by David Field
‘He’ll get nothing at all if I’m lying up a back alley somewhere with my guts hanging out!’ Esther objected as she began to rise to her feet.
Percy, seated at the end of the table, but close enough, put a restraining hand on her arm and reassured her. ‘We merely wish you to do some book-keeping.’
‘For Dick Turpin? Or Blackbeard the Pirate perhaps?’ Esther protested, shaking off Percy’s retraining hand, but making no further effort to leave the table.
‘For an art dealer in Hatton Garden,’ Jack replied reassuringly.
Esther sat down again, then looked quizzically back at Percy. ‘Fraud?’
Percy shook his head. ‘Jack can seek to sweeten the pill if he wishes, but I have too much regard for your intelligence. We believe he may have murdered his sister. However, there’s no reason to believe that you’d be in any danger from him — we simply wish you to observe his movements and his manner, and perhaps acquire a photograph of him that we can show to witnesses.’
‘Tell me more,’ Esther said reluctantly, ‘not that I’m saying yes, mind, but you’ve no idea how boring it is sitting here day after day nursing a whining infant.’
Her face screwed up in distaste as Percy and Jack between them recounted the known facts surrounding the death of Marianne Ormonde in a railway tunnel in Wiltshire and how it might be connected to her being pregnant to her own brother — the Edgar Ormonde that they wished her to seek a position with. They also impressed upon her that they almost had enough evidence to put him away, but needed the final pieces that would connect him to the circumstances leading to Marianne’s death, and, in particular, confirmatory evidence that the child she’d been carrying had been his, and that therefore he had a motive to do away with her when she declined to have an abortion in order to avert any possible scandal.
‘I don’t know anything about art,’ she objected.
Jack smiled again. ‘You won’t need to — that’s his speciality. He and the other woman who works for him, a Miss Prendergast, who does his cataloguing and helps with the sales. Marianne — the deceased — simply kept the books of account and that’s all he’ll need you for. Books of account are books of account, whether they’re for art galleries, garment manufactures, trade unions, butchers’ shops or coalmines.’
‘I have an infant to look after’ was her next attempted excuse.
‘And you’ve only just finished telling us how boring that is,’ Jack reminded her. ‘Mrs Bridges can come in every day and look after Lily. And before you say that we can’t afford it, remember that you’d be paid a wage as a book-keeper for all the time you’d be working, and it’s only a few streets away.’
‘I’m breast-feeding, Alice is over sixty years old, and her youngest is a married woman in her twenties.’
‘You can get a device that takes the milk from your breasts in advance, so that you can heat it up later,’ Jack explained. ‘Lucy uses one now that she’s on her third, or at least that’s what Mother told me. And it’s high time that we tried to get Lily on something more solid.’
‘I’m pregnant’ was Esther’s last throw of the dice.
‘That’s even better,’ Percy responded with a smile. ‘A real bonus, as it turns out, since we believe that the deceased was visiting a quack abortionist in Devonshire Street.’
‘You’re surely not suggesting that I sign up for an abortion?’ Esther demanded, red in the face. ‘If you recall, that was my excuse for getting all friendly with Pearly Poll, who tried to slit my throat.’
‘Of course not,’ Jack reassured her. ‘But this quack will clearly wish to examine you when you call at his clinic seeking an abortion, claiming that Marianne Ormonde recommended him.’
‘And that’s all?’ Esther asked, beginning to waver somewhat.
‘That’s all, believe us,’ Percy replied consolingly. ‘And it has to be more demanding than lying around the house all day.’
‘Is that what you think?’ Esther bristled. ‘Any time either of you would like to change places with me for the day, nursing an infant, cleaning the house, shopping for food and cooking meals, just let me know, and I’ll swap with you for a day or two strutting the streets looking for burglars and deviants.’
‘Or nailing a man who shoved his own sister off a train?’ Percy interjected. ‘I think you just volunteered, my dear.’
Esther’s mouth opened and shut several times before she broke into a giggle when she heard Lily’s first plaintiff cry from the nursery.
