“Can you confirm your relationship with Margaret Shaw?” said Kate.
“She is…was my sister.”
Kate glanced up at Jacob who, with a negligible movement of his head, urged Kate to continue her questioning.
“Your surnames are different,” noted Kate.
“Shaw was my maiden name,” said Marie. “My husband was Colonel Gordon Roberts of the Tenth Royal Hussars”
“Was?”
“He was killed in action four years ago in Afghanistan.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Kate, “but there are a number of very important questions we must ask you.”
“Of course. I understand.”
“How long had Margaret worked for Lord Ashbury?”
“She started two years ago. It was a prestigious and well paid position, which I suppose is why she disowned me…in that household at least,” Marie Roberts looked up at Jacob and then back at Kate. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but how long has the Metropolitan Police employed women?”
“It’s a new initiative,” said Kate. Without pausing for breath she added. “What was their relationship?”
Jacob winced.
“You don’t mince your words do you?” said Marie. She took a sip from a bone china tea cup before continuing. “They were having an affair. I told her no good would come of it, but she wouldn’t listen. She believed that he would leave his wife for her. I just laughed, told her not to be so ridiculous. He would never leave his wife, the scandal would finish his political career.”
“Why did she believe he would leave his wife?” said Kate.
“I’m not sure exactly. She said she had a plan, but wouldn’t reveal what it was. The last time I saw her she had become extremely bitter towards him. I think the realisation of her situation had struck. Her last words to me were, ‘I’ll make sure he pays for what he’s done.’ I never saw her again.”
“She was blackmailing him.”
“That was how I took the meaning, yes.”
“The scandal would certainly finish him,” said Jacob, “but Margaret Shaw was not and had not recently been pregnant. If she was extorting money from Lord Ashbury we only have your word for it. Against someone like him it won’t count for much in court.”
“No,” said Marie Roberts, “perhaps not, but despite the short distance between us Margaret wrote letters to me two or three times every week. The same intimations I have told you are in the letters.”
“Do you still have them?” asked Kate.
“I do.”
“Can we see them?”
“Of course you can.”
They heard her go upstairs, returning several minutes later with the letters, neatly packed in an old shoe box. Kate and Jacob read through them as quickly as possible.
“It certainly builds a case against Lord Ashbury,” said Kate, “but these alone won’t convict him,” she looked closely at Marie Roberts for the first time. She was dabbing her nose with a small lace handkerchief and her eyes were red from crying. “Why haven’t you taken them to the police?”
“It would not only have been Lord Ashbury who would have been scandalised, but Margaret also. And in turn all of her family.”
“It’s a murder investigation and all possible enquiries must be exhausted,” said Kate. “We will have to take these with us as evidence.”
“Of course. I understand. If there’s anything else I can do to help.”
Kate nodded her thanks, placed the letters back in the shoebox and motioned to Jacob that it was time to leave.
***
Jacob threw the letter onto his desk, unable to conceal his agitation. They had been back at St. Giles Square for several hours and had read the letters repeatedly trying to find a link between Lord Ashbury and the kidnapping of Grace.
“There’s nothing here,” he said. “No link. No connection. We’re wasting our time.”
“There must be,” said Kate. “The two cases are too similar for there to be no link.”
“If there is a connection it isn’t going to be found in those letters.”
“If you’re right we’ll have to dig a little closer to home.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jacob.
“We have to go back to Lord Ashbury’s house.”
“That’s just a waste of time. You saw what happened the last time we went. We couldn’t even get through the door and that’s with knowing the constable guarding the house.”
“I’m not suggesting going through the front door.”
“Kate, are you being serious?
“Absolutely. There’s something not right about the whole thing. Why was Lord Ashbury so evasive about the glass in the French doors? Why did he refuse permission to have a post mortem done on his son? What was he so scared of being revealed? Not to mention how quickly he seemed to get over it all. It was only the following day he was in parliament giving a speech.”
“I don’t know,” said Jacob. “If we’re caught we’ll be in prison by the end of the week. That would be of no use to Grace,” he stared at the letters on his desk. “Anyway,” he said after some further thought, “I don’t even know how to break into a house.”
“You don’t need to,” said Kate smiling. “We have a key.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kate had insisted that the cab dropped them off several streets away from Lord Ashbury’s residence. Jacob knew she was right, but every leather soled footstep he took on the wet, gritty cobblestone streets sounded like a canon firing. Kate had been surprised how easily Jacob had come around to the idea. The only disagreement they had had was when Kate said she would wear her police uniform. Jacob eventually admitted a long dress with a bustle was not the most practical of garments to wear when housebreaking. He had however, persuaded Kate to wear a cape that had belonged to Laura, instead of her reflective coat.
Kate had broken down in tears when she had taken off the dress she had been wearing and laid it on the bed. Steam-side, as Polperro had called it, was turning into a dangerous as well as confusing place. Laura had been one of the few people who had shown her genuine kindness and in the short time they had known each other they had become firm friends. Now, all she had left was Jacob and she was determined to help him any way she could.
