He hands me a copy of this morning’s Daily World. I skim the story, in which Sally defends Mick in the most sympathetic terms, deploring his arrest as “a ridiculous, disgraceful attack by a corrupt police official who shall remain nameless.” I’m grateful to Sally for her loyalty, but by taking a potshot at Inspector Reid, she’s painted a target on her own back. I’m relieved that Sir Gerald’s good opinion of Mick hasn’t changed.
“Can you get Mick out of jail and the murder charge dismissed?” I say.
Sir Gerald has friends in high places all over the world. I know he can bend the law to his will, but now he directs his gaze out the window, at the towers and spires of London shrouded in polluted fog. I was foolish to expect such a big favor from a man who has cut my friends and me loose when we’ve gotten into other scrapes. I suppose I should be thankful I still have my job. Then anger overpowers my despair. After everything we’ve done for him in the line of duty, and all the secrets we’ve kept for him, Sir Gerald would stand idle while Mick goes to the gallows?
Before I can voice my thoughts, he turns and says, “When I was in the shipping business, there was a fire on one of my ships. The only survivor was a deckhand. Some fishermen pulled him out of the water. He was burned over his whole body. Before he died, he told them what had happened. A sailor was trapped below deck. He was the captain’s son. The captain should have taken the other men into the lifeboats. Instead, he ordered them to help him rescue his son. They all went down with the burning ship.”
“That was different,” I say. “In this case, a whole ship isn’t sinking, and Mick is the only person whose life is at stake.”
Reproach darkens Sir Gerald’s eyes. “Life isn’t only a matter of flesh and blood.”
He’s telling me that his business is his life, but I already knew. The success of his business depends on his reputation, which he won’t jeopardize by pulling strings to free someone the public believes is a murderer.
“I didn’t say I won’t help Mick,” Sir Gerald says. “I’ll get a good barrister to defend him at his trial.”
He’s offering far more aid than I could have expected from him. “Thank you,” I say, although I am far from satisfied and still angry.
“I’ll be honest with you, though,” Sir Gerald says. “Even the best barrister can’t always change the minds of a jury that’s already decided a man’s guilty. The best way to save Mick is for you to find the real killer.”
* * *
In Lonsdale Square, the garden is as deserted and bleak as a cemetery. The fog is heaviest around Leonora Firth’s townhouse, as though some magic spell has gathered it like a shroud for the widow in mourning. I want to ask Mrs. Firth if she was involved in Richard Trevelyan’s murder, and I won’t take any spiritualist nonsense for an answer. Walking up to the door, I smell smoke. It’s not from coal in a stove, coming out the chimney. This smoke rises, dense and black, behind the house, above the roof. The house is on fire.
I pound the knocker against the door. “Mrs. Firth!”
There’s no answer, no sound from within the house. Running back to the street, I shout at passersby, “Fire! Help!”
Then I hurry around the corner, down the alley behind the townhouses. The smoke billows over the wall that encloses Mrs. Firth’s back garden. Coughing, I yank open the gate. Determined to rescue Mrs. Firth, heedless of my own safety, I rush into the garden. There, crackling flames leap from a large metal drum. Mrs. Firth staggers out of the house, her arms laden with clothes. I breathe a sigh of relief to see that she’s alive and the house isn’t burning.
“What are you doing?” I say.
Mrs. Firth beholds me with vacant eyes; she doesn’t seem to recognize me. “Getting rid of these things.”
Despite the cold, she’s wearing only a dressing gown and bedroom slippers. Her face is red and swollen with tears, her spectacles askew. As she heaves the clothes into the drum, I see a man’s shirts and trousers among them. The flames die down for a moment, then flare higher.
“Are those your husband’s clothes?” I’m disturbed to see his possessions destroyed so soon after his death. “Why are you burning them?”
Mrs. Firth hurries back into the house, her movements stiff and jerky like a marionette’s. She seems to have undergone a mental breakdown since last night. She returns, carrying an armload of papers. Her left foot has lost its slipper, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Dropping some papers, she tosses the rest into the fire. A fountain of sparks erupts.
“Look out!” I grab her arm, pull her away from the drum.
She twists free even as the sparks ignite the papers on the ground. I stomp out flames that curl and blacken them. Mrs. Firth mutters unintelligible words and stumbles back to the house.
