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‘Tell me, Lizzie Martin,’ he said suddenly and I looked up in surprise. He was smiling but the smile did not reach his dark eyes. ‘Tell me what you think of this matter.’
‘What I think?’ I faltered. ‘I only think her murderer should be brought to justice.’
‘You are like your father,’ he said. ‘You wish to protect the weak. Sometimes, in so doing, one risks upsetting the powerful.’
‘My father never let that stop him and I hope neither should I.’
‘Forgive me, but your father was a man and one of some importance in his community. Everyone needs a doctor sooner or later. Even if he has offended you, you still take care not to fall out with him too much. Your situation, if you will excuse me pointing it out, would seem to be very different. You cannot afford enemies.’
‘I am a woman and alone, but I know my duty,’ I said quietly. After a moment I added, ‘That sounds quite horribly priggish. Let’s just say, I cannot let poor Madeleine Hexham’s memory be washed away like a stain on a carpet. It isn’t right.’
‘Very well then!’ Ross said briskly. ‘Let us put our heads together and see what we can do. Tell me, what do you think happened to her? I cannot put myself into the head of a young woman, so I ask you. Why did she leave the house that morning in secrecy and why ask to be taken to a deserted church?’
I had been working out my theory of that since listening to
Wally Slater’s evidence. I leaned forward and began earnestly, ‘Mr Slater is both observant and shrewd. He has a comical way of expressing himself sometimes and tends to run on somewhat, but that does not mean what he says is not serious. He warned me when he took me to Dorset Square that I might need a friend. He had already guessed that some mischief was afoot and was connected with that house. What I think is this: Madeleine was seduced by some man of good standing who would not or could not marry her. He persuaded her to keep their affair secret. That could easily be done. He might have said, for example, that he had to persuade an elderly relative, of whom he had expectations, that a marriage to a penniless girl was acceptable. He might have told her Mrs Parry did not approve of him and would deny Madeleine any opportunity for them to meet. Whatever it was he told her, she believed it.’
Ross was nodding but said nothing, only watched my face closely as I spoke.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I am guessing when Madeleine told him of her condition he agreed they should be married but in secrecy. Bessie told me that on the morning she left the house Madeleine was happy. It was the first time she had been so in weeks. Mr Slater also saw that she was optimistic and had no fears about being left alone at St Luke’s church. She told him it was because everything was “arranged”. I believe that her seducer had persuaded her he had obtained a special licence for their marriage. I think he suggested that, in order to avoid it becoming known, their marriage should take place somewhere very private. St Luke’s was already as good as abandoned. But he told her he had persuaded or bribed a parson to come there and marry the two of them. Who would see the ceremony? Even the navvies working on the site were not in that vicinity.’
‘The marriage would require two witnesses,’ Ross interpolated.
‘Then he told her he had two good friends who were utterly reliable and whose discretion was absolute. She was in love with
him. She believed everything he told her. I don’t think she was a very intelligent girl. I do know she had a romantic heart because I believe she read a great many novels about love affairs and elopements and so forth.’
‘Who told you that?’ asked Ross softly.
‘Why, Frank, Frank Carterton did. Frank and I think it possible she met this man at a circulating library. She frequented such libraries. Well, let’s see, where was I?’
‘Miss Hexham went to St Luke’s to be married, or so she believed,’ Ross prompted.
I realised at this point that I had come to the end of my conjectures. ‘I don’t know what happened next,’ I said. ‘I fully realise I cannot prove any of it.’
‘You know she was missing some two months but had only been dead two weeks or less,’ Ross said.
In some ways that was the worst knowledge of all and I said, ‘It does not bear thinking of. He kept her prisoner. He was afraid to let her go. In the end he killed her. I think he had left himself with nothing else he felt he could do.’
Ross’s eyebrows shot up enquiringly. ‘He had a choice?’
‘No! Of course not! Not morally. But we are not talking of a moral man. We are talking of a monster.’
‘Oh, monsters,’ said Ross. ‘Yes, I have met a monster or two in my time in the police force. I have also met a lot of very frightened people who have done dreadful things out of fear. Murderers are not always born to evil, they are sometimes made.’
‘To keep her hidden away for so long?’ I countered. ‘That to my mind is the action only of someone quite unnatural.’
‘Where did he keep her hidden?’ asked Ross.
‘Why,’ I said, ‘in one of the condemned houses in Agar Town. Everyone knows of them. Any observer might see where the navvies were working. At night there was no one there and by day the noise from the demolitions was such that who would have heard her cries for help?’
