The Daughters of Gentlemen: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries)

by Stratmann, Linda

  Sarah returned from Soho, having spoken to a young assistant at the Soho Printworks, who remembered receiving the copy for the pamphlets a month ago. Four dozen had been printed and they were collected in person a week later. The lady who had both brought the copy and paid for and taken away the pamphlets had given her name as Mrs Jones, and he could recall nothing of her appearance except that she was respectably dressed and, he thought, between the ages of forty and fifty. The lady had also been careful to take the original handwritten piece away with her. It followed that three dozen of the pamphlets had been sent to Flora Quayle, and the remaining ones were the dozen distributed at the school.

  Frances showed Sarah the four letters she had received, but Sarah seemed unperturbed by the sudden arrival of new work and commented that if she was in the house with the thieving servant she would get to the bottom of the mystery in five minutes, that Frances’ ‘business friends’ – Frances assumed Sarah meant Chas and Barstie – would have all the answers about the young suitor, while Tom’s sharp eyes and quick feet would soon reveal what the two husbands were up to.

  Frances was considerably heartened by this, and the discussion moved to the pamphlet, and Professor Venn’s intemperance.

  ‘If I only knew who Matilda was meeting in Hyde Park,’ said Frances. She had never believed as Davey so innocently did in the ‘fine lady’ and her charitable offerings. The idea that a ‘fine lady’ would agree to meet a maidservant under the arch of the Serpentine Bridge at night was surely ridiculous. Her almanac had confirmed that on the night of Matilda’s death the moon had been in its last quarter and waning, giving the murderer even more cover of darkness than usual. The charitable lady was undoubtedly a fiction and Matilda, she felt sure, had been meeting someone of quite another character, for no very respectable purpose, and wished to conceal this fact from Davey, her family and the school.

  ‘Perhaps she was meeting the woman who had the pamphlets printed,’ Frances pondered. ‘I remember Matilda’s expression when she touched the note. She was very pleased about something and I think I can guess what it was. She was expecting either to receive money or a new commission that would bring her money. Did she ask for too much? Did she threaten to reveal a secret? What was so important that she was killed for it? As far as I know the only ladies between the age of forty and fifty who were at the school when the pamphlets were placed there were Mrs Venn, and Miss Baverstock. Both of them knew about Professor Venn’s unfortunate habits, but neither have any reason to want to harm the school; very much the opposite, and if Matilda had wanted to speak to either of them in confidence she did not have to go to Hyde Park to do it.’

  ‘She might have told her mother about Professor Venn, and his funny ways,’ suggested Sarah.

  ‘So she might,’ agreed Frances. ‘And Mrs Springett is the right age, but all the same the style of the pamphlet is not something either she or Matilda could have written, and of course, she would not have needed to see her in secret.’

  ‘Perhaps she was meeting a fancy man,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Davey, you mean? But why meet him there?’

  ‘No, I meant some other man. It might even have been the one who fathered the child. If she was pretending to Mrs Venn that her little girl was still alive, so as to get money off her, why not pretend the same to the father so as to get money off him, too?’

  It was a theory which Frances had to admit entirely suited the character of the girl.

  ‘As far as anyone knows she hasn’t seen the child’s father in years, although it is possible that she could have met him again by chance, and seen an opportunity,’ said Frances. ‘The last anyone heard of him he was a lodger at Mrs Springett’s house.’

  ‘Suppose he’s come on in the world,’ suggested Sarah, ‘and he’s got a good situation, and a wife.’

  More than that, thought Frances, supposing he had not only bettered himself but become something of a public figure, perhaps someone with a reputation for moral correctness who would be most anxious to conceal any hint of such an association in his past. Could he be the source of Matilda’s £20? And she had told Davey that she was about to get a great deal more. If her demands had increased and it looked as though they might never end, then her blackmail victim had become her killer.

