarrel would write to put her parents’ minds at rest but Mrs Tracy was obstinately shaking her head. ‘It just doesn’t sound like her – those words – she didn’t talk like that either. It’s as if someone was telling her what to say.’

  The note ended: ‘I am delighted with my new life. I will come and see you soon. Your loving daughter Bess.’

  Handing it back, Faro said, ‘You will keep us in touch, when Bess arrives.’

  He was sure that Mrs Tracy’s instincts were those of a mother for a cherished daughter. As for himself, he too felt uncertain about this note and that there was something terribly wrong. It rang danger bells and he could not shake off the feeling that neither Mrs Tracy nor anyone else would ever see Bess again.

  Or even that she was still alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Faro was wrong.

  Bess Tracy was alive and the contents of the letter to her mother had been right.

  She was indeed delighted with her new life. Her temporary home was much warmer and more comfortable than the horrible dark mill house where she had lived all her life, constantly hungry and cold and for ever evading her drunken father’s blows.

  Now although she was restricted to one room, it was full of small luxuries, a nice thick carpet on the floor for her bare feet to snuggle into, delicate china, handsome furniture with a big cosy bed and a deep armchair. Paintings on the walls too.

  She was living like a lady for once. Looking around, she could hardly believe her good fortune. This was indeed the escape into another world she had always longed for and her only fear was that one morning she might awaken to find that it had all vanished, it was only a dream.

  For these wonderful surroundings also included a wonderful lover, a lover unlike any she had ever known in her short adult life, who promised a future of so much more than this cosy attic room. A castle no less, once he had persuaded his father to allow their marriage.

  Marriage to a rich lover, heir to a fortune and a title.

  She closed her eyes ecstatically. She would be Lady Jacks…she frowned. She wondered about that name. Sometimes she even thought it wasn’t his real name, far too common for a lord, but she did not really care too much. It wasn’t important. Life was too good to ask questions and she had promised never to leave the house, but she loved her silken prison.

  After all it was only for a short while, a week or two until things were settled with his silly old obstinate father who wanted him to marry a rich heiress who was fat and ugly.

  Not like you, Bess, he had said to her. You’re so lovely. No man could resist you.

  Lovely words to think about when she was alone.

  And that was most days, since he was off in the morning, sometimes going up to London to see lawyers, getting everything in order, he said vaguely. She never asked for details, content to accept legal matters that she could never hope to understand even if he had wished to explain them to her.

  Her only worry, and that quite a small one, was her mother. She would be angry as well as anxious. Bess went on and on about it, so in the end he relented, but her writing was so atrocious, he made her write it several times. In the end he threw it away; her spelling was awful so he rewrote it for her.

  She made him promise that he would take it to the mill personally and make sure that her Pa would not see it, that he would deliver it into her mother’s hand.

  That settled, for Bess there were no more worries.

  The house’s owner, an old gentleman and a long-time family friend she was told, had a kindly heart and had given the runaway lovers refuge. He had promised to look after her well when her love had to be absent. So far they had never been introduced and she rarely saw him or anyone else for that matter.

  The attic which housed her lovely room had high windows and only by standing on a chair could she see down into the garden. Even then it was only trees that were visible growing close to the walls.

  She could have been anywhere, in the middle of a forest for that matter, as there were no signs of the countryside beyond the band of trees, although she sometimes heard sounds of birds and animals, cows and sheep, a dog barking and she guessed they must not be far away from a main road with occasional sounds of horses and carriages and once during the night a train’s whistle. He had brought her here after dark that night a week ago when he asked her to marry him and she accepted. He wanted their first night together to be in this honeymoon house, a secret from the rest of the world, he said. Just the two of them. So romantic.

  He had met her with a hiring cab on the main road near the railway station and, once inside, they had travelled what seemed a long distance, although Bess could not be sure about how far or what lay beyond the windows, as she rather lost track of time. It all became rather hazy, lying in his arms, being hugged and kissed and responding so rapturously, only pausing to drink the brandy or some such fine spirit he had brought with him for the journey. She needed little persuasion to indulge rather recklessly although it made her head feel strange.

  A toast to their future – another and another – just a sip – when all she had been used to with other men was a miserly glass or two of ale.

  Such generosity painted a rosy picture of the future. Perhaps she even slept a little for when she opened her eyes, she was still in his arms, but they were climbing out of the gig.

  It was completely dark, no moon or stars and he was whispering that she was to be carried like a bride over the threshold of their first home together.

