Dying In The Wool: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  ‘Thank you. I should very much like to see it.’

  Sir Arthur beamed with pleasure at the prospect of doing me a good turn. This caused Lady Doyle to smile graciously.

  They watched me pack the photographs back into my briefcase. ‘The art of investigation is in asking the right questions,’ I said.

  ‘Knowing what questions to ask is the hardest thing in the world.’ Lady Jean smiled – as if she would always know what questions to ask but would be too ladylike to voice them.

  Sir Arthur leaned towards me. For a moment I expected an avuncular hand on my shoulder, but that is not his way. ‘You might ask yourself, Why am I so afraid of the unknown? Believe me, I know. I’ve seen my mother, my brother, my son. I’ve spoken to them. If you want to contact your poor dead husband, then do try. He may be waiting on the other side to give you a blessing, and permission to go on living.’

  I snapped the briefcase shut. ‘But I am going on living.’

  Lady Jean took Sir Arthur’s arm. The two exchanged a look of such love and conspiracy that it made my heart hurt.

  I took the briefcase upstairs to my room.

  As I came downstairs, Aunt Berta pounced. ‘There you are, my dear.’ She grasped my elbow firmly and manoeuvred me across the ballroom.

  ‘I believe you and this gentleman have met? This is Dr Grainger. Dr Grainger, my beloved niece, Mrs Shackleton.’

  At that moment, the gong sounded for dinner. Aunt Berta disappeared to do the honours elsewhere.

  ‘Lovely to see you again so soon, Mrs Shackleton.’

  Dr Grainger gave a winning smile which did not win me. He had wasted no time in shutting up Milton House Hospital and leaving it, and Evelyn, behind.

  ‘I’m intrigued, Dr Grainger. How did you wangle an invitation to my aunt’s birthday bash?’

  He reddened slightly with embarrassment. ‘You mentioned that your father knew Professor Podmore …’

  ‘He’s a very old friend of my uncle’s.’

  ‘You know I’m working with the professor? He took pity on me and mentioned me to your aunt.’

  ‘I see.’

  And of course Aunt Berta would have jumped at the chance of inviting an up and coming eligible man with all his limbs and no glaring defects.

  Dr Grainger offered me his arm. I didn’t need an arm. He had obviously been out of society too long and had pre-war manners.

  He said, ‘I wangled an invitation because I wanted to see you again. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Dr Grainger, last year I was seated between a lecher and a ninny. At least I can be sure you will not presume to stroke my thigh or recite bad verse.’

  My father once asked Sir Arthur how it was he could have been so dispassionate in defending Sir Roger Casement, when everyone knew the man to be a traitor. Sir Arthur had answered that Roger Casement was not in his right mind when he committed the offence, and that it was necessary for men of judgement (it was always men) to make allowance for human weaknesses, inherent flaws and mental failings that could not be helped.

  I bore this in mind as I took Dr Grainger’s arm.

  Aunt Berta’s dinner party has shrunk over the years. Pre-war it had been a great social event, then for five years, she would not celebrate at all. Only Mother came to be with her during those times, and my mother never failed her. Aunt Berta had her first child on her twenty-fourth birthday. Albert Tobias would have been the same age as me had he lived, thirty-one. Mother once told me that it was after she saw Albert, picked him up from his cot and sang a nursery rhyme to him, that she hurried back to Yorkshire determined to adopt a child. Me.

  We were, by Lord and Lady Pocklington’s standards, a modest gathering of fourteen. The Conan Doyles sat either side of Uncle Albert, with Professor Podmore to Jean Doyle’s left and Mrs Podmore opposite her husband. Mrs Podmore is on the board of a children’s charity and shamelessly canvases for funds at every opportunity. I sat beside Professor Podmore and talked to him, and to Dr Grainger opposite me, about their progress towards the opening of the Maudsley Hospital. Professor Podmore has visited the United States of America and so was able to chat to the Conan Doyles about the places they would visit. On my left sat the old world colonel who was at the siege of Ladysmith and whose conversation seems frozen in time. If one elicits his opinion on any event after 1900 he seems as puzzled as a child who missed the lesson on Rivers of England. Fortunately cousin James’ wife Hope was seated opposite the colonel. Hope very agreeably prompts others to speak and reveals nothing. She has a slightly oriental air but I am not sure whether this is due to her high cheek bones or the enigmatic look in her mysterious grey-green eyes. Cousin James is Something-in-the-War Office, so perhaps Hope Knows Things and keeps quiet to avoid inadvertently spilling National Secrets into the soup.

