Текст книги "The Children of Silence"

Автор книги: Linda Stratmann

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My dear Miss Doughty!’ announced Chas, arriving next morning with Barstie to make his report, displaying all the panache of a Micawber, only rather more pecunious, ‘We have the honour to present our conclusions!’

The two partners made the most of the simple comforts offered by Frances’ parlour, and Sarah went to get tea.

‘We have employed every resource at our disposal, alerted all our agents, sent our spies hither and thither and consulted our informants.’

Barstie said nothing, but he looked at Chas as if to say that the vast army of minions being conjured up was actually a great deal less numerous than implied.

Chas and Barstie had often hinted that there was a wealth of unpublished information circulating in the business world, known only to those gentlemen who took the trouble to be kept informed. There were clubs where, during murmured conversations misted in clouds of cigar smoke and lubricated with brandy, business could be done, agreements made and reputations destroyed. Documents were never signed in such places. The legal force of ink on paper could not be denied, but a verbal agreement between gentlemen was a matter of honour, a currency more valuable than gold, which once lost was far harder to regain.

There was also, Frances felt sure, at a much deeper level of secrecy, information that never passed outside the doors of private offices without payment or the exchange of favours of equal value. Whether the supply of information by these methods was a part of Chas and Barstie’s services Frances did not know and preferred not to find out, since the legality of such measures was questionable, and she had probably already profited by them.

‘The result of our endeavours,’ Chas went on, ‘is that we feel confident that both Antrobus and Luckhurst Fine Tobaccos and Antrobus Tobacconists are as honest as any establishment in London. They do not owe more than is usual, they settle their debts in good time and their business accounts are well prepared. The disappearance of Mr Edwin Antrobus was undoubtedly a setback for the partnership, but it is recovering both its trade and its reputation, principally through the hard work of Mr Luckhurst.’

Sarah brought the refreshments and there was an appreciative pause in the proceedings during which attention was diverted from the business in hand by the appearance of bread, fresh butter and preserves.

‘Then there is the question of personalities,’ said Barstie eventually, regarding the scattering of crumbs on his tea plate with a world of sadness. ‘Mr Edwin Antrobus is generally stated to be a worthy fellow.’

‘For worthy, read dull,’ interposed Chas. ‘No one likes to speak ill of the dead. And even though he is still by the strict letter of the law, alive, everyone believes that he is actually dead and so they speak of him accordingly.’

‘He appears to be a man without vices,’ observed Frances, ‘if there is such a thing.’ It was an odd thought, but it occurred to her that she would not like to marry a man who was wholly without vices. In the few novels she had read, young women liked to be admired by men with vices because the situation carried a certain piquancy, but they usually married the worthy earnest fellow and settled to the life of contented domesticity which the author felt was appropriate.

‘If he had any vices he kept them a close secret,’ said Barstie. ‘As to Mr Lionel Antrobus, he has more quills than a porcupine, and you approach him at your peril. Yet if he says he will do a thing you can count upon him doing it, and if he were to oppose you he would do so in an honest fashion.’

‘Has he ever been known to act in an underhand or dishonest manner?’ asked Frances.

Chas shook his head, wonderingly. ‘Far from it, sticks to proper principles even if he was to suffer by it himself. Known for it. Respected, very highly respected, but not liked at all.’

Barstie looked hopefully at his empty teacup and brightened as Sarah freshened the pot with hot water. ‘Now the real Don Juan is Mr Luckhurst. There are females in the case – several, I believe, and all very demanding on his purse. Luckhurst is a bachelor who lives alone and very simply in rooms above the cigarette workshop, but there is a well-appointed little apartment in Notting Hill he likes to visit.’

‘Which he is entitled to do as he pays for it,’ said Chas.

Frances had received a letter from Mr Luckhurst that very day inviting her to take tea with him, and she was suddenly very relieved that she had not yet written to accept. Sarah gave a low chuckle and Frances was unable to meet her eyes. She took a deep draught of tea to calm herself. ‘Is he in debt?’ she asked Chas.

