“If you cannot find what I want, I will find someone else.”
“Give us another chance, sir, and we’ll find it.”
The carriage rolled off toward Portsmouth, while the two seamen slunk into the Bush Hotel.
CHAPTER 10
There was little rest for the weary in Southsea that night.
The lights burned late at Treasure House as the inhabitants tried to ease themselves into slumber after the horrendous events of the day.
Touie was handed a well-worn nightgown and cap by Amelia Arkwright, who was far more concerned with her sister than with their unexpected guest. Bedelia was still chattering, sitting up in her bed, when Touie looked in on her before retiring to the small chamber previously occupied by the late Emma Cavanaugh.
Amelia, her equilibrium restored after several cups of hot tea, was apparently having second thoughts about her earlier vapors.
“I suppose I should not have insisted that you remain here,” Amelia said, while she tucked her sister into her bed. “We must become used to doing things for ourselves, now that Papa and Emma are gone.”
“But I want Touie to stay with us,” Bedelia protested. “Those awful men might come back.”
“Which awful men?” Touie asked.
“The ones who robbed the house,” Bedelia replied. “That nice Inspector of yours—”
“He is not ‘mine,’” Miss Amelia interjected.
“Well, he would like to be, I am sure. You seemed to like him when you met on the Common,” Bedelia said, with a sidelong glance at her sister. “He’s very careful about you, isn’t he? Driving home with us in a police carriage, stationing a man to watch the house …”
“Bedelia, it is high time you were asleep,” Amelia ordered. “Mrs. Doyle—”
“Do call me Touie. Everyone does.”
“If you like,” Amelia graciously unbent. “You may call us Amelia and Bedelia.”
“I suppose we may have friends, now that Papa is not here to roar at them,” Bedelia commented.
Amelia winced visibly at her sister’s naive, but true, utterances. “Nevertheless, Touie, it is kind of you to remain here, especially when your husband would much prefer that you come home. You are only married a short time, after all.”
“It’s the least I could do,” Touie said with a smile. “Your maid’s mother will come in the morning, and you can see about getting some more help. This is a small house, but you should have another servant to assist the maid. I assume Mrs. Cavanaugh filled that capacity?”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh—Emma—was something of a factotum,” Amelia confessed. “I acted as my father’s amanuensis from time to time, but it was Emma who hired the servants.”
“She really ran the household,” Bedelia added, with one of her girlish giggles. “I can’t believe she’s really dead.”
“Dear me,” Touie commented. “I feel rather dreadful, sleeping in her room.”
“It’s that or Papa’s,” Bedelia said. “And you wouldn’t like Papa’s room at all. It smells, and it’s all smoky.”
Amelia shot her sister a piercing look. “Tomorrow the police will undoubtedly wish to go through poor Emma’s things,” she said. “For tonight, Touie, I am very much obliged to you for remaining with us.”
She led Touie to the back of the house handed her the lamp, and bade her, “Good night.”
Touie carried her kerosene lamp to the small room assigned to Emma Cavanaugh, mindful of her husband’s orders to find out as much as she could about the previous inhabitant.
The room itself was relatively small, a mere cubicle at the back of the house, tucked away next to the linen-closet It was crowded with mismatched furniture, apparently bought from house sales. The brass-framed bed took up most of the room, but a comfortable slipper chair, a large wardrobe, a small whatnot, and a bedside table were squeezed into what space remained. The fireplace was shielded by a hand-worked firescreen. The window-curtains were of figured calico. There was an indefinable odor about the room, as if the person who had lived in it did not wash very well.
Touie hesitated before opening the wardrobe. It seemed somehow a sacrilege to intrude on the woman’s private life. Then she recalled how Emma Cavanaugh had died, and told herself that Arthur was depending on her.
The wardrobe was divided into two sections: an upper area where Emma had stored her skirts and bodices, and a set of drawers, presumably for underlinen and stockings. Mrs. Cavanaugh’s outer clothes were well cut, but not in the newest style. She still had some of the wide crinolines of a previous decade stored in the wardrobe. There were summer-weight shirtwaists, ready to be put away for the winter, and dark jackets and overskirts, all black or brown, adorned with beads or braid. This was the clothing of a woman of modest means, not especially fashionable, whose husband’s status was in doubt. Touie sighed to herself. Arthur would not be able to make much of that!