I follow her. “Is this because of what Jean Ritchie said last night?”
Maybe what she said about Charles Firth was true, and since then Mrs. Firth has faced the fact that her beloved husband ignored her while lavishing kindness and money on other women. Maybe she’s taking out her anger on his possessions. If she hears me, she gives no indication. I think the events of last night have tipped her over the edge of madness.
“Did you kill Richard Trevelyan?” I can’t picture her stalking him through the tunnels, stabbing him, and running—but less likely people have turned out to be murderers.
Sobbing now, Mrs. Firth steps through the open door. I see, on the floor of a passage, a large heap of things she must have culled from the house. She fills her arms with more papers and clothes. I block her path to the fire.
“Why did you leave the scene when the police came?” I ask.
“Get out of my way.” She pushes past me, tramples the singed papers on the ground.
“Where were you before Mick found Mr. Trevelyan’s body?”
The roaring flames are so hot, the smoke so suffocating, that I can’t go near the drum, but Mrs. Firth stands dangerously close to it. The papers she’s throwing in are photographs. She’s laughing as well as crying, her movements reckless. A sudden, visceral memory plunges me into the past. I’m ten years old, my mother has just told me that my father is dead, and she’s burning his photographs—his life’s work, all that’s left of him. I fight her, trying to rescue them, but she’s too strong, too determined. Now I brave the flames to rescue these photographs. They’re Charles Firth’s pictures of ghosts in cemeteries, at funerals. As I bend to snatch them, sparks set them on fire. The flames climb up Mrs. Firth’s thin satin dressing gown. She screams, reels backward, and staggers as it burns.
I hear whistles shrill and a racket of wheels and hooves in the street. The fire brigade is coming, but I can’t wait. I tear off my coat and beat it against Mrs. Firth’s legs. She falls on the ground, wailing as the heavy wool puts out the flames. The firemen burst through the gate, lugging a hose, and spray water from a tank and steam engine on the wagon parked in the alley. Soon the fire is extinguished, the garden a sodden mess. The smell of smoke lingers. Spectators gawk from the windows of neighboring houses. I crouch by Mrs. Firth. Her dressing gown has burned to black tatters, and the skin on her legs is red, raw, and blistered. She moans.
“Ma’am, we’ll take you to the hospital,” says a fireman.
“You should have let me die!” Howling, she lies on her back, banging her head, fists, and heels on the ground.
The firemen turn their puzzled gazes to me. I say, “She’s not in her right mind.”
As they carry her away on a litter, her howls echo in the smoky air. “I want to die!”
Left alone, I put on my singed coat. Then, compelled by the memory of my childhood, I pick up the single undamaged photograph from among the burnt debris. It’s a copy of one I recognize from Charles Firth’s studio, of the blond, beautiful female ghost wrapped in a translucent white sheet. I carefully roll it and tuck it in my coat pocket, as if preserving his work could make up for my failure to rescue my father’s. Then I see a charred handbill. Enough of the print is legible that I can read the tit
le—The Ladies’ Society for Rational Thought—and the address below.
CHAPTER 21
Bruton Street is located near the fine shops, restaurants, and hotels of Mayfair, in a terrace that appears to date from the previous century. The elegant, well-maintained houses are built of brick, trimmed with white, and crowned with dormers set in slate mansard roofs. As I walk toward number twelve—the address on the handbill I saw at Mrs. Firth’s bonfire—a private carriage draws up outside. Jean Ritchie emerges, wearing her violet cape and feather-trimmed black hat, carrying her megaphone. She sees me and frowns, but she strides up to me without hesitation.
Sir Gerald would like her. She doesn’t back away from trouble.
“What are you doing here?” Jean’s complexion is pale with fatigue, but her eyes are bright and sharp as ever. “Shouldn’t you be trying to exonerate Benjamin Bain?”
I’m blindsided, speechless.
Jean laughs. “Don’t look so surprised. I’ve read about your father in the newspapers.”
Regaining my voice, if not my dignity, I say, “That doesn’t make him any of your business.”
“Point taken,” Jean says, “but if my father were accused of murder, I would be trying to exonerate him. You don’t seem the kind of woman who sits on her hands. I bet there’s more to the story of your father than has been published. Am I right?”