‘No, but he runs it a very close thing.’

‘So Mr Antrobus’ legacy would have been unusually welcome. Mr Luckhurst was left two thousand pounds in the will. He claims not to know about it, but his partner might have hinted as much. If Mr Antrobus had died under circumstances that did not arouse suspicion Mr Luckhurst would have gained substantially and the business would not have been harmed. His partner’s disappearance, however, went badly for the business, and he was obliged to take a smaller salary to meet the expenses.’

Chas drained his cup and smacked his lips. ‘Thus reducing the number in his personal harem from three to two.’

Frances was not sure if she required so much detail, since she hardly liked to imagine Mr Luckhurst, or any man for that matter, reclining on a couch of silken luxury, attended by extravagantly bejewelled sirens.

‘I cannot see Mr Luckhurst as a murderer,’ Frances observed to Sarah after the visitors had left, ‘whatever the provocation.’

‘You didn’t see him as a ladies man. You’ve been wrong before.’

‘True, but judging by Dr Collin’s account, I don’t think Mr Luckhurst is tall or strong enough to have murdered the man found in the canal, neither do I think him capable of breaking the other man’s neck.’

‘Do you still think Mr Antrobus is dead and not run off with another woman? He’s been to America; he might go there again. He could be farming tobacco as he knows so much about it.’

‘I would never deny a possibility. If he was murdered soon after he was last seen, anyone who stood to benefit by his death has been remarkably patient. We have two bodies of about the right age to be Mr Antrobus, both dead for about the right amount of time, and there is so much uncertainty and so many conflicting tales that I cannot rule out either being him. But both were found purely by chance.’

‘All the more reason to think he’s alive and doesn’t want to be found.’

‘Except that he hasn’t contacted his sons.’ There was a long period of silent reflection. Frances’ own mother had abandoned her for a man and had never contacted her once in all the years that her family had maintained the fiction that she was dead. Perhaps in her mother’s case the shame of betrayal was a worse blow than death. Edwin Antrobus too might have something to conceal that would be crueller to his sons than his absence.

Sarah made another pot of tea, but even this did not help clarify Frances’ thoughts.

Later that day Frances had only just bid farewell to another new client, a gentleman who suspected his business partner of undertaking competing trade behind his back, when there was an urgent rapping on the front door. It was not the heavy thump of fists that usually announced the arrival of Inspector Sharrock but the quick smart sound made by the head of a silver-topped walking cane. Frances peered out of the window and saw Cedric Garton. There was a carriage waiting, which at once alerted Frances’ attention. ‘I think we are wanted,’ she told Sarah. Cedric’s manner on the doorstep was sheer impatience, and when the maid answered his knock, he darted past her with great energy.

By the time he had reached their door Frances and Sarah were ready to go out. Since neither was a lady of fashion to whom preparation to face the admiring world was the work of at least an hour, it took only moments for their wraps and bonnets to be put in place.

‘Dear ladies!’ exclaimed Cedric, as he appeared at their door. ‘If you are planning to go anywhere at all I beg you to abandon the idea at once and come with me! I have a carriage ready.’

‘Of course!’ said Frances as they followed him downstairs through a delicate waft of gentleman’s cologne. ‘But tell me what is the matter?’

‘It’s young Ratty, I’m afraid; he’s just been arrested. I was fortunate just now to see him being taken away, and he called out to me to fetch you.’

They all leaped into the cab, and Cedric told the driver to ride like the wind to Paddington Green police station. ‘I hardly recognised the lad at first he has grown so, but I am very glad he saw me.’

‘Do you know why he has been arrested?’ asked Frances.

‘No, but he was very distressed and might even be injured, though not badly as far as I could see, at least he was wriggling and yelling enough.’

Frances shook her head. ‘He will not like being in the hands of the police, whatever the matter might be. Poor boy, I will do whatever I can for him. Where did you see him?’

