Mortmain Hall

by Martin Edwards

  “Far from it. For a woman from a modest background, she has done remarkably well for herself. She no longer needs the diversion of a dramatic society; she has a new part to play. The respectable widow, plucky survivor of a human tragedy. With enough money to keep herself in furs and finery until kingdom come.”

  “Paid a high price, didn’t she?”

  “If she found the trial gruelling and the publicity unpleasant, she’s not lacked compensations. To this day, she lives in that fine house outside Salisbury. I wonder what passes through her mind when she strolls past the ornamental lake.”

  “She lost the man she loved…”

  “I wonder how much she really cared about Cullerton.”

  “She only escaped the scaffold by the skin of her teeth.”

  “You think she was lucky?”

  “Slaterbeck obviously thinks so, even if our rotten laws of libel mean he has to watch his words. If the judge hadn’t been so biased, the jury might have found her guilty. The man in the street …”

  “Ah, the court of public opinion.” Rachel pretended to stifle a yawn. “The prosecution case was founded on circumstantial evidence. Her letters to Cullerton never mentioned murder.”

  “She encouraged him. He was stupid; she was greedy. An innocent man died.” Impatience was getting the better of him. He changed tack. “You didn’t invite me here to chat about the Gorrie case. Whatever the rights and wrongs, it’s old news.”

  “Not like the Danskin trial?” she suggested. “You met Mrs Dobell at the Old Bailey, and she wants to talk to me?”

  “About murder, yes.” He shook his head. “She watched your father presiding over a trial before the war. It made a great impression on her.”

  “Nobody who encountered the Judge is ever likely to forget him,” Rachel said.

  The shadow of a smile crossed her face. What game was she playing? He gritted his teeth. It was getting late. He’d wanted to see her again, far more than he liked to admit, but she seemed intent on teaching him a lesson. After a day of journalistic drudgery, he wasn’t in the mood to humour her.

  “I must apologise,” she said abruptly, causing him to gape. An apology from Rachel Savernake was a collector’s item. “I’m a rotten hostess. Your tumbler’s empty. Let me pour you another measure. I’ll keep you company.”

  “Thanks, but no. Some of us have to get up early for work tomorrow.” A cheap retort, but he was sick of being patronised. “I’ve delivered my message. You can contact the woman at the Circe Club. I’d better go.”

  Without a word, she picked up the decanter, and filled both tumblers. Their eyes met for a moment, then he looked away. There was the rub. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. He found her mesmerising.

  “Spare me another half hour, Jacob. Please.”

  He couldn’t help feeling flattered. The woman had a knack of exploiting weakness. He was shrewd enough to realise that she was an expert in manipulation, but he hadn’t learned how to resist.

  She raised her glass. “To crime.”

  “To crime.”

  Again she smiled, this time without a trace of mockery. “Let me tell you about Mrs Dobell.”

  He considered. “Is this a story for the Clarion?”

  “No.”

  What could he say? He drank some of the whisky. “Fire away.”

  “Very well.” Rachel leaned back in her wing chair. “Leonora Dobell isn’t a witch. She is one of England’s foremost criminologists.”

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “Both her books on the subject earned critical acclaim. As I’m sure you will understand, after reading her latest.” She gestured towards Respectable Murders. “Of course, she writes under her maiden name.”

  “Slaterbeck?” He groaned. “Leo is really Leonora?”

  Rachel savoured her drink before speaking again.

  “At the tail end of the war, she married a man called Felix Dobell who had been severely injured in the fighting. He comes from an old Yorkshire family, and was born and bred on the family estate. Their home is on the north-east coast. It’s called Mortmain Hall.”

  *

  “Fancy a nice time, dearie?”

  Darkness had fallen in Soho. The woman had russet hair and wore a fake fox fur. Her mouth was a lurid crimson gash. The brightness of her voice sounded false, and her shoulders were sagging with fatigue. Cheap scent teased Reggie’s sinuses. This backstreet was her patch, and he’d seen her many a time on his way to the Clan.

  “Sorry. Not today, thank you.”

