The Detective and the Devil

by Lloyd Shepherd

  ‘Surrounded by ignorant men and empty bookshelves? Do not be so dull, husband.’

  He watched her washing the street boy, saw the young white skin reappear from under the hard-earned grime of the Wapping street. Her hands rubbed soap into Rat’s hair and stroked suds from his shoulders, and for a moment all was calm and all was love, and the schemes of powerful men held only invisible sway.

  CONSTABLE HORTON AT PUTNEY

  The next morning Horton travelled to Putney by water, on a River Police wherry piloted by his sour colleague Peach. As they journeyed upstream Peach glowered at him in his customary manner, as if Horton was responsible for placing Putney where it was and imposing on his tired arms.

  Horton had last visited Putney in 1812, while investigating the murders of the crew of the Solander. The house he’d come to then had been a well-to-do place up near the Heath, with its own drive and garden. As Peach’s wherry made its steady way past Vauxhall and Chelsea, Horton wondered about the captain’s wife he’d met there and whether she was still sewing in the drawing room and looking out at the trees in her garden.

  Emma Johnson’s sister did not have the benefit of a garden. She lived in rooms above a tavern, close to where the timber bridge crossed the river to Fulham. Martha Fry was a short, dark-haired woman, ugly of face and with a beaten countenance. She looked as strong as a man, easily capable of knocking together heads in the saloon she worked in. From the cellar came the bangs and curses of men at work; they were installing one of the new beer machines.

  ‘Lord, Jane was a beautiful child,’ she said of her niece. ‘As beautiful as the sun on the river. How could someone do that to a child such as her?’

  Horton did not have an answer.

  ‘My Lord Jesus Christ. What a terrible bloody awful thing.’

  Her voice was unrefined. It had none of the reported gentility of her sister; even poor tutored Amy Beavis spoke better than Martha Fry. A man shouted from below, and she glared at the sound, as if all men were somehow implicated in the death of her sister and her niece.

  ‘What did you know of your brother-in-law’s work, Miss Fry?’

  ‘East India Company, wasn’t it? That’s all I know. We wasn’t that close.’

  ‘You didn’t speak with your sister often?’

  ‘No. We didn’t.’

  Her upset had curdled to something sour.

  ‘There was some discord between you?’

  ‘Nothing as you could point to. She liked to lord it over me, did Emma.’

  ‘Her neighbours in Wapping spoke highly of her.’

  ‘Did they? She probably paid ’em off.’

  ‘Paid them off?’

  ‘Liked to have things over people. But I mustn’t speak ill of the dead.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Two month ago. I . . . needed her help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Look, has this got much to do with what happened to Jane?’

  ‘It might. Did Mrs Johnson give you money?’

  It was a gamble, but he was thinking of that expensive necklace and that ornate dressing table. There was nothing so refined around Martha Fry.

  ‘I asked her to lend me something. I’d lost my work and my place. It was either Emma or the street – and let me tell you, I thought about it.’

  Her ugly face, which would have promised little enough on the street, turned dark at the memory.

  ‘She was bloody delighted, wasn’t she? Made out she was always willing to help me, that I only needed to ask. But I saw it in her eyes. She’d have it over me, wouldn’t she?’

  The woman’s anger and shame were raw, and for a moment Horton pondered whether she might have killed the Johnsons herself. But her grief over her niece had been genuine.

  ‘How much did she lend you?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Was it a significant amount?’

  ‘It was a fair bit. Not to her, though. Always had money.’

  ‘You mean, she was rich?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean she always had something spare. Even when we was young, she always had a tuppence or two. Uncanny it was. Never said where it came from. Had a bit for a dowry too, I remember. My poor father, bless his soul, he was humiliated by that. His own daughter, paying her way to a wedding! She loved it. Never said boo to her after that, right until the day he died. It was like he was scared of her.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where the money came from?’

  ‘No, but look, it wasn’t hundreds of guineas. Just the odd tuppence or shilling here or there. She squirrelled it away, God knows where. But she wasn’t some bleeding Duchess.’

  ‘Was she working when she married?’