Ross drummed his fingers on the top of his desk. ‘If what you say is right – and let us say it more or less tallies with my own thinking – there is still a problem. Why did he not kill her at once? Every day she remained alive there was a possibility she would be found. We must assume he made her his prisoner on that first day when Slater took her to St Luke’s church.’
‘He had some other plan,’ I suggested, ‘but it didn’t work.’ I racked my brains for another explanation and realised belatedly I was chewing my lower lip as I did when I was a child and puzzling over something. ‘He first kept her elsewhere?’ I suggested. ‘He moved her later to Agar Town?’
Ross murmured something but I couldn’t catch what it was. More loudly he said, ‘Well, I know what I must do next but you, you must go back now to Dorset Square. I will arrange some conveyance for you and Bessie.’
‘I’m sure Mr Slater will drive us,’ I said, rising to my feet.
He came round his desk to stand before me and said very seriously, ‘I am mightily obliged to you, Miss Martin. I am also very concerned for you.’
He certainly looked worried. His forehead was creased in a frown beneath a tumbled lock of black hair. This touch of untidiness brought to mind the boy at the pithead. Perhaps he had not changed so much as I’d first thought.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said gently. ‘You have troubles enough.’
‘And I don’t want you to become one of them!’ was his unexpected reply. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Miss Martin. Of course I am concerned about your welfare for your own sake. But I am concerned as a police officer, too. You must take great care. We are dealing here with a man who has killed once. He probably feels now that he has taken a step along a path from which he cannot turn back. He will, if he finds it necessary, kill again. Do not let anyone see how interested you are in this matter. It would not be prudent.’
He smiled unexpectedly. ‘Dr Martin took good care of me,’ he said. ‘Should I not take good care of his daughter?’
I opened my mouth, swallowed, mumbled something, I have no idea what, and withdrew in a little confusion – but with his warning well lodged in my mind.
WE WERE late returning to Dorset Square, even though Wally Slater drove us there at such a fast clip the growler rocked from side to side and I was more than a little alarmed, although Bessie enjoyed it tremendously.
I sent her scurrying down to the basement and went indoors where I apologised to Simms.
‘The mistress is lunching,’ Simms informed me. ‘Will you go in directly, miss? Or shall I tell her you are here and will join her later?’
‘I had better go straight in,’ I told him, ‘if I don’t look too dishevelled.’
Simms studied me thoughtfully from head to toe and observed, ‘You have a smut on your chin, miss. It looks very like soot.’
My wait at the railway station had probably left this mark. I wished one of my companions had told me of it before I tackled Inspector Ross! I peered into a convenient mirror and rubbed the offending smudge away. Then I surrendered my bonnet to Simms, straightened my skirts and took myself to the dining room. As I reached the door Simms called after me, ‘There is a gentleman lunching with the mistress, Miss Martin.’
I had no time to enquire who it was. It could not be Tibbett, whom I knew to be otherwise engaged, and it ought not to be Frank, toiling or otherwise at the Foreign Office. Anyway, Simms would have said if the man were Mr Carterton.
I opened the door. A lively conversation had evidently been in progress but it broke off immediately the participants realised I had joined them.
Aunt Parry looked up with an animated and flushed face and exclaimed, ‘Oh, Elizabeth, there you are!’
I could have sworn she sounded quite disappointed. Had I interrupted a tête-à-tête? I looked with some curiosity at the other person present.
He had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet, his crumpled napkin in his left hand. He was a youngish man with oval-lensed spectacles and a dark blue coat. His straight brown hair was well brushed back from his high forehead and glued in place by a liberal application of some gentleman’s hair oil. I thought he had the look of a banker’s chief clerk. For his part, he looked surprised and somewhat put out at the sight of me.
‘This is Mr Fletcher, Elizabeth.’ Mrs Parry gestured at him to sit down again. ‘It is only my companion, Miss Martin, Mr Fletcher. Please go on with what you were saying. Elizabeth, do sit down. I will have Simms bring back the chicken.’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I am so sorry to be late but I am not hungry.’
That at least caught Aunt Parry’s attention. ‘Not hungry? Oh, nonsense. At least have some cold shape.’
This drew my attention to a fawn-coloured mound, the ingredients of which were mainly milk and cornflour with a cupful of strong sweet coffee to lend flavour and possibly an egg or two for substance. I have never been a lover of cold shape of this sort, whatever the flavour.
