by Granger, Ann
‘No one that I talked to saw her,’ replied Morris. ‘I found that parish clerk and he told me pretty well what Sergeant Hepple told us. He also apologised for dismissing the boys who found the body. He thought they would be under our feet, in the way. He’s never been involved in a murder investigation before and he didn’t think the boys’ testimony would be needed. I also managed to speak very briefly to Mrs Harrington – the wife of the magistrate who ordered the body taken to the shed. Her husband had left word with her that he will call at the Yard, perhaps late today. He has business until then. I made extensive inquiries in the High Street and along the river bank, but no one remembered anyone resembling Miss Sawyer so early in the day. She was well known to tradesmen. If she’d walked down the High Street, any time before eight o’clock, I do believe she’d have been noticed by shopkeepers as she passed by.’
‘I am fairly sure she did not walk down the High Street, but took pains to avoid being observed.’ I told him about the path Lamont and I had taken.
‘Ah,’ said Morris. ‘I wonder what she was up to?’
‘I am wondering why this obviously planned murderous attack took place now . . .’ I mused, half to myself.
‘Now, Mr Ross?’ asked Morris.
I was obliged to explain. ‘See here, Morris, Rachel Sawyer had been employed as housekeeper and companion to Mrs Lamont at Fox House since the death of Isaiah Sheldon, sixteen years ago. She was not a newcomer, having, I have now learned, previously worked there as a housemaid. In all that time, there does not appear to have been anything against her other than that the other servants didn’t care for her much – nor, by his admission, did her employer, Mr Lamont, though even he thought her competent. Certainly, Sergeant Hepple heard the clerk tell Inspector Morgan that Miss Sawyer was a woman of sour disposition. That is hardly cause for murder.’
‘Jealousy on the part of another servant?’ suggested Morris. ‘If she’d been made not only housekeeper but also a sort of companion by Mrs Lamont before her marriage.’
‘Indeed she had and, from what Lamont said to me, I gather Mrs Lamont wouldn’t hear of Rachel being dismissed. But a jealous servant who waits sixteen years to exact revenge? No, no. It raises two questions in my mind, Morris. First, why now, after so many apparently uneventful years, did Rachel Sawyer become involved in something that led to her murder?’
‘Something new had come up,’ offered Morris. ‘She’d got involved with someone outside the household, perhaps?’
‘Then we must find out who it was. Second, why did Mrs Lamont choose to keep as a sort of confidante, as well as housekeeper, such an unsociable person? Lamont says his wife needed female company. Very well, but surely, she could have found a companion more agreeable and suitable to have close than a former maidservant of, presumably, little education or worldly interests. What did they talk about together? Fashion? Hardly. Mrs Lamont is a well-dressed female, but Rachel Sawyer’s garments, as we saw them, were, frankly, dowdy. Did the two women discuss books? I don’t suppose Rachel ever read one. Travel? If the Lamonts travelled, I can’t see them taking Rachel with them. Yet Lamont describes his wife as being very fond of Sawyer and dependent on her. What had those women in common, Morris?’
Morris frowned. Then his expression cleared. ‘The late Mr Sheldon, sir.’ He saw that I looked surprised and added, ‘Well, Miss Sawyer worked for him and then worked for his niece, the present Mrs Lamont. He’s the link, as it seems to me.’
‘You never let me down, Morris,’ I said. ‘You are quite right.’
‘Thank you, sir. But it still doesn’t exactly explain it. I can’t get over how an ordinary housemaid could make the jump to housekeeper and companion, just like that. It doesn’t happen, Mr Ross. You have to work your way on up the ladder, as it were, on the staff of well-to-do households. They’re very particular about that sort of thing below stairs!’
‘No – it shouldn’t have happened and now we know about it, it explains the attitude of the present staff towards Rachel Sawyer. They weren’t employed in Mr Sheldon’s day, but they would know that Rachel had made that leap, and it offended them to have her directing them as housekeeper when, in their minds, she was no more than a housemaid.’
We had reached the Yard. As our cab rattled away, I added to Morris, ‘There is something else, too.’
‘Yes, Mr Ross?’
