Ann Granger (31 page)

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Authors: The Companion

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Dressed as I was I’d be hopelessly impeded by skirts. This was no time for modesty. As quickly as was possible I got out of my dress, petticoat and corset, my fingers tugging roughly at buttons making them fly off and be lost, and ripping hooks from the stitching. Now I was down to my drawers and chemise and ready to start the ascent.
At first I had no success, as each time I tried to go higher the coal beneath my feet gave way and I slid back down to the floor. I was soon hot, sweating and almost crying with frustration. The coal dust was rising in clouds, filling my nose and lungs. I coughed and spluttered and when, in gasping for air, my mouth filled with the grit, I spat it out until my mouth was so dry I could not even do that. I was bruised from lumps of coal bouncing off me. I was faced with failure; time and my strength were running out.
After my third ignominious slither to the ground, I sat on the floor and forced myself to devise some other stratagem. What if I crawled up crab-wise and at a diagonal? Would my weight not be better distributed? Accordingly I began again, but not directly below the pavement opening. Instead I began at the side of the heap and worked my way round and up. The smaller pieces of coal rained down on the floor below and some of the larger lumps were dislodged and rolled to earth with a terrifying clatter, but I found the interior of the heap stayed firm.
Even so, my progress was agonisingly slow. Surely Fletcher would be back at any moment! The light drew nearer. Besides coal I could also smell the fog. The air was damp. I had reached the top! Or as near to the top as I could get and still have enough coal beneath me to support me. The aperture was a kind of trough in the ground above. It was open to the air but, to my dismay, covered at pavement level with a stout metal lattice.
I pushed at it but it would not move. So I grasped it and used it to haul myself up into the trough. Holding on with one hand, I pushed the other through a square hole in the lattice. But what chance was there that anyone would see my palm waving weakly down near their feet and in that awful murk?
I sat there in despair, clutching at the lattice to prevent myself sliding back down the coal heap to the bottom. Should Fletcher return having found the purse but no diary, he would try and force me to tell him where it was. Perhaps I could persuade him after all it was back at the house? Or would he guess it was hidden amongst the coal lumps? Either way, he’d be in a furious state of mind.
My ear caught the scrape of a footstep above my head in the street. He was coming back!
But no, surely more than one pair of feet walked towards the house? There were others out and about up there, despite the weather.
‘Help!’ I shouted with all my force up at the lattice. ‘Help me! I’m locked in the cellar!’
The footsteps paused. A man’s voice, distorted and muffled by fog, asked some question of his companion.
Another man replied, ‘Yes, sir …’ and then some words I couldn’t catch.
I bellowed out my plea for help again. My throat was hoarse with the strain of it and I dissolved into spluttering and coughing.
The footsteps were on the move again. They were above me.
‘I’m here!’ I croaked and pushed my hand through the square hole in the lattice.
To my immeasurable relief the man, whoever he was, both heard me and located where my voice came from.
He must have been kneeling on the pavement by the lattice and pressing his face close to it because his voice suddenly sounded very close to mine, echoing in my ear.
‘Who are you?’
It sounded familiar but I hadn’t time to identify it. ‘Oh, sir,’ I gasped. ‘My name is Elizabeth Martin and I am prisoner in this cellar. The house-owner will return shortly—’
‘Oh, my God, Lizzie! Is it really you?’ exclaimed the voice and I knew it to belong to Ross. ‘How the devil have you got here? Are you hurt?’
My chilled hand poking through the lattice was gripped by a strong warm one which sent new life pulsing through my veins.
‘Oh, Ben!’ I cried out, ‘you aren’t imagining things, it’s really me!’ A feeling of relief swept over me as into my head leapt the thought: Ben is here and now everything will be all right. But in an instant the relief gave way to apprehension. Ben was out there … but so was the desperate and murderous Fletcher. To my fear for myself was added that of what might happen to Ross. Perhaps even now Fletcher crept towards him in the fog …
Ben was rattling at the lattice vigorously with his free hand and I heard him exclaim to his companion, ‘Give me a hand here, Morris! Damn it, the thing is locked down.’
‘He’ out there, Ben!’ I shouted up at the lattice. ‘There’s no time to rescue me now or explain how I got here. You must watch out! It’s Fletcher! He’s your murderer!’
‘I know it is,’ his voice returned grimly. ‘Lizzie, has that devil harmed you? If he has, I swear I—’
‘No, no! He has only locked me in.’