She must know I came to talk to her about Richard Trevelyan’s murder, and she’s taking the offensive. Panic crawls under my skin as my need to exonerate my father clashes with my need to do the same for Mick. The time I spend on one investigation is at the cost of the other, and I mustn’t let Jean distract me.
“It looks like you’ve been out all night,” I say. “Where did you go after the spirit-hunting expedition?”
Jean responds with a secretive smile. “Now, that’s none of your business.”
“It is if it has anything to do with the murder of Richard Trevelyan.” I raise my voice as pedestrians eye us with curiosity.
“If you want to trumpet to the world about the murder of Richard Trevelyan, I’ll trumpet about the murder of Ellen Casey,” Jean says in an equally loud voice. She laughs at my frown, then walks up to her door. “Let’s go inside where we can spar in comfortable privacy.”
In the foyer, a maid greets us and takes our coats. Jean says, “Coffee, please, Marie,” and shows me into the drawing room. Unlike the overfurnished, oppressive houses of other rich people, hers is bright, open, and airy, the walls painted a light green. The furniture is of natural, unstained wood, its design simple and rustic. Curtains, carpet, upholstery, and hanging tapestries feature interlocked, abstracted patterns—rose and tulip, iris and bamboo. Stems of dried seedpods in green earthenware vases decorate the plain wooden mantelpiece over the hearth, in which a welcoming fire burns. Vertical stained-glass panels with inset vines and leaves partially divide the drawing room from a library. The total effect is of a fresh breath of nature, with a modern originality that one would expect of Jean.
“This is a beautiful house,” I say, not without envy.
“Thank you. It was my grandmother’s.” Jean gestures to the only old-fashioned item—the lone painting, a portrait of a woman dressed in a style popular some forty years ago. “That’s her. She was a leader in the campaign for property rights for women. She also worked for the passage of a bill to make divorces easier to get.”
With her long face, bright eyes, and air of vitality, the woman in the portrait bears a distinct resemblance to Jean. I reflect on how much our forebears influence our lives. If my mother had been a social reformer instead of a murderess, what would I be?
Jean seats us by the fire, on clover-and-honeycomb-patterned sofas that face each other across a wooden table strewn with handbills and pamphlets. The handbills advertise classes for women in subjects including reading and writing, English language for foreigners, arithmetic, and business skills. I flip through a pamphlet titled “Female Health” and see shockingly detailed anatomical diagrams of menstruation, sexual congress, pregnancy, and childbirth. Apparently, debunking spiritualism isn’t Jean’s only interest.
“I use the house as headquarters of the Ladies’ Society for Rational Thought,” Jean says, as her maid returns with the coffee. She moves the handbills to make room for the tray. “Our classes and meetings are held here. I live upstairs. How did you find me?”
When I tell her, she says, “Poor, deluded Leonora Firth.” Pity colors the distaste in her expression. “She’s one of the first women I tried to dissuade from believing in ghosts. Needless to say, she wasn’t receptive. Why did you call on her?”
“To ask her the same question I came to ask you: did you kill Richard Trevelyan?”
“Leonora Firth is dangerous because she spreads superstition, but do you really think she’s a murderess?” Jean’s tone scorns the idea.
“Answer the question. Did you?”
“No.” Her gaze holds mine, and she doesn’t add more denials that would make me think she’s lying.
“Then why did you leave the scene when the police came?” I say.
“Do you take milk and sugar?”
I raise my cup of black coffee and narrow my eyes at Jean. She sighs. “I left because there was a chance that they would look for other suspects besides your friend Mick, and I didn’t want to get in a finger-pointing contest with Leonora and Dr. Lodge and their colleagues. Since they outnumbered me, I’d have been sure to lose and wind up in jail.”
Drinking the hot, fragrant coffee, I wonder if Jean’s real reason for leaving was that she herself committed the murder. “Where were you when Mr. Trevelyan died?”
“Diana and I were marching in a tunnel at the other side of the jail, speaking through our megaphones. We were quite conspicuous. Hundreds of people must have noticed us.”
That’s a good alibi, but not necessarily invincible. “I saw Diana with Richard Trevelyan shortly before he was murdered.”
