Colby had been examining the book and the addresses given for each customer. ‘Mrs Waterfield lived not far from here, just by the cathedral green.’
‘Do you happen to know,’ I asked Fitchett, ‘if Miss Devray was related to the late Mr and Mrs Waterfield?’
‘Of that I have no knowledge,’ returned Mr Fitchett.
‘But you met the young lady, you said, when you measured her foot?’ I took out the photograph. ‘I wonder, could I ask you to look at this and tell me if this is the young woman?’
Fitchett took the piece of card on which the image was printed and studied it. Then he silently passed it to Ezra. After a similar lengthy study, Ezra passed it back to his employer. Mr Fitchett handed it back to me with some ceremony. ‘That is the young lady,’ he said. ‘But I fear we shall not be making another pair of boots for her, am I right?’
‘You are right,’ I confessed. The photographer had done his best, but the image in the photograph was clearly that of a corpse.
‘I wonder,’ said Mr Fitchett, ‘why you must come to me to know her name?’
‘She was discovered dead in distressing circumstances in a— in London. So far no one has identified her or come forward to report a young lady missing. We needed to put a name to her. Now we can, and I thank you, sir.’
Ezra was now showing a lot of interest. He looked quite alert. ‘I delivered those boots,’ he said, ‘to the house. It’s been sold since. It had a sign put up outside it. All the furniture was sold, as well. I saw it being carried out and taken off to the auction house. All sorts of stuff, there was, tables, chairs, sideboards, pictures in their frames…’
‘So I believe!’ said Fitchett sharply, turning a severe look on his employee. ‘Standing in the street and gawping is not behaviour expected, Ezra, of anyone associated with the firm of Fitchett! Nor is taking an interest in a customer’s private business, even if that customer has departed in every sense of the word.’
‘All right, Mr Fitchett, but it was all taken out, anyway,’ muttered Ezra sullenly.
‘Did you hear anyone say, Ezra, what became of the young lady, Miss Devray?’ asked Colby hastily.
Ezra shook his head.
I rewrapped the boots and thanked Mr Fitchett sincerely for all his help.
‘What will become of them?’ asked Mr Fitchett sadly, gazing at the parcel. ‘Will they find a good home, do you think?’
‘They are evidence, Mr Fitchett. Very important evidence.’
‘Murdered, was she?’ Ezra burst out, his pallid face brightening. ‘Up there in London, was she murdered?’
‘Ezra!’ thundered Mr Fitchett.
‘Probably,’ I told them with caution. ‘If you should think of anything that might be useful to us, you can tell Inspector Colby here, Mr Fitchett. You, too, Ezra.’
We left the premises to the sound of Tobias Fitchett upbraiding his employee. I hoped Ezra didn’t lose his position.
‘Well,’ I said to Colby. ‘At least I have a name for the victim. Now to find out how she came to be in London.’
‘Gossip,’ said Colby thoughtfully. ‘That’s what we need, Ross, gossip. I have hopes of that young fellow, Ezra. Fitchett will tell him not to speak of our visit for the sake of the reputation of his business. But I am confident that Ezra will have spread the news all over Salisbury by tomorrow morning. You can wager good money on it. You can’t keep news of a murder quiet. I’ll wait a few days and then go back and speak to Ezra again, preferably when he isn’t in the shop. That is, if no one comes forward of his own accord.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I thought Colby was right. Ezra would be eager to spread the gruesome news. Perhaps it would lead someone to speak out.
‘In the meantime,’ went on Colby cheerfully, ‘the house formerly belonging to Mrs Waterfield is this way. Come along!’ He set off at a brisk pace, his bowler hat at a jaunty angle. Ezra wasn’t the only one whose interest had been sparked.
Chapter Eight
The house was a stone building in a narrow lane. Ahead of us, as we approached it, I could see an ancient archway and beyond that a view of a wide green sward and a glimpse of the cathedral itself. Then we turned aside to go through a gate and up to the door where Colby tugged at the bell pull. A middle-aged maid of daunting respectability opened it to us. She eyed us with some misgiving. Colby explained who we were and our purpose.
‘We understand,’ he said, ‘that the house previously belonged to Mrs Waterfield. We would like to speak to the present owner, if he is here and would be kind enough to receive us.’
