by S. E. Smith
That good lady met them at the door of a charming little country cottage, of the chocolate box variety, and ushered them into a well-appointed front room. Introducing herself as Mrs Spinnaker, and the sullen youth who made tea as her eldest Patrick, she told them she took husband’s death hard before adding: “I don’t know what makes you think he lived in London. No, he drove up every morning. Came home every night.”
Catching her in a lie, CC went straight for the jugular. “The place we found him,” he snapped, “he’d been paying rent on it for the last four months. Paid on time, caused no bother. A man of simple tastes by all accounts. Bought a lot of gin.”
“We can barely make rent on this place,” Mrs Spinnaker maintained calmly, though her eyes flashed not with anger, CC realised, but with the resignation of the put upon. “Let alone have anything spare. ‘Sides he was at home regular as clockwork, ‘specially in the last few months. If my word’s not enough; then you can ask the neighbours.”
Forced, by her words and attitude to take his first real look at the room, CC had the first inkling that perhaps the lady spoke the truth. There was a threadbare quality to a once fine carpet, and the curtains bore signs of mending. It was, if anything, genteel in its shabbiness. So, he sat back in his chair and let his sergeant take over the questioning.
“What did your husband do, Mrs Spinnaker?” Lamb asked, in a tone that hinted at flirtatiousness.
“Clemmie, Sergeant Lamb.” She confided her first name and Lamb, warming to his flirtation, leaned in as CC groaned.
“Till the injury, he worked for a nob up Lunnon way. After the crash in 89, we moved out here to the country. The compensation wasn’t much. But it meant he could open ‘is own little business with three rigs. Nice black hansoms they were,” Clemmie’s eyes lost their dark quality as Lamb’s attentiveness increased to a pat on the hand “Had three drivers working for us, which let him keep the books rather than be out in all weathers. But it didn’t last.”
Needing something to do, CC took notes as the widow continued her tale.
“‘Bout eighteen months ago, we lost our biggest account and Uriah took to the drink. A silly mistake. But Uriah was a pompous, pig-headed sort. Wouldn’t accept help, went back to driving himself. Which makes it strange he said he was staying up in town last night.”
“I see.” Lamb kept his tone low and encouraging.
It worked. The tears which accompanied this second part of her tale, lessened until, finally ceasing, Clemmie dabbed her face with the edge of her skirt. “Old colleague was looking for someone to join him in a new venture.”
“Did he say anything about the man he was going to meet?” CC, reaching the end of his ability to cope with the ageing Lothario that was his sergeant, took over the investigation.
“No. He was very tight-lipped. ‘Specially about the past; ‘cept when the nightmares came. Then all he could talk about was the blood. I always thought ‘e meant the blood on the little boy and his mother. The two that got thrown from the rig that day in Hyde Park, when he lost the use of his arm.”
Looking at Lamb and CC Mrs Spinnaker lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “But you know what? It might not ‘ave been.”
“Why not?”
At CC’s question, Clemmie’s eyes took on a haunted quality, indicating she’d not only seen Dante’s Inferno for real, but had resided within its fiery pit. “Oh, hell!” The words exploded into existence, even though she slammed her hand in front of her mouth to stop them. “Forget I said anything!”
“Why?”
But Clemmie refused to say any more.
From the Casebook of Symington, Earl Byrd.
By the time we reached London, dusk had fallen on that benighted town. Fog rolled in from the Thames and dulled all sound. Even the concourse at Euston was quieter than I remembered. A loan chestnut seller and an old lady, bagged up to the nines, were the only humans I could see as I marched my way to the taxi rank.
Not that I paid anything any real attention. The black dogs of despair, my friend Winston talked about, warred with my scorpions for control of my mind. Tossing my thoughts this way and that until ... finally and eventually ... my brain rallied; creating an antidote - in the form of a bath and warm jim-jams - with which to sooth my savage soul.
From Euston, we took a cab to my apartment in Mayfair. An unusually taciturn driver – unmoved by my benevolence of payment in advance – did not rise to any of the topics of conversation I laid out for his delectation. And so, deflated by my lack of success, I slumped into my seat and hummed a maddening tune.
