The Penny Green series Box Set

by Emily Organ

  There was a long pause before James spoke.

  “Are you certain that Lizzie had nothing to do with anyone else while she was in hiding?” he asked.

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “There were two politicians at her funeral whom she had known well in the past. Could she have seen them at all?”

  Sebastian shook his head.

  “Could they have somehow found out she was still alive?”

  “Perhaps there is a chance they might have, I can’t rule it out. But I can’t understand how they would have done so. And even if they did, why would anyone kill her? And for my daughter to be attacked too... Frankly, it’s an outrage that no one has been arrested for the attack on Annie!”

  Strange sobs emanated from Sebastian’s throat, and I was reminded of the evening that he had cried in his conservatory. He made me feel uncomfortable.

  But while it is entirely possible that I was easily fooled, I believed every word he had just told us.

  Chapter 44

  We walked past the Gaiety Theatre and down to The Strand, from which point James could take an omnibus to Westminster and I could walk to the Morning Express offices. The fog had a brown tinge to it and flakes of soot floated through the air, landing on the lenses of my spectacles.

  “What do you make of Sebastian’s story?” I asked.

  “I think Mr Colehill spoke with a reasonable portion of honesty. There could be many events which he left out of his account, of course.”

  “He couldn’t have killed Lizzie, could he? His wife has provided an alibi and he has been honest with us about his relationship with Lizzie. And he would never harm Annie. I can’t say I am fond of the man, but I regret having suspected him.”

  “Without doubt, he has been up to some fishy business, but that doesn’t mean he is the murderer. We have no evidence against him, so my focus must now shift to Westminster and to Sir Edmund and Hugh Dowdeswell. That will no doubt be a hard nut to crack.”

  “I think someone at Westminster hired the young man in the tweed cap.”

  “I will ask for the politicians’ help in finding him.”

  “Do you think they will help? Cullen may have offered to shield them from the rest of the investigation.”

  “There is only one way to find out, and that is to talk to them.”

  We paused by the tavern at the corner of the street.

  “Good luck, James.”

  “Thank you. I will need quite a bit of luck.”

  “Please let me know what happens and if I can help in any way. I know that time is against you now.”

  “Yes, it is. I will do my best to get to the bottom of this. Cullen wants the report on Taylor by tomorrow evening.”

  I sat at the typewriter in the Morning Express offices and typed a paragraph about a man named Augustus Smith, who had claimed responsibility for the underground railway explosions but had later been certified by a doctor as suffering from delirium tremens and admitted to the Woolwich Union Infirmary.

  I was making good progress with my typewriting and could manage to type a reasonable number of words each minute. Once I had finished, I wound the paper off the roller and read my paragraph. There were only a few mistakes and I felt quite pleased with it.

  “That looks marvellous,” came a voice from over my shoulder.

  “Hello Edgar,” I replied, without turning to look at him.

  “It looks as though it is already published when it’s typewritten like that.”

  “If you ignore the mistakes.”

  “Are there mistakes?” He leant over my shoulder to squint at the paper and I held my breath to avoid the stale mixture of beer and tobacco.

  “Oh yes, I see them now. Quite a few mistakes, in fact.”

  I rolled the paper up so he could look no longer at it.

  “What can I do for you, Edgar?”

  “You can typewrite my articles, if you like.”

  “No thank you.”

  “I was only joking! There is no need to give me a stare like Medusa. Has the schoolboy inspector written his report for the magistrates yet?”

  “He is working on it at this very moment.”

  I thought about James and wondered whether Sir Edmund and Hugh Dowdeswell would speak to him. I struggled to see how he would be able to link Lizzie’s murder to anyone at Westminster in the short time he had left.

  “Cullen’s already made an arrest in the Wandsworth murder case. There is no stopping him, is there?”

  “It seems not.”

  “Miss Green!” Mr Sherman marched into the news room, leaving the door to slam shut behind him. “There is room for a column on the West London Women’s Society in Saturday’s edition.”

  “An entire column? That’s wonderful news. Thank you, Mr Sherman!”

  “It seems that the wife of our fine proprietor, Mr Conway, recently attended the annual meeting of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage and happens to have a good friend in the American Women’s Suffrage Association. She appears to have convinced Mr Conway that women’s rights are an increasingly important topic of news.”

  “Mrs Conway sounds like a well-informed lady.”

  “The deadline is tomorrow.”

  Eliza arrived at my lodgings shortly after breakfast the following morning. I had sent her a telegram informing her of the good news about the article and she was to help me write it. Before long the floor of my room was strewn with pages of notes from the West London Women’s Society’s meetings and discussions.

  “How many words did you say a column should be?” asked Eliza.

  “A thousand.”

  “That is a lot of words! So we could cover suffrage, rational dress and employment.”

  “That sounds sensible.”

  “Good, I’m so glad you agree. This is such wonderful news, Penelope!” Eliza clapped her hands together with glee. “This could be the start of something wonderful, don’t you think?”