She looked from one to the other of us. ‘The reverend Dr Bastable lives here now,’ she said. ‘I’ll let him know you’re here. But we are not accustomed, you know, to have the police call, and at the front door. You could have gone to the back!’
And the door was shut firmly in our faces.
‘Wouldn’t you think,’ said Colby to me, ‘that respectable people like this clerical gent, and his household, wouldn’t be so suspicious of the police?’
‘Fear of scandal,’ I said, ‘and the watching eyes of neighbours. The same thing has led to a delay in reporting the girl missing, perhaps.’
Colby scowled. ‘They are all the same. As soon you as you knock on the door of some fine upstanding citizen, he reacts like the guiltiest person on earth. On the other hand, when the person you’re calling on greets you heartily and asks what he can do for you, he’s probably hiding something. It is similar in London, you say?’
‘It’s much the same,’ I said. ‘But once they are reluctantly convinced they have need of you, they remember that you are a public service. They demand you drop every other inquiry to concentrate on theirs!’ Miss Eldon came briefly to mind. I wondered if Lizzie would have returned to that lady’s lodgings today.
The maid was back. The Reverend Dr Bastable would see us. Would we kindly wipe our feet? This request, I assumed, did not come direct from the reverend gentleman but was the maid’s own concern. We made sure to make use of the metal boot-scraper by the door, stepped over the threshold, and were relieved of our hats by the maid, who put them on a hall table. Eventually she directed us into a comfortable room where the walls were lined with bookcases. A fine fire flickered and crackled in the grate.
Dr Bastable had been reading in what was clearly his library when we arrived. He rose now from a wing chair beside the hearth and set down his book on a small side table. Also on the table stood a decanter of what I guessed to be sherry or madeira, and a glass. He could not be pleased at our intrusion into such a comfortable scene, but he hid it well.
‘You gentlemen are from the police, eh?’ he asked. ‘So, then, what’s brought you to my door?’
He was probably at least seventy years of age and had once been a tall man and a fine-looking one. Now he was stooped, lean in build, with silvery hair and side-whiskers. A pince-nez was perched on his aquiline nose. He took this off as he spoke and pointed it at us. I suspected he had once been a clerical schoolmaster. If I had been his pupil, I would have been terrified of him. The eyes that fixed on us might need spectacles for reading, but they had a clear, piercing stare.
‘Thank you for seeing us, sir,’ said Colby courteously. Indicating me, he added, ‘Inspector Ross has come down from London today regarding inquiries he is making there about a young lady we understand once lived here. This house did belong to Mrs Waterfield, did it not?’
‘Yes, it did, indeed. But Mrs Waterfield is deceased,’ said Dr Bastable.
Colby was looking at me. I was meant to pick up the questioning. I did so, and Colby looked relieved.
‘The facts are these, Dr Bastable. I am investigating a sad case of violent death. The body of a young woman has been found in London. We have reason to believe she is a Miss Devray and that she previously lived here with Mrs Waterfield.’
Dr Bastable was probably used to hearing alarming confessions. He showed no surprise, only took his chair again and a moment or two to make himself comfortable. He rem
oved his pince-nez and set it carefully alongside his book. Then he placed the tips of his long, thin fingers together and studied us over them. I recognised all the signs of someone taking time to think.
‘Indeed?’ Bastable said at last. ‘Where, in London, may I ask, was this young female found?’
‘In a yard behind a chophouse, not far from Piccadilly,’ I told him. ‘The body was discovered in a large rubbish receptacle used for kitchen refuse.’
Bastable seemed to freeze for a moment, but otherwise did not betray any surprise at hearing what was a shocking statement. He only asked, ‘And the cause of her death?’
‘She had received a violent blow to the head and her neck was broken. As yet, we don’t know the weapon used, nor why, nor anything of the circumstances.’
I did think that, this time, Bastable was about to say something of interest, so I paused. He reached out for the pince-nez he had set down when he retook his seat, and took it up again. He studied the glinting lenses for a moment, turning them this way and that. But all he said was: ‘Go on.’