“My driving not skilled enough?” Watkins made no effort to hide his disgust as he, and the still sulking Sampson, removed the baggage and took it into the foyer of my home.
There was no time for me to issue a reprimand. Barely had I opened my mouth, formed my words, and decided upon the tone of delivery than Sampson attacked.
“Now don’t you be picking on his lordship, Corporal Watkins. He’s had a tiring time of it!” my valet snapped waspishly. “I’ll go first. You fill up the lift, and I’ll get them out at the other end. If that’s acceptable to you, my lord?” He saluted.
I waved regally.
Watkins raised an incredulous eyebrow before setting to work, lugging my cases across the threshold and into the lift, with all the finesse of a grocer’s lad carrying potatoes through Spitalfields. “What’s bitten old Sober-sides?” he asked in an undertone, as a still seething Sampson went up with the luggage.
“Miss Davies.”
The lift returned, and we got in. “Not what I expected you to say, guv.” He assessed my overly sombre expression and carried on talking. “Expect the duke had something to do with it though?”
I ignored the offer to rubbish my grandfather, preferring to continue with my own agenda. “It seems Emily and I are investigating the same crime, only from different angles.” I stopped and thought for a moment before continuing. “Or at least I think they’re the same crime. It could be two different crimes which keep crossing.” I thought about my agreement. “Of course, it might be three. Who knows?”
“Ahh.” Watkins grinned. “You’ll work it out, guv. You always do. Imran’s doing a grill.” He changed the subject with ease. “Oh, and you have a visitor. He’s in a foul mood too.”
My world crumbled, and the dogs, loosed from their bonds, savaged the scorpions. Trying to calm myself, I dragged a hand through tidy hair. It failed. “CC’s here? Oh God, that’s all I need!” In a further attempt to pull myself together I took a deep breath. “Mind you, at least if he’s here, Grandfather’s not been telephoning him to express his disappointment.”
“Think again, guv. Think again. He’s had it from the pair of them!”
Oh great! “So much, Emily Davies, for Uncle Robert not giving a damn!” Sighing, I put aside all thoughts of jim-jams and cocoa. And, with a heavy heart and heavier tread walked, like Sydney Carton, to my fate.
The tension that hit me, as I opened the door to my lounge, could be cut with a blunt butter knife. My cousin – plate of assorted cheeses and crackers in one hand, glass of port in another – sat on the edge of my newest chesterfield and stared at me wearily.
“Twenty bloody minutes His Grace was on the telephone!” CC barked. “Blaming me for your appalling lack of discretion. Telling me I should keep a better eye on you. Asking me what I thought of the tart you slunk up to Wales to dally with.”
I didn’t answer; preoccupied with choosing my own repast from the selection Imran prepared for my delectation.
“Well, what are you going to say for yourself, Symington?”
I gave the kind of nod, you could take to mean anything and continued to pile my plate with gammon, eggs, and steak.
“Symington!”
Sitting at the table, I cut my meat carefully. “What do you want me to say? There, there, there, all better now?”
CC’s handkerchief made its appearance. “A bloody apology would be nice! Would make me feel you care
d!”
I sipped a wine placed at my side by a thoughtful Sampson and turned, “You’re not taking the old goat seriously?” I countered. “You know I went to Wales on my own. I didn’t take any kind of tart, sweet or sour, or even apple, with me.”
“Grandfather was referring to and I quote that woman!”
I sucked at my teeth and got ready to deliver a blistering retort.
“And you can get off your high horse, Symington, I know damn well you didn’t know Miss Davies was there.” CC gave me a tired smile. “I even tried to tell Grandfather that. But His Grace wasn’t having it. Told me you and I were in bloody collusion. Didn’t believe me when I said I knew nothing about it. Didn’t dare tell him Salisbury told me!”
I laughed. CC snorted. Our tensions vanished.
“Collusion my backside!” CC continued. “I’d rather collude with the devil than encourage your acquaintance with that family.” With his piece said, the handkerchief disappeared, and he looked at me expectantly.