‘You have a deal. We’ll just exchange duties, shall we? Jack, take Uncle Percy into the next room and give him his first lesson in nappy-changing.’
Chapter Eight
‘It’s highly irregular,’ Chief Inspector Wallace objected as Jack and Percy eagerly explained their plan to him, seeking both his approval and his assistance. ‘We don’t employ women anywhere in the Met. for very obvious reasons.’
‘That’s why we sometimes lose out in our investigations,’ Percy reminded him. ‘It’s all very well dressing some of our prettier young constables in cloaks and bonnets and sending them out in the half light down ill-frequented pathways, but we’ve got no-one with accounts experience who could pass as an educated young lady in the bright light of an art salon. She’d be in no danger at all, she can report back to Constable Enright on a nightly basis, and she’d be ideally placed to get the last remaining pieces of evidence we need to crack a case that Wiltshire wouldn’t have had a prayer of solving without us.’
‘Can you categorically assure me that she’d be in absolutely no danger?’ Wallace asked.
Jack nodded vigorously. ‘It’s my wife we’re talking about sir. The mother of my child, with another one on the way. I wouldn’t let her within an inch of this caper if I thought she’d be exposed to the slightest danger.’
‘She was the one who enabled us to put Jack the Ripper out of business, after all,’ Percy reminded him. ‘Then she was instrumental in drawing out of the woodwork a very nasty burglar and his homicidal sister. She’s more than capable of looking after herself.’
Wallace made a pretence of examining his pipe bowl as he gave the matter deep thought. Eventually he looked up and nodded. ‘Very well, but I don’t wish this to be taken as any sort of precedent for the future, understand? However, it just so happens that we have an exchange programme operating at present with the New York Police Department, who’re over here swapping ideas and studying our methods. We’ll do this my way and I’ll need a day or two to set it up. Come back here at four this afternoon — I’ll have somebody waiting to meet you.’
The following Monday, just as the mighty bell of St Andrews in Holborn was announcing to the commercial fraternity that it was eleven am, a stocky gentleman in gaudy tweeds, with a ridiculously vulgar drooping moustache and incongruous brown boots rose to meet Edgar Ormonde and hand him his business card, while the smartly dressed dark-haired girl who’d been occupying the seat next to him remained where she was, as if indifferent to what was going on while she sat staring at the paintings on the wall behind the glass counter.
‘Morgan T. Jacobs the Third and mighty grateful that you could find the time in your busy schedule to see me, sir,’ the man enthused, while Ormonde looked down at him slightly disdainfully through his monocle.
‘You wish to buy a painting or two?’ he asked, as if doubtful of the gauche man’s artistic inclinations.
‘No, sir, I do not. Instead, I wish to put a business proposition to you.’
‘You have paintings to sell, perhaps?’
‘Those, and much more besides, although it is indeed the matter of paintings that brings me here to your fine emporium. I am fortunate indeed to be the heir to my grandfather, the original Morgan Timothy Jacobs, of whom you will no doubt have heard.’
‘I can’t say I have,’ Ormonde replied haughtily.
‘That is, if I may say so, doubly unfortunate, since among his business papers on his untimely death was a set of instructions to his heirs and successors,
which contained within it a mighty testament to your reputation in the art world across the Pond. This is why I am seeking your assistance in the matter of acquiring masters on commission.’
Ormonde’s expression softened somewhat as he gestured for his visitor to resume his seat, drew another chair alongside his and ordered Miss Prendergast to serve them all coffee.
‘You have an art gallery in New York?’ Ormonde said and Jacobs broke into a smile.
‘More than an art gallery, depend upon it, sir. The finest house of objets d’art in Lower Manhatten, to which we wish to add the merchandising of the finest paintings from Europe, most notably those of the French Impressionists, for the dealing in which you enjoy a fine reputation. It would be our intention to acquire these through you and we would deem it both an honour and a privilege if you would deign to accept a ten per cent commission on all such acquisitions, to be added to your bill of sale upon shipment.’