I had once, as a child, wandered into Mary Newling’s kitchen to find her skinning a rabbit. I had been surprised at the ease with which she stripped away the entire furry coat with no more difficulty than one might have taking off a glove. It just sloughed away leaving a brightly shining but not bloody body with all its musculature and sinews displayed. I have never fancied rabbit since and the ‘shape’ bore an unpleasant resemblance to that
small skinned beast. It being surrounded by a garland of green leaves like a funeral wreath did not help matters.
‘Thank you,’ I said and, in the absence of Simms, helped myself to a small portion.
I was seated opposite Mr Fletcher and Aunt Parry, between us, was at the head of the table. Although she had urged him to continue, he seemed loath to do so and only fidgeted with his napkin, studying me all the while with doubt written all over his face. At last, catching my eye, he blurted, ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Martin.’
‘Sir,’ I replied politely, or as politely as possible through a mouthful of coffee shape.
‘I wasn’t aware, ma’am,’ Fletcher went on to Aunt Parry with a nervous sideways glance at me, ‘that you had engaged a new companion.’
‘Oh, Elizabeth is the late Mr Parry’s god-daughter,’ she explained. ‘Her father died not long ago and she was in need of a roof over her head so it suited us both very well that she should come here. We are doing handsomely together, are we not, Elizabeth?’
‘You are most kind, Aunt Parry,’ I replied.
‘Mr Fletcher,’ said Aunt Parry, as if suddenly recalling that I should be given some explanation of the visitor’s identity, ‘represents the Midland Railway Company. He is here on some business.’
‘Would you rather I left you, Aunt Parry?’ I asked, putting down my spoon. ‘I’ve no wish to intrude on a private business discussion.’
‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay. In fact, you might as well hear this. Go on, Mr Fletcher.’ She nodded at him.
I thought Mr Fletcher anything but content to have an unexpected third party present at the conversation but there was nothing he could do about it once she had given her blessing.
He released his grip on his napkin but instead began to fiddle
with the silver ring which had held it. ‘As I was saying, ma’am, delay causes any number of inconveniences. Costs rise with every working hour lost.The navvies grow restive. They don’t like having policemen about the place asking questions.’
‘There I sympathise,’ said Aunt Parry with some feeling. ‘We have had such an experience ourselves, here in this house. Even the servants were quizzed. I found the whole situation extraordinary. It’s not the sort of thing to which a respectable householder expects to be subjected. I thought the police existed to keep the lower orders from crime and make sure the better-off were not troubled.’
‘What is worse, we are now also getting sightseers,’ Fletcher went on, apparently little worried by any inconvenience Aunt Parry might have suffered and completely taken up with that to himself. ‘They come in family parties with elderly aunts in tow and demand to be shown the spot where the body was found!’ His voice rose plaintively. ‘They are dressed in best bib and tucker. They squawk and chatter like a parliament of magpies. Their children swarm over heaps of bricks and beneath the wheels of the wagons at risk to life and limb. I declare that for some it is the best entertainment on offer since the Great Exhibition. It is beyond description.’
‘I can’t understand what motivates them, but I can well believe they have bothered you,’ said Aunt Parry with a sigh. ‘They walk up and down before this house, some of them quite respectable-looking people, too. They whisper together and point. It’s most disagreeable and quite beyond my comprehension.’
‘The British public is by nature ghoulish, ma’am,’ observed Fletcher. ‘What is worse, far worse, is the press.’
‘The press?’ asked Aunt Parry, startled. ‘But surely the Royal Navy doesn’t recruit in that way any longer? My father used to speak of its activities when he was a young curate. They appeared on several occasions in his parish of that time during the French wars and obliged young men to go with them. It was the cause of great distress.’
‘No, ma’am, forgive me, you misunderstand. I meant the newspapers. Journalists, ma‘am. Sightseers of the common sort can be chased away. To get rid of a journalist is well-nigh impossible. Not only that but they come like the Greeks, bearing gifts, in their case money. Offer a navvy a few shillings and he will remember having seen almost anything you want him to. As I said, ma’am, the public likes to have its blood chilled and journalists pander to its cravings.’
‘Disgusting,’ said Aunt Parry.
‘Quite, ma’am. I am relieved that I have not yet seen a man from
The Times
there, but there has certainly been one from the
Morning Post
which I had previously thought a respectable publication. All the penny dreadfuls have sent their hacks and as for the evening sheets, why, they are the worst of all! Their fellows are desperate to inform the readers of a snippet of news ahead of the next morning’s dailies and they are like terriers after a rat!’
‘Who would have thought it?’ murmured Aunt Parry, a wistful eye resting on the partly demolished coffee shape amid its greenery.
