Silence.
‘Mr Cricklethorpe?’ Any decent person would have turned and walked away but when a pall of suspicion hangs in the air – suspicion of murder – and when one’s goddaughter is missing, niceties may be spared. That is my view.
‘Mr Cricklethorpe, I am sorry to see you so distressed.’ He looked up slowly, blinking. My words bounced through a dark tunnel to reach him and when they did, he took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
Slowly, he came to his feet and walked towards the door. He would have come onto the landing, to keep me out of the room, but I edged in, apologising for disturbing him but not meaning it in the least.
I had to say something to turn his sympathy outwards and engage his interest.
‘I was locked in a cell all night. So whatever has happened to you, I sympathise.’
‘You?’
‘Yes. So may we talk?’
A row of straight-back velvet-upholstered chairs lined the wall as if to make space for a quadrille in the centre of the room. He moved two chairs slightly forward. We sat side by side, facing the jumbled pile of garments and, beyond them, clothing rails and empty hangers. A red dress and an orange cape gave the impression of an indoor bonfire.
He stared at the outfits. ‘Believe it or not, these costumes were neatly arranged, and the shoes in rows.’
‘The police?’
‘Yes. Not the local men. They know I play the panto dame. It’s the others, the outsiders, full of spite and knowing nothing. They see a man who has a liking for red shoes with a nice heel and they jump to conclusions.’
‘Shall I help you hang them?’ The outfits were so splendid that it would be a pleasure to take a closer look.
He wiped his nose. ‘I haven’t the heart. I’ll have them taken away. Let someone else play the dame in future.’
He put the hanky in his pocket. ‘You say you were arrested?’ It had taken a while for my words to penetrate his misery but now he stared at me, wide-eyed.
‘I’m sorry they made a mess of your things, Mr Cricklethorpe.’
‘And a mess of their investigations. Why arrest you?’
‘I’m not even sure I was arrested. Kept for my own safety as a witness, until Sergeant Garvin learned my parentage.’
‘That’s not like him.’ Cricklethorpe frowned. ‘He is a most courteous man.’
‘He was courteous. But when murder is abroad people behave differently.’
Cricklethorpe didn’t look at me but at his hands resting on his ample thighs. ‘I can tell you now the most likely killer of Jack Philips. No mystery.’
‘Who?’
‘It wouldn’t be fair to say.’
‘That’s an exasperating remark, Mr Cricklethorpe. You can’t say you know who it is and then play dumb. What if you had to clear my name?’
‘If you are charged I will come forward.’
‘But if you know the killer…’
‘The most likely, I said. There is a person to whom Philips owed an obligation. Don’t ask me to say more.’
‘All right. But will you promise me you’ll mention this to the chief inspector? He won’t jump to conclusions.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ He rubbed a finger across his nostrils and then retrieved his hanky and wiped his nose. ‘Don’t think I’m upset about being under suspicion. The police have their work to do. If Jack Philips was murdered, I want justice for him.’
‘Then tell the police what you know. But am I right in thinking you were annoyed with Mr Philips, or had a grudge?’
He sniffed. ‘The man was foolishly leading Alma up the garden path. He doesn’t – didn’t – understand women, thought it possible to be friends.’
‘You’re friends with Alma, aren’t you?’
‘That’s different. I’m different.’
‘Perhaps he is too.’
‘No! He’s having his house in Sandsend done up because he has some plan, and Alma’s not part of it.’
‘You knew him well?’
‘I suppose I did, one way or another. He was a great supporter of the Seamans Mission and a stalwart of the Whitby Players, gave a fine performance as Abanazar in Aladdin. I’m just sorry we parted on bad terms.’
‘Because of Alma?’
‘He was raising her hopes. We rowed about it after the Whitby Players’ last meeting and I daresay we were overheard.’
‘What was the row about?’
‘I refused to sell Jack Philips a painting.’
‘Why?’
‘He wanted my painting of the wreck of the hospital ship Rohilla. We almost came to blows. The man thinks – thought – he was entitled to whatever money can buy.’