‘I’m sure we could accommodate you in that regard,’ Ormonde smirked back, already calculating the potential for ‘skimming’ by inflating purchase costs. ‘When would you wish to commence?’
Jacobs raised his hand to indicate that there was more. ‘I have one more proposal to put to you, sir, if you would permit me. The fine young lady at my side is not merely here in order to brighten our morning with her beauty. She is, in truth, my niece Esther, daughter of my brother Solomon, who is currently serving his country in the United States Navy and who entrusted his daughter’s education to your fine boarding school system, before she graduated and went to stay with a family friend in Bloomsbury. It is our ultimate intention that she should work alongside us in New York, when Solomon is discharged of his commission and takes up his rightful place as my business partner. However, in order to do that she will require a proper introduction to the world of art commerce accounting. We could, of course, put her through one of your English training colleges, but you would no doubt agree with me that they are inclined to be somewhat vulgar and to attract entirely the wrong sort of student. At the same time, dear Esther has led a sheltered life thus far, and would benefit considerably from experience in the matter of managing her own finances. In short, my brother and I would be mightily obliged if you could find her some paid work here in your fine establishment, preferably such as would acquaint her with the practice of financial accounting in the context of art transactions.’
Ormonde smiled unpleasantly across at Miss Prendergast, then turned to look down at Esther with an appraising smile. ‘By a fortunate coincidence, Miss Prendergast has recently demonstrated that the keeping of books of account is not quite to her liking, so it would be of considerable assistance to me if your delightful and beautiful niece could commence work in that capacity with the minimum of delay. Shall we say tomorrow, at nine o’clock sharp, and at fifteen shillings a week?’
Esther forced a smile of gratitude to her face as her make-believe uncle slapped his thigh in delight and shook Ormonde’s hand enthusiastically.
‘Splendid! I’m most grateful to you, sir and I have no doubt that this will prove to be only the beginning of a fine and mutually profitable relationship between our two business houses. I’ll have my people draw up the agreement and it shall be with you by the end of the month! Come, my dear,’ he said to Esther as he took her elbow, raised her from her seat and escorted her proudly out of the front door that Ormonde held open for them.
‘Thank you very much for that, Charlie,’ Esther whispered as they walked back towards Clerkenwell.
‘It was a pleasure, Ma’am,’ Officer Charles Zolinskie assured her. ‘But good luck working for that slimy critter.’
While Esther was securing her entree into Ormonde’s art gallery, Uncle Percy was causing considerable apprehension to Michael Parsons back at Kemble Station. Monday evening was a quiet time and Parsons was humming quietly to himself, in anticipation of a pleasant night drinking tea and reading a book after taking over the ticket office from day shift porter Albert Bedser. But his smile froze as he walked into the booking hall and found Percy Enright sitting in a corner, wreathed in smoke from his battered pipe.
‘Good evening, Mr Parsons,’ Percy said quietly. ‘May I have another word with you before you commence your duties for the night?’
‘Certainly,’ Parsons replied nervously. ‘I need to take over from Albert behind the window there and we need to count the money at the end of his shift, so if you could just wait there until I call you through?’
‘Certainly,’ Percy replied, adding with soft sarcasm, ‘I won’t slope off to the Tavern.’
Parsons gave him the benefit of a wan smile and disappeared inside the ticket office. A few minutes later Albert Bedser left and Parsons appeared in the doorway.
‘The pot’s on — cup of tea?’
‘Thank you, that would be nice,’ Percy replied, smiling, as he followed Parsons through the door marked ‘Railway Staff Only’.
‘So what’s this about?’ Parsons enquired anxiously as he poured the boiling water into the teapot.
‘I assume that you maintain a “lost property” service?’ Percy asked.
Parsons nodded. ‘Company policy — did you want to buy something cheap?’
Percy frowned. ‘I’ll ignore that, since presumably you’re supposed to keep items until their owners claim them.’
‘True,’ Parsons conceded, ‘but after three months we get to sell them. I can offer you any number of umbrellas or walking-sticks.’