  After that first night of love she realised she had never experienced anything like this from the lads in the village who had been, what now seemed a long time ago, her initiation into womanhood. She thought of their fumbling hands, their gross thrustings, with a shudder. What bliss never to
have to return to those experiences, which were considerable, as many of those village lads and an occasional visitor to the alehouse could testify.

  After such a night Bess did not expect to awake alone. She expected him to be at her side, today and every day, with love unceasing, but he was up and about, dressed and ready to leave her. Kissing her fondly he said, no, he wasn’t going to London, but smiling gently, did she not remember that he had humble employment as a gardener, for he had nothing from his father and he needed wages to pay for the rent of this love nest.

  That surprised her, that they had to pay for this refuge, from the family friend, who must have a mean streak. However, he added quickly that he also needed money to keep them in food and new gowns and cloaks as befitted this new role in her life.

  Gowns and cloaks immediately had her interest and he said that the old gentleman had a daughter who left home many years ago, but there was a wardrobe of her clothes still in the house. For these splendid gowns, cloaks and shoes he was negotiating on her behalf and very soon, as soon as he could afford to buy them, they would be hers. Meanwhile she must make do with the clothes she wore.

  Bess did not mind. Having more than two gowns to her name suggested a new exciting experience and while she waited she was content with her new home by day and with a wonderful lover by night – although not quite as frequent as she had first hoped.

  However, she was patient as ordered. There was always food and drink and such a future to dream about. She would have been worthless and ungrateful to feel for even one second, after that first glorious night of love, that there was something lacking in his attention. This she put down to the sorry business of persuading his father regarding their coming marriage and the need to earn wages as a humble gardener.

  She hoped she might persuade him to come and meet her mother; she would love to have the opportunity to parade this lover before her hateful father before they left in triumph for that castle in Sussex.

  As for Paul, Bess’s lover, better known to Faro as Macheath, he was pleased and excited by his superb and unique plan. He had achieved his goal by stealing the Emerald Star. All that remained was the perfect exit, the perfect revenge in the death of Jeremy Faro.

  Although appreciating the efforts of his secret accomplice, whose identity was beyond suspicion and worth every percentage of the shared profits of the many daring robberies he had engineered in Scotland, Macheath now urgently needed an accomplice here at hand to assist in the final downfall and death of Constable Jeremy Faro. Mrs Lunn had at once sprung to mind, but he did not altogether trust her, embedded with feelings of loyalty to her mistress. Information of when she would be absent with her mistress in London had been invaluable and sleeping on the kitchen sofa had provided access to the keys.

  A lucky find was Dave, one of the young gardeners with anarchist tendencies, scorn and contempt for the upper classes. Courting one of the kitchen maids in Red House provided extra pairs of ears and eyes to keep him informed regarding Faro’s movements. Neither of these young people had the least idea of what was involved. They enjoyed their roles, especially when they believed this chap Paul was a traitor to his class, and very open-handed with money.

  Now everything was in place and Macheath relished the fact that he could have killed Faro almost any day, from their first encounter on the village street with himself in the role of the tetchy stubborn owner of the cottage on the Brettle estate (now the late Jim Boone residing permanently in a cupboard alongside his faithful dog). Once Faro was disposed of and before he quit this country for ever with a passage on an emigrant ship to America, perhaps he might rearrange that little scene so that the man and dog appeared to have died naturally in the hope that by the time someone found them all evidence of violence would have vanished with their decomposing corpses.

  He laughed out loud remembering how the disguise had been almost too easy as the smelly bewhiskered old man, to whom the villagers gave a wide berth. There had been so many opportunities for a fatal shot; that early morning on the heath would have done the trick. Another time near the orchard of Red House, he had waited, rifle in hand, but the door had opened, the womenfolk and their dogs rushed out. And at the masque, when he had stood behind Faro’s chair as his squire, how easy to have poisoned his wine!

  And in recent days seeing him leave Brettle Manor. One bullet could have rid him of his bitter enemy. He chuckled at those possibilities, but dismissed them hastily. Too risky and too easy. Besides, he was really enjoying the end of a game that had begun five years ago in Scotland. A game where he was the victor carrying off the spoils from raids on great houses, and the police had never tracked him down until one owner was accidentally killed and Constable Faro appeared on the scene and made his life so difficult. Now the score included murder, which was very trying.

  What he really wanted in compensation was for Faro to suffer a long, lingering end, a death by hanging for a crime he did not commit. He wanted him to have that additional agony of mind as well as body.

