He could hear Alf giggling as they approached the cubicle. Seymour brought him in and indicated he should sit in the chair.
“Hello, Alf,” said Murdoch.
The boy stared at him in bewilderment. “Are you under arrest too?”
“No, lad. I’m actually a police detective. I was only pretending to be a tramp because I’m trying to find a very bad man.”
“Is he a tramp?”
“He might be.”
“Mr. Traveller isn’t a bad man, but Mr. Bettles is.”
“How long have you known Mr. Traveller?”
“A long, long time.”
“A few months? A year or more? How long exactly?”
Alf laughed. “Weeks and weeks. He looks after me.” Murdoch could see the lad was shivering with fear and he smiled at him.
“I just want to ask you a couple of questions, Alf, then the sergeant is going to take you outside and get you some hot pies with gravy. You don’t have to be afraid. Nobody will hurt you.”
Murdoch hoped he could make good this promise, but he also knew there was much truth in Traveller’s accusation. Tramps and simpletons were easy marks and Inspector Brackenreid, for one, wasn’t a patient man especially when a person of the better class had been killed.
He took the watch out of the drawer. “Have you ever seen this before, Alf?”
The boy nodded eager to please. “Yes, sir. I saw it just this morning. Did somebody pinch it?”
“Where did you see it?
“The pastor in the woodyard was wearing it. Don’t you remember? He looked at it a lot, I noticed.”
Murdoch sighed. He vaguely recalled Reverend Harris consulting a silver watch.
He leaned over and lifted out the boots from the box. “What about these? Have you ever seen anybody wearing these? You can look at them if you want to.”
Alf examined the boots, turned them over, bent back the soles, and sniffed at them. “Good boots,” he said, a note of pride in his voice. Alf knew boots.
“I want you to think back. Not last night, but the night before that, did you notice if any of the tramps were wearing them?”
Alf thought about the question sombrely. “Them’s good boots. You’d better take care of them. When you get into the bath they could get nicked, good boots like that.”
Murdoch dragged over the other box with his foot and took out the pair of boots he’d found in the greenhouse.
“Have you seen these boots, Alf?”
The boy laughed out loud. “’Course I have. They’re mine.”
Murdoch did a quick check of the boy’s feet. He was wearing shabby black boots very like the ones on the desk. “You’ve got your boots on, Alf. Did you have two pairs?”
Puzzled, Alf looked down, then grinned. “No, only ever had but one. They could be mine though.”
Murdoch reached over and patted the boy’s arm. “Thanks, Alf. Do you have a family you could go and stay with?”
“No, sir. They throwed me out. ‘Alf,’ they says to me, ‘you eat more than the horse does so we’re throwing you out.’”
“Where did you live?”
Again Alf assumed his thoughtful expression. “I don’t rightly remember, sir. In the country it was though.” He giggled. “‘You eat more than the horse,’ they says to me.”
Murdoch reached in his pocket and took out a fifty-cent piece. “Here, my lad. One of the constables is going to take you to get something to eat and you can have whatever you want.”
“Cake and custard. Can I have cake and custard?”
“Of course. As much as you can get for fifty cents.”
Alf grabbed Murdoch’s hand and planted a wet kiss on it. “Thank you, Mr. Williams. I’ll save some for you for tonight.”
There was no point in explaining to him that he wouldn’t be coming back to the workhouse, so Murdoch just nodded. He called for Fyfer to collect him and as they were leaving, Alf asked, “Is Mr. Traveller coming for cake too?”
“Not at the moment. He’s helping us to find the bad man.”
“That’s Mr. Bettles. He was going to hurt me. You and Mr. Traveller saved me.”
Alf looked as if he was going to rush over and give Murdoch another kiss, but Fyfer tugged his arm and led him away.
Murdoch went through the same routine of hiding the watch and the boots. He hadn’t really expected Alf would be of much help, but he’d had to try it.
There were footsteps in the corridor and the now familiar smell of sulphur wafted over as Higgins pushed Bettles through the reed curtain into the cubicle and shoved him into the chair.
“The man thinks he’s a barrister. He keeps moaning that we’re not telling him what he’s being charged with.”
Bettles looked like a casualty from the battlefield. The doctor had trimmed away his hair where the axehead had cut him and wrapped his head in a bandage, now bloodstained. The bruise under his eyes was turning yellow at the edges.
“As I live and breathe, it’s Mr. Williams. That is unless you have a twin who’s a down-and-outer, which I’m inclined to doubt. How’s the mayor going to react when he discovers one of his officers is eating at the taxpayers’ expense?”
To Murdoch’s gratification, he seemed genuinely surprised. Higgins, who didn’t know about Murdoch’s undercover sojourn into the workhouse, looked puzzled. Murdoch nodded at him to leave and faced Bettles.
“I didn’t get much sleep, the food was both lousy and inadequate, and I’ve hurt my back. I’m telling you right now, I’m not in a good skin this morning and I don’t have patience for somebody trying to throw out horse plop. I am investigating a serious crime and you, Mr. Bettles, are a suspect. Do I make myself clear?”