  “I do. We don’t have a lot of time, though. Shall we begin with suffrage?”

  “Of course. I shall gather up the notes.”

  Eliza stepped over to a pile of papers near the door, picked it up and brought it over to me.

  “Suffrage is something we have discussed at a number of our meetings, and we have all taken turns to write notes. I have collated them together here.” She leafed through the papers. “The difficulty is deciding where to start.”

  I sighed, realising that the article would not be written quickly. I could feel the deadline looming and was desperate to find out how James was getting on with his Westminster investigations.

  Would he stumble across some new evidence, or would he be forced to make Taylor stand trial?

  “I found out who Mrs Lennox’s husband is.”

  “What was that?” I asked, distracted by a piece of paper which had caught my eye.

  “Mrs Lennox who was at the society meeting. Do you remember? You asked me to find out who her husband was. He’s a physician. What are you looking at?”

  “Who wrote this, Ellie?” I asked, pointing to a sheet of sloping handwriting in black ink. There was something familiar about it.

  “I don’t know,” replied Eliza. “One of us in the society.”

  She leafed through the pages, covering up the one I had been interested in. I grabbed it before it became lost in the pile of paper.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to find out who wrote this; I recognise the handwriting.”

  I couldn’t think where I had seen it before.

  “Give it here,” said Eliza, taking the piece of paper and examining it. “This was the meeting we held on the fifth of October. Let me see... I think it was Mary Colehill.”

  I felt sure that my heart had stopped beating for a moment.

  “Mary Colehill? You are certain of that?”

  Now I remembered where I had seen the handwriting. It matched the writing on the envelope of the first anonymous letter I had received.
<
br />   If Mary had written that letter, she had also written the second letter and sent the locket to Taylor.

  “I need that piece of paper,” I said.

  “What is the matter, Penelope? You have strange blotches on your cheeks.”

  “I need to check it against something.”

  Perhaps I was mistaken, but I would find out for sure once I had checked the handwriting against the letters James had in his possession.

  Eliza slowly handed me back the piece of paper, staring at me with a concerned look on her face. I took it from her and got up to fetch my handbag and coat. “Don’t worry, I will bring this back to you. I just need to take it to Scotland Yard.”

  “Scotland Yard, Penelope? Now? What on earth?”

  “I will return as quickly as possible. While I am gone, perhaps you can make a start on the article and show me what you have written when I get back. I’m so sorry, Ellie, but something quite unexpected has turned up.”

  “So I gather,” replied my sister as I dashed from the room.

  Chapter 45

  The train journey from Moorgate to Westminster Bridge station seemed to take an eternity. I sat in second-class, reading and rereading the page of notes Mary Colehill had written.

  Could I be sure that it was the same handwriting as the address on the envelope of the first letter I had received? Or was I simply clutching at straws?

  James had to finish his report on Taylor by the end of the day. If I had new evidence, we needed to work as quickly as possible.

  Sebastian hadn’t been truthful with us the previous day. He must have made his wife write the letters so that no one could link them to him. He had told her to threaten me. Mary was far too mild-mannered to write the letters of her own accord.

  A few sentences from her notes on suffrage remained in my head:

  Women should no longer be considered nonentities. It is time to strike off the shackles and allow their voices to be heard. It is time to fight against the injustice which has been endured for so long.

  As I turned these words over in my mind, it occurred to me that they might not apply only to women’s suffrage.

  Had there been something else in her mind when she wrote them? Could she have been referring to the injustice she felt as a result of Sebastian’s love affair with Lizzie?

  Had Mary found out about them sooner than we realised?

  I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes and tried to calm my thoughts. I needed to determine whether my mind was working properly and not running away with itself like a horse broken free from its carriage.

  Had Mary killed Lizzie?

  I pictured Mary in her pretty day dress with her sweet smile and decided it was impossible.

  But it wasn’t impossible that she had found out about Sebastian and Lizzie. Their love affair had continued for many years and there must have been cause for Mary to grow suspicious.

  Mary might have found out about the affair and wanted to exact her revenge.

  Everything seemed to fit into place all of a sudden. If Mary had discovered Sebastian and Lizzie’s affair, she would have felt angry and betrayed. She might also have felt a strong sense of resentment towards their daughter, Annie.

  All of a sudden, I had established a possible motive for the attacks on Lizzie and Annie.

  But was I right?

  The train remained halted for some time at Charing Cross Station, the engine belching out so much smoke and steam that the platform was barely visible after a short while. I felt my stomach cramp with impatience and I pondered whether it would be quicker to get out of the train and run to Westminster. I knew I had little chance of picking up a decent speed in my skirts and boots, so I was relieved when I heard the guard blow his whistle for the train to depart.

  As soon as I alighted at Westminster Bridge Station, I ran as quickly as I could up Whitehall towards Scotland Yard. It was raining, but I couldn’t run with my umbrella open, so I screwed up my face against the raindrops and accepted that I would have to get wet.

  A few scruffy boys ran alongside me, laughing.