‘So, you see, I am almost at my wits’ end as to what to do about these investigations being held by the police. I have spoken to the inspector in charge, Ross, and got nowhere. He is a surly, impudent fellow.’
My mouth flew open at this but I managed to shut it again before any protest escaped, not without difficulty. I glared my thoughts at Fletcher across the table instead, although he was intent on Aunt Parry and didn’t notice. How dare he speak that way of a hard-working and dedicated police officer? Did poor Ben Ross not have enough obstacles in his path without also having to contend with this pettifogging fellow obsessed with building his railway terminus? Was investigation into the death of an innocent young woman to be hurried over and cleared away in the same way her body had been done, removed from the site with all the
other rubble? The inspector is worth any two or three of your kind, Mr Fletcher! I wanted to tell him.
‘That is the one!’ cried Aunt Parry. ‘That is the inspector who called here, was it not that one, Elizabeth? I found his manner brash and ill-suited to the conversation of ladies. He wrote down what I said, every single word of it.’
I seethed with the desire to point out Ross had, in fact, only written down what she remembered as written in Madeleine’s letter, but I realised it would be unwise to correct her. So again I swallowed my protest and took out my frustration on my serving of cold shape which I mashed into a horrid mess with my spoon.
Fletcher, encouraged at hearing Mrs Parry had shared his experience of the Law, surged on with his litany of complaint with renewed vigour. ‘I have spoken to his superior, Superintendent Dunn, who is nearly as bad. They take no account of our problems or our timetable at all. The work threatens to lag behind; labourers down tools or quit. The directors of the company seem to feel I should be able to do more, but what
can
I do?’ His voice rose in despair.
Aunt Parry soothed him with, ‘Now, now, Mr Fletcher. In the quite some time that I have known you, I know you to have been dedicated always to your responsibilities.’
‘You are too kind, ma’am. But still Ross’s constables clamber all over the place and get in everyone’s way with their prying and questions. And to no avail, ma‘am! Do they think someone among our workforce killed the unfortunate young woman? It is my opinion they have no other leads and so wish it to look as if they are doing something.’ Fletcher’s tone had been becoming steadily more bitter as he spoke and by the time he finished he sounded like a man announcing the end of the world.
‘I do understand,’ said Aunt Parry thoughtfully, drumming her plump little fingers on the tablecloth.
‘As a shareholder in the company, and as the employer of the deceased,’ Fletcher went on, leaning across the table towards
her, ‘you will naturally want to see things put to rights. You want to see the police concentrate their activities in the proper area, wherever that may be, and the work resume at its normal pace.’
His tone had become confidential. I realised that whatever was to be suggested, Ross wouldn’t like it. But I didn’t like what I’d already heard. I had pushed aside my now inedible pudding and sat almost unable to believe my ears. Aunt Parry had not only sold houses in Agar Town to the railway company. She was a shareholder in it!
‘I am sure,’ I ventured now in defence of Scotland Yard’s activities, ‘Inspector Ross is determined to do things correctly and will leave nothing to chance.’
Fletcher turned his jaundiced gaze on me. ‘You are not acquainted with building sites, I think, Miss Martin?’
‘Well, no …’
‘If you were,’ Fletcher informed me, ‘you wouldn’t speak of having police constables roaming all over the place as leaving nothing to chance. One of them has already fallen into an excavation.’
‘Was he injured?’ asked Aunt Parry.
‘Not badly, I understand, ma’am.’ Fletcher’s tone clearly indicated he meant ‘not badly enough’. ‘But it is only a matter of time before a lump of brickwork falls on one of them and dashes out his brains.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ exclaimed Aunt Parry faintly.
Fletcher leaned forward again to address her in that coaxing tone. ‘So, ma’am, any influence you can bring to bear on Scotland Yard to hasten their enquiries and be finished there would be of the greatest assistance to us all.’
‘But I don’t see how I can influence them,’ she protested.
‘You were the girl’s employer. If you make it clear that you consider everything necessary has been done and you expect no more of the police, well, they would not feel so obliged to keep
messing around as they are doing. They wish to prove themselves, ma’am, to the public but above all to you.’
‘I will give it some thought,’ said Aunt Parry and sounded as if she meant it.
Fletcher obviously decided he had achieved his purpose. He rose to his feet. ‘I thank you for an excellent luncheon, ma’am, and now, ladies, I must go back to see what is happening at the workplace.’
‘You won’t have a little cheese?’ asked Aunt Parry, but absently, her mind elsewhere.

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