Bettles rubbed his knuckles against his forehead like a sailor. “Ay, ay, sir. What you say is clear enough, but I don’t have a frigging notion what this serious crime is that I’m supposed to be party to.”
Murdoch stared at him for a moment. Bettles had light blue eyes, cold and lifeless as the scales of a dead fish. He could read nothing there, except wariness. He put the pair of boots and the watch on his desk.
“Do you recognize any of these objects?”
“Am I allowed to touch?”
Murdoch nodded and Bettles took his time examining each boot.
“These here look like any dozen tramps might have on their feet, but these ones are good boots. What do you mean ‘recognize’? They ain’t mine, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Do you know whose they were?”
“Sure do. Our friend Traveller was wearing them on Tuesday when we went into the workhouse.” Bettles scowled at Murdoch. “Don’t tell me the old cove is accusing me of stealing his frigging boots? Is this the serious crime you’re talking about?”
“You know bloody well it isn’t. We’re talking about a murder here, Mr. Bettles. These boots belonged to the murdered man. They were stolen from his body. Would you be prepared to go into a court of law and swear that you saw Mr. Trevelyan wearing them on Tuesday night?”
Bettles leaned back, a smirk of satisfaction on his face. “That depends. Memory can be so unreliable, can’t it? We tramps tend to stick together. I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble if it weren’t true. You said I was a suspect. Is that just because I’m a wayfarer or have you got something else to pin on me?”
“Where did you spend Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Bettles?”
“Ah that’s easy. I was nice and cozy in the pauper’s common room at the House of Providence. The nuns took pity on me because I had a touch of bronchitis and they let me sit by the fire all afternoon. You can ask them.”
“I intend to.”
“I should have stayed there, but my three days was up and I was sick and tired of the idolatry.” He squinted over at Murdoch. “I’m a Methodist born and raised.”
“But you’ll accept their charity.”
“I’ll accept the wampum of a savage if he gives me grub.”
Murdoch found himself drumming on t
he table again. He knew Bettles was too wily to offer an alibi that couldn’t be proved. Too bad. Murdoch had been looking forward to incarcerating him.
“By the way, you’ll find out when you ask the Sisters that Kearney was with me. I thought I’d save you the trouble of questioning him.”
“That’s considerate of you.”
Bettles shrugged. “Who went to the Grand Silence, then? Who was it you think Traveller did for?”
“I didn’t say Jack Trevelyan did for anybody. But I’m investigating the murder of a man named Charles Howard. He was a pastor.”
“What happened? Did his sins catch up with him?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well it wouldn’t be a thief that killed him, would it?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Them church coves don’t usually have much dosh. No, correction. They don’t usually carry much dosh with them in their pockets and such so as folks will think they’re Christly but as we all know most of them are a bunch of hypocrites.” For the first time, Bettles’s eyes had life in them. “I know you despise us men who have come down in the world and need to beg for our supper, but let me tell you, Mister Detective, you get to know the ways of the world when you’re looking up from the bottom.”
“Name names.”
Bettles laughed. “I have a funny kind of brain, mister. Memories come and go like birds on a branch. Sometimes they land and sometimes they don’t.” He touched his forefinger to the side of his nose. “Just let me know if there’s anybody you particularly want to hear about and if I know, I’ll tell you.”
Murdoch wanted to reach over the desk and knock the smirk off his face and he might have if he wasn’t virtually crippled. But he also knew that Bettles was hardened against intimidation or threats of any kind. All the currency the man had was the insinuation, probably real enough, that he had secret information.
“The thing with detective work, Mr. Bettles, is that you never know how long an investigation is going to last. I’m going to have to keep you here until we’ve made more progress.”
“That don’t worry me. It’s warm enough and I know by law you’re going to have to feed me. It’ll be a nice change from chopping logs.” He stood up. “We’re done then?”
Murdoch raised his voice and called to the constable who was outside in the corridor.
“Take Mr. Bettles back to the cell.”
“Do you want to talk to the other fellow?” Higgins asked.
“Not now. Get Crabtree to take his statement concerning his whereabouts on Tuesday afternoon.”
The constable took hold of Bettles’s arm and led him out. Murdoch got to his feet and a stabbing pain ran up his back. He managed to straighten up slowly. “Did his sins catch up with him?” Bettles had asked. The trouble was the question was a valid one.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
LOUISA HOWARD WAS PALE AND HAGGARD, her eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep and too much weeping. The drawing room where she received Murdoch was oppressive in the fading afternoon light. All of the mirrors had been soaped and the pictures turned around to face the wall. Black crepe ribbons festooned the fireplace and the window frames.
When he showed her the watch, she clasped it and kissed it. “Does this mean you have apprehended his murderer?”
“Not quite. It was in the possession of a tramp in police custody, but he swears he found it in the greenhouse of the Horticultural Gardens. This may or may not be true. We also have Mr. Howard’s boots. I showed them to your maid, Doris, and she is certain they were your husband’s. They were almost certainly worn by a tramp, but again we have as yet no definite proof which man this was or if he was indeed the person who murdered your husband.”
Louisa was twisting a black silk handkerchief round and round over her fingers.
“But you say you do have a man in custody?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
She frowned at him. “But not yet charged?”
