by Jane Jakeman
“Lord Ambrose, I accept your account of events — that goes without saying, as the word of a gentleman. But what are we to do with him?' There came an official outburst, as the Consul laid down his pen, wiped his brow, and gesticulated in the general direction of the room behind him. “There are no relatives here in Egypt, I believe. How is he to be buried? Who is to pay the expenses? We have to decide these things without delay, in this climate.”
“Allow me to relieve you of the difficulty,” I modestly remarked. “I am well acquainted with the Westmorland family, and will play my role of good neighbour. I will take upon myself the defrayment of the funeral costs — and make all the arrangements for the funeral itself. I will guarantee a solemn and fitting end, and will relieve the government of any expense or burden in this regard.”
The Consul poured some water from a jug that stood in a silver stand upon his broad desk. His broad, reddish face peered up at me hopefully. The words “relieve the government of expense” had their desired effect.
“Well, Malfine, if that is acceptable to you ... it would certainly take a troublesome burden off my shoulders ... But deal discreetly with it, will you? Can’t have Europeans shooting one another — doesn’t make a good impression on the natives, y’know. United front, and all that. Well, perhaps the least said the better — and I don’t think I’ll need to trouble Miss Westmorland. Where is she, anyway?”
“In the care of my sister, on board a houseboat. She is naturally very shaken, but will be travelling to Alexandria in a day or two. She asked me to book an early passage home.”
“Very well then, I’ll not need to speak to her. I’ve already had her nurse here practically every day for the last month — a good woman, but my God, Malfine! I could get no sense from her — she has the vapours every two minutes. Some tale about this chap Casterman kidnapping a young lady, but there was no evidence whatsoever on which to proceed. Cairo is in an uproar as a result of the smallpox epidemic, of course, so who is to say whether he was not doing Miss Westmorland a favour by taking her into seclusion from infection? Though he’s not a Britisher, of course. Still, Mrs. Jennet can look after the young lady now — or rather, they can look after each other, for I don’t know which of them will have the cooler head! At any rate, there’s no need to cause Miss Westmorland any further distress. And you’ll make all the necessary arrangements?” The Consul pointed over his shoulder in the direction of Casterman’s corpse.
“Oh yes, yes,” I answered in soothing, light treacly tones. And there’s something else that needs attending to as well — there was a ticket in his pocket for a return to Southampton on board the Arabian Lady — she sails tomorrow, I believe. His luggage had probably already been taken on board and someone should inform the captain of the vessel that his passenger will not make an appearance and get the luggage off the ship — but you can safely place it all in my hands! And I shall have the assistance of my brother-in-law — he is waiting outside for me now.”
“Very good of you, Malfine. Well, I’ll leave it all to you, then”
Harassed officialdom conceded to the easiest course that presented itself.
I had thought it would. It always does.
“By the bye, Malfine, there’s some mail for you. Came in with the last steam-packet.”
PART IV
THE ARABIAN LADY
SEVENTEEN
The Contents of Lord Ambrose Malfine’s Post-bag, Poste Restante, Alexandria.
To Lord Ambrose Malfine, to be held at His Majesty's Consulate in Cairo until collected.
From R. Belos Esq, written at Malfine this second day of December; 1832.
My lord,
I have followed your instructions precisely, and send you this report by the fast steam-packet, exactly as you requested.
Your apprehensions as to the death of the servant-girl, Maggie Dermott, were justified. As you desired me to do, I attended the inquest at Callerton on the poor wretch, where the old fellow who found her earthly remains gave evidence, along with Dr. Sandys and some others. The case has had some publicity here in the West Country, owing to the extraordinary circumstances of the manacles, which were found, as it emerged at the inquest, not actually upon the girls wrist, but lying loose within her garments. It is surmised in the newspapers that she managed somehow to extricate herself, for her wrists and hands were indeed very slender, and, breaking loose from her tormentor or tormentors, almost succeeded in escaping, but that they caught up with her, and silenced her for ever. It is assumed that the iron instruments of her suffering, which might provide a clue as to the perpetrators of her murder, were not retrieved, but left with her body, owing to the chances of darkness and urgency. I made notes of the Coroners proceedings, and here present you with as full and careful a record as I can.
