The Murderer's Apprentice

by The Murderer's Apprentice (retail) (epub)

  ‘That is correct,’ said Miss Eldon, nodding. ‘General Temple, as a young man, was at Waterloo with my brother, William. He wasn’t a general at that time, of course! Later he made a good career, but sadly he died in India at the time of the great Mutiny. He, too, died of a fever.’ Her eyes had lost their customary brightness and seemed clouded, as she gazed unseeingly across the room.

  I was suddenly ashamed of my prying. It was time to change the subject. ‘My husband is much occupied in investigating the death of the girl who was found behind the Imperial Dining Rooms. It’s now known who she is. Her name is Emily Devray.’

  Miss Eldon dismissed the reverie into which she had fallen and declared fiercely, ‘And that’s another great wrong. A young girl like that, her life ahead of her, left dead in such… a horrid place! I cannot rid myself of the sight of her lying there amongst potato peelings and animal bones. It is cruelty beyond belief. And such wrongs must be put right. Of course, that poor child cannot be brought back to life, but she should have justice.’

  ‘My husband is determined that she shall have that, Miss Eldon.’

  ‘Good!’ Miss Eldon nodded. ‘Perhaps you would like some more tea, Mrs Ross?’ She had regained her self-control; but I didn’t think she regretted her outburst.

  At any rate, the attention of both us of was drawn to a sudden commotion in the street below. A woman was screeching abuse. I could hear a man shouting loudly, issuing orders. I thought I recognised the voice of the landlord. There was a lull and then another scuffle below. At least one of the participants, a man, youngish by his voice and educated, was apparently resisting an attempt to drag him back inside the tavern. He was protesting vehemently.

  ‘Let go of me! Look here, Tompkins, it’s none of your business!’

  I could not resist standing up and, with a murmured excuse, hastening to the window. Miss Eldon remained seated tranquilly by the fire.

  Below, a small crowd was gathering in happy anticipation of a fight. The woman yelling insults was young, with a mop of henna-red hair. This crowning glory appeared to be wet. Her features were heavily painted and distorted in rage. She was showing herself no mean combatant and as I arrived landed a powerful punch on the pot man’s ear. The pot man, a stocky fellow of simian build, responded by wrapping both long arms round his assailant, and lifting her clear off the ground. She kicked out furiously.

  ‘See?’ she yelled, not discouraged by being caged in the pot man’s embrace. ‘The young gent wants to go with me!’

  The young gent in question looked familiar to me. Tompkins had him in his grip and was forcibly walking him back towards the tavern door. His prisoner, like a recalcitrant toddler, was responding by dragging his feet and sagging, forcing Tompkins to haul him up straight again.

  Transferring her attention to the lost customer, just before he disappeared, the prostitute urged, ‘Don’t you take no notice of that sour old misery, lovey! Nor of that bit of old mutton dressed as lamb! You come with me. We’ll have a real good time, you and me! I know a place—’

  This disrespectful description of her attire had reached the ears of Louisa within the tavern. She flew out like an avenging fury and managed to box the offender’s ears.

  At this, the girl, with a screech, broke loose of the pot man. Tompkins was forced to release the young man, and it was all the landlord and the pot man together could do to prevent an all-out battle, for Louisa had joined the fray. The landlord pushed his considerable bulk between the two women as things reached the hair-tugging stage.

  ‘Leave it to me, Lou!’ Tompkins gasped to his offended spouse. He turned back to the girl who was again in the pot man’s grip and doing her best to break free a second time. Unable to do this again, she kicked out at Tompkins instead, and caught him just below the knee. He let out a roar that made the windowpanes tremble.

  ‘Well, he ain’t coming with you! I said you was to clear off. And off you go, my girl! What’s more, you don’t come back, not today, not never! You go ply your trade elsewhere. You’re not giving my establishment a bad name!’

  The reply from the woman was couched in such language as I personally had never heard from any female. Louisa Tompkins seized the young man and marched him into the tavern. The red-haired woman retreated backwards down the road, still roaring insults.