  With a courteous smile, he shook his head. Such invitations regularly came his way as he walked these streets, and he always declined. Unlike many men, he took pains to be polite, however crude the overture. It would be absurd to take offence, and stupid to risk retaliation. Live and let live. The last thing he wanted was trouble.

  Pungent beer fumes seeped into the night as he passed a pub. Inside, someone was singing out of tune. He was conscious of a bulky male figure emerging from the shadowy doorway. The man’s footsteps smacked the pavement. Reggie didn’t glance over his shoulder, but slowed down so that the man could get by. Instead, he remained close behind. Was this a thug who protected the prostitute? Thank goodness for the unwritten law. Only customers who cut up rough or refused to pay got themselves hurt.

  Fifty yards ahead was an alleyway leading to his destination. The Clan was a safe haven, even if the man had robbery on his mind. No need to worry unduly about being followed. When coming to Soho at night, he left his gold watch at home, and never carried a large amount of cash. If the need ever arose, he wrote an IOU.

  He hurried towards the alley. Once there, he’d break into a run. He was still quick on his feet over a short distance. The fellow behind him mightn’t even give chase.

  Almost there now. He gulped night air into his lungs. Turning the corner, he set off from a standing start, only to cannon into someone else. Another big, hulking fellow.

  As he lost his footing, he realised that like Duleepsinhji at Lord’s, he’d been lured into an appalling misjudgement. He’d been caught in a trap.

  *

  “Now I see why Mrs Dobell haunts the Old Bailey.” Jacob drained his tumbler. “The pseudonym deceived me. It never occurred to me that Slaterbeck was female.”

  “It’s a common ploy,” Rachel said. “Her principal competitor is another female criminologist who writes as F. Tennyson Jesse. Publishers are alert to public taste. Readers won’t take a book about murder cases seriously if they think it’s not written by a man.”

  “Yes, I suppose I can…” Jacob’s voice faded away as Rachel’s features hardened. “What I don’t understand is how Mrs Dobell knew that we’re acquainted.”

  “You kept your promise?” Rachel asked.

  Her determination to preserve her privacy bordered on the fanatical. Never had he known a woman so secretive. Earlier this year, she’d saved his life. Gratitude didn’t interest her, but she’d extracted his solemn assurance that he’d never talk about her with other people.

  “You know you can trust me.”

  She considered him with the calm detachment of a pathologist examining human tissue. “I trust no one except the Truemans.”

  “I’m a man of my word.” Even to his own ears, the phrase sounded pathetically old-fashioned and defensive.

  “No need to bluster, Jacob.” She savoured the Chivas Regal. “As it happens, I’ve become interested in Leonora Dobell. She doesn’t skimp on research, as her books demonstrate. I gather she’s been assiduous in making friends in high places. Especially within Scotland Yard. She’s acquainted with Inspector Oakes and on dining terms with Sir Godfrey Mulhearn. Our mutual friend the good inspector keeps his lips buttoned. If someone has talked out of turn, it’s Mulhearn.”

  Jacob nodded, pleased to be let off the hook. The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was vain and talkative. It was easy to picture the old buffer boasting about his acquaintance with the lovely daughter of the late Judge
Savernake.

  “I can almost hear Sir Godfrey bragging after a few drinks.” Jacob drew back his shoulders and puffed out his chest, raising his voice to a fruity roar. “Damned attractive filly, I must say. If I were twenty years younger, ha! Mark my words, though. Her father was a rum ’un, and she’s a chip off the old block. Poked her nose into some funny business a while back. The Chorus Girl case, you may remember all the fuss. Murky affair, can’t talk about it. Top secret, frankly. Our fellows sorted it out, thank heaven. Good man, Oakes. Youngest inspector at the Yard and one of the smartest. Saved the life of a journalist. Flint, they call him. Impetuous boy, certainly not top-drawer. But that’s reporters for you. They don’t make our life any easier. Sometimes I wonder whose side the blighters are on.”

  Rachel rewarded his mimicry with a round of applause. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure; her laughter was musical, a rare and joyful sound.

  “Bravo! If the Clarion gives you the sack, you have a future in vaudeville. And yes, Mulhearn will have let it slip rather like that. His tongue is too loose.”

