by Gavin Lyall
Ranklin’s only consolation was thinking that, if they’d swapped jobs, O’Gilroy might have ended up in custody for striking a “stupid heathen Protestant”.
However, Ranklin kept his temper and finally the vicar commented: “Odd, this interest in that wedding. I had the lady’s sister asking earlier this week.”
“Really? Does she live locally?”
“No, she said she was staying at the Queen’s – a Mrs Simmons, I think.”
Ranklin, who’d had no idea there was a sister, was afire to be off, but now the vicar had melted to his politeness and held him for a five-minute lecture on the care of the vicarage lawn.
O’Gilroy was loitering on the pavement, wearing a rather papist expression.
“Nothing on the wedding,” Ranklin said, “except that Enid Langhorn’s sister was asking about it a day or two back.”
“Mrs Simmons? She was asking at Abercromby Road, too. Staying at the Queen’s Hotel.”
“Right, then . . .” He looked at his watch. “No, time’s getting on. You get round to the Town Hall and see if there’s any trace of the women witnesses.”
“Enjoy yer tea,” O’Gilroy said sourly.
“If she’s left, I’ll see you at the Town Hall.”
But luckily she hadn’t. She sent down a message that she’d join him in the lounge in fifteen minutes. The Queen’s was clearly one of the top hotels in town, so Mrs Simmons had done better in life than Enid with her last-known La Villette address. Ranklin waited among the inevitable potted palms and gazed out across Southsea Common to the sea, sparkling in the afternoon sun but dotted with the grey industrial shapes of the Navy coming and going. Why do they say “steaming” when they’re so obviously smoking?
“Mrs Simmons?” She was short, with a cottage-loaf figure and dressed a few years behind fashion in layers of cream muslin – probably – for a skirt, a tightly corseted waist, a lace stock and a wide hat. A year ago, before he had met Corinna, Ranklin wouldn’t even have noticed this much about her; he wouldn’t have been sure it was proper to.
He introduced himself under the well-worn alias of James Spencer, and tried to regularise the position by explaining: “I was asked by Mr Noah Quinton, the solicitor who’s defending your nephew at Bow Street –I assume you’ve heard about that? – to see if I could trace your sister.”
“Yes.” She smiled a little wanly. “That’s what I’m trying to do myself.”
They sat down, Mrs Simmons – or her corset – keeping her back rigid. But the face peeking out from under the hat was snub-nosed and perky, a young expression betrayed by the creases of age. She offered to pour her own tea, but Ranklin said he might as well carry on. It gave him something to do, because he was baffled about what to say next.
Mrs Simmons said: “I know she was in Paris, but I didn’t get any answer to my letters, so I came here just on an off chance. She lived in Abercromby Road for several years, you know.” Her voice was clear, but somehow studied and careful. Perhaps a sign that marriage had taken her a step up in the world.
“Yes. We got that address from her marriage certificate.” But how did he broach the question of what she had been doing in Abercromby Road? Let alone with whom. “Mr Quinton very much wants her to appear as a character witness for young Grover.”
“I’m sure he does. I really can’t understand why she hasn’t been in touch with him.” Then a thought seemed to flit across her neat, round face. “Unless it was . . . well, it was something May told me, though—”
“May? I thought her name was Enid?”
“Oh, May was her stage name. Didn’t you know she was an actress? She wasn’t one of the lucky ones, but she had a few small parts at the Theatre Royal. Of course, that caused a terrible row with our parents, Pa in particular; he didn’t want any daughter of his going on the stage. That’s why she left home, of course.”
“Was this in Portsmouth?”
“Oh no, we come from Northumberland.”
Ranklin offered more tea. “You were saying that your sister told you something . . . ?”
“Yes.” She paused. “She said . . . well, as I say, I think she was having trouble making ends meet as an actress and she did have a lot of evenings free and . . . well, a girl has to live, doesn’t she? She began to . . . well, entertain gentlemen. I do hope I’m not shocking you, Mr Spencer.”
“Not at all. Please go on.”