  Miss Eldon, sipping tea by the fire, was as calm as ever when I rejoined her. ‘I apologise, Mrs Ross, for the disturbance, but please pay no attention. Mr and Mrs Tompkins don’t allow women of easy virtue to seek out customers in the Queen Catherine. Drunken behaviour is common here, I am afraid to say. But mostly it occurs at night. In the afternoon it is less usual.’ She smiled graciously. ‘Did you say you would take another dish of tea?’

  All was quiet in the street below now, and I decided it would be a good time to leave. I declined more tea, thanked Miss Eldon for her hospitality and set off down the creaking old stairs to the ground floor. I walked into the taproom to let Mr Tompkins know I was going home and please would he call Bessie from the kitchen.

  But Bessie was already in the taproom, as was Mrs Tompkins, who resembled a large parrot, a macaw perhaps, in a gown of a brightly coloured plaid pattern. I understood it would have attracted comment from the prostitute. The macaw’s plumage had been ruffled, and the landlady was still simmering from the insults she’d received, but had managed to pin up her hair more or less tidily. Mr Tompkins was with her, and also of the company was the sweating, dishevelled and red-faced young man I had glimpsed from above. He was well dressed, even though at present his coat was askew and his cravat untied and dangling over his waistcoat. Nevertheless, he was recognisable as the dandy who had been demanding champagne the first time I visited the Queen Catherine. He was now slumped on a chair by the wall. Mr Tompkins, purple with rage, was standing over him like a guard. The prisoner, for so he seemed to be, was scowling up at him and still uttering protests that were much weaker than the lively exchange Miss Eldon and I had overheard.

  The two old men I had seen in here before were seated by the fire; and watching with amused interest as they puffed on their clay pipes.

  ‘Dash it all, Tompkins, it is none of your business,’ the young man was saying again, but with much less force, more in a sulky way, like a resentful child.

  ‘If it’s in my hostelry it is my business!’ declared Mr Tompkins majestically. ‘As you know very well, Mr Temple! I am responsible for maintaining the peace in my house. I got my licence to consider.’

  Mrs Tompkins chimed in. ‘You’ve had a sight too much to drink, Mr Temple! The pot man has gone to fetch Michael to escort you home.’

  ‘Can’t!’ said the miscreant sullenly. ‘Can’t let the old girl see me like this.’

  ‘If,’ declared Louisa Tompkins, ‘by “old girl” you mean your godmother, you ought to be ashamed to speak of her in such a way!’

  ‘I’ve had a dreadful day,’ muttered Temple. ‘I had to go to an inquest. Yesterday I had to look at a dead body! It was horrible.’

  ‘We all ends up as dead bodies,’ retorted the landlord with simple logic. ‘Most of us probably don’t look our best at the time.’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ the wretched Temple cried out in anguish. ‘The girl lived in my godmother’s house. The whole business is— is unspeakable!’

  At that moment someone came in from the street. A large shadow fell across me and turning, I saw, with shock, a great hulking brute of a fellow with tow-coloured hair. For a moment I feared that the prostitute had sent along her bully boy. But then I saw he was dressed much in the style of a footman, although I never was in any house that employed a footman built like a prizefighter.

  ‘There you are, Michael!’ exclaimed Louisa, with evident relief. ‘Your young gentleman’s had a bit to drink. He’s rambling about a dead body and an inquest. You’d best take him home and smuggle him indoors somehow without poor Lady Temple seeing him.’

  The giant nodded and moved purposefully towards the slumped form of G
eorge Temple.

  ‘Come along, Mr George,’ he said in a gruff but surprisingly gentle voice. ‘It’s for the best.’

  He stooped and took hold of George’s arm. George stood obediently, swaying on his feet for a moment. He muttered a token objection. ‘Dash it, Michael, I am not a child and I am not drunk!’ But then he allowed himself to be led out. We saw the pair of them pass the windows, Michael still holding the young gentleman’s arm, partly in support and partly to prevent his breaking away and making off.

  Mr Tompkins turned to me. ‘Sorry about that, Mrs Ross. The young gent had a bit too much brandy. He tucked himself away in the snug and I didn’t keep a close enough eye on him. Then that doxy slipped in here and joined him. I heard her laughing and guessed what she was, so I pushed her out. He followed and tried to get her away from me, but the state he was in, he couldn’t do much. Anyhow, all sorted out now. My apologies to you for any unseemly language you many have heard.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about it, Mr Tompkins,’ I told him. Secretly I was delighted to have an item of news that would interest Ben. ‘Bessie and I will be off now.’