Jean sputters as she sips her coffee. “That’s impossible. She and I stayed together the whole time.”
I think this woman who’s clever enough to stage fake séances is clever enough to play innocent. “How well did Diana know Mr. Trevelyan?”
“She didn’t know him at all.”
I remember how intimate the two appeared. “Were they lovers?”
“No.”
“How well do you know Diana?”
“Well enough to know that she’s not involved with anyone. How well do you know your friend Mick? Would you wager your life that he’s innocent?”
I ignore her questions rather than jumping to Mick’s defense and wasting more time. “I need to talk to Diana. Where can I find her?”
“You really think she killed Richard Trevelyan?” Scornful amusement twists Jean’s mouth. “That’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Perhaps not a fly, but a man associated with Charles Firth, who sold her fake photographs of her late husband’s ghost.”
“Are you so sure you saw her?” Jean says. “It wasn’t exactly as bright as broad daylight in those tunnels.”
“I’m sure.” But my identification was far from positive, and Jean has weakened it, which of course she meant to do.
“How’s your eyesight? Maybe you saw someone that you mistook for Diana.” With a sly smile, Jean hints, “Many women are too vain to wear spectacles.”
I can imagine people swearing off spiritualism just to give Jean Ritchie what she wants and shut her up. She’s a most vexatious woman. “Where is Diana?”
“She didn’t do it,” Jean says. “You’re just trying to get your friend off the hook by pinning the murder on someone else.”
That I can’t deny, but I still think it was Diana I saw with Mr. Trevelyan. My patience wearing thin, I say, “Perhaps I should ask your friends Emily and Ruth about Diana.”
“Go ahead. They weren’t with us last night, and even if they knew where Diana is, they wouldn’t inform on her.”
I d
idn’t see them, and it seems possible to rule them out as suspects in both murders. “Would you rather answer to the police?”
“I would tell them the same thing I’m going to tell you.” Jean puts down her coffee cup, sits up straighter, and announces in a clear, defiant voice, “Diana has left London. I’m not going to reveal where she’s gone.”
Her secretive smile when I asked her what she’d been doing last night led me to think Jean was with a lover, but now I picture her and Diana packing suitcases, riding in a cab, and hugging good-bye at the train station.
“Did you smuggle Diana out of town?” I demand. “Is that what you did after you left the tunnels?”
“I won’t dignify those questions with a reply.” A hint of gloating steals into Jean’s tone.
I’m suspended between dismay and elation. That my best suspect has decamped is bad news, but it’s also evidence that Diana is guilty. Why else would Jean conceal her whereabouts?
“Are you so sure Diana is innocent?” I say, wanting to erode Jean’s faith in her friend the way she tried to erode mine in Mick. “Are you as gullible as people who believe in ghosts?”
Jean only smiles at my attempt to rattle her. I stand up, the better to threaten, and say, “I’ll tell the police that you’re helping her to hide.”
Jean stands too, and she shrugs. “Do what you must to protect your friend; I’ll do what I must to protect mine.”
We glower at each other, heads high, nostrils flared. Our sparring is over, the gauntlet flung down, but Jean has the advantage because this is her house.
“If Diana killed Mr. Trevelyan, you could be arrested as an accomplice,” I say.
“I’ll take my chances.” Jean adds, “If you really want to find out who killed him, perhaps you should look in his own back garden.”
On my way out of her house, I barely resist my impulse to sweep the pamphlets off the table and onto the floor.
* * *
The neighborhood in which Dr. Lodge and Anjali live has seen better days. Located in Bloomsbury, near University College where Dr. Lodge teaches, Burton Crescent is a Regency-era terrace built on a road that curves around a semicircular garden. The white stucco facades on the ground floors proclaim the grandiosity of the designer and the wealth of the original residents, but now there are many boarding houses with signs advertising rooms to let. Dr. Lodge’s house, at the south end, is adjacent to an establishment with a plaque on its gate that reads HOME FOR DESERTED MOTHERS. The house on its other side has meticulously pruned shrubbery in its tiny front garden A maid dressed in a black frock and white apron and cap is polishing the brass hardware on the door. When I climb out of the cab and walk up to the Lodge house, she pauses in her work.
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