  My mother had her usual place on Uncle Albert’s right, opposite cousin Malcolm, the middle son who scraped through the war with a limp and a nervous twitch. There is something touching about him that makes my heart ache. He is married to the fair Penelope who also gallantly listened to stories of Ladysmith.

  Mercifully the dinner passed without the Conan Doyles or Dr Grainger mentioning my investigations. I resolved to tell mother as soon as we returned to the drawing room, before anyone else got in before me.

  ‘Professionally?’ she said, her voice rising. She led me to an alcove in the far corner of the room. ‘You have become a professional private detective? I don’t understand.’

  After this, I took refuge in talking to my cousins whom I do not see from one year to the next. Twice, Dr Grainger made moves towards me. Once Hope intervened to question him about the meaning of dreams. When Dr Grainger and I did speak, it was in the company of others. The colonel was most anxious to talk to Dr Grainger, about his dreams of Ladysmith.

  There is something to be said for getting up at six o’clock in the morning, and it is this: If you get up at six o’clock, you avoid those mad, exhausting dreams that come between seven and eight. However, I rarely rise at six. On the morning after my aunt’s dinner party, it was nearer nine.

  I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, slightly more presentable after several face-splashings. Someone tried the door. I would have to vacate soon. I drew on my robe and combed my hair so as not to give anyone a fright as I walked along the landing to my room.

  Putting the pieces of the Braithwaite mystery together was like one of those spinning tops. If you looked at it in stillness, the images and the sections were all discretely painted in bright colours. When the top began to spin, those hues became a blur and a dazzling pattern that bore no relation to the neat pictures of the top when still.

  I sat on the bed and tried to think through what I had learned. My brain refused to function. With a sigh, I dressed and gave up trying. Perhaps I should simply wait, go on investigating and see what other connections might be thrown up from my unconscious mind. A nagging voice told me this probably arose from laziness and was not an idea that would have found its way into the manuals of detection lodged at Scotland Yard.

  I breakfasted alone since Mother and Aunt Berta were still in their rooms and Uncle Albert had left for the Foreign Office.

  After breakfast I placed a telephone call to Mrs Sugden.

  ‘Any news of any kind?’ I asked after we had exchanged pleasantries about the weather in London and Leeds – showery but bright and cold for the time of year.

  ‘Mr Duffield telephoned from the newspaper library. He says he has put some information in the post to you.’

  ‘I see. Did he say what? Or has it arrived?’

  ‘He posted it this morning. I expect it will be here by second post. Shall I send it on to you? Only I do believe you are having a respite from brain work and that is why I did not give him Lady Pocklington’s address.’

  ‘Yes, do send it on. And has the painting been cleaned yet?’

  ‘The restorer will be here at 10.30 this morning.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you later then.’

>   ‘Enjoy yourself. Forget about it all, that’s my opinion. Wherever he is or is not, Joshua Braithwaite won’t be fretting over you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Sugden.’

  I returned to my room. A neat brown paper parcel sat on the dressing table, my name and address written in Sir Arthur’s clear hand. With my nail scissors I snipped the string at its sealing wax. It was, as promised, his copy of the materia medica, his name inscribed on the fly leaf. The book was much marked with his comments. He must have used it not only when he was a medical student, but in connection with his research for the Sherlock Holmes stories for there was a great deal of underlining of poisons and their effects.