I took my cue: “But if you’re not here to berate me, dearest cousin of mine, why are you here? What did you find out that couldn’t wait till morning?”
We ate and talked. CC talked more than I. Partly because he had more to say; partly because the tale he told was so full of holes I had trouble keeping up; partly because Morpheus claimed my attention for a few minutes.
When he finished, and Sampson had tapped me on the shoulder, I found my cousin wide-eyed like a child surveying a Christmas tree. “Well?” CC demanded. “What do you think?”
I took a large sip – I will not say gulp – of port; for doing so would be a crime against that wondrous nectar and waved my free hand. “If I knew what to think; if I knew what to say; I would tell you at once and direct.”
The handkerchief returned. “Have you been reading Lewis Carroll’s ‘Hunting of the Snark’ again, Symington?”
“Oh yes, cousin of mine, and I can tell you not only am I standing in the shadowy court that is this case; I can assure you with Billiard-Marker-like sincerity that nothing ... I repeat nothing ... is making any sense.”
CC waved his handkerchief with Bellman-like delight. “I know how you feel. Someone is lying.”
I think Sampson muttered something about bankers and their nieces. I think Watkins kicked my valet in the shin.
I was too busy picking up my cue to pay them any attention. “That goes without saying, cousin of mine. But I can’t work out where the lie is, or why.”
On reflection, perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say, especially in the face of Sampson’s Barrister-like disgust. Perhaps I should have been upfront and told them of my plans before turning my feet to Fournier Street. But something held me back. He was wearing his wedding ring again.
Rumour had it that CC’s wife, Violet, was pregnant. Given past reactions to such blessed events, usually involved harsh words and unreasonableness on both our parts, I held my confidences to my chest. Contenting myself with a: “Come, come, CC. Come, come!” I was saved from his withering retort by an insistent tattoo at the front door.
Sampson, no doubt glad to have something to do, sprung into immediate action. Watkins took things out into the kitchen, returning with cakes and coffee and beer. Imran was omnisciently ready for Barker and Lamb, who waddled like barefooted ducks into our midst.
“Still raining, I see,” CC said, moving to let the two men sit and steam by the fire I stoked into life. “Well Barker, what d’you discover?”
To give him his due, the lad masked his disquiet well and got straight to the point. But I could tell by the way his feet danced an insistent tattoo that he was uncertain as to how his news would be received.
“Did you find out how Faye Milliner died?” I asked before CC could rehash what was an old grievance.
“Her heart gave out. I went to her old neighbourhood,” Barker said on a rush. “Some people still remembered her.”
“And?”
“Not much” he continued. “But one did say that the woman never had a day’s sick in her life. Not until she got the chocolates. Not that they knew she got them, till they found the empty tray in her house!”
“Damn!”
I looked at CC. “What were you hoping, cousin, sweet cousin? A resourceful killer?”
He blew his nose and stuffed the offending handkerchief into a pocket. He picked up on one bit of my statement and left the other hanging. “Killer? Singular? I thought you said earlier the murders were unconnected.”
I nodded. “I did. But the more I think on it, the more I think I got it wrong.”
CC’s top lip curled contemptuously. The spitting image of Grandfather. “Bravo’s been dead twenty-four years. I call that the work of a resourceful individual.”
“Then you would be wrong, oh cousin, worthy cousin. One of the Bravos caused Charles Bravo’s death. If he did it ... he’s dead. If she did it, little benefit did it grant her? She’s dead too if you recall! This is a copycat... Possibly.”
CC growled.
“Murders like this should be the work of genius.” My smile encompassed the room, “But using the same method every time, knowing you’re safe to do so because our policing is so disjointed, that’s not the work of a genius.”
My cousin rose to my bait, as I knew he would. But it wasn’t he who answered me.
“Heart attack, gunshot, gastric distress; that doesn’t sound like the same modus oojamaflip, guv? So, if it is one bloke, he’s clever!” Unfortunately for Watkins, his brilliance was overshadowed by my cousin’s loss of temper.