  As for Bess Tracy, he considered her coldly. He knew her kind: too ignorant, too lacking in imagination, food and drink and sex were the only ingredients she needed to keep her happy.

  Not for very much longer. She had served her purpose. The trap was set, the girl the bait. He knew from previous encounters with Faro in Scotland that he would never rest until he had found the missing girl

  Jeremy Faro’s doom was sealed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  As Faro left Brettle Manor, the first black clouds were riding steadily in from the horizon, the thunderheads already rising, preparing for a violent storm. He felt the first heavy drops of rain as he hurried into Red House.

  There he beheld a scene in sympathy with the weather, alerted senses and suppressed excitement as Rossetti and Morris welcomed two new visitors, one a very thin, middle-aged, nervous-looking woman; the other her a buxom cheery-faced, young companion.

  Both ladies were attired in black, a fitting accompaniment to the mourning now adopted by the inhabitants of the house in respect for Erland. Looking at Elizabeth Siddal’s sorrowful countenance, and those other solemn faces, Lena’s almost bright by comparison, Faro realised that Erland’s death was an emotional situation they were well able to deal with.

  He had already observed the mysterious agony of love with its drooping heavy-lidded frustration, the unspeakable sadness of loss in which they had a merciless indulgence. The endless sorrowful saga, the cruel tragedies of the medieval knights and ladies with their doomed love, provided the background of their everyday lives. It was life and breath, the integral ingredient of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, a theatrical sense of drama which they exploited to the full and enjoyed considerably more than any mundane straightforward relationship.

  As Faro was introduced to Madame Pireau and her daughter Euphemia, Morris whispered, ‘We weren’t expecting you, old chap. These ladies are our invited guests, come down specially. We are to hold a seance.’

  The maids were drawing the curtains, an unnecessary precaution since the room was threatened by the darkness of the approaching storm, the rumble of distant thunder.

  ‘A seance?’ Faro had never associated the practical William Morris with the new fad of spiritualism, which had its origins in America but had taken Britain by storm a few years ago in 1852. Getting in touch with the dear departed was sweeping the country, in no small measure thanks to the enthusiasm of novelist Charles Dickens, who had achieved phenomenal success with A Christmas Carol, and Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria would be persuaded to believe that she could get in contact with her beloved Albert after his death in 1861.

  Inevitably, the spiritualist movement had its trail of charlatans as well as true believers. Rossetti, perhaps interpreting Faro’s astonished and doubtful expression, said hastily, ‘Madame Pireau is a medium, she has proved many times that the spirits of those we loved who are on the other side now keep constant watch over us. Their help is invaluable. They can not only advise but als
o warn us. They are all around us,’ he made a dramatic gesture, ‘everywhere! In constant attendance, just waiting to be summoned.’

  Faro nodded vaguely, his cynical thoughts that the spirits that inhabited Red House most often came out of a bottle, not from hands eager to be linked over the small round table that was being carried into the room.

  Rossetti looked towards Lena, as she talked politely to the new arrivals. ‘This visit was arranged several weeks ago. Madame has just returned from a triumphant American tour. Topsy thought we ought to cancel it – Erland, you know…’ he added in a whisper, ‘but Janey and Elizabeth persuaded him that this visit was well timed; indeed, the spirits themselves could not have done better.’

  Looking towards Lena, as she talked politely to the two guests, he nodded sadly. ‘And I agreed. In fact, we all decided that it might help dear Lena in her sad loss, cheer her up to know that she might be put in touch with Erland again.’

  Faro doubted that, as Lena’s calm untroubled expression, gently smiling at Euphemia Pireau, showed less grief at that moment than any of Erland’s friends who had followed his coffin to the grave.

  The medium’s daughter was throwing over the table a circular black cloth edged with large white letters of the alphabet. From her basket she produced a large glass tumbler, which she set in the centre.

  Rossetti pointed to it. ‘Madame has just told us, she was advised by her guide, who had a severe cold and had lost her voice, to use this method instead. We all place a finger on the glass and it moves to spell out words. She has found it extremely useful to help reluctant or shy spirits to declare themselves.’

  He regarded Faro anxiously. ‘We would be delighted if you would join us. Perhaps you have a loved one…’

  The only loved one Faro would have liked to have heard from was his policeman father, Constable Magnus Faro, whose death his mother stoutly maintained was murder, but he doubted the solution of that particular mystery was within the powers of any spirit guide.