Dr. Sandys was called first to the witness box. As you may imagine, the public benches in the courtroom at Callerton were crowded with avid faces, and the doctors distaste for these ghouls ready to lap up the lurid details was evident upon his face when he stepped up to the stand. He spoke in his clipped, Scottish way, evidently wanting to give the onlookers as little satisfaction as possible, and his evidence was quite brief. He testified that when he first saw the body, life was beyond all doubt extinct. He observed the corpse of a young female, thin and not well nourished, as he described her, lying upon the ground, partly covered in dead leaves. The cause of death was plainly strangulation: there was a substantial mark around her neck. He did not think it was from a rope; it had not left the fibrous imprints upon the skin which would have characterised a rope. Rather, he thought it might have been from something such as the grip of a powerful hand, which could well have left the indentations he had observed. He had seen no other marks of injury upon the body.
The doctor later examined the body again, after it had been removed to the private laboratory in the grounds of Lute House, and was able to testify that deceased was not with child, as he understood some persons had conjectured, and that she had been in fact virgo Intacta. Dr. Sandys said this in a very strong clear voice, as if to rebuke any who might have been spreading malicious rumours about the poor girl and her place in the Westmorland household; I am afraid that gossip of this kind has been circulating locally. Looking about him in a glaring sort of way, as if to dare those malicious tongues to go on wagging, Dr. Sandys then left the witness box.
Several personages then testified that the deceased had been in employment until recently at Westmorland Park, as an under-housemaid. Mr. Micah Overbury, trustee of the Westmorland Estate and guardian of its heiress, Miss Lilian Westmorland, then took the stand, at which there was much whispering in the public gallery, and he gave evidence that the deceased had been dismissed from her post, and had left Westmorland Park a week before her body was found. Asked what the reason for the dismissal had been, he said that the house was to be shut up as his niece was to travel abroad for her health, and he himself resided for business purposes in London. In any case, the deceased had not been fit to reside beneath the same roof as a gently brought up young lady such as his niece. He did not wish to speak ill of the dead, but he believed Maggie had some follower or other, for he had seen her indulging in some underhand and whispering conversations with a person of the male sex. Mr. Overbury believed he had seen a stranger idling about in the vicinity of the house on the very day of the murder. In answer to the Coroner, Mr. Overbury replied that this had taken place near the railings where the body had been found, and where the servant and her follower had evidently thought themselves unseen, but that he, Overbury, had been able to espy them from the upper windows of the house. Witness gave it as his opinion that the unknown man had strangled the girl, and left the body at their meeting place. Asked why the girl should have come to the house after she had been discharged from service, witness replied that he thought Maggie might have come to beg for her post back again which he, witness, would not have allowed, for he would not have had such an untrustworthy female in the household.
The mother of the deceased now took the stand; she was incensed and tearful, maintaining that Maggie had been unhappy and frightened since Mr. Overbury had taken charge at Westmorland Park after the decease of Mrs. Westmorland, and that she had referred to the comings and goings of a personage called Casterman, of whom Maggie had been especially frightened. Upon the Coroner asking her what was meant by this, she said she was unable to say exactly, for her daughter had never actually seen anything untoward. The Coroner thereupon commented that she must not speak ill of her betters when she had no proof beyond her daughter’s tales, which were very likely fanciful, for Mr. Overbury was known as a respectable personage of substantial worth.
Micah Overbury was then recalled to the stand. He stated that the man Casterman had been in his service for many years as his man of business; Casterman had been entrusted with the task of escorting his niece on her travels, so much faith did Overbury place in him.