‘Pembridge Villas, being dragged into a cab by two burly boys in blue and screaming fit to burst. Then off they went in the direction of the police station. There were other police about too, and a hand ambulance was being wheeled away with something on it, covered up.’

Frances suffered a growing sense of dread and guilt. ‘I hope I have not been responsible for this. Ratty has been doing some work for me, and it might have led him into danger and perhaps even caused someone’s death.’

‘Now you can’t know that,’ said Cedric reasonably. ‘What was the lad doing?’

Frances explained about the meetings in Pembridge Mews, and all the way to the station Cedric made reassuring noises about the terrible things that could go on in narrow alleyways that might have nothing at all to do with her enquiries.

At the station, Frances and Sarah ignored the protestations of the desk sergeant and hurried towards Inspector Sharrock’s room, where loud howls told them that Ratty was being questioned. The sergeant abandoned his post and placed his wide form in their way, spreading out his arms with an expression of fierce determination.

‘Stand back or there’ll be trouble!’ he bellowed, but Cedric merely leaned forward and said a few whispered words in his ear. The sergeant turned bright red, said nothing more and went back to his desk.

‘You can’t just barge in like that!’ cried the Inspector as Frances and Sarah walked into his office, closely followed by Cedric. ‘Oh no, of course, forgive me, you are Miss “goes wherever she pleases” aren’t you? Well you can’t come in here, I’ve got a murder suspect and he’s very dangerous!’

Ratty looked anything but dangerous. The assured would-be detective who had been trying to look older than his years was now a very scared boy, sitting hunched over in a chair, his arms wrapped tightly about him, pale as a ghost and sobbing loudly.

‘Nonsense!’ retorted Frances, confronting Sharrock. ‘Inspector, how could you? You have young children of your own, would you want them to be treated like this?’

‘My boys wouldn’t go around carving people up,’ protested Sharrock.

‘I din’t, I din’t!’ Ratty wailed, and Frances pulled up a chair and sat beside him.

‘It’s all right,’ she soothed, ‘I’m here now.’ She took a handkerchief and mopped tears and snivel from Ratty’s face.

‘And they wouldn’t go lurking about alleys up to no good!’ added Sharrock.

Frances gave him a hard look. ‘He is working for me. If he was “lurking” as you say, then he was doing it on my behalf. And I can’t believe that he has carved up anyone.’

‘Oh really? Well you ought to pick your people a bit better. He won’t even give me his proper name. Just says he’s called Ratty. What sort of a name is that?’

Frances made an effort to stay calm. ‘It is what he is always called. He doesn’t know his proper name.’ A fresh torrent of tears was assisting her in the cleaning of Ratty’s face which was beginning to blossom into bruises, and there was a cut on his head. His forearms were still pressed tight across his narrow chest, the hands clutching at his upper arms were clotted with drying blood, and his suit was also smeared with red.

‘I din’t ’urt no one!’ gulped Ratty. ‘The gent wuz dead when I saw ’im.’

Frances tried to unlock Ratty’s grasp, without success. ‘I hope the policemen didn’t hurt you.’

‘Hah!’ exclaimed Sharrock. ‘Where did he get that suit, just tell me that? Stole it I expect!’

‘I gave it to him,’ said Frances steadily. Sharrock scowled but was silent.

‘Inspector,’ Cedric addressed him, stepping forward, ‘I would stake my reputation on the boy being honest.’

Sharrock looked him up and down and narrowed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t recommend that, sir.’

Ratty wiped his nose on his shoulder, an action that improved the condition of neither. ‘Coppers din’t ’urt that much. It wuz the murderer in the alley; ’e comes rushin’ out an’ knocked me over, an’ I think I banged me ’ead, ’cos the nex’ thing I wuz on the ground ’n then I went to look at the gent, but ’e wuz dead. There wuz blood all over! So I went to get ’elp ’n then the copper comes. C’n I go ’ome, Miss?’