  “What’s the ‘urry, lady?” they called out.

  “I have just solved a murder!” I shouted back at them.

  They wrinkled their foreheads in puzzlement.

  I was so out of breath that I could barely speak by the time I reached the Yard, and I was horrified to discover that James was not there. After making some enquiries and eventually speaking to the inspector’s long-nosed colleague, I was told that he was at the Palace of Westminster.

  I cursed under my breath as I had run past the palace on my way to the Yard. I left by the way I had come and ran back down Whitehall towards the Houses of Parliament and the unmistakeable clock tower that housed Big Ben. The clock told me that it was almost ten o’clock, and I wondered what progress James was making with Sir Edmund.

  Presumably none, if Mary was indeed our suspect.

  The ornate, sand-coloured Houses of Parliament with their many mullioned windows were grimy with soot. I passed the ancient Westminster Hall to St Stephen’s Entrance, where a footman asked me what my business was. It took me a while to convince him that I urgently needed to speak with Inspector Blakely, and eventually it was decided that the inspector be brought out to me rather than allow a hysterical, rain-soaked woman into the hallowed palace. Even showing the footman my card did nothing to help my cause.

  I put my umbrella up and waited by a statue of a unicorn clutching a shield.

  Eventually, James appeared in the doorway.

  “Penny! You have heard?” He stepped out and joined me under my umbrella.

  “About what?”

  “Cullen allowed Taylor to walk free yesterday evening.”

  “Taylor is no longer a suspect?”

  “Apparently not. Cullen has decided that he was framed, which I have to say was also my conclusion. It means we have to focus our efforts on the Westminster connection. I can’t say it has gone well this morning, however.”

  “It’s all beginning to make sense now. I don’t think anyone in Westminster had anything to do with Lizzie’s murder.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Look at this.”

  I gave him the handle of my umbrella to hold while I scrabbled around in my handbag. I found the crumpled page of Mary’s notes and thrust it at him.

  “Mary wrote this. Mary Colehill!”

  I took the umbrella from James and his eyebrows knitted tightly together as he examined the page.

  “Don’t worry about what it says,” I said. “Look at the handwriting. It’s the same as the writing on the envelope.”

  “Which envelope?”

  I felt a snap of impatience in my chest, but I did my best to remain calm as I explained to James about the neatly written address on the envelope of the first anonymous letter that had been sent to me.

  As I spoke, James’ brow smoothed out and his blue eyes widened. He glanced back at the page of writing and a smile began to spread across his face.

  “Penny, I think you are right! Keep this safe in your bag. I don’t want it to get wet and have the ink spoiled.” He handed the piece of paper back to me. “The other letters are in the case file on my desk. Let me fetch my coat from Sir Edmund’s office so we can compare the handwriting at once.”

  The damp had seeped through to my skin from my rain-soaked jacket by the time we arrived at James' office. I noticed that he sat just a few desks away from Cullen, but thankfully the more senior inspector was nowhere to be seen.

  I gave James the page of Mary’s handwriting and he placed it on the desk, smoothing it out with his hand. A few spots of rain had already smudged the ink.

  Then he opened the case file and leafed through it until he found a large envelope. Inside it were three smaller envelopes: one that had contained the locket and the other two the anonymous letters which had been sent to me.

  “The ink is the same colour,” said James. “There are no guarantees that they were all w
ritten by the same person, but it certainly helps us.”

  He placed the neatly written envelope next to the page of notes and we looked from one to the other repeatedly. The envelope was written slightly more neatly. Mary’s handwriting was looser on the page of notes, which was to be expected when writing so many words at speed.

  “You are not mistaken, Penny. I can say without much doubt that the person who wrote this page of notes is the very same person who wrote the address on this envelope.”

  “Mary sent these letters; I can scarcely believe it. To think how friendly she was towards me when she was actually sending me threatening letters. Why would she do such a thing?”

  “Only one person can tell us, and that is Mary herself.”

  “Do you think she is the murderer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She could have hired the young man to kill Lizzie. She would never have done it herself.”

  “Perhaps not. It is most urgent that I discuss this with her. Are you certain that she is the author of these notes?”

  “That is what Eliza told me.”

  “I need to get hold of proven examples of Mary’s handwriting before I can use this as evidence. Your sister’s word is crucial, but we still don’t have any actual proof that Mary wrote these. Once I can get a sample of her handwriting, which she testifies is hers, I will have that and the three letters analysed by a graphologist. Before I do that, however, we can ask her whether she is the author of the notes and the letters and see what she says.”

  “Shall we go and see Mary now?”

  “Absolutely. A cab would get us there in ten minutes or so.”

  James took off his overcoat and jacket, leaving him standing there in his shirt and waistcoat.

  “What are you doing?”

  I watched him open a drawer in his desk and take out a leather shoulder holster.

  “You need a gun?”

  “With a bit of luck, I won’t.” He put the holster on and took a revolver out of its case on his desk. “But it is best to be prepared.”