Poor Tom Is Cold

by Maureen Jennings

  She frowned. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to speak to Miss Trowbridge.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Mary Ann Trowbridge. I understand she lives here.”

  “Who are you?”

  Murdoch handed her his calling card. “Acting Detective Murdoch.”

  The housekeeper, if that was who she was, studied his card, even reversing it as if there were more information on the back.

  “She isn’t here.”

  She handed it back to him.

  “When will she return? It is important I speak to her.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Won’t what?”

  “Return.”

  “Do you mean she’s left the city?”

  “No, I mean she won’t return, seeing as how she’s never lived here.”

  Murdoch bit back a retort. If the woman needed to play games with him, he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of getting riled up.

  “Ma’am, this is an important police matter and I would appreciate your cooperation. Does a Mrs. Avison live here?”

  “She does, but you can’t talk to her because she hasn’t finished her breakfast yet.”

  Murdoch reached inside his coat and fished out his watch, looking at it ostentatiously.

  “My, it’s half past two in the afternoon. Is your mistress an invalid then?”

  She scowled at him and was about to close the door but he got his foot in just in time. He summoned as stern an expression as he could, although he had no desire to act the bully with such a tiny shrivelled old woman.

  “I repeat, this is a police matter. If you don’t go this minute and tell your mistress I would like to talk to her, I will be forced to come in and find her myself.”

  The servant stared back at him and he thought there was a glint of amusement in her eyes. The old crow. She actually enjoyed that little contest. He stepped into the hall.

  “I’ll wait here.”

  With a loud sniff of disapproval, she shuffled away down the hall. He watched her draw back the portieres in front of a door to the right, tap, and enter. He looked around. The hall was unusually spacious, large enough to accommodate several chairs, an imposing coat tree, and a fine marble fireplace, which was still protected by a brass screen as if it were summer. The place felt cold and gloomy. The only natural light came through the door windows, and although there was a splendid chandelier of crystal glass, none of the candles were lit. There were so many paintings on the wall, the crimson flock covering was almost obscured. As far as he could tell, they were all portraits. In spite of the grandeur of the house, there wasn’t a sign of any other servants. No butler came hurrying out to take charge, no maids en route to some task. The silence, the cold musty air, made him feel as if he were in a mausoleum. It seemed an old-fashioned, gloomy house for a young, pretty girl like Mary Ann to live in.

  The rear door opened and the housekeeper emerged. She beckoned to him and he approached her.

  “Mrs. Avison will see you. She doesn’t hear so good so make sure you speak up and don’t mumble.”

  “I make a point of never mumbling,” said Murdoch, but any irony was lost and he felt petty for even attempting it.

  “Good,” she said and moved a few inches out of the way so he could enter.

  Like the hall, the room was dark, but at least there was a cheerful fire going in the fireplace. A woman was seated close to it in a large armchair. She was wearing a man’s maroon silk dressing gown and her white hair was in a loose braid down her back. As he came in, she reached for a hearing trumpet and held it to her ear.

  “What is it you want, sir? I couldn’t make head nor tails of what Beulah was saying.” She waved her hand at the chair opposite her. “Sit down, for goodness’ sake. Beulah, go and fetch another cup. I’m sure he’d be glad of some coffee; it’s perishing out there.” Her voice was strident.

  Murdoch did as he was told, putting his damp hat beside him on the floor. In spite of her white hair, Mrs. Avison was by no means an invalid, nor elderly; more likely she was in her late middle age. He decided her unorthodox dress and willingness to receive him the way she was must be cultivated eccentricity. She didn’t wait for the housekeeper to leave before she said, “Beulah’s been with me since we were both children. She started out as the nursery maid. She fusses over me in exactly the same way she did then.” She aimed the trumpet in his direction. “Go on then, explain yourself.”

  He leaned forward. It was rather like playing a trombone in reverse.

  “I want to speak to your niece, Miss Mary Ann Trowbridge. I apologise for intruding at such an unhappy time but I would like to ask her a few more questions concerning Oliver Wicken.”