‘Yes, of course you can,’ Frances reassured him, carefully avoiding looking at the Inspector, although she could hear him growling, ‘but if there is anything you know that might help catch the criminal, you must say what it is first.’

A constable came in and Sharrock took him aside for a muttered conversation, then grunted and nodded.

Sarah had gone to get a basin of water and a cloth and managed to persuade Ratty to let her bathe his face and hands and examine his bruises. ‘He’s been knifed!’ she called out suddenly as she removed the coat to show that Ratty had been slashed across one arm. His clutching hand had stopped the worst of the bleeding, but it was still oozing badly. Sarah quickly pressed her large fist about the wound.

Sharrock ran out and roared for someone to fetch a surgeon. ‘Soon have him stitched back up again,’ he said as he came back into the room. He gave a loud sniff. ‘Looks like the lad might be telling the truth after all,’ he admitted. ‘No knife on him, and no knife in the alley, just a dead man stabbed in the stomach. Nasty business.’

‘Do you know who it is?’ asked Frances, hoping that the incident might be the result of an altercation between a pair of dangerous criminals.

‘We do, and if you hadn’t come rushing in just now I’d have paid you a visit. He had one of your invoices in his pocket. He’s the headmaster of the deaf school, Mr Eckley. Any idea who might want him dead?’

‘Oh dear!’ Frances thought of the dispute with Dr Goodwin, the pursuit of Isaac Goodwin, the dismissal of the deaf teachers and the children whose hands had been tied in class. ‘He was not a popular man, I am afraid, but I can’t imagine anyone going so far as to murder him.’

Once Ratty’s injuries had been dressed, a process he bore like a man, or perhaps a boy unusually accustomed to pain, and he had been supplied with hot tea, a plate of bread and sausage, and a promise from Cedric that he would be measured for a new suit of clothes at the first opportunity, the transformation from suspect to valued witness was complete.

Calmer now, Ratty regaled the Inspector with the story of his observation of both the school and Isaac Goodwin, with Frances providing explanations.

Pembridge Mews was a location well suited to all kinds of unusual activity. A narrow cut between two walled gardens opened out into an enclosure of stables and cottages, the dwellings of domestic coachmen, servants and their families, then a sharp turn to the right provided further accommodation and also a location completely hidden from the main thoroughfare. There was no suggestion that the occupants of the Mews were anything other than respectable, but as a secluded spot it saw a great deal of coming and going, especially after dark. There were gas lamps in the Mews, but since these were not as good as the ones in the street, there were any number of dull, dark shadows.

That evening Ratty had seen Mr Eckley going into the Mews and had followed him out of curiosity. Eckley had been alone when he walked down the alleyway, crossed the Mews and turned the corner. No one else had been about, but Eckley had the businesslike look of someone on his way to an appointment, consulting his watch and carrying what looked like a letter. Ratty had hovered nearby hoping to hear a conversation, but there had only been an exclamation and the sound of a falling body. He had been about to peer around the corner when a running figure had collided with him, knocking him over. The next thing he knew he was lying on the cobbles and his head was aching. He had the impression that the running figure was taller, heavier and wider than he, but that was all he could remember.

‘You didn’t get a look at his face?’

There was a long silence, and then Ratty turned frightened eyes up to the Inspector. ‘’E dint ’ave no face!’

‘Hmm,’ mused Sharrock, ‘perhaps he wore a mask for disguise. Common amongst burglars and the like. And you are quite sure that when you saw Mr Eckley coming out of the school he had a silver watch and chain?’

Ratty took a mouthful of bread and nodded emphatically.

Frances was about to ask if the watch was missing from the body, but Sharrock hurried on into another question.

‘So what else did you see when you were keeping lookout before? Thieves and gamblers and drunkards I expect?’

