by Pat Herbert
This lovely girl with her pretty manners had captured his heart. True, she lacked the poise and polish of the womankind he was used to, but she would make him a good and faithful spouse, of that he was sure. And she was kind to children, too. That was important. He had been searching for someone like her all his life. He would soon teach her how to conduct herself in polite society and how not to drop her aitches.
Maybe it was time he told her his real name, he thought. But then there would be too much explaining to do. And, although she was obviously a young woman who had a lot to put up with in her paltry little life, even she might not take kindly to knowing the truth about him. No, he couldn’t take the risk.
Martha interrupted his reverie. “Would you like some more tea?”
“Thank you. And one more of those delicious scones, if you please.”
Martha handed him his replenished cup and delicately split open another scone. “Butter? Jam?” she asked.
“Just butter – but lots of it,” he replied. This was the life, he thought, lying back in the comfortable fireside chair, spreading his long legs before the blazing hearth.
While Martha and her guest were enjoying each other’s company, Jemima and Georgina, were growing restless. They wanted their walk in the park and the ice creams they’d been promised, not to mention the skipping rope. Jemima had told her sister that Martha was going to buy them the one they’d seen in the toy shop the other day, and both children were beside themselves with impatience. It was nearly three o’clock, but there seemed to be no movement from the parlour. Finally, they decided to creep down the stairs and listen outside the parlour door. It would be much more interesting to find out what was going on in there with Martha and that man than doing their jigsaw puzzle yet again. And there were only so many times you could dress and undress a doll.
They were careful not to tread on the stair that always creaked and reached the parlour door without making a sound. The voices from inside the room were muffled, but their young ears were finely tuned, and they didn’t miss a word.
“Martha, my love?”
“Yes, Giles?”
“I have grown very fond of you, you know that, don’t you?”
“I – I don’t know so much about that – ”
“Well, my dear Martha, you may be sure it is so. Ever since we first met, I have thought of no one but you. Dare I think that you are not entirely indifferent to me?”
The children strained to hear Martha’s reply as her voice was almost a whisper now.
“Please, Giles, I – ”
“Darling, you are the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
“Well, I – that is, I don’t know. This is very sudden, like.”
Georgina looked at Jemima and giggled. They knew enough of the world, despite being only four-and-a-half and five-and-three-quarters respectively, to know that what they were hearing was how the grown-ups made love. They pressed their tiny ears to the door once more.
“I know, my dear. But I would like to think that, in time, you would do me the very deepest honour of becoming my wife.”
The children clapped their hands. So that’s what getting married was like. Some handsome young man would ask for their ‘honour’! They would be honoured! They couldn’t wait. Lucky old Martha!
“We’ll be bridesmaids, I bet,” said Jemima. “I want to wear pink silk.”
“I’ll be prettier than you,” asserted Georgina. She was younger than her sister but she knew, by the way people made more fuss of her, that she was the prettier of the two.
“No, you won’t!” countered her sister, stamping her little foot.
“Will!”
“Won’t!”
They giggled again. The rivalry between them was playful and not, as it was with many older sisters, malicious. The door had remained shut all this while as, unbeknownst to the little girls, their parlour maid was locked in a fervent embrace with George Arthur Hayter, sealing their pact.
They put their ears to the door again. “Can you see anything?” asked Georgina, as Jemima managed to reach the keyhole.
“Er, not much,” replied Georgina, squinting through it. “I can only see the man’s back and the table with the tea things on it. They’re not saying anything.”
“Oh, bother!”
It was just then that Edith Lomax came through the front door.
9
Edith stood at the open door, watching Abraham Smollett bending over her parlour maid. What was this? Were her eyes deceiving her? No, it was obvious what was going on. Her mind was clear now.
She had spent several fruitless hours in the park waiting for Abraham and, all the while he was here, in the parlour, with her maidservant of all people! Those hours had not been entirely wasted, however. She had had a lot of time to think and had finally, if reluctantly, come to the conclusion that Abraham Smollett must face the full force of the law. She had left the park with the intention of going straight to the police station but had arrived back home instead. Why she had changed her mind, she wasn’t entirely sure, but now she realised it was lucky for Martha that she had.
Here was her Abraham just about to strangle the silly girl. Without stopping to think, she ran up behind him, reached for the fireside poker and smashed it down on his head. First, she heard the sound of his skull crack, then Martha’s screams, as his body slumped to the floor.
“Oh, madam! What ’ave you done?” cried Martha, between screams.
Edith dropped the poker. As if in a trance, she bent down to examine her lover’s body. She stroked his hair which was matted by a small seepage of blood. She saw, with horror, that the blow had also dislodged his teeth.
“You’ve killed ’im! And ’e’d just proposed to me! How could you?”
Edith looked up at her hysterical parlour maid, as if aware of her presence for the first time. “He proposed to you? Why on earth would he want to marry someone like you?” And, rising to her feet, she slapped Martha’s face, partly to snap her out of her hysterics and partly just for the satisfaction of doing so.