Beneath me the coal heap rattled and compacted. I slid away and had he not gripped my hand I should have gone further
backwards. His fingers tightened on mine and hauled me up again to the grating. My arm ached as his must do by now and soon I would not be able to keep my grip on his or he continue to bear my weight.
I gasped. ‘He’s seeking Madeleine’s diary which I found and was bringing to you. He won’t find it because it isn’t in my purse. I told him it was and threw the purse away from me. It’s safe; I’ve hidden it here in the coal heap. Ben, whatever happens, you must search the coal heap for the diary.’
‘Lizzie, keep heart! We’ll have you out in no time,’ was his reply. ‘Sergeant Morris is here with me and we’ll break down the door.’
‘I can wait!’ I cried back, ‘now that you know I’m here. You must catch Fletcher, he’s dangerous. Do be careful, Ben!’
‘I know, I should have known it from the start. Where is he, searching the street, you say? I can’t see a thing for this confounded fog.’
‘He’ll be back soon!’ I called.
‘Lizzie!’ Ross’s voice became even more urgent. ‘Morris and I will hide ourselves here near the front door and catch him on his return to the house. Wait!’
His hand gave mine a last encouraging squeeze and then he released me. I heard him scramble to his feet and he and Morris moved away.
I knew they wouldn’t abandon me but I still felt a return of my former despair as they left. But my strength was out. I could not hold on to the lattice now. The coal beneath me gave way. I uttered an involuntary shriek and slithered in a cascade of rocks to the floor of the cellar, nuggets striking my body and head, dust filling my nostrils and mouth. I reached the floor half stunned.
I had barely pulled my wits together and found my feet when I heard some noise above in the street. Voices entered into violent dispute. There was some scuffling and then the piercing note of a police whistle blown, no doubt, by good Sergeant Morris.
There was more scuffling and then Ross’s voice floated down to me through the grating above.
‘Lizzie? Are you safe? Where are you?’
‘Down here!’ I yelled up at him. ‘I slipped down to the ground. Have you caught him?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Ross in a matter-of-fact way, ‘we have him. Just wait a few minutes and we’ll get you out of there.’
I sank to the floor of the cellar, my knees giving way as relief swept over me. After a short while a series of hefty thumps at the top of the cellar steps preceded the door flying open. A man’s form was outlined in the opening and he came clattering down the steps.
‘Lizzie! Lizzie! Where the devil are you? Are you hurt?’ Ross arrived panting in my prison cell.
I managed to scramble upright and ran towards him. ‘I am quite all right, but, oh, so glad to see you!’
I held out my hands to him and he seized them in his and grasped them tightly, pulling me towards him so that I found myself pressed against his chest.
‘You can’t imagine how overjoyed I am to find you, Lizzie! To think I might not have been in time and you were in the hands of that devil! But for the purest chance and Biddle’s tale … No, it doesn’t bear thinking of. You are safe and that is what matters.’
‘Oh, Ben …’ I mumbled into his coat.
‘Sir?’ cried Morris’s voice from above. ‘Everything all right down there? Is the lady safe?’
‘Yes, thank God!’ Ross shouted back.
Our joint response to the arrival of a third party on the scene was to spring apart. Ross glanced over his shoulder towards the sound of the sergeant’s voice, hesitated and threw a rapid look over me. ‘Look here, Lizzie, might I suggest that before anyone else comes down here, you put on your dress?’
‘I AM very glad to find Miss Martin so well recovered,’ said Inspector Ross courteously. ‘You are suffering no ill effects, ma’am, I hope?’ He looked across the room at me and raised his eyebrows.
We were quite a party seated in Aunt Parry’s first-floor sitting room. Frank was there, having taken time from his Foreign Office duties and the preparations for his impending departure for Russia. He sat with his back to the window, one ankle propped on the other knee, staring very hard at Ross. Dr Tibbett was also there, as might be expected, placed before the mantelpiece with his hands behind his back. He looked very much, I fancied, as if he were practising being master of the house. I hoped Frank was right and Aunt Parry wouldn’t be so foolish as to entrust herself to such an old rogue. However, once Frank had left for Russia my employer might well miss a man about the place and be tempted to listen favourably to Tibbett’s proposal, should he make one.
At Ross’s enquiry directed at me, Tibbett cleared his throat in a disapproving way. Mrs Belling sat by Aunt Parry, bolt upright in a plaid walking dress and another of those casquette hats she liked so much perched atop her false chignon. Behind her stood James in attendance on his mamma and looking miserable.