  Mrs. Avison heard perfectly and she looked at him, puzzled.

  “I don’t know what in Hades you are talking about. There’s no such person here. I’m a widow and I live alone except for Beulah. You’ve made a mistake.”

  It was Murdoch’s turn to be taken aback. “You don’t have a niece named Mary Ann who testified at the coroner’s inquest on Tuesday?”

  “I certainly don’t. Neither niece nor nephew. Thank goodness for that, I might add.”

  “The young woman gave this address and produced a letter purporting to be from her aunt, Mrs. Avison.”

  “What sort of letter?”

  “Corroborating her statement that she was engaged to a young man named Oliver Wicken.”

  “It certainly was not I who wrote the letter.”

  The housekeeper came back in carrying a china cup and saucer that could have belonged to a child’s tea set.

  “Beulah, listen to this story.”

  “Just a minute.” She went to the sideboard, poured out some coffee from a silver pot, and brought the cup to Murdoch. He had only drunk coffee on three occasions in his life and then it came liquid from a bottle and was loaded with milk and sugar. Cautiously, he sipped at the dark fragrant brew.

  “We always serve it black,” said Mrs. Avison. “It’s an abomination to do otherwise. You like coffee, don’t you?”

  “I do now,” he said.

  “So, tell Beulah what you just told me.”

  The housekeeper, who might also have been hard of hearing, didn’t wait for him.

  “I remembered while I was getting the cup. We used to have a servant here named Mary Ann. She was the upstairs maid. About ten or eleven years ago it was. But her last name wasn’t Trowbridge, it was Trotter. What’s this woman look like that you’re after?”

  “She has light brown hair, fair skin, rather dainty features, grey eyes. Probably about twenty or so.”

  Beulah nodded with satisfaction. “Same one. She always looked young for her age. I’m not surprised as a policeman is after her. She only lasted a couple of months with us. Got the shoot on account of immorality.”

  Mrs. Avison had been trying to follow the conversation but she couldn’t and said in exasperation, “What are you blathering about, Beulah?”

  The housekeeper shouted everything into the trumpet. Murdoch drank more of the delicious coffee.

  Mrs. Avison nodded vigorously. “I recollect the girl now. Why in Hades is she pretending I’m her aunt? She was the maid here.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, Mrs. Avison. I wish I did.”

  “Looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth but she was as sly a minx as ever I did see.”

  “What exactly did she do to be dismissed?”

  “Got herself in the family way, that’s what,” Beulah answered. “She was barely sixteen. Wicked.”

  “So, she married then?”

  Mrs. Avison heard that one. “She did not. One of our gardeners was quite willing to take her but she refused.”

  “Was he the father?”

  She clucked her tongue in disapproval. “He said he wasn’t but she wouldn’t tell us who it was. She probably didn’t know.”

  “Did she marry anybody? I might need to seek under her married name.”


  Mrs. Avison waved her trumpet at Beulah, who answered for her. “As far as we know she did not. She left. The gardener’s name was Crenshawe but he married somebody else soon after anyway, so there’s no sense talking to him.”

  “Is the name Oliver Wicken familiar to you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Never heard of him.”

  “You said they were engaged,” interrupted Mrs. Avison. “Why is that of concern to the police? Has he abandoned her?”

  Murdoch explained as succinctly as he could what had transpired. They listened attentively.

  “Did Mary Ann stay in touch with any of the other servants? Is there anybody here that I could talk to?”

  “No. I told you I live by myself with Beulah. I let them all go. Servants are an expense and a bother as far as I’m concerned. Any extra help we get in from time to time. We manage quite well, don’t we, Beulah?”

  The housekeeper ignored the question, intent on pursuing the more lascivious topic of Mary Ann Trotter.