Martha raised her hands to protect her from the blow and then slumped into the fireside chair, sobbing. “We was gonna be married!” she persisted. “’E’d asked me just before you come in, ’e did.”
Edith sat down opposite her, Abraham’s inert and toothless body between them. “Well he won’t be marrying you now,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“But – why – why did you do it?” Martha fumbled for her hanky and blew her nose loudly.
“Because he was about to strangle you, you silly girl. That’s all the thanks I get for saving your life.”
“What are you talking about? We was embracing!”
Edith sighed. “I hate to disillusion you, but I think you’re quite wrong about that.”
“Why do you say so? You know nothing about it. Giles....”
“Giles?” Edith gave a sardonic laugh. “Is that what he called himself?”
“Well, that’s ’is name,” said Martha defiantly. “Giles Fortescue.” She started to blubber again. Edith took out her fan and flapped it violently. The room was suddenly very hot, even though the fire had long since gone out.
“I knew him as Abraham Smollett,” she said, watching Martha’s face as she took in this fact.
Martha stared at her. “What? You knew ’im?”
“Hasn’t it penetrated your stupid head that this man has been deceiving both of us?”
“But you didn’t ’ave to ’it ’im like that. Just because you was jealous.”
Edith sighed in exasperation. “I just told you, Martha, I killed him because he was about to strangle you.”
“It may ’ave looked like that when you come in,” said Martha. “But you didn’t even wait to find out what was ’appening, did you?”
“Look, Martha,” Edith said, trying hard not to lose her patience. “Don’t you remember what Dr Lomax read out to us this morning? About a man who is murdering women in
this area? Didn’t you take any notice of my husband’s warning?” It didn’t occur to Edith that she hadn’t taken much notice of him either but, then, he was her husband and not taking notice of him was her privilege, and her privilege alone.
“That weren’t nothing to do with my Giles.”
“Oh, have it your own way,” said Edith, putting her fan back in her reticule. She noticed Martha was studying something on the carpet not far from her feet. It was the man’s false teeth.
“That wasn’t the only false thing about him,” said Edith.
It was an ironic statement, but Edith felt anything but light hearted at that moment. She was scared. She had killed a man, albeit in the heat of the moment. Still, he was a murderer, after all. But would the law take this into account when she went to the police? If she went to the police? No, she knew there would be no mercy for her. It would come out about her dalliance with the murder victim, and she was just as likely to be hanged for adultery as for murder.
Her dilemma, now, was either to give herself up to the police or run away. But, if she ran, where would she go?
10
Dr Herbert Lomax had always led a reasonably uneventful and blameless life and never, even in his most vivid nightmares, had he imagined what awaited him when he returned home to 57 Bockhampton Road that late summer evening. As he opened the front door, his eyes were greeted by the sight of his servant girl sitting blubbing on the bottom of the stairs. He then saw the blood on her skirt and hands.
“Why, Martha,” he cried, putting his black bag down and going straight up to her. “What on earth’s happened?”
Martha seemed deprived of speech, but she managed to point to the open parlour door. “In – in there,” she sobbed.
He went through it and, at first, he couldn’t see how many bodies there were, piled up by the fireplace. Before he could quite take in the scene of carnage before him, he slipped into blessed oblivion.
Martha’s blood-stained hand touched his face, smearing his cheek. Her touch roused him, but his faculties had ceased to function properly and, for a few moments, he wondered who this pretty girl was who was bending over him so solicitously. Then realisation of what he had just witnessed flooded back to him.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching on to Martha’s arm as he slowly began to take in the scene. There were three bodies lying on the hearth rug. It couldn’t be true but, apparently, it was. Firstly, he saw a youngish man, devilishly handsome, but undoubtedly very dead. His skull had been smashed in and there was a pool of blood surrounding his dark head like a halo. Herbert Lomax wasn’t possessed of a vivid imagination at the best of times, so what he was seeing had to be real. Even down to the macabre set of false teeth lying beside the body, saliva still clinging to them.
Then his eyes came to rest on the two other bodies lying there. They were piled one on top of the other, and he tried not to see who they were. Although he knew. It would have been hard to mistake a couple of dead children for a brace of pheasants. He blinked several times before slowly refocusing on them. There was no doubting the evidence of his own eyes and he had to believe it. There they were, his two beautiful little daughters, lying there with their skulls cracked open, blood oozing and seeping all around them.
“Georgie? Jemima?” he croaked, choking back his tears. He stretched out his fingers to stroke their dainty curls. They felt wet to the touch. He stood up shakily and put his hand on the mantelpiece to steady himself.
“Martha, Martha, what have you done?” he sobbed. “What have you done?” he repeated, like a mantra.
“What ’ave I done?” she screamed at him. “Do you think I could do all this?”
“But Martha, there’s no one else here....” Then he suddenly remembered his wife. Where was Edith? Was she dead too? Had his maidservant gone out of her mind and been on a killing frenzy?
“Where’s your mistress?” he asked her, gripping her by the shoulders.
“I ain’t got no idea where Mrs Lomax is.” She wriggled in his grasp. “Let me go!”