Ratty swallowed and licked his lips. ‘Yes, ’n gents wiv doxies, which was very interestin’, and gents wiv soldiers, which I din’t understand at all. An’ the gent what wuz killed, ’e was there too, yest’rday, meetin’ another gent. Only not for what the gents wiv soldiers did.’

Sharrock remained impassive. ‘Can you describe the other gent?’

‘Old, short, bald ’ead. Dressed like a good’un.’

Sharrock pulled a battered notebook from his pocket and scrawled on a page.

‘An’ ’e were called Dr Goodwin, ’cos that’s what Mr Eckerley called ’im. ’N ’e called ’im lots ’v other words too, what weren’t polite, ’n then they ’ad a big argumentation.’

‘Oh dear!’ said Frances again.

Sharrock gave a deep sigh. ‘What do you know about this, Miss Doughty?’

‘You must have seen it in the newspapers; Dr Goodwin is currently suing the school since they dismissed his son from his appointment. But there is more to it than that: Mr Eckley insulted Dr Goodwin by saying that deaf people should not marry and Dr Goodwin is the son of deaf parents. The men are also in hot disagreement about how deaf children should be taught. Dr Goodwin wanted the matter aired in court, and I am afraid Mr Eckley has been attempting to make it a personal affair by trying to discover something to damage Dr Goodwin’s reputation. He wanted to engage me and I refused, but it seems he found another detective, and Dr Goodwin recently learned that someone was asking about him in the hopes of uncovering a scandal. I recommended that they try to settle the matter amicably through their solicitors. They should not have been meeting in private at all.’

‘Did you hear what they said?’ Sharrock asked Ratty.

‘The doc, ’e wanted t’ know what Eckerly wuz doin’ of, and tole ’im t’ stop or else, and Eckerly laughed and said the doc dare not take it to law or ’e w’d be found out.’

‘Was there any violence between the men?’

‘Nah.’

‘Or threats of violence?’

‘The doc, ’e shook ’is fist ’n said Ecklerly was not attackin’ ’im ’cos ’e ’ad nothing to be ashamed of, but there wuz a lady involved and that was a bad thing.’

Frances thought back to Mr Dromgoole’s letter and wondered if the woman he had accused of being Dr Goodwin’s paramour did actually exist; not that this was in itself any evidence of wrongdoing.

‘Well it all sounds a bit unsavoury to me.’ Sharrock shook his head. ‘I know what goes on round here, and these respectable types they think it’s all the lowlifes who gets up to things but they’re all as bad as each other. Just some of them hide it better and make more of a noise about how proper they are.’ He raked his hands through his brush of hair. ‘I prefer the lowlifes, you know where you are with them, but these doctors and professors and all their prancing about don’t impress me. If Goodwin has an alibi, all the better for him, but if not, he’s going to have to answer some hard questions.’

Cedric arranged for a cab to take them all home. Frances was pleased to see that Ratty, who was regarding Sarah like the mother he had probably never known, had recovered from his ordeal. ‘Why do gents always quarrel about ladies?’ he asked.

‘A gentleman, if he is a true gentleman, will always protect the honour of a lady,’ Cedric advised.

‘Even doxies?’ queried Ratty.

‘A doxy may be a good woman too, perhaps even better than some ladies I have known. But surely Dr Goodwin and Mr Eckley were not at loggerheads over a doxy?’

‘D’no,’ said Ratty. ‘She were called Mrs Pearce, that’s all I ’eard.’

‘Pearce?’ exclaimed Frances, startled. ‘You are sure it was Mrs and not Miss?’

‘Yeh. ’Cos the doc said she were a spectable widder.’

Was it possible, wondered Frances, that this Mrs Pearce was the late mother of Harriett Antrobus and Charlotte Pearce? Could she have been the married woman mentioned in Dromgoole’s letter, the deaf lady and patient of Dr Goodwin who was also supposedly his mistress and the mother of Isaac Goodwin? If Dromgoole had made this accusation to Edwin Antrobus’ face, then it was another reason for a bitter quarrel. ‘I cannot believe that Dr Goodwin is a murderer,’ she concluded.