Jacob walked past the front of the house and continued to the corner of the road. He looked back to the front of the house and was relieved to see the fog was making visibility difficult. He could just make out the outline of the constable guarding the front door, who was shrouded in a thick, damp mist. Kate followed Jacob along the passageway to the rear of the house. The pair scrambled over a wall and checked for any signs of movement before making their way to the rear French doors. Kate took the key she had found in the same garden several days earlier out of a side pocket of her trousers and unlocked the doors.
Kate switched on her police issue torch and shone it as Jacob lit a small oil lamp. They had agreed that if anything were in the house to be found it would be in Lord Ashbury’s private study. Kate started checking the bookcases but all she found were neatly bound volumes of politics and law, many of them in Latin, French and German. Jacob went straight to the desk and searched each drawer until finding one that was locked. He took a small bundle from his inside pocket, placed it on the table and unrolled it. Kate watched as Jacob picked a metal instrument from the rolled out canvass and proceeded to pick the lock of the drawer.
“Where did a doctor learn how to pick a lock?”
“You’re not the only one full of surprises,” said Jacob as the drawer emitted a clicking sound. Jacob pulled the drawer open and rifled through the contents.
“Anything?” asked Kate.
“No, nothing. Certainly nothing that would link him to Grace. I just…”
Jacob stopped as Kate grabbed him by the shoulder. She switched off her torch and hissed for Jacob to douse the lamp. Kate crouched next to him behind the desk.
“There’s someone in the garden.” said Kat
e.
They watched as a shadow filled the doorway to the garden before a figure eased itself into the room and made its way to the fireplace. A match was struck and an oil lamp lit and placed on the mantelpiece. Kate could now see a tall, well-built man at the fireplace. They watched as he gingerly took down the painting above the fire and place it onto the floor. Kate looked at the space behind the painting and saw a safe. The man reached into his pocket took out a long, thin piece of tubing. He fixed one end of it into his ear and the other, by means of a magnet, he fixed onto the door of the safe, just below the dial.
It was several minutes before the man straightened up, folded the tubing into his pocket and pulled the handle of the safe. With a satisfying click the handle rotated a quarter of the way round and the safe door opened. The man scooped up everything that was in the safe and threw it into a small bag before grabbing his lamp and turning towards the door.
It was at that moment Kate let out a strangled cry of recognition. It was the man from the riot who had saved them by getting them inside St. Margaret’s Church.
“Amos Coleman,” she said in a loud whisper.
Amos froze but didn’t look at Kate. His attention was entirely focussed on the French doors. Kate looked across and immediately understood why. In the doorway stood an automaton. A large ovoid body with a human shaped head rested on top of five, crab shaped legs, exactly the same as the ones Amos had seen at the docks. The machine seemed to be studying Amos, its head making slight jerking movements up and down and then right to left. The machine started to make a loud buzzing sound as the mechanical iris on the machines chest opened and started to spin.
Kate switched on her torch and pointed it at the head of the machine. It seemed to work. The spinning slowed down and the machine stepped back, the head rotating in an attempt to find the light source. The iris started spinning faster, the buzzing turning into a high pitched whine.
“Move,” shouted Amos as he grabbed his bag.
Jacob didn’t need to be told twice. He bounced to his feet grabbing Kate’s shoulder in the process. Kate wasn’t so quick and fell backwards onto her side. As she landed the desk they had been hiding behind splintered and a bolt of electricity burned into the bookcase behind her. Kate got to her feet as a gunshot rang out. She looked towards the source of the sound and saw Amos pointing a revolver at the Automaton. Kate turned her attention towards the French doors and could see the machine. Its glass face had been shattered and it was now staggering back and forth. The mechanical iris was still spinning, but more importantly, it was still blocking the doorway.
Another bolt of electricity, this time above Amos’s head and hitting a lamp on the wall. Gas hissed out of the open space. Jacob appeared at the doorway and kicked the upper part of the ovoid body. His appearance surprised Kate. She hadn’t noticed him move away from the desk. As the automaton rocked backwards, Jacob grabbed one of the legs and pulled it upwards as hard as he could, causing the automaton to lose its balance and hit the top stone step before rolling down onto the gravel.
“Come on,” growled Amos, “we need to get out of here quickly, before any more of these infernal things show up.”
The three of them ran into the garden and as he passed the fallen automaton Amos stamped on it with the sole of his boot and pushed it into the soil next to the wall.
“We’ve already woken the rest of the house up,” he said looking towards the bedroom windows, “and probably the entire street.”
The dense fog did nothing to take the edge off the shrill sound of a police whistle. Amos turned to be confronted by another automaton. He gestured to Kate and Jacob to stay where they were. Footsteps in the house running towards the commotion reminded Amos of the urgency of the situation and he slowly raised his revolver. The automaton’s head seemed to shiver as it regarded Amos. The metal iris in the automaton’s chest began to spin, its legs scuttling on the gravel. Realising the machine was taking aim Amos stepped to his right and pulled the trigger of his revolver.
The shot hit the automaton in the head just as the iris opened and fired. A pale blue bolt of electrical energy crackled through the air. It missed Amos, but hit the canvas bag into which he had emptied the contents of Lord Asbury’s safe. The bag and its contents burst into flame.