Miss Belling was not present, even though it would have been another opportunity to put her in Frank’s line of sight, but probably her mother didn’t consider it quite decent for Dora to be here listening to details of such a shocking adventure.
Ross sat before us all, rather as though he were presenting himself to a committee for interview. I thought him particularly smartly turned out and his boots – which had occasioned Mrs Parry some doubts on his first visit – shone like mirrors. He puts them all to shame! I thought proudly. And shame is what they all ought to feel. But they don’t. They haven’t enough sensitivity in them. He is a capable, intelligent, brave and successful man who has stuck to his enquiries despite all their best efforts to hinder him. What a sorry crowd they are!
‘Thank you, Inspector,’ I replied politely. I ignored Tibbett and inclined my head graciously in the questioner’s direction. I was, as it happened, black and blue from my encounters with the lumps of coal but it wouldn’t do to say so. ‘I’m quite all right.’ To Tibbett’s visibly increased ire I added, ‘Thanks to you, and to good Sergeant Morris, of course. How grateful we must
all
be to you!’
Tibbett scowled and fiddled with his watch chain. Mrs Belling simply looked uncomprehending. Frank had the grace to mutter, ‘Yes!’
‘When I think of the danger Elizabeth was in!’ exclaimed Aunt Parry. ‘What a piece of great good fortune that you arrived in time to rescue her.’
‘A piece of good fortune indeed!’ snapped Frank now. ’Seeing as the police hadn’t considered Fletcher at all as a suspect. It was purest chance you got there in time.’
‘I began to suspect him,’ returned Ross mildly, ‘once Miss Martin had informed me he was a familiar visitor to this house, something I hadn’t known before.’
There was an embarrassed silence. Dr Tibbett ceased fiddling with the watch chain and took it upon himself to reply.
‘He was not that familiar a visitor, Inspector. He came purely in the line of business. He could by no means be described as a friend.’
‘Indeed not!’ confirmed Aunt Parry hastily. ‘Why, when
Elizabeth came home and found him here that day, he had come on business. It was purely by chance that he stayed to lunch with me.’
‘No doubt,’ said Ross still in that mild way, ‘he hoped to persuade you to use your good offices to encourage us to abandon our enquiries.’
Aunt Parry turned brick red. Frank glowered and Dr Tibbett’s brow took on that Olympian frown. ‘Sir!’ he boomed. ‘My dear friend, Mrs Parry, would never have done anything so improper. I hope you are not suggesting that she would.’
‘Of course not,’ said Ross immediately. ‘Forgive me, ma’am. I merely observed that no doubt it was in Fletcher’s mind.’
Aunt Parry looked even more disconcerted and Frank thunderous.
‘My aunt can’t be expected to have read the scoundrel’s mind!’ he snapped.
‘No, Mr Carterton, of course not.’
‘I wasn’t aware he was still calling at the house,’ Frank went on, turning to his aunt.
‘Well, Frank, dear …’ began Aunt Parry.
Dr Tibbett cleared his throat warningly.
Frank flushed and said stiffly, ‘I seek only to defend my aunt’s reputation.’
‘Has he confessed?’ demanded Mrs Belling, cutting across the threatened embarrassment of a family dispute breaking out before witnesses.
She had been out of the conversation for longer than was her wont and growing visibly restless. Her sharp eyes glowed with an almost hungry look. It occurred to me there was no difference between her attitude and that of the blatant seekers after thrills who had turned up at the place where the body was found or paraded up and down outside this house in the square. I’d never liked her but now decided she was an odious woman. I hoped that Frank never found himself with Mrs Belling as a mother-in-law.
‘Yes, madam,’ Ross told her politely. ‘Mr Fletcher seems quite anxious to talk about it and has told us all. He has lost everything now and there is no reason to hide any of it. His fiancée has broken off their engagement and her father insisted the railway company dismiss him. Even if he continued to deny his guilt – which would in any case be difficult – his reputation is destroyed. His world has crumbled about him.’
‘As poor Madeleine’s did when he rejected her,’ I said.
They all looked at me.
‘I have not changed my opinion of that young woman!’ said Dr Tibbett.
‘No, sir, I don’t suppose you have,’ Ross murmured.
‘Evil breeds evil,’ declared Tibbett. ‘Sin opens the door to yet more of its hideous kind. Her want of moral character and duplicity were the start of all this. It cannot be denied.’
‘She was deceived,’ James put in unexpectedly and with some vigour. ‘That is not her fault. Rather you might say it was because she was an innocent she was led astray by Fletcher. She can’t be held responsible for anything he did later.’