  ‘That was a real dust-up, that was!’ Bessie told me happily as we walked back towards Piccadilly. ‘Before they got out in the street, Mrs Tompkins threw a jug of water over that hussy because she was rude about Mrs T’s gown. You never heard such language, not from him nor from her neither!’

  ‘I did hear it,’ I said. ‘So did Miss Eldon.’

  Bessie frowned. ‘Not nice for the poor old lady.’

  ‘Well, I confess I expected her to be shocked. But Miss Eldon didn’t turn a hair,’ I told her.

  ‘That young dandy,’ said Bessie after a moment. ‘He’s from the house where that poor dead girl lived?’

  ‘Yes, yes, indeed.’

  Bessie opened her mouth to give her opinion on that, but I cut her short.

  ‘Oh, Bessie, I do believe there is a four-wheeler cab waiting at the rank, there. We shall get home sooner.’

  That evening Ben and I exchanged accounts of our days.

  ‘I knew he was in the pub,’ said Ben with satisfaction, on hearing of George Temple’s adventure. ‘Sitting in a darkened room and dwelling on thoughts of mortality? Hardly likely! But then, she knew he wasn’t in the house.’

  ‘She?’ I asked.

  ‘Lady Temple, his godmother. I have seen that footman you spoke of, Michael.’ Ben looked thoughtful.

  ‘He must be a great worry to her, I mean George must be a worry to his godmother,’ I said.

  ‘Rather more than that, at the moment,’ Ben replied, still gazing into the fire. ‘A cause of considerable distress, I should think.’

  After a moment I ventured to ask, ‘Ben, do you think it is at all likely that George Temple is responsible for Emily’s death?’

  ‘He has to be a suspect. What is more to the point, does his godmother think he had something to do with it? That is the question I know she is expecting me to ask. That is why she had summoned Pelham to attend her when a visit from me was expected. It is the question I somehow can’t ask. At least, not until I have real evidence. Otherwise, it’s all supposition. I should find myself and any other officer banned from the house and our inquiries blocked at every turn. George Temple is a fool, but he is a fool who is heir presumptive to a fortune. Therefore, there are those in whose interest it is to protect him from his folly. Also, I believe that the old lady really cares about her godson. He is her late husband’s nephew. For her, that is reason enough to defend him and his reputation to the hilt.’

  We sat in silence for some minutes, watching the fire crackle and snap, sending up sudden flares of scarlet and yellow, before falling in upon itself to reveal its fierce red heart.

  ‘I read the Salisbury newspaper you gave me,’ I said at last. ‘There is mention of the Bastables in it.’ I fetched the paper from where I had put it in my little writing desk, and pointed out the paragraph in question.

  ‘So there is!’ exclaimed Ben. ‘I had missed that.’

  ‘Do you think that is why Emily kept it? Because it mentioned the new owners of the house she must have thought of as her home?’

  ‘It may well be why she kept it,’ Ben agreed. ‘But I would dearly love to know how this edition came into her hands. It cannot be by chance. Someone in Salisbury sent it – or brought it – to her.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Inspector Ben Ross

  On Monday afternoon of the following week, I received an unexpected but welcome visitor. Dr Mackay appeared in my office, carrying a package wrapped in waxed cloth. He placed it on my desk and unrolled it carefully. It proved to contain the hammer and the trowel taken from the garden shed.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind my troubling you with this,’ I told him.

  ‘Not at all, Ross!’ he returned cheerfully. ‘Now then, I have examined these two items carefully, been all over ’em! I found mud and rust and insect fragments. But nothing that suggests to me that it is blood. Even if I had found traces I believed to be of blood, and my findings were supported by my own tests, I could not have told you whose blood it was, you understand that?’

  ‘I realise that, Doctor. It was only ever an outside chance,’ I told him. ‘Thank you for giving your time. I’m sorry it’s been wasted.’