‘Did you tell the police that?’
‘I most certainly did. I’ve seen him break the hearts of many a good Christian woman. He’d strike up a friendship, raise a female’s expectations, and then show his true colours.’
‘He was a charmer.’
‘Indeed. Women of great intelligence and enormous insight can be taken in by charmers and bounders.’
‘It’s a pity Alma didn’t develop a nose for deceivers.’
He stared glumly at the red dress by his feet. ‘You’re thinking of her history.’
So he knew about the bigamous marriage. Was this because Alma had confided in Percival Cricklethorpe, or because he knew Walter Turner of old? I waited, not wishing to fire questions. He continued.
‘There was an unfortunate congruity of events. One quiet morning Mrs Turner dealt her own Tarot cards and learned of romantic prospects. That very afternoon she caught Jack Philips’s eye and he asked her to tea.’
‘Just like that?’ I could picture the meeting.
Cricklethorpe sighed. ‘That’s how she tells it. Jack probably meant it kindly. He invited her and Felicity, treated them now and again. She helped the business along by wangling tickets to a concert and asking would he like to go. Now, here we are – suspects in his murder.’
‘I wonder where you and I come in the list of suspects, Mr Cricklethorpe? Not in the first rank from what you say.’
‘Speaking for myself, I expect to be high on the list. Being something of a misfit gives me a boost.’
‘In what respect are you a misfit?’
He glared at the pile of costumes, said nothing but then turned and gave me a most comical look. We both laughed.
I stood. ‘Come on, let’s hang these frocks.’ He made no move. ‘They are too good to be left on the floor.’ I picked up a bright red and white polka dot dress the size of a tent and held it against myself.
He did not move, but said, ‘That’s for the kitchen scene, when Widow Twanky bakes a cake.’ He reached for a white pinafore with ruched edging. ‘This goes with it.’
Slowly, he joined me in picking up garments. As we placed the items on hangers and returned them to their rails, I asked him about the paintings. ‘Are they all yours?’
‘Some of them. Others belong to the previous owner, the man who left this house to me in his will.’
‘I thought the house was jointly owned with Alma.’
‘Oh, she told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That absent husband of hers had an eye to the future. He bought half from me. I accepted the money so as to have necessary work done.’
‘This must be an expensive house to keep up.’
‘You sound a little like Chief Inspector Charles of Scotland Yard. He wants to know how I earn my living.’
‘And did you tell him?’
‘I mentioned selling paintings, occasionally. When I told him that I guide visitors about the town, that of course made him understand that I know all the nooks and crannies, all the twisting passages and hidden yards that would take me to the back door of Philips’s jewellers and allow me to enter and kill the man.’
‘What does the chief inspector have as your motive?’
‘I am protective of my friend, Mrs Turner.’
‘Not the strongest of motives given
that you are not a blood relation or romantically involved. All the more reason to give him any information you can. What did Mr Charles have as your weapon?’
‘His young constables have taken away a wand.’
‘A wand?’
‘A magic wand.’
Being in this man’s company made me feel we were auditioning for the role of music hall double act, with me as the straight man. I picked up a tulle dress in green and pink that looked most forlorn. There were layers of stiff net between the green and pink tulle, created by a talented dressmaker. I waited for him to explain.
‘I keep some of the pantomime props here, having so much space. The youngest constable became quite excited at the sight of a broken wand, used by the fairy godmother in Sleeping Beauty. I expect he intends to look at it under a microscope. Perhaps it will be smeared with blood and hairs from the unfortunate deceased, so as to firm up a case against me.’
His answer made me shudder as I remembered the small but deadly wound on the jeweller’s skull. ‘How do you know that’s how Mr Philips died?’
‘Aha, Mrs Turner said you had talents.’
‘No, I mean it. You must tell me how you know. Perhaps I can eliminate you from enquiries.’
‘You’re not investigating.’
‘Who said I’m not?’
