Mark nodded. “Send a lad to Fred, and he will alert us. For the time being, I am going to spend a lot of time in the village. Someone has been threatened, and I plan to ensure that every step is taken to stop them becoming the third victim. I need your help in this, Mr Brewster, and then maybe we can protect your business rather than damage it.”
“Count me in, sir, and if there is anything else you need from me, just tell me what to do.”
“Fred is going to bring a constable to you who will watch the carriage. Hide him. He will be swapped for someone else when his shift changes, but there will always be someone in the hiding place, keeping watch. Right now, don’t challenge anyone who turns up for the carriage. Let it go because we will follow it. If you detect anything untoward, or get any further information on the owner, let me know. If I am not in the tea shop, I will either be at the Marchington residence, or Great Tipton station. Fred will know where to find me.”
“Quite.” Brewster held his grubby hand out to Mark and nodded his thanks. “I will get word out to the men to watch out for the blasted thing moving about the village. Between us, we can keep tabs on it.”
“It is essential that we don’t alert the woman that we are suspicious, so please don’t tell anyone who is likely to gossip about it.”
Brewster gave him a knowing look. “Don’t you worry about it, the lads and I can deal with this and the gossips won’t be any the wiser for it. You mark my words.”
Mark had no choice really, what was done now, was done. There was no going back and, if he was honest, he was grateful for the help. It was damned difficult to monitor the carriage given its position not only in the village, but in the coal merchant’s yard. The yard itself was surrounded with a fifteen feet high brick wall. There was no back entrance and it was damned near impossible to watch from the outside. There wasn’t even a house opposite that afforded a clear view down into the yard. Having someone inside was the best option available. Unfortunately, that also meant that they wouldn’t be able to get out of the yard to alert anyone if the carriage started to head out.
Mark quickly finished his drink and took his leave of the merchant. With a sigh, he left the pub. He glanced at the closed doors of the coal merchants. It was early evening but the cold bite of night air nipped at his cheeks as he headed down the now deserted main street. A flurry of movement to his left drew his attention and he watched Babette, huddled in her cloak, scurry down the street. She was clearly off to church to arrange the flowers.
He was about to turn away when he realised that she was heading in the opposite direction to the church and had no flowers with her.
Curious, Mark followed.
At the end of the next street, Berrisford Road, Mark waited and watched Babette disappear into a house, half way down the street. The person she intended to see had clearly been waiting for her because she hadn’t even knocked on the door before a masculine pair of arms swept her into the house seconds before the door closed.
He waited for several moments but Babette didn’t re-appear. He wondered if Harriett knew what was going on. Although he was fairly certain that Babette’s clandestine activities had nothing to do with the murders and attempt on Harriett’s life, he suspected that the latest mystery didn’t bode well for anyone. After all, unless Babette was having an affair, what likely reason could she possibly have to visit a solicitor at his home, in the middle of the evening, and be so secretive about it?
Moreover, the last time he had been to see his solicitor, he hadn’t been swept into a loving hug on arrival.
Mark sighed and began to walk home. He had no sooner reached the outskirts of town than he met with Fred, the village bobby.
“Evening.”
“Evening, sir. I’m just heading off on my nightly rounds,” Fred replied with a sigh.
“Is everything alright?” Mark frowned at the despondency in the man’s voice.
Fred shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. It is a rum old business and that’s a fact. I have been living in this village all of my life and I can tell you, it is about the quietest place on God’s earth. Nothing much ever happens in Tipton Hollow. Most of my work is nearer toward Great Tipton. Of late though, with the murders and the recent spate of thefts, it makes me wonder what the world is coming to.”
Mark frowned and studied the village constable cautiously. “Spate of thefts?” He lifted his brows and waited.
“I have just come back from Helena Cridlingham’s house on the outskirts of the village. A couple of weeks ago, she reported that a fob watch that belonged to her grandfather, and was with his body at the time of his death, had been stolen.”
“Stolen? How? When?”
“Well, from what I can gather, sometime between when his body was taken from the house by the funeral directors and when it was returned for laying out prior to the funeral.”
“It went missing at the funeral directors?”
Fred nodded. “I’ve been to Mr Bentwhistle, but he denies all knowledge of ever seeing it. Helena swears blind it was on her grandad’s body, you see. I have been to see her now to check that she hasn’t found it. I don’t know,” the man sighed. “It’s a rum business.”
Mark frowned and thought about the messages that had come through the psychic circle. One of the messages mentioned a fob watch being in a jar. Bentwhistle had told everyone that it hadn’t been found but someone must have been referring to it being in the funeral directors somewhere. It couldn’t have been Helena; she hadn’t even been at the séance. So who? Why? Were they trying to point the finger at Bentwhistle, or did they know that he was the thief?
“Does this Mrs Cridlingham go to séances at all?”
“Miss Cridlingham?” Fred shook his head. “I can’t see her being that familiar with anyone to be honest with you. She isn’t married and has lived with her grandfather for many years,” Fred replied knowingly. “She is a strange one. Some say that she is a witch. It is highly unusual for her to report anything to the police, but she was adamant the watch had been with her grandfather when he had left the house on the day of his death.”