She tackled the drawers. The top one held neatly folded camisoles and petticoats, of the sort one would expect to be worn under the undramatic garb hanging in the wardrobe above them, carefully sewn and mended, of white cotton and ecru linen. Rolls of black cotton stockings accompanied the workable undergarments. Touie felt disappointed. So far, all that she could find was that Mrs. Cavanaugh was a respectable widow of limited means. She wondered if this was all a mare’s nest. Perhaps Emma Cavanaugh had simply had a heart attack …. She opened the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and gasped.
That bottom drawer contained quite a different set of underthings. Touie’s eyes opened wide as she unfolded a pair of underdrawers of cream-colored silk, trimmed with the finest of lace. A matching camisole was tucked in the drawer next to them. A similar set of sinfully luxurious underthings was made of pink silk, rimmed with daring red ribbons. The corsets folded next to the silk drawers were of black silk, trimmed with artificial roses.
Touie sat back on her heels and thought hard. She had never actually held such garments in her short life, but she had read several romantic novels in which the “fallen women” were described as possessing them. She could only wonder how the extremely respectable Emma Cavanaugh came to own silk underdrawers, and why she kept them.
Touie heard a sound in the hall outside the door. She hurriedly closed the wardrobe drawer. As she did, a small notebook fell out of the extravagant corset. Touie pocketed the notebook as the door opened.
Miss Amelia stood there, wrapped in a large lacy shawl, her nightcap tied firmly under her chin, her hair braided tightly against the rigors of sleep.
“I only wanted to make sure you were all right,” Amelia said. Her eyes darted toward the wardrobe, then back to Touie.
“Oh, yes, quite,” Touie answered. “I shall keep the door open, so that if there is any noise I shall hear it.”
“I doubt that we shall be disturbed anymore,” Amelia stated. “Good night, Mrs …. that is, Touie.”
“Good night, Amelia.” Touie felt the notebook in her pocket. She would turn it over to the police in the morning … as soon as Arthur had a look at it.
Dr. Doyle and Mr. Dodgson stood on King’s Road watching their cab move slowly off. Then Mr. Dodgson turned to his putative host.
“It is very late, Dr. Doyle, but perhaps the Bush Hotel might be able to furnish us with some tea or a biscuit. All this running about is exhausting.”
“I don’t think they run to tea,” Dr. Doyle decided. “But Mother Hawkins will brew us a cup. Do come in, Mr. Dodgson, and have something before you retire.”
“I should not like to inconvenience your good mother-in-law,” Mr. Dodgson demurred. “Licensing hours aside, Mr. Hill will undoubtedly have some small refreshment available.”
Dr. Doyle glanced at the darkened windows of his establishment. “I don’t doubt but that you are right,” he admitted.
Their ruminations were made redundant when the lady in question opened the door to Number One Bush Villa herself.
“Arthur?” she called out. “Is that you? Where’s Touie?”
“There was an … an accident at General Drayson’s,” Dr. Doyle explained, as he led Mr. Dodgson into the house. “Mrs. Cavanaugh is dead.”
“What!” Mother Hawkins gasped. “Was it a heart attack?
“I don’t think so,” Dr. Doyle said. “Naturally, Miss Arkwright and Miss Bedelia were quite overset. What’s worse, when they returned to their own house, they discovered they had been robbed. Under the circumstances, Touie felt obligated to remain with them until the police come to Treasure House tomorrow to continue their investigations.”
“Bless my soul!” Mother Hawkins exclaimed, shutting the door and holding her lamp high so that the two men could walk up the stairs by its light.
“You’ll want to go ’round tomorrow,” Dr. Doyle said carelessly, as he followed his mother-in-law back up the stairs to the sitting room. “Mother Hawkins, could you make us a pot of tea? Mr. Dodgson has had a very difficult time …”
“Of course.” Mother Hawkins bustled down the stairs to the kitchen, leaving the two men to divest themselves of their hats and take the chairs next to the smoldering fire in the sitting room.