  His short note read, To my dear Kate wishing you much success in your endeavours. Look to the waterfall. The fairy waterfall may provide the doorway to a new and richer life. A.C.D.

  As I pulled on my outdoor shoes, I thought how simple it would be if we could really and truly slip through a waterfall into another life, like Charles Kingsley’s poor Tom. Instead, I intended to explore the world of the patent office.

  Is having a “no-stone-unturned” mentality a hindrance or a help? Without any great hopes of enlightenment, it seemed a good idea to look at the inventions that came from the world of the Bridgestead mill. When totally stumped, poke in corners. If Arthur Wilson had come up with an invention that had the potential to make a fortune and not been properly reimbursed, that could stoke bitterness, resentment and envy that might be a motive for murder.

  As I opened Aunt Berta’s front door onto a showery day, the butler called me back to the telephone. I half expected Mrs Sugden to have remembered some other message for me.

  It was Dr Grainger. Might I possibly meet him for lunch? There was something he had wanted to say last night and hadn’t found the moment. He named his club and asked whether he might meet me there.

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, let’s meet at the Cavendish Club.’ I preferred to be on home turf.

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Shall we say twelve?’

  We did say twelve. I picked up my bag and notebook.

  ‘Will you have the car, or shall I call you a taxi, madam?’ the butler asked.

  ‘I shall take the tube, but you might ring the Cavendish Club and book a table for two for Mrs Shackleton – 12.30 today.’

  I wondered what Dr Grainger may want to say to me.

  The Patent Office has the same hushed atmosphere as the British Museum Library, but with something else in the mix along with steeped thought. Perhaps the hope of all the inventors gives the place an edge of nerviness. A disapproving old head turned as my feet tapped across the tiled floor. The high domed ceiling and long windows flooded the room with light. At wooden bench-like tables that I imagine must be made in their hundreds for every fine library in the land, men pored over dusty tomes, making pencil scribbles into their books or onto scraps of paper. I had a sudden image of fiery rage seething under a bald pate as some intellectual labourer discovered Charles Blogg had pipped him to the post in the search for the unique filament that would create an everlasting light bulb or the close-coupled link that would allow the hitching of railway carriages at a greater rate of knots. Perhaps some of these gentlemen were out-and-out thieves, taking a bit of this invention and a smattering of that with the intention of coming up with a piston-fired bike or a self-driving motor car.

  A young man of about twenty-one years of age sat on a high stool behind a desk, between pillars at the far end of the room. In hushed tones, I asked for the records of textile patents applied for since 1914. He disappeared into the inner sanctum beyond the pillars.

  Finding a seat at a nearby table, I waited. What was I looking for? How could this search help me to find out what had happened to Joshua Braithwaite? The phrase clutching at straws came into that part of my mind that always takes the mocking, cynical view of my activities. Another voice in my head said, Go on looking for pieces of the jigsaw.

  The clerk lowered two heavy volumes onto the table in front of me. ‘Five more to come.’

  ‘How is the material ordered?’

  ‘Chronologically. You’ll find a list of inventions by applicant, with a brief description, at the beginning of each volume. Textiles are contained within other industrial patents applied for.’

  The world must be teeming with inventors. Notebook and pencil at the ready, I scanned the pages for familiar names, for words that might connect to the textile industry. I could not in every case tell from the brief descriptions whether these devices related to textiles or some other industry. Where an applicant’s name was stated, I had no confidence, given the secrecy in the world of mill owners, whether this was some pseudonym. There was a comb dabbing brushmaker, a deburrer, a rotary dobby. All these patent applications bore the inventors’ names: Burns, Twitchell, Hartley. So here was a way for clever men of technical ability to leave their mark on history. ‘Oh my grandfather invented the Automatic Wool Sliver Comber that bears his name.’

  But none were connected with the Braithwaites.

  The volume for 1915 proved more fruitful. In May of that year, there was an application for the patent of The Bridgestead Picker. I looked up the details. A drawing and measurements outlined a picker of lightweight metal to be used with all looms and to reduce weft and warp breakages and eliminate the probability of oil stains on expensive cloth.