  ‘Yes. Worked in the same place as we all did. We were in service: me, Emma, our father.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Dead. Giving birth to me.’

  ‘I am sorry for that.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Where were you in service?’

  ‘Here in Putney. At the house of old Suttle. Tea merchant, lived up near the Heath.’

  ‘He lives there still?’

  ‘No. He died some while back. His son moved in after him, but he died as well, two months ago, as I heard it. Found him dead out on Boxhill. Worse for drink. The son’s wife’s still there, though.’

  ‘She lives in the house alone?’

  ‘Far as I know.’

  Horton rose, and put on his hat.

  ‘My thanks to you, Miss Fry.’

  Having come by river, he had no carriage to take him up to Putney Heath, but the walk was not a long one and the weather was dry. Putney High Street made its way south from the river, before climbing the hill up to the Heath.

  Captain Suttle’s house was surprisingly large, set back from the road within a walled garden which to Horton’s untutored eye had been rather elegantly put together. He knocked, and was shown inside by a housemaid. Waiting in the drawing room, he looked at a large colour painting of a rocky island, hanging above the mantel. He recognised neither the artist, nor the island. It was a very ordinary painting.

  ‘A Wapping constable,’ said the woman who came into the drawing room to find Horton waiting there. ‘A rare encounter for a Putney widow.’ She was dressed in black, but her face was happy enough. She must have been in her fifties, and was plump and red-faced. Her cheery bonhomie reminded him strongly of that other Putney widow he had been thinking of, the wife of the dead Captain Hopkins.

  ‘Mrs Suttle. My thanks to you for admitting me. My commiserations on the death of your husband. I wish to speak to you of a former employee.’

  ‘Emma Fry?’

  ‘Why, yes, ma’am, I do. You read the papers, then.’

  ‘I do, constable. We widows have a good deal of time on our hands. It is a terrible business. Now, sit down, and I will pour us some tea.’

  A servant came in and placed a tray on a fine-looking chinoiserie table, for which Horton expressed admiration.

  ‘I don’t care for it much myself, but my husband liked it. He said it reminded him of the East,’ said Mrs Suttle, pouring the tea herself. ‘I think you’ll find our tea excellent, constable. It is one of the great benefits of being a Company widow.’

  ‘I take it you are speaking of the East India Company?’

  ‘Of course. Captain Suttle was a Company man and, indeed, a Company boy. Now, how is the tea?’

  ‘It is excellent. My thanks to you.’

  ‘I am delighted you like it. Now, to Emma.’

  She settled back on her sofa, and Horton watched her prepare for a pleasurable gossip.

  ‘Emma was the daughter of Francis Fry, I believe. He used to work here as a gardener. He lived in the attic with his two girls: Emma and the other one. Who was rather ugly, I recall.’

  ‘Martha.’

  ‘Oh yes, Martha! Poor thing. So ill-countenanced, and Emma such a pretty thing.’

  He remembered t
hat destroyed face in the guttered fire.

  ‘Captain Suttle was positively enchanted by Emma. I grew quite jealous, I will admit!’ She said this as if it were a huge joke, but there was an edge to her voice.

  ‘Do you know how she met her husband?’

  ‘I introduced them, of course! Poor Benjamin. He was a shy fellow, worked for the Company as a clerk. I met him at some party or other, and invited him to dinner. Did a spot of matchmaking, I will admit. He was besotted with Emma the first time he laid eyes on her, and I told her she could do little better for herself than marry a man with a Company position. They are much sought after, those jobs. Excellent pensions. For widows, too.’

  ‘They were married soon after?’

  ‘Oh, almost immediately. We laid on a little wedding breakfast here at the house. It was a beautiful ceremony, I will admit.’

  ‘You seem to have shown enormous kindness to Mr Johnson and his new wife.’

  ‘Well, one likes to help the younger people, doesn’t one?’

  ‘And did you maintain your acquaintance?’

  ‘Not I, no! The Captain obviously saw Johnson at their place of work. But I saw nothing of Emma for many years. She wrote occasionally. To us.’