  “One of the maids did run into the girl the year after she’d left us. She told her the child had been stillborn. Whether that was true or not it was certainly convenient. But Agnes said she didn’t look respectable at all.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “She’d become a fallen woman,” Beulah said in the tone of one who takes pride in calling a spade a spade.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MURDOCH WAS BEHIND HIS DESK, Constable Crabtree seated in front of him.

  “George, what’s your opinion? Why’d she give us the runaround?”

  “My guess is she’s still in the game and doesn’t want anybody to know.”

  “Do you think she really was engaged to Wicken?”

  “Hard to tell. She might have said that to pretty it up. She wasn’t about to come right out and say he was having some dock on the side and paying for it.”

  “Would a man kill himself over a prostitute giving him the shove?”

  “Some men are stupid enough for anything. The doxy hands him a line about how he’s the only one she’s ever loved, all other men are as eunuchs compared to him. He makes her happy. What man wouldn’t like to hear that? He believes her, gets besotted, starts to make a nuisance of himself. She’s bored, says that’s it, no more, and he thinks life is over. Bang.”

  Murdoch stared at the constable. Crabtree was a happily married man with five small children, one a newborn. He spoke with such authority, it made him wonder.

  “What is puzzling me, George, is why she came forward at all. Wouldn’t it have been better for her to keep quiet? She could assume nobody knew about her.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “On the other hand, we could be maligning her. We don’t know for certain that she’s a doxy or ever was.”

  “She just happened to lie under oath for no reason.”

  Murdoch grinned. “A point, George.”

  “She said she read about his death in the newspaper. Maybe she’s one of those women who just want to make mischief, or get in on the limelight. She could adapt her story to whatever circumstances revealed themselves. If he’d been married she could have said the same thing. ‘Oh, he loved me but I sent him back to his lawful wife.’ Cow leavings like that.”

  “You’re saying maybe Trowbridge didn’t know Wicken at all.”

  “Yes, sir. Made it up.”

  “What about the letter from her aunt?”

  “We haven’t seen the woman in person and she certainly isn’t Mrs. Avison of Jarvis Street.”

  “Hm. I’m wondering if Wicken was the father of the child she conceived when she was fifteen.”

  “That’d make him fourteen at the time.”

  “It happens, George. Let’s say she revealed this to him. He is overcome by remorse and, after she leaves, he mulls it over to the point of despondency and takes his own life.”

  “That wasn’t the wording of the note.”

  “You’re right. Cancel the fathering theory. Having been in Wicken’s home, I can’t imagine he’d have been allowed within ten feet of a girl when he was fourteen.”

  “Maybe we dismissed the inspector’s speculations too soon, sir.”

  “You mean that one of the women shot him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have to eliminate Isobel Brewster. If she’s lying to us, I’m going to throw in the towel on policing, because she’s convinced me.”

  “Be careful what you say, sir. You always were a softie for a girl in a faint.”

  “Do you think so?” Murdoch asked in surprise. He rubbed his hands hard over his scalp.

  “Let’s go over this again.” He took a piece of paper from his drawer and drew a square.

  “Here’s the house at the corner where we found him. Isobel Brewster has walked up Parliament with him. The timing as she told it to me fits. They stay on the porch because, for some reason, Wicken hasn’t let on he has a key.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want her to linger. He’s got an assignation with Miss Trowbridge.”

  “True. Anyway, they stand here for at least a half an hour, maybe longer. She is threatening to break off their relationship unless he sets a date for the wedding. A half an hour is plausible, isn’t it, George? Especially if they’ve talked about it before.”

  “You can have a barney in less time than that, sir. Take it from me.”

  “All right, Miss Brewster leaves. Wicken now encounters Miss Trowbridge. They go inside the empty house. She is still in the game but wants to go respectable. They quarrel. She wants to marry, he spurns her, says he already has a respectable sweetheart. She grabs his revolver and shoots him. Then she prints a note that suggests suicide and cool as a cucumber comes to the inquest to reinforce her story that he was the rejected one. What about that?”

  Crabtree grinned. “I’d say that’s a good one, sir. ’Course, it does depend on a slip of a girl being able to get the better of a healthy six-foot-tall man.”