  “Doesn’t matter, does it?” Jacob was relaxing. The whisky made him sleepy.

  “I prefer to keep myself to myself.”

  He beat a hasty retreat. “Yes, yes, absolutely. But will you talk to Mrs Dobell?”

  “Yes, she intrigues me.”

  “You think she’ll explore the Danskin case in her next book?”

  “Why not? A mystery with so many facets offers something to suit every taste. An unidentified corpse, a dubious alibi, a surprise witness. And at the eleventh hour, a prisoner dodging the noose.” Rachel paused before adding, “Just like Sylvia Gorrie.”

  “The two cases are very different.”

  “So it seems.”

  “You sound sceptical.”

  She shrugged, but didn’t respond.

  “The blazing car case isn’t a bad story.” He contemplated the bottom of his tumbler. “Despite the anticlimax. So much hoo-ha, and then it turns out the tramp wasn’t murdered after all.”

  Looking up, he saw her gaze fixed on him. Almost as if she was setting him a test.

  “The fire was simply a tragic accident?” she asked.

  “What else?” He sighed. “It’s like that death on the railway line yesterday afternoon. The chap who was run over by the Waterloo express.”

  “I read about it.” Rachel’s face was a blank.

  “I wondered if it might be the exact opposite of the Danskin business. A case where murder is done, but never suspected.”

  *

  The man in the alleyway held a blade to Reggie’s throat while his colleague kept watch.

  “Please,” Reggie whimpered. “I’ll give you money. All the cash I have…”

  “I don’t want your money,” the man hissed. “Who have you been talking to?”

  Reggie blinked. “No one. I swear it.”

  “The Dobell woman?”

  Reggie’s heart skipped a beat. “Who?”

  The blade scratched his skin. He closed his eyes. Was this how it would end, in a dark and litter-strewn alley?

  “Talk, and you’re done for.”

  “I swear,” Reggie said. “I haven’t said a word.”

  “Keep it like that if you don’t want to taste a knife.”

  Reggie felt a flicker of hope. Might he yet survive? His assailant must be open to reason. Despite his size and strength, he wasn’t a roughneck at all. Incredibly, he spoke in the well-modulated tones of a man educated at one of the better public schools.

  He was a gentleman.

  *

  Rachel’s face gave away nothing. Jacob felt compelled to defend his theory. “It’s not so absurd to suggest that Bertram Jones was murdered,” he said. “For a middle-aged man simply to fall out of a railway carriage and on to the track, at exactly the time a fast train is heading in the opposite direction, seems rather a coincidence.”

  “It’s happened before. On that very line. There was no question of foul play on that occasion.”

  “A helpful precedent, if you want to commit a murder and pass it off as an accident. Today I made a few enquiries, but they got me nowhere.”

  “A pity.”

  “Yes, the police have written the death off as a piece of bad luck. The Necropolis Company doesn’t want anyone stirring things up.” He stifled a yawn. “The deceased has no nearest and dearest to kick up a stink on his behalf. I don’t even know if he actually attended a funeral at Brookwood. I might go there, to check if anyone saw him at a service or by a graveside.”

  “If I were you,” Rachel said, “I wouldn’t waste my time prowling around a cemetery.”

  At once he became alert. “You wouldn’t?”

  A decisive shake of the head.

  “All right.” He chose his words with care. “What would you do, if you were me?”

  Rachel stretched in her chair. Lithe, graceful, feline. “I’ll take you into my confidence. Provided you swear that nothing I say will find its way into the Clarion.”

  “Why be so mysterious?”

  “Put it down to a flaw in my character.” A thin smile. “It’s not my only failing. Well?”

  “I’m a professional newspaperman. You can’t…”

  “If you prefer, we can forget this conversation ever took place.”

  He bowed to the inevitable. “You have my promise.”

  “Thank you. On the shelf to your left is a run of first editions. Can you see a book in a rather horrid orange wrapper called Murder and Mysteries?”

  He jumped to his feet and plucked the book from its place. “Written by Leo Slaterbeck, who else?”