  The to us was added hurriedly. She smiled, and almost winked. There was something charming but oddly gleeful about Mrs Suttle.

  ‘Anyway, I did see Emma again. She visited us last year.’

  ‘Here in Putney?’

  ‘Yes. It was a weekend visit, something of a surprise. The Captain was delighted to see her. As was I,’ she added quickly. ‘I recall she left rather precipitously. I believe she may have said something to the Captain which angered him.’

  ‘There was a scene?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. They were taking a walk in the garden, and when they came back in she left almost immediately. Rather a cursory goodbye to myself. And now this terrible news.’

  ‘And, of course, the news about the Captain.’

  ‘Oh, yes. That was terrible too.’

  This with a sip of tea and a mildly theatrical lift of the eyebrows.

  ‘What happened to Captain Suttle, may I ask?’

  ‘Well, you seem an intelligent fellow. Perhaps you could unlock the puzzle.’

  ‘I understand he was found up on Boxhill?’

  ‘Yes, and it was a deuced mystery. He has some family in the vicinity, but he hadn’t visited them in years. He simply did not come home one night. He left for East India House in the morning, but then never returned. We became frantic with worry. It was a week later that he was discovered on Boxhill.’

  ‘Who discovered him?’

  ‘A shepherd. Thankfully his body had not been much troubled by beasts or such-like. We were able to open his casket at the funeral.’

  ‘What was the cause of the Captain’s death?’

  He kept expecting the woman to show some upset at his questions, but she remained calm. She was grieving in appearance only; her husband’s pension had left her in a good degree of comfort. Mrs Suttle was happy enough in her widow’s weeds.

  ‘He froze to death. I’m afraid there was a suspicion of drink having been taken. His clothes positively reeked of it.’

  ‘Did he take drink often?’

  ‘Oh, now and again. These men. You know.’

  ‘A grim end.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I am bereft.’

  Another sip of tea.

  ‘Mrs Suttle, might I ask an indelicate question?’

  She frowned, but nodded.

  ‘Did Captain Suttle correspond with Emma Johnson? Did you ever discover any letters from her?’

  ‘Constable, the question is impertinent and preposterous as well as indelicate. Of course he was not in correspondence with that woman. Why on earth would he be?’

  She spat out the words that woman, and he could see she was lying.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ she said, suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Horton, ma’am.’

  She frowned with concentration.

  ‘I have heard the name Horton before, have I not? In connection with a Wapping constable.’

  ‘I was in Putney the year before last, ma’am. Visiting Captain Hopkins.’

  Her fat, comfortable face darkened as she stood, and Horton could see he had accidentally made an enemy.

  ‘Then this interview is at an end, Constable Horton. Mrs Hopkins was a dear friend of mine.’

  She rang the bell.

  ‘The maid will show you out. Do not come here again.’

  The change was so sudden that he wondered whether Mrs Suttle’s friendship with Mrs Hopkins was anything more than an excuse to end a conversation that was veering towards uncomfortable matters. The maid arrived, and he walked towards the door. As he went, he nodded towards the mantelpiece.

  ‘I was admiring your painting.’

  ‘You were?’ She had turned away from him, wanting him gone.

  ‘It is very striking.’

  ‘Captain Suttle painted it himself. From his own sketches.’

  ‘It is a likeness of a real island?’

  ‘Yes, of course. St Helena.’

  ‘In the Atlantic? The Company island?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘When were you there?’

  ‘I was not there, constable. My husband was. He was the assistant treasurer at St Helena for six years.’

  It was almost full dark by the time he reached Lower Gun Alley. As he had predicted to Abigail, the trip to Putney had taken longer than he’d intended. Peach had waited for him all afternoon in the tavern where he had met Martha Fry, and by the time Horton returned from Mrs Suttle’s, the man was drunk. The trip back downstream was alarming in the extreme, with half a dozen near collisions and no time to think clearly.

  He left Peach singing to himself at Wapping Old Stairs, while he climbed back up to the street. The man’s slurred voice echoed up from the riverbank, as if being pulled down by the receding tide. Wapping was quiet and watchful in the warm night air. To his left a great vessel was making its slow way into the Dock, and even the men shouting from its decks down to the quay sounded self-conscious, as if trying not to wake some giant within the Dock walls.