“So – she told me – one day a gentleman came to see her and he said that someone very important had seen her on the stage and would like to meet her and, if it went well, then perhaps they could come to an arrangement. He meant an arrangement about money, that she wouldn’t entertain any other gentlemen except this very important gentleman. And May said she’d meet this very important gentleman and see how it went and, well . . . you’ll never guess who this gentleman was. It was Prince George who’s now King George. There! I said you wouldn’t believe it.”
For a moment, Ranklin didn’t know what expression to put on: shock? disbelief? certainly not ready acceptance. He quickly settled for saying: “I see,” in an impressed tone.
“So this went on for about a year, I think, but you know what a naval officer’s life is like: off to sea and coming back at odd times and feeling frisky right there and then and . . . well, one of them made a mistake and she found herself in pig. Pregnant,” she explained quickly. “Naturally, she wasn’t saying anything to him, and he was off to command a gunboat at Chatham by the time she was sure, and then he went to the North American Squadron for a year and she married a bo’sun from the American Line and went to live in America.
“So you see, Grover’s really the son of the King and I suppose that makes him the next king, doesn’t it?”
“Oh Lord, no,” Ranklin said instinctively, and was then surprised at her startled expression. Had she really been thinking of a luxurious future for herself as a royal aunt? “That is,” he went on, “I’m no lawyer myself, but I’m sure that only the legitimate son of the King could accede. And even if it were possible, it would be your sister’s word against all the ranks of . . .” he’d been going to say “Tuscany” but she wouldn’t recognise the quotation; “. . . the Royal family, the courts, the government . . . And against the evidence of his birth certificate, I dare say. You don’t happen to know if she pretended to her husband that he was the real father?”
“I suppose she must have done,” she said, with her thoughts elsewhere; she really must have dreamt of a courtly life.
“So if we can get your sister to see Mr Quinton, I don’t think it would help Grover if she repeated what she told you.”
“Not even if she could prove it better? I mean there’s others who must’ve seen George visiting, she had a maid – she told me – at the time, if I could find her—”
“Mrs Simmons, I’m quite sure there’s no power on this earth that can make young Grover the next king.”
“No, I suppose not, with them out to stop it.” She sounded surprisingly vicious.
“And I think she’s got a more urgent problem with Grover at the moment.”
“How’s that going?”
“I understand from Mr Quinton that the chief witness for the French police turned out to be very unreliable in court, but now he’s vanished with his evidence unfinished. I don’t think anybody knows what’s going to happen next. Do you have your sister’s last address in Paris?”
She fiddled inside her handbag and then said: “I thought I had it here, but perhaps I can remember: 18 Rue Castelnaudry . . .” That was the same address they’d got already, but Ranklin noted it down.
“And are you coming to London to see Grover? I’m sure Mr Quinton could arrange it.”
She hesitated. “I don’t hardly know him, what with him being born and brought up in America. I thought perhaps I’d go to Paris and see if I can find May myself.”
“It’s a bit city – and the area they were living in, La Villette, is a pretty rough neighbourhood. Be prepared for that.”<
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She smiled. “I’ve been in some rough neighbourhoods in my life, Mr Spencer. I’ll get by.”
“Let me give you Noah Quinton’s address. I hope you’ll let him know if you find anything.”
He wrote it on the back of a James Spencer calling-card. She looked at both side s. “And you said you worked for Mr Quinton?”
“I undertake research for the legal profession. Not a private detective.” He’d thought up that statement, with its proud disclaimer, on the train but the vicar hadn’t even asked.
“Not the government?”
He blinked. “No. I have done work for government departments, but this is strictly for Mr Quinton. And really for Grover, of course.”
“You haven’t asked me to keep it secret that I’ve talked to you.”
“Why should I?” If she wanted to follow up James Spencer she’d eventually run into a brick wall – but before that, he should have heard she was looking. Still, he’d best warn Quinton that a Mr Spencer had been working for him.
She made a fluttery gesture. “Oh, I just thought lawyers . . .”