  The application for the patent was signed by Joshua Braithwaite. According to Marjorie, Arthur Wilson was paid what he regarded as a pittance for his invention. And he did not have his name attached. That would annoy me. But enough to kill?

  I looked up and caught the clerk’s eye. He came across to me.

  ‘Would you be able to tell me whether this patent was granted?’

  He nodded, making a note of the number.

  It did not take him long to return, carrying a ledger, a strip of paper marking the page. He stood beside me, opened the ledger and directed my gaze to a line. The patent was granted.

  ‘Would much use be made of something like this? Has it been widely manufactured, do you know?’

  ‘The only time I ever get to know such things is if I read it in the newspapers. With something like this, you’d need to ask a mill owner I dare say.’

  I blinked my way out of the building, umbrella unfurled, and walked along Chancery Lane where I hailed a cab to 28 Cavendish Square.

  During the war, we women of the Voluntary Aid Detachment had nowhere in London we could call our own. It was not unusual for me to turn up on Aunt Berta’s doorstep with half a dozen VAD girls in tow who hadn’t a place to lay their heads. At last, here was a place we could go, opened two years ago, a splendid Ladies’ Club with moderate charges.

  Our husbands, brothers and sons had their war memorials. VADs had this proud place where we could meet and look forward to an uncertain future.

  Entering its portals, seeing the photograph of the Princess Royal on the wall, was like coming home.

  20

  Blending

  Blending: Wools from different fleeces but of similar qualities are mixed together.

  As I approached the Cavendish Club reception desk, I caught a glimpse of Dr Grainger in the lounge. He sat on a sofa, turning a Page in The Times.

  Alfred the porter has a prodigious memory for faces but this time excelled by remembering my name. ‘Your guest is in the lounge, Mrs Shackleton. And we have a telephone message for you.’ He handed me a note.

  Ah, that was why he knew my name!

  ‘Thank you.’

  For Mrs Sugden to track me down to the Cavendish, she must have something important to tell me.

  I handed the note back to Alfred. ‘Would you please put a call in to this number?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’ll say hello to my guest while you’re getting connected.’

  Dr Grainger folded the newspaper and stood to greet me.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to lunch, Mrs Shackleton.’

  I felt unaccou
ntably suspicious of him. I perched on the edge of the settee and asked, ‘Did you enjoy the evening?’ The frost crackled in my voice.

  ‘Yes. I felt honoured to be asked.’

  ‘And I wonder what it is that you couldn’t say yesterday evening.’

  Note to myself, I thought. Do not sound so hostile. He probably can’t help being a social-climbing philanderer.

  ‘You’re asking questions already. I hoped I might get one or two in today. Such as, will you have a drink before lunch?’

  ‘Yes, a dry sherry would go down well. And I shall need to take one telephone call when it comes through.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Was there something just a touch sarcastic in his tone? Not that I cared.

  What a joy to see the waitress in her VAD uniform! It took me back to the old days. She took his order for two dry sherries.

  For a few moments we chatted about the party. Dr Grainger had gone with my cousins to a club and danced till dawn, he confided. He had the headache to prove it.

  It disturbed me that he had wriggled his way into my family. I could not feel easy in his company. Nor could I quite say why. Surely I wasn’t so prejudiced that I could dislike the man intensely for having had an affair with Evelyn Braithwaite – an affair that might be still going on for all I knew.

  For all I knew. That might be it. It was to do with wanting to know. He was a prodder and poker into people’s motives and actions, and so was I. Perhaps that was why this invisible line of tension ran between us when we met. Who knew what, and who knew most. A competition for omniscience. Well, I didn’t feel I would come racing through the line first. Too many jigsaw puzzle pieces and not enough picture for that.

  The waitress brought sherry.

  Dr Grainger lit my cigarette. ‘Shall we make an agreement?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Question for question. But because you already interrogated me at Milton House, I must have two questions for every one that you ask.’