Cricklethorpe gave a grim smile. ‘I read the odd detective story. If Jack Philips was thought to be hit by a magic wand, it would have had to be a blow to the head. Some people have what are called egg shell skulls. It was mentioned in something or other I read. They are at greater risk of mortality because of thinness of the bone. It only takes a light blow with a heavy object or a heavy blow with a light object to kill them.’
‘You ought to be recruited onto the chief inspector’s team.’
‘So ought you.’
‘There’s time yet. But you have local knowledge, and I don’t.’
‘What do you want to know? I’m not from here myself, but I’ve been here long enough to know Whitby inside out and upside down.’
‘So where are you from?’
‘Hull.’
‘It’s an achievement for an outsider to be accepted in a place like Whitby, I should think.’
‘One finds ways.’
‘How did you come to be here, and living in this house?’
‘Do you really want to hear about me?’ Cricklethorpe asked.
‘Of course.’ I wanted him to talk. It would be better than asking him outright about Walter Turner, and whether my guess that he knew Turner’s whereabouts and Felicity’s intentions was correct. Of course, it was also plausible that Cricklethorpe could be a suspect, not simply because he was protective towards Alma. He and she had a convenient arrangement, which Jack Philips threatened to upset. If Philips was truly interested in Alma, she would leave here. I had twice heard that Philips had been doing up his house in Sandsend. Might that be because he intended to marry?
In spite of my prompt, Cricklethorpe did not begin to tell me his story. I tried again. ‘Tell me how you came to land in Whitby.’
He flung a dress on the floor. ‘I’ve lost all heart for this.’
‘Then sit down. If I see to your costumes while you talk, your heart may find its way home.’
I picked up a glittering gold satin gown and placed it on a hanger. Its front was latticed in silver and studded with gems. Next I gathered up a red velvet dress, the seams sewn by hand. Its heavy hem allowed it to fall in swirls. His eyes narrowed as I felt the material between fingers and thumb. ‘Top quality, and beautifully made.’
‘We have a wardrobe mistress. She’s a busy woman, a widow with a family and lodgers, but she finds time each year to help at the pantomime.’
I suddenly thought that the wardrobe mistress with a family and lodgers might be Mrs Webb who had been making a skirt when Hilda took me to see her.
‘Whitby is lucky to have you. It’s Hull’s loss that you came here. What was the prompt?’
As Percival Cricklethorpe told me his story, I became engrossed, in both the story and the costumes.
Perhaps he obliged in order to keep me from paying too much attention to his extraordinary bejewelled garments. My mother and my aunt have a knack for telling real from fake gems. I wished they were here to confirm my hunch that Percival kept some of the proceeds of his smuggling sewn into his costumes.
Cricklethorpe took a seat and began to talk, as if telling a story to an audience whose attention must be held at all cost. ‘When I was a boy, there were expectations of me. I won’t say great expectations, but solid expectations. I felt them even as a little fellow. My father was a clerk in one of the great shipping companies in Hull. He forbad my mother to work, but she would slip out for a couple of hours each day and help in a dry cleaner’s shop. She was also a good seamstress.’
‘Like Mrs Webb?’ I straightened a brocade jacket with gold buttons. It had some kind of cardboard stiffening in the back. Not that I could smell five-pound notes, but I wondered.
‘Yes. Mrs Webb and Ma would have hit it off had they ever met. I wish she could see me now. I was supposed to rise mightily in some way no one was ever quite sure about, an only child until my sister the Little Nuisance came along. I tried. Good at sums, a neat hand, but something else was required. I never knew what. My love was art, my painting set. I liked to paint ships. I liked the dramatics, too. When my sister was recruited as a dancing babe in Humpty Dumpty, the dame fell sick with influenza. I was only seventeen and clerking at my father’s place of employ but I stepped up. I did scene painting for them and made a few props, that kind of thing. I enjoyed it. Father didn’t like seeing me in a dress. I missed night school you see. I was supposed to be taking the languages further and immersing myself in the laws of shipping, so as to rise. But I didn’t enjoy the laws of shipping. “You’re not supposed to enjoy it,” my father said. “You’re supposed to rise in the world.” All the while, I was painting, spending my money on art materials. It came to a head in the year of Jack and the Beanstalk because by then I’d flunked Shipping Law.’