“No.”
“I fail to understand why not.”
“Mrs. Howard, I promise you we are doing everything we can. But I cannot arrest a man unless I am certain he is guilty.”
“He had Charles’s watch and his boots.”
“We know he had the watch, but we don’t know if he had worn the boots.”
Louisa compressed her lips into a tight thin line. “Mr. Murdoch, our Lord Jesus taught us to love our enemies, but I tell you in all honesty, as each day dawns and I see my fatherless children and I feel my fatherless child stir in my womb, I am less and less able to obey those teachings.” She tugged on each end of the handkerchief. “I want to see Charles’s killer hanged. I will have no peace until I know this has happened.” Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped them harshly away. “I cannot weep any more.”
Murdoch hesitated, searching for words that wouldn’t hurt her anew. “Mrs. Howard, I understand how you feel and I would never persist in my inquiry if it weren’t necessary, but there are some more questions I need to ask you.”
“What questions, surely you know enough?”
Her voice was harsh, but Murdoch also thought he detected fear. She had gone curiously still, watching him. Oddly enough her expression reminded him of the one he’d seen on Traveller’s face. She was seeking to avoid the place where the trap was set. “Did his sins catch up with him?” Bettles had asked.
“On Tuesday, when I was here with Dr. Ogden, Mr. Drummond came to call on you. You refused to admit him. Why was that, Mrs. Howard?”
She glanced at him in surprise. This was not what she thought he was going to ask. “Mr. Drummond is no friend of mine. He was strongly opposed to Charles’s appointment as pastor of this church. I could not bear the thought he might be coming here to gloat. He can have whomever he wants now.”
“I understand Mr. Swanzey was the candidate Mr. Drummond supported.”
“Yes, he was. Fortunately, Matthew is a man of humility and piety. He was quite reconciled to the choice and was most generous in his support for Charles. Unlike Mr. Drummond, who made it plain for all to see that he despised my husband. That is why I did not admit him and have no desire to do so even now.”
“It must be difficult for you that his house is so close to yours.”
“It is. I believe he stands in his shop doorway all day long, watching us. Why, I don’t know, but it is most unpleasant.”
On his way to the house as he walked along Gerrard, Murdoch had seen Drummond doing just that.
Her anger toward the elder had enlivened Louisa and she jumped to her feet and walked over to the fireplace, stretching out her hands to the blaze.
“Is that all you wished to know, Mr. Murdoch? I must confess I am feeling very tired.”
Murdoch paused, trying to find the tactful way to ask his next question.
“There is something else, ma’am, and forgive me for the delicacy of the topic …”
He could see her back tense but she didn’t turn around.
“I repeat, sir, I really am most fatigued. I don’t think there is any more I can say to you.”
“This concerns Miss Dignam.”
Again Murdoch had the distinct impression this was not the question she expected. She glanced over her shoulder in surprise.
“I realize she has had a dreadful shock,” continued Murdoch, “and she is most upset, but I wondered if she had a special relationship with your husband.”
This question did bring Louisa about to face him. “Special? What on earth do you mean, special?”
“Miss Dignam is a spinster and perhaps has been a lonely woman. Sometimes in those circumstances, women develop fanciful notions about men such as their doctors or their ministers.”
He hated himself for putting it that way. He could almost hear Amy Slade’s voice castigating him.
Louisa Howard actually laughed. “Sarah Dignam fancied herself in love with my husband, is that what you’re getting at?”
Murdoch nodded. “So you were
aware of it?”
“Of course I was. Half of the parish knew. She was making quite a fool of herself. Always coming with little gifts, waiting around after prayer meetings, coming early.
Staring at him with eyes that would put a puppy to shame.
Poor Charles, she was driving him to distraction.”
Neither Mrs. Howard’s voice nor her expression were in the least kind. Murdoch wondered why she had so little sympathy.
“Surely you don’t suspect Miss Dignam, do you?”
“I’m just gathering information, ma’am.”
“She is a pathetic old soul, but I’ve never considered her to be deranged. And why would she kill the man she adored?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, which was just as well.
Because Murdoch would have had to say that Miss Dignam might have considered herself to be spurned. And hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That path was quicksand and not one he could in conscience explore with the widow herself. He’d have to speak to Miss Flowers.
His back was seizing up on him and he eased forward in the chair, trying not to wince.
“I won’t keep you much longer, Mrs. Howard, but there is one other matter I should tell you about.”
“Yes?” Damn, there it was again. Wary as a wild cat.
“When I was here before I asked you if your husband had any enemies. You told me about the work he did as a volunteer for the city’s charitable institution and we both thought it worthwhile questioning some of the people applying for charity who he would have visited.”
“Yes? It is of no matter now.”
“It may be more than we think. I did make inquiries specifically of the ones he had been forced to reject. This morning I discovered that one such family has died in what is probably a tragic accident.”
“Why are you telling me this? Surely it has nothing to do with my husband’s death? Poor people die all the time. He could not have been responsible.”
“I did not mean in the least to imply that he was. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. The chimney was blocked in the downstairs room and the fumes came up into their room. The downstairs lodger died as well and two other people were made quite ill.”
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