  Frances knew this was a police matter, and it was no part of her commission to find out who had killed Matilda. Both of these sensible thoughts were cast aside by her natural curiosity. She persuaded herself that by looking into the question she could dismiss from her mind the idea that Matilda’s murder was connected with her distribution of the pamphlets at the school. There was one person who Frances thought might be willing to speak to her on the subject. She returned to Salem Gardens and knocked on the door of the Springetts’ neighbour, Mrs Brooks.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was a few moments before Mrs Brooks came to the door, her face red and glowing, haloed in a cloud of starch-laden vapour. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well they’re in now, and Davey’s back.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ said Frances, ‘but it’s you I wish to speak to.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well I don’t know nothing, but you can come in if you like.’

  The back parlour and most of the scullery had been given over to ironing. A long wooden table was covered with a thick cloth, and there were several hot irons, some light with fine points, and some as heavy as doorstops, towering heaps of linen awaiting them, bowls of water to be sprinkled for steam, and piles of neatly folded sheets and pillowcases.

  ‘I just wanted to ask if you could remember who was living at Mrs Springett’s when Matilda came home to have her child,’ said Frances. ‘Of course I can’t speak to Mrs Springett about that with Davey there.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’d want to know that,’ said Mrs Brooks. ‘There’s tea in the pot if you want a cup.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Frances and helped herself. In the overheated atmosphere of the house an almost constant supply of a refreshing beverage was essential. ‘I will be open with you Mrs Brooks,’ she said. ‘Although I am teaching at the school, I am also a detective, and I am making some private enquiries on behalf of the governors. I regret that for reasons of great confidentiality I am not at liberty to tell you any more.’

  Mrs Brooks looked very surprised, and stared at Frances as if she was some new creature in the zoological gardens which had just arrived from a country she had never heard of and could not imagine.

  ‘As a part of those enquiries I need to speak to the people who were living next door seven or eight years ago. I was hoping you might recall some names.’

  Mrs Brooks, while considering the question, took up a flat iron from the hearth, tested its temperature with a licked finger, and, satisfied with the sizzle, began to apply it to linen in a series of brutal thumps. ‘Well, there was Jinny, of course, that’s Mrs Springett, and Barney, that was her old man, only he wasn’t too well – he died not long after, and Jem – no, I tell a lie, he was from home then, on his apprenticeship. And then there was the two lodgers.’

  ‘Two?’ asked Frances, surprised.

  ‘Yes, I remember that particular, because when Tilda came home unexpected she had to share a bedroom with Jinny because the lodgers had the other.’

  ‘Do you remember their names?’ asked Frances, taking out her notebook.

  Mrs Brooks screwed up her face but after some thought shook her head. ‘No, I can’t after all this time – Watson maybe, or Wilson or Wigson or … no, it’s gone.’

  ‘Not the same name for both, surely?’ said Frances. ‘Or were they related?’

  ‘Oh yes, they were sisters.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Frances, taken aback. ‘And had they been there long? Were there no male lodgers before?’

  ‘No, never any men lodging there before Davey, and Jinny only allowed him because he was a friend of Jem and she knew him to be very quiet and respectable.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Frances, ‘but I had been given to underst
and that the father of Matilda’s child was someone who once lodged with her mother.’

  ‘Then you’ve been told wrong,’ said Mrs Brooks. ‘It was a messenger boy what came to the school and talked a lot of nothing and turned her head with his ways. I expect you know the type.’

  Frances did not know the type and was not sure why Mrs Brooks thought she might.

  Matilda, she now realised, had been a young woman who, while her position in society was always destined to be a humble one, was prepared to undertake anything short of substantial wickedness in order to improve her prospects. Her specialty was the blackmail of anyone who had reason to fear information in her possession. The true identity of the father of her child could never be known, and Matilda was probably willing to point the finger at anyone who would pay her money rather than be identified. Was the messenger boy story true? Or had Matilda even persuaded Mrs Venn that the father was her own husband, and extracted money from her in return for her silence? The child had been called Edie, and Professor Venn’s Christian name was Edward. Could that be coincidence or a part of Matilda’s blackmail plan?

