The Lawrence Harpham Boxset

by Jacqueline Beard

  The landing was easily visible from the bedroom, but a sturdy sideboard obscured her view. Podmore's armchair was out of sight and could be seen, at a stretch, if she stood by the door frame at the risk of revealing herself. The Rectory benefited from an upstairs bathroom located opposite her bedroom giving her a legitimate reason to leave her room and look down the corridor without attracting undue attention.

  Violet opened one of her gothic horror novels and tried to read by candlelight. She was too preoccupied to follow the story, and the subject matter did nothing to quell her nerves. The windows were old and ill-fitting. Candles flickered and danced, and the curtains twitched as an icy draught crept into the room. Nerves fraying, Violet lay on the bed trying to imagine what she would do if an apparition appeared. The thought of a spirit emerging through the wall sent shivers of fear through her body. Her fingers trembled as she tried to turn another page. She made herself read aloud while she waited for the household to quieten.

  Eventually, a murmur of voices proceeded the sound of the three men walking upstairs. Violet heard the Reverend whisper goodnight and a door clicked shut as footsteps passed by. The hinges of another door creaked further down the landing. The brief interlude of noise was distracting. It settled her mind, and her nervousness vanished. Before long, the squeaks and groans of the old house settled. Violet waited a further half hour then tiptoed across the corridor towards the open bathroom door. She ran the tap to make it seem as if she had a purpose for being there, then crept back taking a long look at the armchair where Frank Podmore was sitting. He had removed a thermometer from his briefcase and set it by the wall. Then, he checked the temperature and noted it in a hard-backed book, in which he continued to write by candlelight. Pieces of equipment, which Violet couldn’t identify, surrounded the chair. She returned to her room, none the wiser, and sat in silence for a period of time too long and dull to measure. In spite of her best intentions, her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep.

  Violet woke with a start to the sound of rapid knocking. Hard, sharp knocks echoed through her bedroom. She gasped and sat up. The rapping stopped followed by a short silence. Then it began again intermittently with no real pattern. Her bedside candle, reduced to a stump, flickered. Most of the other candles had gone out leaving her room partly lit and full of menacing shadows. She reached for the dying night light and was about to leave the room when a door slammed shut like a crack of thunder. She almost dropped the candle in fright and with trembling hands, she opened the bedroom door and tiptoed into the corridor. Frank Podmore was staring down the landing. His book had fallen face down, and the measuring equipment lay scattered at his feet.

  “What was that?” asked Violet,

  “I don't know,” said Frank. "I cannot explain it."

  “Did you hear the knocking?”

  “Yes, and the door slam. But there were only two doors open - yours and Myers. It wasn’t your door, was it?”

  “No. Mine was ajar. It has been all night.”

  “Better check Myers room,” said Frank. “It must have been his door.”

  Violet followed him down the corridor. When they reached the blue room, they stared at each other. The door was also ajar.

  “Odd,” said Frank, knocking on the door. He entered the room.

  Arthur Myers was sitting on his bed staring straight ahead at an empty wall.

  “Myers,” whispered Frank.

  There was no response. Arthur Myers grey eyes were wide open, and his face was pale.

  “I say, Myers old chap.” Podmore shook his shoulder, and Myers gasped.

  “Sorry. I was still half asleep,” Myers said. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Some unusual noises, knockings and the like. And a door slammed, yet I walked the corridor several times tonight, and the only open doors are still open now.”

  “It sounds like there is something here worthy of our time,” said Myers. “I am only sorry I fell asleep and missed it. My turn now. I’ll take watch while you rest.”

  “No,” said Podmore. “I’ll stay with you for a while in case anything else happens.” He turned to Violet. “You should go back to your room,” he said. “I doubt there will be any further disturbances, but you will feel safer if you are behind closed doors.”

  “Where are the others?” asked Violet.

  “They will be in bed,” said Podmore. “This isn't new to them, don’t forget. It’s like every other night.”

  Violet returned to her room. She did not dress but slipped under the cover and dozed fitfully until dawn.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Leman Street Station

  Saturday 14th February 1891

  Lawrence woke early and pulled back the curtains in the room he had hastily secured the previous evening. His unplanned journey to London left no time to consider accommodation. He had left it too late to find something comfortable and had settled for lodgings in a seedy lane not far from Victoria Station. Outside the lodging house, a brewer’s yard abutted an alleyway and several heavy carts had already crossed the pitted road since the early hours of the morning. Though woken by the noise of working horses, Lawrence had drifted quickly back into a dreamless sleep. It was gone eight o’clock when he drew back the threadbare curtains to see a sheen of drizzle across the paving stones.

  Henry Moore had invited him to return to his office in Scotland Yard, and Lawrence was anxious to get underway. It was also time to think about returning to Bury Saint Edmunds, in which case he would need to catch an early train. Lawrence wondered whether Henry would have arrived at work yet. He decided to chance it and borrowed an umbrella from the empty lobby of the boarding house before making his way to the Embankment.

  Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the reception desk at Scotland Yard to find a letter waiting from Henry Moore who had left the station almost as soon as he appeared earlier that morning. The note apologised for his unexpected absence. Henry was en route to Leman Street Police Station where Lawrence was welcome to join him. A young non-uniformed policewoman gave Lawrence directions. She pointed out Leman Street on the large map dominating the wall opposite the desk. Leman Street was in the East End, and Lawrence would need to use the Metropolitan train service to ensure a swift journey.

  He left immediately for the nearest station, disembarking at Aldgate. The route to Leman Street took Lawrence through narrow streets and alleys. It was his first foray into the East End and showed another side of London where people lived in unfamiliar poverty. Terraces of crumbling properties with broken windows and peeling doors were a world apart from the smart homes of Westminster. Poverty stricken groups of people huddled outside. Poorly dressed women and ragged children squeezed together on doorsteps, soaked to the bone from a persistent drizzle that seeped through their clothing and matted unwashed hair. If being out in the cold and rain was preferable to being inside, Lawrence dreaded to think what it was like indoors.

  He arrived at Leman Street station, saddened at the conditions he had seen. There was no time for further reflection as he walked straight into the path of Henry Moore who was in a heated discussion with two other men.

  “Ah, Lawrence,” he said. “This is Inspector Reid and Doctor Phillips. Edmund, George, this is the fellow I mentioned earlier. We had better discuss our business somewhere less public.”

  “Come this way,” said Edmund Reid, guiding them through a set of double doors.

  They followed him into a sparse room with a table and a sink.

  “A poor sort of office,” quipped Henry.

  “It isn’t an office,” Reid replied. “And don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”

  Henry shook his head. “No matter. Now listen, Lawrence. I don’t need to tell you that anything discussed in this room, must go no further.

  “No, you don’t need to tell me, Henry,” said Lawrence. “I can assure you of my discretion.”

  “I know,” Henry sighed. “This is sensitive, as you know. Did you see D’Onston yesterday?”

 
Lawrence nodded. Edmund Reid raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s get this out of the way, and you can tell me all about it.”

  “What’s happened?” asked Lawrence.

  “We have just arrested Jack the Ripper.”

  “We have done nothing of the kind,” snapped Edmund Reid. “James Sadler is not Jack the Ripper.”

  “And Frances Coles is not a Ripper victim,” insisted George Phillips.

  “I say she is,” said Edmund Reid impatiently.

  “Hold on,” said Henry Moore. “Lawrence only arrived in London yesterday. Can you explain the situation to him?"

  Reid sighed. “Yes. It might be useful having the view of an impartial outsider if you don’t mind me calling you that.”

  “Not at all,” said Lawrence.

  “Frances Coles is, or rather was, a prostitute. We found her in Swallow Gardens in the early hours of Friday morning, with her throat slashed.”

  “Was she robbed?” asked Lawrence.

  “Unlikely,” said Reid. “She had hidden two shillings behind a gutter pipe, which we later located. Possibly earnings from her last client.”

  “Were there any other wounds?”

  “No,” said Doctor Phillips. “Which is why she is not a Ripper victim. All the others suffered abdominal mutilations.”

  “Except Elizabeth Stride,” said Edmund Reid.

  “He was interrupted,” argued Phillips. "He didn't get a chance to inflict any post-mortem wounds on her."

  “What's to say the same thing didn't happen again?” asked Reid. “PC Thompson insists he heard footsteps as he walked towards Swallow Gardens on his beat. He probably missed the Ripper by moments.”

  “Except that it was not the Ripper.” George Phillips raised his voice.

  “Come, now,” said Henry Moore. “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because he cut her throat from left to right, right to left then back again. There were three clear cuts. It does not compare to the other Ripper crimes.”

  “But it does,” insisted Reid. “All the cuts made by the Ripper started on the left and finished on the right."

  "And he had tilted her body to the left, presumably to avoid blood stains," said Henry.

  “Precisely. More evidence of someone experienced. Someone accustomed to the problem of excess blood loss.”

  “I cannot agree,” said Phillips. “The killer of Frances Coles had no anatomical skills and his knife was blunt. He was not the Ripper.”

  “How does James Sadler fit in?” asked Lawrence.

  “He knew the dead girl,” said Henry. “And they drank together on the evening of her murder.”

  “What of it?” asked Edmund Reid. “That is not a motive. We have arrested the man, without just cause. And from all reports, he was blind drunk and incapable.”

  “I understand he had injuries too,” said Henry Moore. “Is that not suspicious?”

  “It requires explanation,” said Edmund Reid, “but it is purely circumstantial.”

  “Can you be sure he did not commit the crime?” asked Moore.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then he must remain under arrest. And we must consider him a suspect for the Ripper until proved otherwise. We cannot allow this to escalate into the hysteria of 1888.”

  “It is a grave mistake,” said Edmund Reid. “But I will proceed as you wish.” He nodded to Henry, shook Lawrence’s hand and left the room, shaking his head.

  “He is wrong,” said George Bagshaw Phillips, looking over his shoulder. "He will not heed the medical evidence." He did not wait for Henry to reply but pursed his lips and walked away.