I took a deep breath and explained about the boots and our visit to Tobias Fitchett. ‘So that,’ I concluded my explanation, ‘is how we come to know Miss Devray lived here with the late Mrs Waterfield.’
‘I was not acquainted with the previous owner of the house,’ Dr Bastable informed us, ‘nor the young person in question. I purchased the house after Mrs Waterfield’s death, and from the heir to her estate. He had no use for it. I can therefore tell you nothing of Mrs Waterfield or her household.’ After another pause, he added grudgingly, ‘However, the cook, Mrs Bates, was employed here in the late owner’s time. She may know something of it all.’
This was better than I’d hoped. ‘She would have known Miss Devray? That is encouraging news!’
‘I assume it to be the case.’ Bastable disapproved of my enthusiasm. He rose to his feet and tugged at the bell rope hanging beside the hearth. The elderly maid appeared within minutes, so fast that I suspected she had been loitering in the hall hoping to catch a word or two through the door panels. She undertook to fetch Mrs Bates. Bastable indicated we should be seated with a gracious gesture. He had left us standing until now, trusting our visit would be very brief. He sat down again in his original chair, propped one knee upon the other, placed his hand together as in an attitude of prayer and tapped the fingertips together in an irritable way. We were lingering longer than he liked. He was resigned to his public duty to assist the Law. But he didn’t like it. We waited in silence.
Most cooks, in my experience, tend to be generously proportioned and Mrs Bates was no exception. She appeared before us, breathless and curious. Her pink face, beneath a mob cap, was perspiring freely, and her stout body was swathed in a voluminous apron.
‘Yes, sir?’ she addressed Dr Bastable.
‘Ah, Bates,’ said her employer coolly. ‘These gentlemen are from the police. They have come to tell us that Miss Devray is dead.’
Mrs Bates’s eyes bulged, her mouth fell open, then she uttered a scream and sank to the floor.
‘Oh, my word, I never did!’ she exclaimed from the welter of skirts, apron and mob cap. ‘The poor blessed young lady! What, dead and gone to be among the angels? She was an angel herself, I do declare.’ She clasped her hands. ‘Taken before her time, was she?’ Her eyes fairly sparkled in her eagerness to know the lurid details.
‘Indeed, she was,’ I confirmed. ‘And quite possibly as the result of a violent act.’
The cook drew in a deep breath, and unclasped her hands to place one meaty palm on each of her two red cheeks. ‘The world’s a wicked place, as we all know, and you’ll know more than most, sir!’ (This was addressed to her clerical employer.) ‘But to take an innocent like poor Miss Devray? Why, she wouldn’t have harmed a soul. She couldn’t watch me take a mouse out of a trap. It is a wicked business, it must be! We’ll all be praying for her poor angelic young soul.’
‘Yes!’ Dr Bastable told her crisply. ‘Stand up, Bates. It is a shock to you, I dare say, but these gentlemen have no time for your lamentations. They want to know what you can tell them about Miss Devray! Was she related to Mrs Waterfield?’
‘No,’ said the cook firmly. ‘Not by blood, and I know it for a fact. She was born in sorrow, that’s the truth of it. Her poor mama died at the birth. Her papa was a business associate of the late Mr Waterfield and, as he and Mrs Waterfield had no children of their own, they undertook to raise the orphaned infant. It’s a blessing, gentlemen, that neither Mr nor Mrs Waterfield are here today to hear the shocking news you’ve brought. Not, of course, that they are not sadly missed in Salisbury. They were very well regarded, both of them. But if they hadn’t been already dead, this horrid news would have killed them.’
‘Is Mr Devray, her real father, still alive, do you know?’ I asked.
‘Dead and gone,’ the cook told me with a shake of the head. ‘Didn’t last out more than twelve months after the loss of his poor wife. His heart was broke.’ Mrs Bates lowered her voice. ‘So the poor mite was left all alone and would have ended up in an orphanage, the workhouse most likely, had it not been for Mr and Mrs Waterfield. Mr Devray left not a penny, you understand, to his child. His money was all lost in some way. I don’t know how,’ finished the cook on a note of regret.
Dr Bastable was growing impatient. ‘I suppose, Ross, all this is important and what you need to know?’ he demanded of me.
‘Very much, sir.’