“I’ll have you know our police force is one of the best - if not the best in the world!” CC interrupted with the speed and viciousness of a Gatling gun.
Refusing to give way Watkins took up the belligerent stance of the Marxist in retreat from oppressive forces.
I deflected both sets of anger with a smile. “Individually our policemen are brilliant, oh cousin of mine. They do an amazing job. But they don’t share information; work together; act as a united force.”
“Irrelevant. They don’t need to share information.”
“Jack the Ripper.” Marxist regrouped, Watkins decided to have the last word on the subject.
CC’s balloon of righteousness burst.
Allowing me to take over ...” Give us a hundred years and we’ll work that case out. Probably.”
Lamb’s frown told me I’d have more luck solving the mystery of the Marie Celeste than the Whitechapel murders.
“But I don’t think the future will solve either the Bravo case ... or that of those poor working girls. Not because the murderers are clever ...” I took a sip from the glass Sampson placed at my side and grimaced. Water. I was out of favour. Unabashed, I ploughed on. “Time like age loses evidence, Lamb. It is the way of the beast.”
That worthy old sergeant rubbed his upper arm, as if using the action to give himself thinking time and, proving me right in my supposition, said: “Go on.”
My feet did a little jig – the mirror of Barker’s – safe from censure in my carpet slippers. “Why thank you, Sergeant Lamb, I will. You see the killer we seek is safe because whether we like it or not; whether we want to or not: we can’t help but link the deaths of these people to that awful occurrence in ‘76.” I smiled. “Our current murderer is saved by our blindness. He knows we will chase the wood rather than see the trees. We are hampered by a failing of the past?”
“And what would that be?” Lamb asked quietly.
Looking back on things, I realise now that would have been the second perfect time to tell them all the plan Emily and I concocted. I didn’t of course. Life was too short to deal with even more withering sarcasm and disapproval from those I held dear.
Instead, I looked at Lamb and realised for all his calmness, the old policeman watched me like a hawk.
Believing him to be mere inches behind my cleverness, I smiled and waved my hands effusively. “Nobody bothered to question the men who knew all the victims, Sergeant Lamb.”<
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“I visited that blasted pawnbroker!” CC shouted before a suddenly ashen Lamb could get a word in edgewise. “I got nowhere. Sent me off on a sodding wild goose chase.”
“Men, not man,” I said calmingly. “Besides, pleasant though your dream is, Uncle Mordy isn’t the murderer. He’s too busy fighting demons of his own. No, I’m talking about Gull. Your list of deceased, Constable Barker is of his making. And I believe the answer to our current crime lies within its compilation.”
Out of the corner of a distracted eye, I saw colour and relaxation suffuse Lamb’s face, and I stored the information away; knowing his reaction to be important, yet not knowing why.
“When did the first servant die, Constable?” Sampson asked.
“1891. Pauline Gregson. Heart attack. The others at yearly intervals afterwards, though not in the same month. Two in May; two in June; a couple in July. All at different ends of the month.” Barker read from his notes in a manner that indicated he spent time practising his best policeman voice and wanted to try it out in safe company. “Though according to Gull there was an earlier one. Mary Bell the maid-of-all-work at number 57. Her brother got her the job. He was a butler, I believe. A clear case of suicide, no autopsy. But I discounted it. Didn’t fit the pattern of the rest of the deaths.”
“Why?”
“Rumour had it, she was pregnant and the word on the street was she didn’t want anything to do with the father.”
I grinned. CC nodded. Barker preened. Lamb looked ... sheepish, almost guilty, which, for him, was an unusual reaction to anything.
Of all CC’s men, Lamb was safe, predictable and honest. Even his flaws were well-known, worn with pride and acknowledged openly. Consequently, I was about to question his reaction when the world turned in the opposite direction and the moment was lost.
“Did you just say Uncle Mordy isn’t the murderer, guv?” Watkins enunciated every bit of his statement in order to ensure the whole room gave him their undivided attention. “When did you start calling Mr Gold anything other than that?”