He was feeling quite chipper when he met O’Gilroy at the town station. Mrs Simmons wasn’t quite the horse’s mouth, but finding the horse’s sister was far more than he’d expected.
O’Gilroy wasn’t so chirpy. “One of’em, jest the one. Married and settled and don’t hardly remember the wedding at all, jest she was on the theatre with Enid Bowman – I found she’d been an actress, calling herself May, not much good of a one – and didn’t know a thing abut Enid’s private life but wouldn’t be surprised at anything. I didn’t say what I was asking about, of course. How’d ye go yerself ?”
Ranklin told him – tactfully omitting that he’d learned about the stage, too. O’Gilroy lit a cigarette and frowned with thought. “Drew an ace, then, did ye? Where’s that leave us?”
“It confirms that the story could be true . . .” But now he thought about it, that was just about all. There was no proof, but they weren’t in the legal-proof business, and this was a story that simply wasn’t susceptible of proof anyway.
“We’ve done better than anyone expected,” he pronounced firmly. They had ten minutes before the next train back to London and he went to find an evening paper.
A downpage headline read:
BODY FOUND IN THAMES
Could be missing witness
* * *
A hospital mortuary is not about death. Whether you believe in oblivion or the hereafter, death can still be something awesome, as both light and shadow may be awesome. There was no awe about this chilly, shabby windowless room, with a line of unlit bulbs dangling over a row of what looked like wooden butcher’s tables. It was businesslike and workaday, summed up by a mop and bucket propped in one corner. The business of the room was being conducted by three men under a lit bulb over one of the tables; two others sat on a bench in the shadows, talking quietly, waiting their turn. The business was not death, but the living consequences of dying and it had a smell like a butcher’s shop spiced with formalin.
As a soldier, Ranklin had seen corpses before, but they had looked less formal than this naked one stretched on the tabletop. It had the yellow-white colour of fat on raw meat, and was torn, with ragged purple cuts. It had lost a foot, an arm to the elbow, and most of the face was gone. Just torn pale flesh like veal and patches of white skull showing through. There was no blood and the body looked oddly clean; the filthy river had seen to that.
A man Ranklin assumed was a police surgeon, with shirt cuffs removed and jacket sleeves hooked back, was taking measurements and entering them in a notebook. Standing back across the table from him, and guarding a smaller table covered with jars and metal bowls, was a younger man in a long white apron. Ranklin came up beside him and whispered – whispers seemed appropriate: “Was that how he went into the river?”
The surgeon’s assistant barely glanced at him. “I doubt it. It’s scraping along the barges that does it. And it looks like he got caught in a propeller, too. It’s pretty usual with one who’s been in the river a day or more.”
“Can you tell if he drowned?”
“If there’s enough river water in his lungs.”
“And were any of the injuries on him before he went into the water?”
The assistant turned to take a proper look at him. “Are you with the police?”
But then two men came in, both without topcoats so they had probably been around the hospital for some time. Inspectors McDaniel and Lacoste, seemingly professionally united. Both gave him a non-committal but thorough police stare.
He stepped forward and held out ah and. “Captain Ranklin, War Office.” It was time to be moderately honest.
McDaniel introduced himself and Lacoste. “Didn’t know you were concerned.”
“Oh, you know, anarchism, international matters and all that – if it’s Guillet. Is it?”
“Had you seen him before?”
“Only in court,” Ranklin said more moderately than honestly.
“Would you care to identify him?”
Ranklin smiled lightly and shook his head.
“Nor Inspecteur Laroste.” McDaniel gave a reasonable stab at a French pronunciation. “And he knew him from Paris.”
“Then how will you . . . ?”
“The clothes are French and cheap and I’ve sent some lads round to his hotel to see what size he wore and if the cleaners have left any of his fingerprints there.” He glanced at the body. “Left hand, I hope.”
The youngish man in the apron said: “You’re lucky. After a few days the skin on the fingers can peel right off.”
“I know,” McDaniel said evenly.
Ranklin asked: “Was he floating?”