  “She took him by surprise. This would also be some explanation for the position of the gun. She was in a rage with him and stuffed the revolver in between his legs in some sort of symbol.”

  “You’ve got a good imagination, sir.”

  “And it’s getting us nowhere. We’ve got to find the mysterious Miss Trowbridge. First off, I want you to go round to all the newspapers. Put an advertisement in the personal columns. Give them her description, say we’d like to get in touch with her further to the death of Oliver Wicken. Anybody knowing her whereabouts should contact us at once.”

  “Are we offering a reward?”

  “Probably not. There’s no money. I’m going to go back to his beat; do all that again. You can join me after.”

  At that moment, they heard somebody coming down the hall to the cubicle.

  “Murdoch?”

  The reed strips were shoved aside and Inspector Brackenreid came in. He couldn’t go too far with Crabtree sitting where he was and they sashayed for a moment as the constable tried to stand and get out of the way. Murdoch groaned to himself. If Brackenreid came looking for him instead of having him brought up to his office, it usually meant trouble. He, too, stood respectfully. Crabtree managed to squeeze against the wall and it was too awkward for the three of them to all be standing. The inspector took the chair. Murdoch sat down again.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I was wondering how you’re getting on with the Wicken case?”

  “I was just going over the possibilities with Constable Crabtree.”

  “Go over them with me.”

  Murdoch related his visit to Mrs. Avison. Brackenreid looked gloomy.

  “I see. That’s all we need, a Jezebel mixed up with one of our officers.”

  “None of this is proven, sir. The housekeeper was relating another servant’s judgement on the young woman. However, this has cast doubt on her testimony.”

  “It’s beginning to look like it was a pack of lies. Our young buck must have got himself mired in some tail. I’ve seen it
before. Men who get wet-eyed over a fen, promising to give them a better life. As if they ever want it!”

  Murdoch tried not to look at Crabtree. The inspector was notorious for his cynical statements about human nature. “I’ve seen it before” was a covert catch-all phrase among the officers.

  Brackenreid tapped the piece of paper in front of Murdoch.

  “You fancy drawings, don’t you? You should have been a general. But you can sit here and draw pictures until the cows come home and it won’t get us any closer to knowing what the hell happened. You need to find that Trowbridge girl.”

  “That’s a good idea, sir.”

  Crabtree winced. Will was at it again.

  Brackenreid glanced up sharply at the detective, but Murdoch was a master at the blank look when he needed to be.

  “I think you’re on to something. It’s not unlikely we are, in fact, looking at a murder.”

  It was a tidy proposition, but even though he was the one who’d presented it, Murdoch knew the danger of prejudice. Mary Ann Trotter may have been a prostitute at one time in her life. It didn’t mean she still was or that immorality and murder were always bedfellows.

  “I want a report on my desk by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The inspector got up. He obviously wanted to leave in a commanding way, but it was impossible as he had to press himself past Crabtree with uncomfortable intimacy.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, both men grinned at each other.

  “You’ll go too far one of these days, Mr. Murdoch. He’s not as thick as he likes to pretend.”

  “I know. It’s the only thing that keeps me from asking for a transfer. He hasn’t completely lost his wits.”

  He reached for his sealskin coat. “You get off to the papers. I’m going to see if Miss Trowbridge-Trotter was noticed by anybody, anywhere, anytime.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  FRANZ LIEPMAN WAS EATING HIS BREAKFAST. He’d toasted two slices of bread in front of the fire and made a pot of strong tea with lacings of sugar and a tot of rum against the damp. He yawned. For more than ten years he had not had a complete night’s sleep. Four hours in the evening before he went to the Foresters building where he was the night watchman, sometimes a nap there in the back room, but he had to be careful. Occasionally an hour or two before he went to his second job, sweeping floors at the general hospital. He was used to it, probably couldn’t have slept an entire night through if it was offered. He did this all week long and never took time off unless he was sick.