One Patrick Hannigan, Constable of the Watch at Callerton, then gave his testimony. Here, your lordship will forgive an old Thespian for the observation, there was quite a theatrical interlude. I have played to the gallery too often myself not to recognise it in others, and you know, a courtroom is rather like a play; it has its roles and its heroes and heroines, and its audience, too. The audience in point of fact was hooting and shouting when the gallant constable made his appearance, for he was wearing the brave uniform of his constabulary, a tall top hat, together with a blue swallowtail coat and blue trousers, and this costume made the audience in the courtroom somewhat abusive, they giving many cries of “blue devil!” and “raw lobster!” and such pleasantries. But it was my impression that the new witness enjoyed his fame and stroked his whiskers quite complacently as he stepped into the witness-box.
Constable Hannigan’s evidence did not, however, have a great deal to add to what we already had heard. He had been summoned to Westmorland Park by an old fellow who seemed very agitated and told him there was a dead girl as had been murdered, or some such words, and her body was lying under a hedge. On witness’s arrival, Dr. Sandys was standing beside the body and told him nothing could be done for the girl.
This was in the grounds; the house itself appeared closed and empty.
Witness held up the manacles or handcuffs as he was speaking, and declared he had found them “on the girl’s body.” Witness had lifted the girl up and observed deep marks upon her neck, which Dr. Sandys pronounced to be the cause of death.
Witness was at a loss to account for the manacles. He had never seen such a type before. They were not of the kind used by the constabulary for the restraint of prisoners and he had never seen such shackles. They were too small for a man, was the witness’s opinion, and he caused something of a sensation in the courtroom by holding them up and demonstrating that the hoops would not meet around his wrists. This exhibition delighted the multitude, but the witness was unable to say anything more about the manacles.
The verdict was inevitable: murder by a person or persons unknown. Constable Hannigan was enjoined by the Coroner to do all he could to find the man with whom Maggie Dermott had been keeping company, it being conjectured that he might have been responsible for this appalling crime.
There is nothing more that your servant can report in this particular respect; I made it my business next to investigate the circumstances of the Dermott family and to take careful notes of their situation and the conversation which I had with the mother and sister of the dead girl. Having obtained their address during the proceedings at the Coroner’s Court, I made my way thither a few days later.
Garrison’s Buildings, close to the docks in Bristol, consists of five storeys of leprous brickwork, built round a courtyard well into which the sun never penetrates. Four storeys are at least theoretically open to the air, being above ground; the basement, I was informed, contained two overflowing privies and innumerable rats.
On the third floor of this establishment, the Dermott family struggles to find a foothold for existence.
I made my way up the filthy staircase, holding a scarf over my mouth and nostrils. I had no choice but to be conspicuous, though I flatter myself I normally have the knack of blending in with the scenery, but I was not the kind of visitor who might normally call at Garrison’s Buildings, to be sure. I had enquired the way to the Dermotts several times from various urchins who dogged my steps, and at length I approached a peeling wooden door, which attempted to protect, by means of skimped planks and a flimsy latch, the meagre possessions of a wretched household.
I knocked, gently, to spare the frail panels of the door. A woman opened it, and stared at me with eyes that barely seemed to register my presence. The lids were swollen and thick, shiny, and glazed with much weeping.
She pulled a faded blue shawl around her shoulders.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Dermott?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Mrs. Dermott, I was at the inquest.”
She stared at me, seeming to see me for the first time.
“And what were you doing there? What was my poor child’s death to do with you? You’ll be the same as the rest of them — they don’t care a farthing! There’s lots of fine words — even the parson came round after he heard she were dead. First time he ever set foot in Garrison’s Buildings, and then only when my child had been murdered. They doesn’t care for us who lives in places sich as this — not that preacher, not that Coroner who prated away about my poor dead baby!”
Excuse me, my lord: I attempt to reproduce her speech faithfully as I heard it. We actors are quick students, you know, at noting the vagaries of accent and speech.