He released her without a murmur. “Isn’t she here?” he asked, his mind a cauldron of emotions.
“No, sir,” she informed him.
“Then, tell me, where is she?”
Martha was smirking at him. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“All I know is, after she struck this man with the poker, ’er poor little mites, your flesh and blood, wouldn’t stop screaming, so she struck them too. She dropped the poker and ran upstairs. I ’eard ’er pacing the floor for a bit, then she came back down the stairs with a suitcase and told me she was leaving forever. She said not to try and find ’er, she was disappeared from the face of the earth. She said I was to look after you from now on.”
“But why didn’t you try to stop her?” Herbert stared at Martha, wondering whether to believe her. No, she was lying. She had to be lying, he told himself.
“I didn’t know what to do, sir,” cried Martha. “I was trying to revive the little ones. I was ’oping she ’adn’t done for them. I thought they might be only stunned. But they’re dead, all right. Then you come in, like.”
“This is all too much to take in. My wife wouldn’t do this – she couldn’t!”
“I didn’t believe it meself. But it’s true. I bear witness. I cannot doubt my own two eyes.”
Herbert slumped down into the fireside chair, noting with irony that his slippers were there, warming on the hearth. “When did you put these here, Martha?” he asked incredulously. How could his maidservant perform such a routine action after what had happened?
Martha smiled faintly. “I – I knew you would be ’ome soon, sir. I didn’t think it my place not to perform my usual duties until you told me different.”
Herbert shook his head in disbelief. “I hardly think I have need of warm slippers now, Martha.”
“No sir.” Martha bowed her head.
“Who – by the way – is this man?” He suddenly refocused his attention on the complete stranger lying dead on his hearth rug. Of course, Martha was mistaken. Edith must have killed him after he had killed her children. What mother wouldn’t defend her children from such a fiend?
Martha looked triumphant suddenly. “’E was my fiancé. She killed ’im because she was jealous.”
“Jealous?” He couldn’t comprehend the word. “Why should she be jealous of him? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, sir. Not of ’im – of me. You see, ’e was courting me when she found us together. She killed ’im because she ’ad been ’is lover and now ’e preferred me and was going to marry me.”
Herbert sighed. He had to believe it now. Martha wouldn’t lie, she didn’t have the wits. He had been a cuckold all along. The rumours he had heard and chosen to ignore were true. He supposed it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now.
Just then, the doorbell chimed through the house. Herbert leapt to his feet. “Martha, what can we do? We can’t answer it – not yet!”
“No, sir,” she agreed, rushing over to the window to see who it was. She peered through the lace curtain and saw the bulky figure of Elsie Proudfoot. “It’s Mrs Proudfoot!” she informed him. “We’d better open the door, otherwise she’ll alert the whole street. You know what she’s like.”
“Yes, I know. But I can’t face anyone yet, especially not that atrocious woman.” The thought of her prying eyes was too much to bear. The doorbell rang again, this time more insistently and for longer.
“Oh dear!” he groaned. “She must be leaning on it. I suppose you’d better answer it, Martha.”
“Yes, sir. If you think it’s best.” Then she looked down at her blood-stained clothes. “But, sir, I can’t go like this, can I?”
“What do you mean, girl? Do as I bid.”
“But the blood, sir....”
“What does it matter? People have got to know what happened some time. Besides, I’m sure she’ll know what to do in this crisis. I seem to have lost al
l means of rational thought and I don’t think I can face all this on my own.”
“But you’re not on your own, sir. You got me.”
“Thank you, Martha. You’re very loyal. But we need outside help. Let the woman in, please.” The doorbell was still ringing. Elsie Proudfoot wasn’t going to go away.
Martha moved slowly to the front door, wiping her soiled hands on her stained dress, patting her hair into place in front of the hall mirror before opening it.
“’Ello Martha dearie. Is your mistress at ’ome?” It didn’t take the good woman long to notice the blood on Martha’s clothes and hands.
Despite her dishevelled appearance, the little maidservant managed to reply with some shred of dignity. “No, she ain’t, Mrs Proudfoot. Nor will she be for the foreseeable future.”
“It’s – it’s just that my Tommy’s gone down with something and I wondered if the doctor could come and look ’im over.”
“Why not ask for the doc, then?” Martha asked archly. “The mistress knows nothing about medicine.”
“I always ask Mrs Lomax to intervene on my be’alf with the doc. She usually gets ’im to attend my family as a favour, like. We ’aven’t got much money, you know.”
“That’s none of my business,” Martha pointed out.
Elsie was trying to see into the hall but Martha barred her view. “Is there something else you wanted?”
“Look, love, I can’t ’elp noticing your clothes. Ain’t that blood on your ’ands?” Mrs Proudfoot was obviously enjoying herself immensely.
“I been gutting a chicken, if you must know,” said Martha, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her eyes.
Herbert Lomax came to the door as Martha said this.
Elsie was obviously in her element now. There was no hiding the whiteness of his complexion, the ghostly horror reflected in his eyes and, above all, the blood on his waistcoat and hands.