‘Bless me, I can’t tell you,’ I was forced to admit. ‘It was something in that house, something that took my attention but then – I don’t know. I’ve forgotten what it was and why it struck me. It was that wretched woman fainting like that. It destroyed my concentration.’
‘Likely as not, that’s why she did it,’ observed Morris. His years as a police officer have sadly made him sceptical.
I went to inform the superintendent of my progress and sent a message over to St Thomas’s hospital for Dr Carmichael, advising him that the coroner would soon be asking him to carry out a postmortem examination, at a place yet to be established but probably in Putney.
That matter at least was settled quickly. The magistrate, Mr Harrington, arrived at the Yard with apologies for not having been able to await our arrival in Putney.
‘We are obliged to you for coming in, sir,’ I assured him.
He was a tall, lean man, perhaps sixty years old, formally clad in a black coat. He sat down and rested his hat on his knees and his gloves on his hat, his movements precise. When satisfied, he looked up.
‘This is a shocking business and I wish I could tell you something to help you trace the culprit, Inspector Ross. But I fear that is unlikely. I realise that the body having been moved will hinder your investigations. But there was no choice, as I hope you understand. I am not a police officer, of course, but a simple Justice of the Peace. However, it was clear to me that to save the body from inundation, the unfortunate woman must be moved at once, so I took it upon myself to give the order.’
‘I do understand, sir, and am grateful that you were able to move it to a safe location so nearby.’
‘It will have to be moved again from there today. I suggest the undertaker’s premises in Putney. If you agree, I can arrange that immediately on my return,’ Harrington suggested. ‘I understand Mr and Mrs Williams are about to return home and they won’t want to be greeted by a corpse in their potting shed.’ The magistrate paused. ‘I will offer them my excuses for using their premises in such a way. Williams is a reasonable fellow. I am not sure how his good lady will take the news.’
‘Thank you. Please add my regrets and tell them I’ll call on them as soon as I have a moment, to apologise in person. Meanwhile, I’ll inform the coroner and the pathologist of the location. I would like you to describe, if you would, the scene when you first came upon it. Any little detail, however trivial, will help us.’
Harrington nodded. ‘I have given it much thought. The parish clerk to St Mary’s had brought me the dreadful news. He was very agitated, as might be expected. Bodies have been washed up before, from time to time, along that stretch of the river, but not in recent months. When we arrived back at the scene, we found some boys, three of them, standing by the body. They were the discoverers of the corpse, and one of them had originally taken the news to the clerk. Fortunately he had happened to be at the church. He’d asked them to stand guard and they had done so efficiently.’
‘Did you see anything on the mud, any disturbance that looked unusual?’
‘It was very disturbed. The boys had been tramping about in it and also been digging in it, seeking valuables of any nature. The clerk had added his own footprints. I did notice, however, that a long rut, as I think I might describe it, had been scored across the mud between the body and the bank.’
Bless you, Mr Harrington! I thought. ‘Would you say this rut might have been caused by the body being dragged across the mud?’
‘I might. I hesitate to say so for sure.’ Harrington was not a man to speculate. ‘I explained to him that she must be moved at once to avoid the e
ncroaching river. We called out to a labourer we saw walking along the river bank. He proved to be the gardener in the employ of Mr Williams, on his way to work. He came across and helped us carry the poor soul to the potting shed. The house has a gate facing the river, so it seemed the ideal place, with ease of access. We did not have to carry her far and the family was away.’ Earnestly, he added: ‘We had to get her out of sight before too many people began using the area. We should have had a mob around us in no time.’
‘I dare say,’ I offered, ‘that the gardener didn’t much like the plan.’
Harrington gave a wry smile. ‘He protested that he was responsible for his employer’s property and it would cost him his place. I overruled him and promised to appease Mr Williams. The truth, I fancy, is that, like many gardeners, the potting shed is his refuge as well as a place to keep his tools and seedlings! He was mortally offended at our commandeering it.’
Harrington gave a wry smile, and then grew sober. ‘It was when we began to lift her that we had a closer sight of her, and that’s when we recognised her. The parish clerk was already in a highly nervous state, and when he realised this was someone he actually knew, I am afraid the poor fellow went quite to pieces. I managed to calm him down.’