‘If he is not then we must hope he has a good alibi,’ said Cedric. ‘And thanks to young Ratty here we know the exact time of the murder to the minute.’

There was one small matter Frances wished to resolve. ‘What did you say to the desk sergeant that shocked him so?’

Cedric smiled. ‘Only that I knew his little secret.’

‘And do you?’

‘No, but all men have them, why would he be any different?’

Frances realised that in the absence of further information there was nothing she could, or indeed should, do. If Dr Goodwin was cleared then all was well. The next day, however, she returned to Paddington Green, hoping to learn more, and was told by Constable Mayberry that Dr Goodwin did not have an alibi for the time of the murder and was in custody, being questioned.

After less than a year in the force Mayberry, a slender youth of about eighteen, with no pretensions to brains or imagination, was becoming a competent young officer under the steely eye of Inspector Sharrock. The main qualities Sharrock looked for in a constable were sobriety, obedience and energy, all of which Mayberry was able to demonstrate, and as a result, whenever Sharrock wanted a constable to accompany him to the scene of a crime, Mayberry was his first choice. The constable had witnessed both the lady detectives’ methods of exposing the misdeeds of criminals and consequently was always respectful to Frances and terrified of Sarah. ‘It was all very strange here last night,’ Mayberry revealed, ‘what with Dr Goodwin being brought in and then a minute afterwards his son arrived, and him being deaf as a post and not able to speak, and very upset, we had a fine time. But he was brought pen and paper, and next thing he had written out a confession to the murder. Said he did it because Mr Eckley was trying to ruin his father.’

Frances tried unsuccessfully to reconcile the anxious boy with a knife-wielding murderer. ‘Has he been charged?’

‘No, because when the Inspector asked him some questions it turned out he didn’t know the first thing about it. Then the maidservant came in and she said he was at home all the time, but the doctor was out. I think he just said it to save his father.’

‘I am glad to hear that. It was a terribly misguided thing to do. I hope the Inspector wasn’t too hard on Mr Goodwin.’

‘No, well, he saw it was family feeling and let him off. Gave him a stiff talking-to first, mind. Not that the son could hear it but I think the Inspector made himself very clear.’

‘Where is Mr Goodwin now?’

‘The Inspector sent him home with the maid.’

Frances, hopeful that this strand of the enquiry would be dropped without her intervention, decided to await developments and returned to her apartment. There she found Mr Gillan waiting for her, anticipating a sensational story for the Chronicle.

‘The whole of Bayswater is awash with rumour!’ chortled Gillan excitedly. ‘Some say Dr Goodwin has been murdering all his patients for the last twenty years, some say he has been seducing every female he sees. What do you say, Miss Doughty?’ He poised a pencil over a page in his notebook.

‘I say that people should watch their tongues,’ replied Frances.

‘The word on the street and in the shops and parlours is that Mr Isaac Goodwin is the natural son of the doctor by one of his own patients. Do you know anything about that?’

‘My understanding is that his son is adopted and not a blood relation. It is no business of mine to enquire further. Besides, all the allegations in the world cannot prove the point. You had best take care or your editor will find himself in court again.’

‘Ah, well, I have been told that the lady concerned is deceased and cannot be hurt by it now. But it seems that she was hard of hearing and attended a hospital where she saw Dr Goodwin.’

‘May a doctor not see a patient without being slandered?’

He smiled knowingly. ‘All I can say is that someone knows something, and it is getting about.’

Frances firmly refused to be drawn into saying anything about the matter, but her earlier suspicions that the Chronicle had not been the only recipient of Mr Dromgoole’s furious outpourings were confirmed. She decided that she ought to speak to Mrs Antrobus if only to warn her about the rumours. Harriett’s main sources of information were the newspapers, correspondence, her sister and Mr Wylie, but she might well have been protected from unpleasant stories about her mother being passed around over rattling teacups.