  With a wedding due to take place, and hopes of establishing Davey in a comfortable business, Matilda must have started to increase her demands. Frances very much doubted, however, that Mrs Venn, even if physically able to strangle the girl, was prepared to commit such a cold-blooded act. Matilda was a possible source of the insinuations about Professor Venn in the pamphlet. She could not have written it herself, so who might she have told? Would she have told anyone? The girl, Frances reflected, had been a highly successful blackmailer for several years, and must have known that her secrets were only valuable while she alone guarded them.

  At teatime Chas and Barstie came to see Frances bearing one of Mr Whiteley’s best fruitcakes and a pot of jam, and looking flushed with optimism. Water was soon set to boil and what had been planned as a meal of bread and butter became a feast.

  ‘Bayswater,’ said Chas, draining his teacup and setting it down with a satisfied smile, ‘is the land of opportunity for those who know how to take advantage of it. Especially,’ he added, with a significant wink, ‘when election time rolls around! All the to-ings and fro-ings and excitement and plain downright panic, and everything is an emergency and has to be done expressly and on the instant and money no object! Oh yes!’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Money – no – object!’

  ‘Bayswater,’ said Barstie dreamily, ‘is a pond – a smooth still pond with little fish and big fish all swimming about minding their own business, but you only have to stir it and the big fish try to swallow the little ones while all the refuse that has settled in the depths comes up for everyone to see.’ He sighed with pleasurable anticipation.

  ‘How very glad I am,’ said Chas, ‘that I was never a patron of the Bayswater Bank.’ Barstie said nothing but glanced at Chas as if to suggest that had he been, the losses he would have sustained in the recent crash would not have been extensive. ‘Mr Paskall, on the other hand, is in a most precarious position, and he and his son have been working night and day to avoid the dread hand of the bailiffs. I have even heard it hinted that a certain person, who I decline to name, has been involved.’ He shuddered. ‘Fortunately that unpleasant fellow has not been seen around here lately, which does not mean of course that he is not here. Desperate times indeed, and doubly so now. There’s to be a big meeting at the offices of the Paddington Conservative Association tomorrow evening and if Paskall can’t convince them that he isn’t about to go bankrupt, it’s the end of him as a candidate.’

  ‘But he hopes he has found a way out of the difficulty,’ said Barstie. ‘You may expect a very important announcement in the morning newspapers!’

  Chas nodded. ‘Barstie here has been in and out of Mr Paskall’s office almost as much as the man himself, and has been privy to all the arrangements.’

  ‘A marriage is to be announced that will solve everything!’ said Barstie. ‘If all goes to plan, generous funds will be flowing into the Paskall coffers very soon.’

  But is Mr Paskall not already a married man?’ said Frances.

  ‘He is,’ said Chas, ‘but his old friend Mr Matthews is a widower.’

  ‘You don’t mean an engagement between Mr Matthews and the Duchess?’ asked Frances.

  They nodded.

  ‘But you advised me only a few days ago that the lady was immune to persuasion.’

  ‘Matters have changed,’ said Chas. ‘Mr Paskall is certain to be elected to parliament, and his influence in these parts is such that his recommendation will be enough to secure victory for others whose fortunes have hung in the balance. I have even heard it said —’

  ‘Possibly by Mr Paskall’s own agents,’ said Barstie.

  ‘I have heard it said,’ continued Chas, flicking a pellet of bread at his friend, ‘that Paskall is certain to gain a high office sooner rather than later. What sister would deny assistance to a brother destined for ministerial status?’

  ‘But what of her daughter, who she dotes upon?’ asked Frances. ‘Have there been provisions made for her?’

  ‘All attended to,’ said Barstie. ‘Mr Rawsthorne has been very ingenious and drawn up a settlement that satisfies the wishes of the mother and secures the girl’s fortune, while leaving sufficient to save Mr Paskall from ruin.’