“I suppose I must remain here in Portsmouth until the inquest on Mrs. Cavanaugh,” Mr. Dodgson complained, as Dr. Doyle stirred the fire into a reluctant blaze and took a pipe from those ranged on the mantelpiece. Mr. Dodgson’s sensitive nostrils quivered. He loathed tobacco smoke. However, this was Dr. Doyle’s home, and if he chose to smoke in it, so be it.
“Unfortunately, when someone dies unexpectedly, there must be a police investigation,” Dr. Doyle stated, oblivious to his guest’s distress. “I examined Mrs. Cavanaugh myself not a month before my wedding.”
“Indeed? I had no idea she was a patient of yours.”
“Not a patient, precisely. I’ve been appointed by the Portsmouth Assurance Company to conduct the medical examinations on those who intend to insure their lives,” Dr. Doyle explained. “I assure you, Mr. Dodgson, that Mrs. Cavanaugh was as healthy a specimen as ever I’ve seen. I had no hesitation in accepting her application.”
Mr. Dodgson thought this over. “I wonder who is the beneficiary of Mrs. Cavanaugh’s life insurance,” he said slowly.
“Do you mean that someone might have murdered her for the money?” Dr. Doyle considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “If so, the result would have been a pittance. The policy was not in effect until I turned in my report, and I had only just done so before I went off with Touie to be married. My mother insisted that we be married from her church.”
Mrs. Hawkins waddled in with the teapot, cups, and a plate of slightly stale cake left over from dinner.
“Arthur, you take your tea and then go to bed. And don’t keep Mr. Dodgson up to all hours, reading and smoking and the like!” She wagged a finger at her son-in-law, nodded to his guest, and took herself off to the rooms at the top of the house.
Mr. Dodgson poured tea into a cup, added sugar, and stirred it thoughtfully. “You see, I cannot understand why a woman like Mrs. Cavanaugh should be murdered at all. She was not rich, she was respectable, and she was not a danger to anyone.”
“As far as we know,” Dr. Doyle amended. “She was known for inserting herself into one’s house, and it was almost impossible to remove her from one’s list of callers once she had gotten a toe into the drawing room.”
“By the same token,” Mr. Dodgson rambled on, “Captain Arkwright seems to have been a most unpleasant person.”
“Unpleasant wasn’t the half of it!” Dr. Doyle exclaimed. “I couldn’t say anything in front of Touie, of course, but he was the most selfish, opinionated old crosspatch it has ever been my misfortune to meet!”
Mr. Dodgson smiled at his young friend’s vehemence. He had had a lifetime of dealing with cantankerous dons, and he would match any of them against a hot-tempered sea captain any day.
“Just to show how he could be,” Dr. Doyle continued his tirade, “when my story ‘Habukkuk Jepson’s Chronicle’ was published, I was asked to read it at the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society. Captain Arkwright took the occasion to point out every error in seamanship, every mistake in nomenclature, every small point of shipboard life that I had got wrong, in his opinion. Then he told me, in front of the entire assembly, that I was a pipsqueak, a landlubber masquerading as a seaman, and a quack to boot.
“Mr. Dodgson, I may not be as thorough a seaman as the late Captain, who certainly spent most of his life at sea, but I have been to the Arctic and to the tropics, and I may have taken a bit of artistic license, but nothing to merit that … that …” Dr. Doyle sent a cloud of smoke sailing over his head to express his exasperation.
“But this does not mean that Captain Arkwright was murdered,” Mr. Dodgson remarked mildly. “One might wish to kill the one who criticizes one’s first work, but one does not actually do it. Unless you wish to include yourself among the suspects in Captain Arkwright’s sudden demise?”
Dr. Doyle grinned boyishly. “Of course not, Mr. Dodgson. I only wish I knew how it was done. I am convinced that Captain Arkwright was poisoned, but the only people in the house were his daughters, Mrs. Cavanaugh, and the servant.”
“Unless there was a visitor to the house while Miss Arkwright or Miss Bedelia or Mrs. Cavanaugh were out,” Mr. Dodgson pointed out. “We cannot proceed logically until we have more facts.”
Dr. Doyle cut a slice off the loaf of pound cake and munched. “You said you knew someone named Moncrieffe,” he hinted, once the cake was dealt with.
“Oh, yes.” Mr. Dodgson gazed into the fire. “It was … oh, dear me, at least twenty years ago. Perhaps more. I had just begun my duties at the House … that is, at Christ Church College,” he amended, seeing Dr. Doyle’s blank look.