‘Very well, if it’s necessary. But I do not encourage servants’ gossip! Is there anything else you know, Bates, that would be of interest to the police officers here?’
I was not best pleased at having the conduct of the inquiry taken over by Dr Bastable and wished I had been quick enough earlier to ask to speak to Mrs Bates alone. But it was Dr Bastable’s house and his cook, so I had to make the best of it.
‘Mrs Bates,’ I said firmly, ‘do you know where Miss Devray went after she left this house, following the death of Mrs Waterfield?’
‘No, sir,’ said Mrs Bates sadly. ‘But I believe she had been offered a place.’
‘As a servant?’ I asked in surprise.
‘Oh, no, sir, or not exactly, more as a nurse-companion. Not to a child, but to an invalid lady, someone who was bedridden. But I don’t know where.’
‘And Miss Devray told you this herself?’
Now the cook looked a little embarrassed. With an apprehensive glance at her employer, she admitted, ‘Not exactly, sir. I happened to overhear her tell Mr Carroway, who was Mrs Waterfield’s lawyer.’
Dr Bastable uttered a sound indicating extreme disapproval. It was time to conclude the interview with the cook. I doubted she had anything more to tell us, except one thing. I knew the answer, or thought I did, but it did no harm to double-check.
‘Can you confirm for us, Mrs Bates, Miss Devray’s first name?’
‘Emily, sir, that was her name.’
‘You may go now, Bates!’ ordered Dr Bastable.
To me, Colby murmured, ‘I can take you to this lawyer. I know where his rooms are.’
I thanked Dr Bastable for all his help and apologised for disturbing him. He acknowledged the courtesy with a dignified gesture; but was clearly very pleased to see us leave.
In the hall, as the elderly maid handed us our hats, I asked of her, ‘Did you know Miss Emily Devray?’
‘No, sirs,’ said the maid regretfully. She hadn’t wanted to allow us into the house, but she dearly longed to know what it was all about. Well, Mrs Bates would tell her.
Outside in the road again, I looked at Colby. ‘What do you make of Bastable?’
‘Cold fish,’ said Colby. ‘But he was very shocked when you told him about the refuse bin, though he hid it well. A bit sordid for his refined tastes, that. He wants to, let’s see, distance himself from the whole affair. Yes, that’s the phrase. He didn’t even treat us to a bit of suitable scripture. He might be a clergyman but he’s not one I’d go to for spiritual
comfort. We’ll get nothing more out of him!’
‘Very well, next we go to see this lawyer. See if we get more out of Mr Carroway?’
‘He’ll be thinking of his luncheon,’ said Colby, consulting his fob watch. ‘So should we be. I know a place that will serve us a decent meal.’
Thus it was a little later when, fortified by cutlets and a boiled raisin pudding, we set out for the lawyer’s rooms.
Carroway had probably lunched well too, and perhaps had been hoping for a post-prandial nap. He was clearly not pleased to see us and didn’t trouble to hide it.
‘Police?’ he inquired sharply. ‘Could you not have made an appointment?’
He was a thickset fellow of medium height and perhaps fifty or so years of age. His clients were probably mostly country squires and better-off yeoman farmers, with some respectable ladies like the late Mrs Waterfield. His reddened weather-beaten complexion suggested he kept a saddle horse and rode out to country clients to give his advice. His red-veined nose suggested he might keep out the cold on these journeys with the contents of a hip flask.
It was my turn to apologise for disturbing him. But I did so in a firm voice. I did not want to encourage him to think he could bully me or overwhelm me with protestations of client privilege. He turned small, angry eyes on me.
‘Well, then?’ he snapped. ‘Tell me what you want.’
I told him that I was investigating a murder in London and had reason now to believe the victim to be Miss Emily Devray, who had formerly resided with a client of his, Mrs Waterfield.
‘Yes, she did,’ agreed Carroway, leaning back in his chair and staring hard at me. ‘But I did not manage her affairs. She had none. She was a penniless orphan. The Waterfields had taken her in as an act of charity. I can’t tell you anything about Miss Devray.’ Rather too late he added, ‘I am sorry to hear of her death, of course. Murder, you say? That sounds deuced unlikely to me!’
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