  ‘And,’ said Chas, ‘my spies tell me that there may be another betrothal in the wind.’

  ‘Paskall and Matthews,’ said Barstie. ‘The two fathers have been very hugger-mugger with a scheme to unite their families, though whether the young parties involved have been told of it, I can’t say.’

  Chas grimaced. ‘If young Paskall knows of a plan to marry him to Miss Vinegar, and he is not on the next steamer to Australia, he is a braver man than I am.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Frances, ‘that you are now far too busy with election business to undertake a commission for me.’

  Their protests were loud and long, after which Frances told them of the recent correspondence concerning the suspicious suitor, and Chas said that he would be willing to place a substantial wager that the man’s name would shortly be appearing on a list of Bayswater bankrupts.

  When they had departed, Frances and Sarah spent a quiet and comfortable evening, Sarah occupied with some mending while Frances made a list of every woman she could think of aged between forty and fifty who might have even the remotest connection with the school and who might have been the lady who had taken the pamphlet to be printed in Soho. There were, she realised, when she had completed her list, many more she would not know of, the aunts of past pupils, for example, or relatives of teachers, and as to ladies who had some doubts about the advisability of marriage, well, she had recently shared a hall with several hundred. Only a large force of policemen could hope to interview all of them.

  She was now in a terrible dilemma. It was her duty to report her recent findings to the governors of the school, and it was possible that one of them might, without realising it, have information that could further her enquiries and even locate the mystery woman, but if she so much as revealed the name of the printer, who might well retain copies of work done, then the governors, or Mrs Fiske, if her husband confided in her, which she felt sure he did, would thereby be enabled to obtain a copy of the pamphlet and see the wicked insinuations it contained. There would follow a scandal from which the school would never recover.

  The next morning as anticipated, the society columns of the newspapers carried the announcement of the forthcoming nuptials of the Duchess of Kenworth and Mr Roderick Matthews. Frances had decided to follow the news of the election so that she would be fully informed about politics when she was eventually permitted to vote; an improvement that she was sure could not be far distant. She learned that Mr Gladstone had made a lengthy address denouncing the Conservative government’s foreign policy and the Conservative candidates had made an address entirely approving of the government’s foreign policy. Mr Grant, a local man who had once been the dir
ector of Grant and Co., printers, of Farringdon, and was now one of the Liberal candidates for Marylebone, had made a speech attributing the recent trade depression to the neglect of home affairs for foreign affairs and strongly recommended the repeal of Schedule D of the Income Tax, which seemed very sensible to Frances. Perhaps, she thought, if wives and mothers and educated spinsters were permitted to vote, brave young men would no longer be sent half way across the world to die for some cause they hardly understood – they would be at home with their families leading happy and productive lives. Her brother had read books about the glories of war, of battles and charges and victories won, which he had thought very admirable, but Uncle Cornelius, who was old enough to remember the Crimea, had said sadly that it was not like that at all, and spoke of cold and rain and mud and cholera.

  There were two more letters that morning, one from a lady who had met a very pleasant and eligible gentleman in Hyde Park and wished to know something of his antecedents, and one from Mr Arthur Miggs, the young publisher, who asked Frances to discover the identity of Aquila who wrote literary reviews in the Chronicle and other papers, and had been unkind about a recent volume he had published on behalf of a client.

  The client, Frances learned, was also unforthcoming about his name unless he, or possibly even she, had been christened Augustus Mellifloe. Mr Miggs had enclosed a clipping from a weekday newspaper. It read:

  The author of Mes Petites Chansonettes has none of the qualities that go to make up the complete poet. He lacks both the power to evoke sympathy in the reader, and the variety of imagination and expression that he requires if he hopes to please; relying too heavily on consistency of metre which quickly becomes monotonous, elaborate rhyming which detracts from what sense there is in his verses, and noble sentiments so trite that only the most depraved individual would disagree with them. The brief introduction to this mercifully slim volume in which he dedicates the poems to his mother is the best of his work.