‘Did you see anything lying on the mud that might have belonged to her?’
‘No,’ Harrington shook his head. ‘But the water had already almost reached the body and anything of that sort might have been covered already. I had become somewhat muddied during the process of moving her. I had business in town and so had to hurry away immediately home again to change my clothes. I have learned that after I left the clerk dismissed the boys. I should have reminded him to keep them there, as they discovered her.’
‘Inspector Morgan at Wandsworth is hopeful of finding them again,’ I consoled him. ‘You say you knew Rachel Sawyer—’
He interrupted me, raising his hand. ‘Not well, only in that I have long been a churchwarden and knew her as a member of the congregation. Other than her name and that of her employers, I can tell you nothing. She did not appear to have any friends in the congregation. I never saw people stop to chat to her after the services.’
‘How about her employers, Mr and Mrs Lamont? Are you acquainted with them?’
‘Again, in my role of churchwarden only. Although many years ago I did know Mrs Lamont’s late uncle, Isaiah Sheldon, quite well.’
‘Oh? I have heard his name . . .’ I managed to say casually.
‘I expect you will have done, if you have spoken to anyone in the Putney area,’ Harrington told me. ‘He was a noted local philanthropist and much missed. A very fine old gentleman who had made a fortune in the coffee trade.’
‘Yes, I have heard of his generosity. But he’s been dead some time, I fancy?’
‘Oh, it must be fifteen years at least, even more.’ Harrington nodded. ‘He died suddenly and it was a shock to all. Mind you, he was of advanced age.’
‘He’d been in failing health?’ I was afraid the casual tone might start to sound forced. Mr Harrington was no fool.
‘I understood the doctor had been calling on him. It often happens that a man of his age might fail suddenly, I dare say. When I say it was a shock, I did not mean it was so much a surprise, because he was in his eighties. I meant that those charitable enterprises that depended on his support were temporarily left without a generous benefactor.’
‘Mrs Lamont took up where her uncle left off, perhaps?’
Harrington treated me to a perceptive look. He had begun to see there was a trend to my questions. ‘I do not think so, Inspector Ross, but I have no detailed knowledge.’
He stood up and set his hat carefully on his head. ‘I can tell you no more, Inspector. But if I think of anything I shall, naturally, get in touch at once.’
Elizabeth Martin Ross
Frustratingly, I could not return to Putney. I understood why. But to stay at home and twiddle my thumbs was intolerable. I had to find something else to occupy me.
‘I intend to go to Dorset Square this afternoon and visit Mrs Parry,’ I told Bessie. ‘Would you like to come too? You’d like to see your old friends below stairs, I expect.’
‘I can’t say as they was particularly friendly to me, when I was working there,’ retorted Bessie. ‘But I don’t mind a bit of a gossip.’
Visiting my Aunt Parry, as she liked me to call her, was not something I enjoyed much, but it was a duty. She had been kind enough to take me in as her companion when I had been alone in the world, without a roof of my own or any fortune. Companions tended to pass through Aunt Parry’s household in a steady procession. I doubt I would have lasted very long, either. However, Ben arrived on the scene, rather like the knight in the old tales, and rescued me. But to ignore Aunt Parry now would be unforgivable. So Bessie and I set off for Dorset Square by a succession of omnibuses. It is not a comfortable way to travel and the risk of gaining a flea or two as a friend very high, but I didn’t think I could really justify a cab again. The trip to Putney and back with Wally had made quite a dent in my housekeeping budget.
Bessie scurried off down the basement steps to the kitchen. Simms, the butler, showed me into Aunt Parry’s drawing room – where I found a surprise waiting for me. She was not alone and the visitor was male. He got to his feet at my entry and greeted me with a broad grin.
‘Frank!’ I cried. ‘I thought you still abroad!’
When I had lived in Dorset Square as Aunt Parry’s companion, her nephew, Frank Carterton, had also lived there, preparing to go out to our embassy in Russia in a diplomatic role. This had been a source of great concern to Aunt Parry who was convinced he would be eaten by bears. Since then, Frank had moved on to China, where Aunt Parry imagined even worse fates. But it seemed he’d escaped all dangers.