  ‘No, no!’ exclaimed my visitor, his Scottish accent becoming more evident in his enthusiasm for his chosen interest. ‘Let me tell you something about blood. Well, I dare say you know it already. It gets everywhere. Moreover, it is very difficult to remove entirely. There are spots, splashes, trails… well, you will know all that. You have viewed murder scenes. Over time it degrades, of course. But I believe it should still be identifiable.’

  ‘My wife is a doctor’s daughter,’ I told him. ‘He did a bit of surgery, too, as family doctors in small towns do. She has informed me that soaking bloodstains in cold water is the best way to remove them from cloth.’

  ‘So it is. But it can be difficult to remove completely from other surfaces. Blood smears or spots can be very small, tiny, in the form of a spray reaching further than might be expected, and be overlooked at the general scene. You wrote that these items were taken from a garden shed?’ He indicated the tools on the desk. ‘Do you think it is the scene of the crime?’

  ‘I cannot say. Possibly, or perhaps the body was kept there for a short time awaiting disposal elsewhere. We know it was in a seated position for that period and I had been thinking of a cellar.’ I considered briefly. ‘But a cold garden shed would seem a very likely spot.’

  ‘Then there could be blood elsewhere in that shed. The fact that I couldn’t find any on these tools should not make us rule out the possibility of finding it on another surface. Perhaps only the smallest trace! I should very much like to examine the interior. Could it be arranged?’ asked Mackay, as eager as a child wanting to go to a party.

  I thought quickly. ‘If I ask the owner of the house, she will consult her man of law and he will prevent us, I have no doubt of that. But if you were to arrive unannounced with Sergeant Morris, and he requested the butler to let you both take another look in the garden shed, and ask for the keys, well, that might work. But I should have to consult my superintendent,’ I added reluctantly. ‘The house owner is not without influence.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed the startled Dunn, when, having introduced Dr Mackay, I put the proposed plan to him. His bushy eyebrows shot up to his hairline. ‘Are you quite out of your mind, Ross?’

  ‘No, sir. Dr Mackay here is making a study of bloodstains.’

  Dunn made a noise with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, sounding like a child’s clockwork toy running down. ‘Is he, indeed? I understand tests for the presence of blood are unreliable.’

  ‘I am not referring to the tests using guaiacum, sir, but to other methods of my own.’

  This statement first caused Dunn to look alarmed, then doubtful and finally, to my relief, to heave a sigh and say, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know, we sho
uld have to tread very carefully, Ross.’ Tock-tock-tock. ‘See here, it would be better to request the lady’s permission before we send a medical man to crawl about in her garden shed taking samples. No offence, Dr Mackay!’ he added hastily.

  ‘I understand,’ Mackay assured him. ‘But the head would have bled at first before the blood congealed. If the victim was in that shed when she received the head wound, there will be some trace of blood, and I can find it.’ After a moment’s pause, he added, ‘Or I am pretty sure of it.’

  Dunn put his finger on the weak point in my request. ‘Even if the doctor here found some bloodstains, say, on the wall, what of it? I do not wish to appear to challenge your expertise, Dr Mackay. But I understand that bloodstains deteriorate quickly. In any case, we could not declare with confidence they came from the victim. We should be in a most difficult situation, should any halfway competent barrister for the defence question our claim.’

  I had to convince him quickly. ‘A defence barrister would seek to undermine any evidence we brought forward to show the presence of the victim’s blood, certainly, but it would help me! I believe Emily Devray died in that shed and if Dr Mackay can’t find any bloodstains from her head wound, it’s important I know it; because it would indicate to me that I am on the wrong track. Dr Mackay has returned to me the tools Morris and I took from the shed. We signed a receipt for them, and gave it to the butler. So it would be quite natural for Morris to go back to the house and return the tools to the butler. There would be no need for him to speak to the house owner. Then, if he asked if he could take one more look, the butler should be appeased at having the tools returned, and there is no reason why he should object.’

  ‘How do you explain the presence of this gentleman?’ Dunn nodded at Mackay.

  ‘We don’t – or rather, Morris doesn’t. The butler will assume we detectives go about in pairs.’

  ‘It’s all very underhand,’ muttered Dunn. ‘Even if we try to make bloodstains part of our case, what are the odds that we shall be told the gardener cut his hand the last time he was in there?’