“But does she go to séances though?” Mark snapped impatiently when Fred appeared happy to continue to ramble.
“Not as far as I am aware, although there are rumours that she knows more than she lets on,” Fred tapped the side of his nose and gave Mark a knowing look that was completely ignored.
Mark mentally shook his head and tried to stop Fred from rambling again. “So the grandfather went to the funeral parlour for preparation and examination by the Doctor and had the fob watch on him?”
“He was returned to the house without the fob watch apparently.”
“Thank you for that. Where does this Miss Cridlingham live?” Mark listened to the direction and nodded. “Tomorrow afternoon, Detective Isaac and I will pay her a visit.”
Fred looked astonished. “Do you think it might be linked to the murders?”
“I have absolutely no idea just what is going on in this village at the moment,” Mark sighed. “Or who is involved in what, but I am going to find out.” He took a couple of steps away before he reluctantly turned back. The thought of the paperwork that littered his desk was ruthlessly shoved aside and he studied Fred thoughtfully.
“Tell me, Fred, what other thefts have there been?”
“A couple of people have reported missing jewellery and personal effects from houses.”
“Do any of them have any links to the funeral directors? I mean, have the families recently had deaths in the family that Mr Bentwhistle has dealt with?”
Fred frowned and nodded. “Well, I am not entirely sure, but now that you come to mention it, I think most of them have. There has been a theft from the house of Mr Snodgrass. Some valuable ornaments went missing just after his funeral, and then there was some jewellery that went missing from old Mrs Barnathy, but that was a couple of weeks after her death. I have got the details on my desk.”
“Good, get them to me first
thing in the morning. Meantime, keep your eyes and ears open for anything untoward.”
Mark turned around and studied the sleepy village, nestled in the hills. Outward appearances made it look tranquil and idyllic, however he now knew that it held hidden secrets; sinister threats, murder, thieves and vices, to name but a few.
He had no idea how to unravel the tightly wound ball of mysterious confusion, and wondered if he stood a chance of ever finding out just what on earth was going on.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The following morning, when Mark arrived at his desk, he was tired, grumpy and more than a little fed up. The huge mound of paperwork that awaited him would take days to get through, but held little interest. His thoughts were very firmly locked on the events in Tipton Hollow. In particular, the latest revelation of several thefts from customers of Bentwhistle Funeral Directors. He couldn’t help but wonder if other items had been stolen that hadn’t been reported. But did that make Alan Bentwhistle the thief?
With a sigh, he pushed away from the table and threw a dark look at the paperwork before he left his office and called for Isaac, who sat with his boots propped up on his desk and a pile of papers on his knees.
“Come on,” Mark sighed. “Let’s go and pay a visit to Miss Smethwick.”
“Smethwick?”
They left the building and headed toward Tipton Hollow. Mark brought Isaac up to date on the last night’s revelation, although he didn’t mention Babette’s evening visit to the solicitor. He wasn’t sure whether he was a little unprofessional in his belief that it was a family matter, but wanted to discuss it with Harriett before he considered it worthy of inclusion in his investigation.
They arrived at Morningside Cottage in Tipton Hollow half an hour later. Mark ordered the carriage to pull up at the end of the road and they walked the last hundred yards. They were a few feet away from the gate when Miss Smethwick appeared out of her front door with a large square wicker basket in hand. Mark shared a glance with Isaac.
“Ah, good morning to you, Miss Smethwick,” he called. Miss Smethwick froze and turned to watch them approach with wary eyes. “I am glad we caught you before you head out. I need to ask you a question or two.”
“I was just going out,” Miss Smethwick replied with a pointed glare. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“We called around yesterday but you were not at home.” Mark was fairly certain that if the woman could have gotten away with curling her lip then she would have done. As it was, she retreated behind defensive glares. He stood close to her and took the opportunity to study her facial features.
The wary step back she took was duly noted, and he watched the furtive way she glanced around the small garden as though searching for a way out. He wanted her to feel unnerved. If he had any hope of bringing the investigation to a resolution, he had to prod her into doing something that would link her to the carriage. He had received a report from Fred that the carriage hadn’t moved all night and Miss Smethwick hadn’t been seen, but was more convinced than ever that she was the owner.
He eyed her basket. “Are you going for more coal? We will walk with you and we can chat while we walk.” Mark felt her glance sideways at him and waited until they were on their way before he broke the silence.
“Tell me something, Miss Smethwick, what do you think about the messages that were given at the séances?”
Miss Smethwick gave an unladylike snort and sighed. “I think that they are nothing but rubbish. Those two charlatans should be arrested, I can tell you.”
“Do you think it is all nonsense?”
“You were there the other night, what do you think?”
“I think that there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered, but that doesn’t mean Madame Humphries or Miss Hepplethwaite are charlatans.” He put in enough of a note of caution to raise the woman’s ire and it worked. He glanced at her and caught sight of the fiery anger in the woman’s black gaze. Up close, it was quite evident that she was about as close to seventy years old as he was, even if he discounted the unlined hands and youthful eyes. Whoever he was walking with was most definitely not the old Miss Smethwick, who had spent many years living in the village. It raised alarm bells within Mark that the original Miss Smethwick had yet to be accounted for. He could only hope that he didn’t have a third murder on his hands already. Right now, he was more convinced than ever that the woman he was walking with was the woman in her thirties who rented the barn from Mr Brewster.