‘I arrived back in England ten days ago,’ Frank explained to me. ‘And very good it is to be here – to see Aunt Julia again . . .’
He turned a smile on Mrs Parry, who basked in it. I had read the expression but never before seen anyone actually do it. It was as if a ray of sun had fallen on her face.
‘Dear Frank,’ she cooed. ‘Oh, Elizabeth, you can have no idea what a relief it is to see my nephew here again, safe and sound. What I have suffered by way of worry since he left for the East, you cannot imagine. It was bad enough when he was in Russia, but in China . . . So far away, so – so foreign!
‘I lived very comfortably there, Aunt Julia. I wrote and told you so,’ protested Frank.
‘My dear boy, of course you did. You wanted to allay my fears. But I was not fooled. You were suffering terrible hardship, I know it.’
Frank caught my eye and winked. A career in the diplomatic service has not cured you, Frank Carterton! I thought. You are still incorrigible.
‘Rice!’ exclaimed Aunt Parry suddenly. ‘Nothing but rice, it must have been intolerable.’
‘Truly, Aunt Julia, I ate a varied diet and not only rice.’
She was not prepared to listen. ‘The Chinese do such dreadful things to people. I have read of it. Death by a thousand cuts!’
‘That is a misinterpretation often heard here in the West,’ protested Frank. ‘They do, indeed, have some unpleasant ways of execution. But the death by a thousand cuts refers to the manner in which the corpse – after death – is dismembered into many small pieces. It’s a way of underlining the punishment. It inhibits the spirit, making it very difficult for it to reassemble itself in the afterlife.’
‘Whatever it is,’ said Aunt Parry firmly, ‘it does not sound the sort of thing that would ever happen in Britain. Now then, as Elizabeth is here, we shall have tea. Do ring the bell, Frank.’
‘Are you without a companion, Aunt Parry?’ I asked. There was no sign of the usual depressed female presence.
Aunt Parry threw up her hands. ‘You remember Laetitia Bunn?’
‘I do remember Miss Bunn. I thought her very pleasant.’
‘She married a curate!’ snapped Aunt Parry. �
��No thought for me. You girls are all the same. You are always running off and getting married. It will do her no good. Her husband has no influence to obtain a living of his own and they will starve. Yes, Simms, we’ll have tea now. Are there any scones? I did particularly ask this morning for scones.’
‘Crumpets, scones, seed cake and éclairs, madam,’ said Simms gravely.
‘Oh, good!’ Aunt Parry clapped her podgy hands together. ‘We should be able to manage with that.’
Frank cast his gaze ceilingwards.
Our tea party proved very jolly. Frank had set himself to be entertaining, something he was very good at, and Aunt Parry devoured an extraordinary amount of the good things sent up by Mrs Simms, the cook. She punctuated her mouthfuls with little cries of pleasure, although it was not always clear whether on account of Frank’s anecdotes or the cakes.
Shortly after Simms had carried the remaining crumbs away, however, Aunt Parry fell silent and once or twice nodded.
At last she gathered herself together and stood up, with some effort. ‘My dears, you will excuse me? I am unaccountably a little sleepy. I think I will go and rest. So nice to see you, dear Elizabeth. My kindest regards to the police inspector.’
When we were alone, Frank asked, ‘Well, Lizzie? How are you really? And Ross? Still keeping us safe from desperate criminals?’
‘We are both very well, thank you. Yes, Ben is doing his best. By the way, Aunt Parry seems to believe we don’t chop up dead bodies in Britain, but the unclaimed bodies of the poor are routinely sent to the schools of anatomy. They are often unclaimed only because there is no legal claimant – not because no one comes forward. It can cause great distress when illegitimate children, for example, are refused a parent’s body to bury. Many of the poor still believe that a dissected body won’t be able to rise up at the Last Trump.’
‘Dear Lizzie,’ said Frank, ‘you are the only lady I have ever met who would introduce that as a topic of drawing-room conversation. I am so glad to find you unchanged!’