Mrs. Dermott rubbed her eyes with a kerchief. “So where are you from? And if you’ve anything to do with that Mr. Overbury, you can take yourself right back to where you comes from! A real slave-driver, that Mr. Overbury was!”
“No, I have nothing to do with Mr. Micah Overbury, I assure you. I have been sent by one who is a friend to Miss Lilian Westmorland, to enquire into whether I might be of assistance.”
The woman’s tone changed and she gazed into my face for a moment or two, her anger ebbing away, as I could see.
“Miss Lilian? Aye, I heard Maggie speak of her — she treated her kindly, did Miss Lilian. That young lady were the only creature as ever offered her a decent word, you may be sure! Come in, though God knows, we have little enough to offer a visitor.”
This was patently true.
There were a few poor sticks of furniture in the room: a deal table, a bed, a makeshift shelf, a candle in a chipped saucer. It might have been furnished from the leavings of a rubbish heap.
It was clean, however. The uncovered floorboards had been scrubbed. There was a girl sitting on the bed, and her hair was tidy and her dress neat. The smell which imbued every step of the staircase outside was barely noticeable within this room.
Molly Dermott motioned me to a chair which had lost its back. It was the only object in the room on which one could sit, apart from the bed.
I remained standing, as I explained that I had been asked to express sympathy on the death of her daughter. I did not actually say that I was an emissary sent directly by Miss Lilian Westmorland, but I believe that Mrs. Dermott and her daughter Sara (for so the girl on the bed turned out to be) understood me to have called in that capacity, and I did not disabuse them. I judged it better not to involve the name of your lordship in the matter.
“Molly were that sorry when she heard Miss Lilian would be taken off for foreign parts, she stood in this very room and cried. ‘Poor thing,’ she said to me and Sara, when she were allowed home for a visit. ‘Poor Miss Lilian, it’d break your heart to see her, she’s got weaker of late!’ But then, of course, before Miss Lilian went, Mr. Overbury turned Molly away from the house!”
“That is what seems so puzzling, doesn’t it? Mrs. Dermott, have you any idea why your daughter should have gone back to the Overbury household after she had been dismissed? Why she should apparentl
y have been just outside the grounds when her attacker found her?”
“No, sir, I hasn’t, but the only thing I think of was that perhaps she thought she might get to see Miss Lilian again and ask her for some help, for I don’t mind telling you, sir, things are terrible hard with us, and that’s the truth!”
Looking round the room, I could well believe this. The woman and the girl both had that sharp-featured look which suggested they never got enough to eat, and there was no sign in that room of anything to alleviate hunger. I have seen such poverty a long time ago, among aspiring actors, in my days in the theatre, but there it was bearable. Those garrets were lit with the bright clutter of stage flummery and bits of costumes, and the barely furnished rooms resounded with young voices declaiming passionate speeches, and supping on promises of fame, if I may express it so rhetorically.
Here in Garrison’s Buildings there was the despair of grief, as well as the hopelessness of utter destitution.
The girl, Sara, broke in on my thoughts.
“But she never saw Miss Lilian when she went back.”
“How do you know that?”
She got up from the bed and put her arm around Mrs. Dermott.
“I knows it because she was going to give Miss Lilian something. She said as Miss Lilian might give her some reward for it, but it were more than money our Maggie wanted. She thought as that Casterman might be doing something wrong — something that would hurt Miss Lilian.”
“Do you know what it was that Maggie was going to give to Miss Lilian?”
For answer, Sara bent under the bed and reached out a pair of grey woollen stockings, much darned at the toes and heels. At the sight of them, Mrs. Dermott began weeping.
“Us got poor Maggie’s clothes back from the Crowner. What she were wearing when some devil choked the life out of her. And she had the paper hidden in one of the stockings. Only they didn’t find it, and they give us poor Maggie’s clothes back. And we couldn’t afford to ... to ...”