I shook out a crumpled skirt made of organza and lined with unbleached linen. The skirt made a crinkling sound as I placed it over a hanger.
Some impulse prompted Cricklethorpe to lean down and pick up a stray pair of green pantaloons. He continued. ‘The top and bottom of it was that I left home and came to Whitby, to try and be myself.’
As I listened to Percival Cricklethorpe, I gathered his pantomime shoes from where they had been flung across the room. There was a pair of enormous black boots, the laces tightly tied.
The dame continued his story.
‘When I came to Whitby, I met real artists, here and in Robin Hood’s Bay. That turned me dejected. It cast me down to see the real stuff. We’d an art gallery in Hull but I’d looked at that in a different way, not connecting it with myself. Coming here to Whitby, and taking a fresh look, I knew what I would have to live up to.
‘Fortunately, it was summer. I took an hotel job, helping the chef, washing up, doing whatever had to be done. I went on painting because I couldn’t help it. A habit you see. I painted on the empty tins that had held baked beans, practised my drawing on wrappers and smoothed out sugar bags. They had me writing menus and adding little decorations. It was temporary, so I didn’t mind. I had a feeling of mad self-confidence, alongside knowing I wasn’t good enough. It would come. Something would come of all these thoughts in my head, this knowing that it would work out. Call it faith if you like. At the end of the season my services were no longer required. The chef told me to go and see old Mr Pearson at Bagdale Hall because he wasn’t up to fending for himself and he might give me a room in exchange for a bit of help around the house.
‘Mr Pearson was frail. He was ninety-two and a prickly old geezer. Suspicious. He let me in because the chef had told him I wasn’t a bad lad, and could turn my hand, was willing.
‘Mr Pearson had been an artist. He looked at what I’d done. He couldn’t paint mu
ch himself, being blighted with arthritis and lumbago but he cheered me up. He said, “Have you had lessons?” I told him just the drawing at school. He said in that case I wasn’t bad and should keep on painting. I could help him keep things straight. I suited him. He suited me. One day, he said, “If I leave you this house, will you live in it?”
‘I said yes I would.
‘He hobbled along to Flowergate the next day and made his will.’
Cricklethorpe paused in his story as I folded a pair of bloomers and then, as if he had always had a lady’s maid who needed instruction, said, ‘Just put underwear on the hangers.’
I picked up a pink corset, an underskirt and an enormously heavy bustle. ‘I suppose being an artist didn’t always pay very well. You needed an income and have a large house with lots of storage. Deliveries of fuel might easily include a barrel or two of whisky.’
Mr Cricklethorpe surveyed the costumes, gave a smile at the re-imposed order. ‘An interesting theory, Mrs Shackleton.’
‘And you are near the station and on good terms with some of the railway workers I would guess.’
One of the hangers was on the rail the wrong way round. He righted it. ‘I trust you will never take a job with the coastguard.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t. But I would like a bottle of whisky for my assistant, Mr Sykes. He’s on holiday with his family in Robin Hood’s Bay.’
‘You’ve helped me with my frocks, Mrs Shackleton. It’s the least I can do.’
‘The police did not find what they were looking for either in the yard or in any of the rooms.’
‘As I say, they took the wand as a likely weapon.’
‘They didn’t look closely at the costumes.’
‘Antagonism got the better of them. They were two young lads from Grosmont and Lythe, trying to outdo each other. Their overriding idea was to humiliate me. Let me watch as they threw my collection about the room, looking in the pockets of the garments and in the bag that the dame sometimes carries.’
‘That was upsetting for you, but it could have been worse.’
‘What can you possibly mean, dear lady?’
‘The inspector, being a specialist in fraud, has a great interest in incomes and expenditure. Young chaps with no experience wouldn’t understand that what seems a tawdry costume may be of more value than one imagines.’
Death at the Seaside Page 17