  He passed the Police Office. He needed to report to Harriott, but first he needed to see Abigail. Turning the corner from Wapping Street he sensed, right away, that something was wrong. The apartment’s windows on the first floor were open, but there was no light from inside; it was if they had been left open all day. He saw no movement within. He looked around to see if one of the Wapping street boys – Cripps, perhaps, or Twitcher – was watching the house, but there was no one about. A single shout rang out from by the Dock, followed by a peal of laughter.

  He went through the street door and climbed up the stairs. There was still no noise, not even from the neighbouring flats. The door to his apartment was open, wide open, disgustingly open. He stood on the threshold and looked inside. More darkness. More silence. The smell of a guttered fire. He stepped inside, and an old board creaked like a mast punished by a gale. He stopped, and waited. Silence drifted in to replace the creak of the board.

  If there was someone inside, they were in darkness. He, though, must have been framed by the dim glow from the hallway. He stepped away from the door, into the shadows. Through the little parlour. Into the bedroom, to the right. Round the bed, down to the floor, moving his hands around in the pitch dark, terrified lest they brush against a lifeless face or an outstretched limb. Out to the parlour again. A scurrying of rats’ feet in the walls. Some small glow from the street in here, enough to see the shapes of furniture. He walked around, looked around. Waited.

  Nothing. No one was here.

  Abigail was not here.

  He turned and ran out, down the stairs, and barrelled out the street door, running straight into Cripps, who tumbled backwards with salty imprecations.

  ‘Watch it! Bloody watch it!’

  Horton put a hand down to help h
im up, even as he began his questions.

  ‘Abigail! Where’s Abigail?’

  ‘Safe, constable. Safe. You don’t need to snap my bleedin’ arm! She’s at the Office.’

  Abigail had done exactly what he’d asked her to do: she had fled to the closest shelter at the first sign of something being awry. She was there now, sitting with John Harriott in his rooms, reading papers by the fire, and when Horton was shown in she stood and allowed herself to be wrapped within him. Horton glimpsed the magistrate over Abigail’s shoulder and saw the old fellow smiling in an avuncular fashion. An oddly domestic scene.

  ‘Where is Rat?’ he asked.

  ‘He is waiting downstairs,’ replied Harriott. ‘I will not have street urchins sitting in my office.’

  ‘He is our ward, sir,’ said Abigail, with some defiance, and Harriott’s old face flushed red, whether in anger or embarrassment Horton did not care.

  Abigail returned to her seat, and Horton stood behind her as she told her story. She had come home to find the house broken into. She’d been gone for only an hour, out buying some bread and meat, accompanied by Rat. When she’d returned it was almost completely dark. She did not go into the house, seeing it opened. She had just turned around and come here. With, Horton trusted, a watching but invisible honour guard of Wapping boys.

  ‘Did they steal anything?’ Harriott asked.

  ‘I do not know, sir,’ Abigail said.

  ‘But – what of the necklace?’ Horton asked.

  ‘It is safe,’ she said.

  ‘What necklace?’ said Harriott, irritably.

  ‘Sir, I have spent the day in Putney, speaking to Emma Johnson’s sister, and to the widow of a certain Captain Suttle. Mrs Johnson, her sister and their father were once in service in this Captain’s household. I believe Mrs Johnson had some form of illicit correspondence with Captain Suttle, stretching back some time. Captain Suttle was recently found dead on Boxhill after having been missing for a week. I was told that Mrs Johnson always had a notable amount of ready money, even as a girl. And Captain Suttle had a connection to St Helena – he was a former assistant treasurer on the island.’

  Harriott frowned in his chair, as if Horton had read him a riddle.

  ‘Also this, sir. Whoever entered our lodgings did so to search them, not to harm my wife. I would imagine the most likely explanation is that someone was watching the house and waiting for her to leave. That suggests that whoever entered suspected we had discovered something, and wanted to know what it was. Or knew what it was, and wanted to retrieve it.’