“I fear I was not a particularly good tutor, especially with some of the more high-spirited undergraduates.”
“And one of them was this Moncrieffe?”
“Oh, no. He was at another college … Magdalen, I believe. They take very odd people. There was a Mr. Wilde, an Irishman with the oddest notions. He was at Magdalen. No, Mr. Moncrieffe was the cause of my student being sent down.”
“How could he do that?”
“For fighting in a public place,” Mr. Dodgson said. “In a public tavern, in fact. It was all quite shocking. My undergraduate made a remark, a coarse and quite provocative remark, regarding Mr. Moncrieffe’s sister, who had just made a most precipitous marriage. I shall not repeat the remark, except to say that it concerned mathematics. Do I make myself clear?”
Dr. Doyle suppressed a smile. “Quite, Mr. Dodgson. And Mr. Moncrieffe quite rightly defended his sister’s, um, honor?”
“He challenged my student to a duel. Which challenge was refused, with the statement that as Mr. Moncrieffe was no gentleman, and my student was the son of an earl, their stations were so unequal as to be ridiculous. I believe the phrase ‘touch of the tar-brush’ was also used, which Mr. Moncrieffe found even more offensive than the original remark. Mr. Moncrieffe then attacked my student with his fists. It was quite, quite shocking.”
Mr. Dodgson shook his head sorrowfully at the memory. Dr. Doyle tried to picture the scene: the grand young lord spurning the jumped-up nobody who dared to accost him. What a story it would make! He was brought back to reality as Mr. Dodgson continued his tale.
“In the end, both of them were brought before the Chancellor, who informed them that all students at Oxford were, ipso facto, gentlemen, merely by reason of their being accepted into the university. Mr. Moncrieffe was sent down, since he had challenged a man to a duel, which was against the law. As for young lord … well, I shan’t give his name, for he is now quite well-known, but still quite arrogant. He was sent down also. I believe he went into the army and made a name for himself in the Crimean conflict.”
“Moncrieffe is not a common name.” Dr. Doyle set down his cup.
“They called him the Monkey,” Mr. Dodgson mused. “Because of his complexion, which was quite brown, and because he had bee
n brought up in India.”
“Do you suppose this Monkey of yours is the same as this Old Mogul? The one who died and left a fortune?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Dodgson said. “His son, of course.” Mr. Dodgson closed his eyes. Dr. Doyle wondered if his elderly guest might fall asleep sitting in front of the fire, but that danger was averted. Mr. Dodgson had merely been searching his memory for more information about young Mr. Moncrieffe.
“I now recall something else,” he announced. “I believe Mr. Moncrieffe had come under the influence of Dr. Pusey and his group. That is why I was so surprised when he suddenly attacked my student with such ferocity. It was rather a pity that he was sent down. He was most articulate in debates, particularly on the subject of India.” Mr. Dodgson yawned mightily. “Dr. Doyle, it has been a very long day, and tomorrow will undoubtedly be longer. I shall avail myself of the room you have so thoughtfully provided for me next door, and I shall join you for breakfast tomorrow morning. Until then, I must bid you good night.” He set down his teacup and looked about him for his hat.
Dr. Doyle rose, taking the lamp with him to see his visitor down the stairs and to the door. “Of course, Mr. Dodgson. And once we have settled this police matter, perhaps you will be able to look over some stories I have written?”
He looked as eager as a puppy. Mr. Dodgson took his hat and stick from the table in the lower hall where he had left them. “I shall be delighted,” he said softly.
Dr. Doyle watched as his elderly visitor made his way across the paved yard and into the Bush Hotel. He did not notice the two men in sailors’ pea jackets and caps who slipped out of the shadows and followed the scholar into the Bush Hotel.
Mr. Dodgson was let into the Bush Hotel by the night porter, who grumbled something about people who stayed up till all hours when Christian souls should be abed. Before he could reach the desk where the sleepy desk clerk waited with the room-key, two men in shabby sack suits and battered hats ambushed him, ignoring the two sailors, who managed to get up the stairs to their rooms unimpeded, while Mr. Dodgson had to cope with the press.
The Problem of the Spiteful Spiritualist Page 11