“Must’ve been, for the river police to spot him.”
That probably meant he was dead when he went into the river; in drowning, you swallow enough water to sink, and only surface again a couple of days later when putrefaction gases build up.
But nothing was certain, as the young assistant pointed out: “The shock of hitting the cold water could have killed him, then there’ll be very little river water in the lungs. So it could be suicide.”
Almost in unison, McDaniel and Lacoste shook their heads.
“You never know,” the assistant insisted.
“That’s right,” McDaniel agreed. But his expression didn’t.
The surgeon stepped back. He was a placid, late-middle aged man with smooth white hair. “Do you want to take fingerprints before I start cutting, Inspector?”
“If you please, doctor.” McDaniel waved and the two men from the shadows came forward with their equipment.
The surgeon lit a large cigar, which slightly surprised Ranklin but certainly improved the immediate neighbourhood. “I can’t give you much at this stage, Inspector.” He consulted his notebook. “He was five foot ten tall, and his live weight would be around eleven stone. Ummm, say seventy kilograms,” he converted for Lacoste. “Does that fit your missing witness?”
The two inspectors conferred by look, and McDaniel nodded. “Could well be. I know it’s tricky, but can you suggest any time of death?”
The surgeon shook his head firmly. “After this time and the water, temperature’s no help. I’ll probably end up saying between twelve and twenty-four hours ago.”
McDaniel hadn’t hoped for enough to be disappointed. “Anything yet on cause of death?”
“If he drowned, I may be ready to testify to that. That apart, I don’t see any obvious bullet or stab wounds, but there’s thirteen separate cuts on the body, not counting the ones that took off his arm, foot and face. I think they all happened after he was dead, but I may change my mind when I’ve had a look inside. Now, is there anything special you want me to look for?”
“Apart from identification, he’s not my case. But we don’t think he went into the river on his own accord.” A small nod from Lacoste backed this up. “We don’t think he’s the type for suicide.”
> Ranklin had to stop himself nodding as well.
The surgeon said: “People often fall into the river drunk.”
McDaniel looked to Lacoste; this time he got a shrug. Ranklin might have helped here: when he last saw Guillet the man hadn’t been drunk and hadn’t been drinking in that direction. Still, that wasn’t evidence anyway.
“And when a man falls,” the surgeon went on, “he just falls. He often hits something before the water, like the wall or a moored boat. So there might well be broken bones, or a fractured skull, even with a genuine accident.”
“You mean you might not be able to tell even if he’d been hit over the head first?”
“I’ll do my best, but quite possibly not, unless it were well before.”
McDaniel nodded heavily. “Like I say, not my case even if there is a case.”
The surgeon smiled sympathetically. “Can I get back to him now?”
“Please do, sir.” McDaniel went for a word with the fingerprint men, who were packing up their equipment.
He came back looking satisfied. “We should know in a couple of hours. And have a medical preliminary by midnight. No point in hanging around here.”
Lacoste said: “I think we should return to Ma’mselle Collomb now.”
McDaniel turned to Ranklin: “Now you know everything we do, sir. I’m sure your people can get any of our reports through Special Branch at the Yard. So if there’s nothing more we can do for you . . .”
“No, no. Thank you.” But Ranklin’s mind was churning. They had picked up Berenice Collomb, then. Perhaps the hotel had recalled her coming round the night before the trial opened – had she been fool enough to try the next night, too? In fact, had she succeeded in getting to Guillet and . . .
He took a last glance at the cold, mostly shadowed room with its little group bending to their jobs in the one pool of light. And I’m here for the honour of the King, he reminded himself. Then he followed McDaniel and Lacoste out.
* * *
It was quiet both outside and inside Whitehall Court. This part of London was mostly government offices by now, closed since five o’clock, and nobody could afford a flat in this building until they were past the age of noisy parties. The outer door to the Bureau’s offices was locked but that was usual enough. Ranklin let himself in and walked through the dark, deserted outer office to the agents’ room. That was dark too, but the door to the Commander’s office was open and spilling a little light.