“You have seen them and that ridiculous carpet bag they carry about. Let me ask you one thing; these women claim to talk to spirits, right?”
Mark nodded when the woman looked at him. His ears were tuned into her voice. It wasn’t the trembling, doddering voice he would normally expect from an elderly lady. This woman’s voice was firm, strong and fully of acid-like conviction that rang in each of her clipped words.
“Then why do they need that huge carpet bag that you could fit three of Beatrice’s feral cats in? Have you been to one of their demonstrations?” Her face was contemptuous. She didn’t wait for his answer before she launched into her tirade. “I suggest that you do, officer. I suggest you go to one of those ridiculous pantomimes and take a good look at what they do. There is one tonight over at the Civic Hall in Great Tipton. Go and see their fake hands that glow in the dark for yourself. The silly strange glow they create with the lamp and the green cloth, and that ridiculous muslin that Madame Humphries stuffs in her mouth and pretends is spirit essence is nothing but a joke.”
Mark coughed at the force of the woman’s anger and wondered if she had some sort of personal vendetta. He frowned at her comment about the muslin in the mouth and immediately thought of how Minerva Bobbington had died. Were Madame Humphries and Miss Hepplethwaite the killers? If so, why?
“You have been to one I take it?”
“Only one, thankfully. I went just to see if they were stupid enough to continue with their charade. You need to look into their background a bit more. They hail from Charing Cross in London, and have been stealing money from people for a long time. It is about time you took them off the streets before they defraud anyone else out of their house and home.”
Mark stopped walking and moved to block her path. “You said, ‘anyone else from losing their home’. Do you know one of their victims?” It wasn’t a question, and he had his answer in her eyes. “Tell me now.”
“They use the clairvoyance to steal from people. They are playing a visual trick on their customers. All you need to do to prove that is check that carpet bag they carry. They are no more spiritual than I am. They use trickery, lights and spooky atmospheres to lure people in and then pass around a bucket afterwards so people can ‘donate’, but to what? What are they expected to donate to? There is nothing that they need, no equipment they use, or there shouldn’t be if they were honest about what they do. But I suppose that they have to purchase their false arms from somewhere, don’t they?”
“False arms?” Mark couldn’t help it, he was intrigued. He thought of the carpet bag he and Harriett had studied in Beatrice’s parlour and knew the woman was telling him the truth. He thought about the fraudsters from London who had vanished. “Who has been defrauded around here, apart from the people who go to the demonstrations?”
Miss Smethwick scoffed loudly and cast him a derisive look. “You are the detective, you figure it out. Go and ask the great Madame the questions. They have a lot more to answer than I do. You will not get another word from me until you deal with those two. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they are not behind the deaths of poor Minerva Bobbington and Mr Montague either. They are thieves; heathens! They are one step away from debasing themselves with murder. You mark my words, Detective; you won’t go far wrong in arresting those two, preferably before you have another body on your hands.”
With that, the surprisingly spritely Miss Smethwick stormed off in the direction of the coal yard. They followed her for several yards and watched her disappear thro
ugh the wooden doors but, when they passed the entrance to the yard moments later, it was empty. Miss Smethwick hadn’t come out, but there was no sign of her or Mr Brewster either.
“Now where on earth could she have disappeared to?”
“The carriage,” Mark sighed. He knew, deep in his gut, that they would see that carriage out and about on the streets at some point throughout the day.
“Do you think she changes in it?”
“I don’t know, but I am damned sure that I am going to find out.”
“God, she was angry. Do you think she really knows something, or do you think that she is trying to provide herself with a smoke screen to cover her own activities?” Isaac whispered despite the fact that they were, temporarily, alone in the street.
“I don’t know, but I do think she is right about Misses Humphries and Hepplethwaite. I am going to go to the demonstration tonight. If there is anything even remotely fraudulent about what they are doing then both ladies are going to feel the long arm of the law.”
“Where to now?”
“I think we need to pay a visit to Helena Cridlingham. I need to find out what is going on with these thefts. There was a message about a fob watch at the first séance, if you remember. I want to know if that message is linked to Helena’s missing watch or something else that is missing that we don’t know about yet.”
Half an hour later, they stood on the front step at Helena’s house waited for the door to be answered. Gothic didn’t even begin to describe the house. The small mansion, built from dark, moss covered stone, was dark and gloomy. The aged air of weary opulence was tinged with a slightly sinister feel that was emphasised by the narrow unlit windows and overgrown gardens at the front of the house. Over the years, large parts of the house had fallen into disrepair. The huge turret situated to one side of the house had long since given up the fight against the persistent wall of ivy that now covered any sign of the solid structure that held up the pointed slate roof. Birds were perched on the barren beams that lay open to the weather. Off in the trees at the far end of the garden, rooks squabbled over prey. The flurry of black feathers broke the still morning air and made both men shift uneasily as they waited.
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