  “Take both her books home. You’ll find that she has a thought-provoking knack of describing a case factually while implying that all is not as it seems. Murder and Mysteries includes a chapter called ‘The Demise of Gilbert Payne’.”

  “What does this have to do with Jones’ death on a railway track?”

  “The name of the man who was killed,” Rachel said, “was not Jones, but Gilbert Payne.”

  *

  Reggie Vickers fainted as his two assailants let him go. They’d kicked him in the kidneys before dumping him in the alley like a sack of rubbish, with the rest of the rotting debris.

  When he came round, he wasn’t sure if he was still alive. The buzzing in his head made him feel giddy. Everything seemed unreal. His kidneys hurt, and his neck stung where the blade had touched it. Groggy and frightened, he touched his throat. He felt a sticky smear. Blood stained his finger.

  They’d cut him, and in his terror he’d not realised.

  Gentle probing established that the slit was not a gaping wound. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it against his throat. Unsteadily, he levered himself upright. His flat was five minutes away. Despite the pain in his kidneys, he could just about hobble there.

  All that mattered was that he was alive.

  *

  Jacob stared at Rachel. “Jones was an imposter?”

  “Everyone believes Payne was murdered, and his body thrown in the Thames. Leonora Dobell’s investigations led her to question the official version of events, but she didn’t know the whole truth. In fact, he’s hidden in Tangier ever since staging his disappearance. He only came back to Britain because his beloved mother had died. Hence the visit to Brookwood.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I was told by a friend of his called Vickers. He was fearful about Payne’s safety.”

  “Rightly so.”

  “Yes, but Payne’s death has frightened him into silence.”

  “So my instinct was right,” Jacob said. “He was murdered. And you’d like me to poke around, see what I can find?”

  Rachel shrugged. “Trueman has made some enquiries on my behalf. What you do is entirely your decision.”

  Jacob’s mind was racing. “Who wanted Payne dead?”

  “Good question. Payne’s personal life was… tangled. Before he vanished, he was an habitué of the
Soho demi-monde. There’s a club known as the Clandestine, or simply as the Clan. Very different from the Garrick and the Reform, but he was a regular.”

  “You think he made enemies?”

  “I think you should take good care of yourself. So should Leonora Dobell.”

  “Is she in jeopardy too?”

  “Vickers thinks so,” Rachel said. “And remember this. Investigate Gilbert Payne and Leonora Dobell, and your life will be in danger too.”

  9

  Jacob slept fitfully. He wasn’t accustomed to drinking whisky, and shouldn’t have allowed Rachel to keep refilling his glass. He was easily persuaded, that was the trouble, and she traded on it. She was using him, but he was sufficiently under her spell not to find that an intolerable insult. What gnawed at him was his bafflement about what precisely was in her mind.

  Spending time with her always left him with muddled emotions. He’d never admit it to another soul, but he was physically attracted to her; it wasn’t merely her looks, but the strength of her character. Yet her remoteness made her untouchable. He suspected that she found him amusing, and also that if the need arose, she’d sacrifice him without a second thought.

  He was restless under the blanket, thoughts roaming far and wide. This business about Gilbert Payne and Leonora Dobell. How seriously should he take her warning? Rachel loved a touch of melodrama; she might be exaggerating the threat to keep him on his mettle. Then again…

  At six o’clock he dragged himself out of bed. Parting the bedroom curtains, he peered down at the street. A handful of people were already about. In spring, he’d moved into rooms in Exmouth Market, above a cheesemonger’s. He loved this part of London; the shops, stalls, and pubs within a stone’s throw supplied him with everything he needed, as well as delicacies such as stewed eels that he wouldn’t touch for a gold clock. The street teemed with life from dawn till dusk and the air was thick with the smell of cabbages and coffee. He loved the market traders’ cheerful rowdiness, and it only took him twenty minutes to walk to Clarion House. Less if he cycled.

  He made himself a pot of tea and two rounds of buttered toast. He worked on Saturday mornings, but wasn’t due at the office until half eight. As well as Murder and Mysteries, Rachel wanted him to read Respectable Murders. There were one or two stories he might find especially interesting, she said; the Wirral Bungalow murder, for instance.