  “Sorry that became heated,” said Moore. “They have worked well together in the past but are on opposing sides in this matter. Anyway, how did you get on with Roslyn D’Onston?”

  “Perfectly well, for the most,” said Lawrence.

  “Odd sort of fellow, didn’t you find?”

  “Indeed. He made me uneasy. I cannot explain why, but there was something sinister in his countenance.”

  “It’s interesting that you thought so. D'Onston is an occult scientist - a black magician. Did you know?”

  “Good Lord,” said Lawrence. “Everybody I meet seems to have some connection to spiritualism. Violet is wasting her time ghost hunting, and both Gurney and his friend Smith were members of some psychic society or other. Is anybody rational anymore?”

  “I am,” said Henry. “I don’t care a fig for such matters. Who is Violet?”

  “She is my business partner,” said Lawrence.

  Henry raised an eyebrow. “You do surprise me.”

  “Yes, well if I don’t conclude matters in London soon, she may not be.”

  “You promised me a full account of your dealings with D’Onston,” Henry reminded him.

  “It was rather a waste of time,” said Lawrence shaking his head. “He denied seeing Gurney, and I have no reason to doubt him.”

  “Pity,” said Henry. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Not about the Brighton matter,” said Lawrence. “He was very knowledgeable about the Ripper murders, though.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He advanced a theory about the lack of blood on the killer's clothes. He thinks the Ripper stood behind his victims to slash their throats, thereby keeping the blood clear from his clothes similar, to the way Phillips and Reid described it.”

  Henry nodded. “He made that suggestion before,” he said. “He was under arrest at one time. Did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, D’Onston teamed up with a private investigator. Not a proper one, just some fellow who had convinced himself that an amateur could do what the police could not. Anyway, D’Onston was residing at a hospital at the time. For reasons best known to himself, he proposed a theory that one of the Doctors might be the Ripper. And it was this doctor, a certain Morgan Davies, who suggested that the attacks on the victims took place from the rear. D’Onston used this theory as an excuse to contact Scotland Yard where he reported his suspicions. In the meantime, his amateur detective friend found D’Onston’s behaviour equally suspicious and reported D’Onston too. Roslyn D'Onston kept pushing himself forward, eager for involvement in the case. His behaviour convinced us that he was a worthy Ripper suspect until an alibi for one of the murders proved otherwise.”

  “Now that I’ve met him, I can see why you might have thought so,” said Lawrence, “but he is of no further use to me. My Brighton investigation has come to nothing. I'm going back to Bury. I'll call in at Ipswich and report back to Fernleigh on the way.”

  “Fernleigh, you say? It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of his company. Do give him my regards.”

  “I will, and I trust you will have a quieter time now that your suspect is under arrest.”

  “No doubt,” said Henry. “It is good to see Reid so passionate in his views, but I think we have the right man. The Ripper is long gone, and despite what Edmund thinks, we have good evidence against Sadler. The matter is almost over.”

  The two men shook hands. Lawrence retrieved his case from the boarding house and caught the next train to Suffolk.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Chelmondiston - The Aftermath

  Saturday 14th Feb 1891

  Violet awoke to the sound of birdsong. The time was almost seven o’clock, and it took her a few moments to recall the events of the previous evening. She rubbed her eyes and pushed her bedclothes away revealing a crumpled day dress. She sighed. Going to bed fully clothed had seemed like a good idea at the time, but her other dress had not travelled well. She had removed it from the trunk the day she arrived to find it badly creased. Violet could not present herself looking as she did. Regardless of the creases, she would need to change.

  Light streamed into the room as Violet opened the curtains. She walked towards the window and peeped outside. Trees swayed in a light breeze, and a layer of mist had obscured the rear of the large, flat lawn. The ou
tside beckoned, and she opened the dark wooden wardrobe to retrieve her day clothes, recoiling at the smell of mothballs. The odour clung to her navy day dress as she held it to the window admiring the high lace collar. Some of the creases had dropped out while it had been hanging. The dress was not perfect, but it would do.

  Violet finished her ablutions, left the room and traversed the empty landing. The armchair was vacant and all the notebooks and equipment from the previous evening had gone. The house was quiet and peaceful. Violet struggled to remember why she had been frightened last night.

  She went downstairs and opened the drawing-room door, but it was dark. The maid had not yet drawn the curtains. There were no signs of life in the dining room or the breakfast room, so she wandered into the kitchen where Anne Durrell was standing with her hands deep in a sink full of water and singing to herself.

  “Good morning, Anne,” said Violet.

  Anne smiled. “Good morning, Miss Smith. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “I would love one." Violet sat at the kitchen table and watched Anne pour two cups of tea from a tarnished metal teapot pitted with dents. The kitchen was warm and homely, and a well-established fire burned brightly in the grate. Anne placed the teacups on the table, then tossed another log onto the fire. She prodded it with a well-worn poker, and it settled with a satisfying crackle.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Violet.

  “Still abed, Miss. Sunday is an early start in this house and Saturday is what you might call their day of rest. Breakfast is set for eight-thirty today.”