‘Where do you store them?’
‘Over there in the corner, in those boxes.’
‘And do you have any way of knowing which items were lost on any given date?’
‘Not the exact date, no.’
Percy frowned. ‘That’s a pity, since I’m looking for something that would have been dropped, or left accidentally, on the night that you sloped off to the Tavern. Probably something small, but I can’t be certain of that.’
Parsons eyes lit up. ‘You mean that funny looking key?’
‘I don’t know what I mean exactly,’ Percy admitted, ‘but show me anyway.’
Parsons walked over to the far corner and from a cardboard container that had once contained railway brochures he extracted a gold-coloured key attached to a loop of string.
‘Albert found this the following morning,’ Parsons explained. ‘He’s the man you saw leaving just now — my opposite number on the day shift. It’s part of the day shift duties to sweep out the front area, near the entrance door, because of all the leaves that blow in, particularly at this time of year. He told me he’d found it on the ground under the flower box that’s got those dahlias in it. I remember because I’ve never seen a key like it and the string it’s attached to is like the stuff my father uses to tie up his tomato plants. I guessed that it opens a garden shed or something, but no-one’s ever claimed it.’
‘The person who lost it had a very particular reason for not claiming it,’ Percy muttered. ‘May I borrow it for a day or so, if I give you a receipt?’ Parsons looked uncertain, so Percy decided to play the constabulary card. ‘Or would you prefer me to buy it off you, like all the other stuff you sell on the side?’
‘If you put it like that, just give me the receipt,’ Parsons mumbled, red in the face.
‘Before I go, I have one more question for you,’ Percy advised him.
‘Ask away,’ Parsons said invitingly, anxious to be rid of the man who could end his career with one letter.
‘The night you closed up unofficially and went to your card game over the bridge there, did you leave the station lights on?’
‘No, come to think of it,’ Parsons admitted. ‘I left the light on in this office, but I turned off the gas in the booking hall, to let people know that the station was closed. Why do you ask?’
‘When you came back, it would have been dark in the station forecourt?’
‘Black as pitch. But once I got back in, I re-lit the gas in the booking hall.’
‘And there was no-one
in the forecourt when you got back?’
‘No-one that I saw. Nobody followed me in, anyway.’
‘Thank you, Mr Parsons. You may enter into your records that this key was reclaimed. But I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention who by.’
Chapter Nine
‘This is Miss Prendergast, who you met during your first visit with your uncle,’ Ormonde reminded Esther as he waved airily towards Abigail, seated behind the glass counter with the new catalogue lying face up on the baize cloth. ‘She does the cataloguing and you’ll obviously need to work closely with her as the items come in and out, since we record their purchase and sale values in a separate book for each, and the difference between them in the Profit and Loss Account book. Do you have any grounding in basic accounting techniques, Miss Jacobs?’
‘Not really,’ Esther replied with her eyes downcast and what was intended as an overawed expression on her face.
‘That’s not a problem — I’ll soon teach you how I like things done here,’ Ormonde reassured her as he indicated with a wave of his arm that she should accompany him through the double glass doors that led from the sales salon into the rear of the premises. Esther walked ahead of him, then stood politely in front of what appeared to be an office desk in the centre of the rear room. There was a kitchen of some sort to the side, with a gas geyser that presumably dispensed hot water and a sink that had three cups inverted on its steel surface, presumably left there to dry on a previous occasion.
‘This is what I use as my office,’ Ormonde explained. ‘Obviously I spend most of my time in the sales room out there, but when we’re quiet I can leave Miss Prendergast to mind the shop while I come back here to organise my schedule of auctions and exhibitions. As you can see, we also have refreshment facilities here and during the middle of the day you can sit with Miss Prendergast at that table in the corner and eat whatever you’ve brought for your lunch, although Miss Prendergast often takes her lunch break outdoors. Feel free to make yourself tea whenever you feel the need, but leave the coffee alone. It’s imported and only I drink it. Any questions thus far?’