Amos dropped the burning bag, fired two further shots at the head of the automaton and started running. Kate and Jacob didn’t wait for an invitation and followed Amos to the wall at the far end of the garden. Once over the wall they weaved their way through several backstreets to a waiting hansom cab.
“It’s a tight fit,” said Amos, “but it will get us away from here.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kate was glad to get out of the cab when it reached St. Giles Square. As she followed Jacob into the house she heard several raised voices and the hallway was suddenly filled with people. The first person to reach Kate was a large constable who took a firm hold of her arm. Immediately behind the constable was a tall, thin man with a large protruding nose wearing a dark brown morning coat and holding a similar coloured bowler hat. He manoeuvred himself in front of Kate and looked straight at her.
“You don’t have any shame at all do you?” he said in a nasally voice. “Well, I have no doubts we would have found you before you did any more harm.”
Kate glanced down the hallway and saw a confused looking Jacob who was looking at Sir Edward Riordan emerge from the front room. He was followed by several other officers.
Kate shouted down the hallway, “What’s all this about? Why am I being restrained?”
The thin man grabbed Kate’s other arm, “That’s enough from you,” he said, “I’m Inspector Wheeler from Walton Street Police Station and I’m arresting you, not only for the kidnap of Doctor McKinley’s daughter and the murder of her governess Laura Wheaton, but also the murder of Lord Ashbury’s governess, the kidnap and murder of Lord Ashbury’s son as well as the kidnap of Lord Cargill’s son. I must warn you that anything you say will be used in a court of law.”
The news was like a slap in the face, “Murder? But I haven’t murdered anyone. I’ve been trying to cure Grace, not kill her.” Kate twisted around to see Jacob, “Jacob, she’s cured. Tell them she’s better.”
Kate saw the confused look on Jacob’s face just before another constable took hold of her and placed handcuffs on her wrists. Kate was taken out of the house by two officers and led onto the pavement where she could hear the rhythmic sound of a steam engine chuffing smoke into the air. She stopped struggling and saw a Black Maria, similar to the one she had already seen the inside of, but, this time, a steam-powered version of the horse-drawn one, pull in front of the house. Not for the first time since this whole thing had started, fear knotted in Kate’s stomach. She started struggling again but it was no use. There were now four constables holding her and she was powerless to stop them from putting her inside the cage at the back of the engine. Kate banged her fists on the door as the engine lurched forward.
“Take her to the Bow Street Police Courts,” she heard the Inspector shout, “We’ll deal with her there.”
Kate grabbed hold of the vertical iron bars covering the rear window and watched as St. Giles Square disappeared from view
Jacob looked closely at his brother-in-law, “What the hell have you just done? Have you lost your mind completely? You know as well as I do she’s innocent.”
“I know nothing of the sort Jacob. I’ve received information which tallies with what we already know. We’ll get Grace back to you safe and well,” he looked at the front door. “All the sooner now I suspect.”
“You cannot possibly believe she’s responsible. Where has this new information come from?”
“You know I can’t reveal my sources Jacob, even if I wanted to,” said Riordan, his eyes followed Ivy up the stairs, making sure she was out of earshot. “Odd,” he continued, “that she would remain here. No ransom demand or threat. Just an instruction to stop meddling,”
Jacob di
dn’t respond.
“Jacob, are you sure Grace had cholera? If so she seems to have been making a remarkable recovery.”
“I’m sure of my diagnosis,” said Jacob coldly as he walked down the hallway. Riordan followed him into the study.
“One more thing Jacob.” Riordan handed Jacob a sepia photograph of a group of men. He pointed to one man standing on his own on the left of the photograph wearing the almost obligatory dark frock coat and a top hat, “Have you ever seen this man?”
Jacob studied the photograph carefully, “Yes. That’s Henry Collins. I worked with him for twelve months when I was in Washington. It looks like an old photograph. Who are the other people?”
“This photograph was taken over four years ago at the signing of the Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano,” said Riordan.
“Between Russia and the Ottoman Empire,” said Jacob, glad that his recent history hadn’t let him down.
“That’s correct. Government agents have a code name for him. They call him ‘The Hawk’. His real name is John Moore. He was originally trained by the American Secret Service with whom he served with distinction during more than one campaign before joining the Russian Secret Service as a double agent. Our sources tell us that Moore, or Collins as you know him by, has left the Russians employment and now works for himself. I’m not sure if the Americans are fully aware of this.”
“I suspect they are.”
“If you come across him Jacob, be careful. He’s a very dangerous man.”
“We met the other night. He tried to kill both Kate and myself. Why are you telling me this? What has he got to do with Grace and why was he trying to kill me?”
Riordan took the photo back and folded it.
“Murder, kidnapping, extortion, they’re all his trademark crimes, Jacob. We believe he may be involved in the bombing of Limehouse Police Station yesterday. It is possible this woman was working with him,” Riordan placed the photo in his coat pocket, “She could be just as dangerous.”
Out of Time: . (Steamside Chroncles Book 1) Page 19