‘Nonsense, James!’ interrupted his parent. ‘You know nothing about it. Be quiet.’
James opened his mouth and for one moment I thought he might answer back. Even Frank looked surprised and sat up straight ready for the unbelievable to happen.
It didn’t. James closed his mouth again and fell silent.
‘We are all very grateful to you, anyway, Inspector Ross,’ declared Aunt Parry suddenly in a clear firm voice.
Ross recognised his dismissal. He stood up. ‘I’m glad to have been of service, ma’am. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Tibbett testily, ‘you will have your duties. We mustn’t keep you from them.’
At this I could take no more. They were intolerable. I stood up, saying loudly, ‘There is no need to trouble Simms. I’ll see the inspector out.’
I won’t attempt to describe the sneer with which Dr Tibbett greeted this. Mrs Belling looked disapproving. Frank glowered even more ferociously. Aunt Parry murmured, ‘Yes, of course,’ and looked at me a little nervously.
I led Ross down to the entrance hall in silence. There was no sign of Simms or any of the other servants. The long-case clock in the corner ticked and dust danced in the shaft of sunlight entering through the transom light above the front door. I remembered standing here waiting with my modest baggage at my feet while Simms paid off Wally Slater, so very recently and yet, somehow, seeming an age ago.
Although Simms was not to be seen there was no saying he wouldn’t suddenly and silently appear. I opened the door to the library and Ross and I went in without a word and I closed the door behind us. Dr Tibbett would place his own interpretation on that. But I knew the schoolmaster for what he was. He had no call to criticise me and if he did so again to my face I would let him know it.
I turned to face Ross. ‘I wanted to thank you myself,’ I said, ‘not only for saving me but for seeing justice will be done by poor Madeleine. I also want to apologise because they were all so rude to you upstairs.’ My indignation vibrated in my voice.
He looked slightly amused. ‘I’m accustomed to having brickbats thrown at my head. The scorn of Dr Tibbett and the others hardly makes an impact.’ He shrugged.
‘You may be generous enough to forgive them, I don’t!’ I burst out. ‘They are hypocrites, the whole lot of them, except possibly Frank, and Frank is not among them only because he is content to believe everyone will love him as he loves himself and he need make no further effort to gain approval. Mrs Parry knew that Madeleine was a stranger in London and it was her responsibility to take good care of her. She has no business to speak or allow others to speak of Madeleine with such scorn. Aunt Parry herself was a country parson’s daughter, just like Madeleine. If my
godfather Josiah, in that portrait up there -’ I flung out my hand to point to it – ‘if he had not met her and married her, she would have been in just such a position as Madeleine, a governess or companion. It puts me out of all patience!’
I was so cross at the thought of them all that I stamped my foot in exasperation, which seemed to amuse Ross the more. But he grew serious almost at once.
‘They are not the only ones with a heavy responsibility to bear. Perhaps Mr Carterton is right and I should have had my eye on Fletcher sooner. Then you wouldn’t have run into such danger. I do blame myself for that. Yes, yes, that’s my fault. I don’t know now how I could have been so stupid as not to see him at once for what he was. Oh, dear Lizzie, when I think what he might have done – I mean, dear Miss Martin …’ He stammered to a halt.
‘Why ever should you suspect him?‘I comforted him. ‘You didn’t know Fletcher had been in this house. It’s not surprising he didn’t tell you, but one of the others, either Mrs Parry or Frank, should have done so. One of them should have realised what Fletcher was like.’
‘Mrs Parry, I think, does not discuss her business matters with police officers. As for Mr Carterton, it probably didn’t cross his mind.’ Ross permitted himself a slight smile.
I felt impelled to defend Frank, although I had criticised him earlier. ‘You mustn’t think Mr Carterton a fool,’ I said. ‘He can be quite sensible and I hope, when he gets to St Petersburg, he’ll acquit himself creditably.’
‘You will miss him?’ Ross asked, watching my face.
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I shall not miss him. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no interest of a personal nature in Mr Carterton.’
A small sigh as of relief escaped Ross. ‘Will you stay in this house, Lizzie?’
I shook my head. ‘No. For the time being I must do so but I mean to start looking for an alternative situation at once. I don’t think Aunt Parry will seek to dissuade me. She won’t want me to
go at once because that might suggest something is amiss here and she has a mortal fear of gossip. But she knows I’ve seen through her, seen through all of them.’
Besides, once Frank was gone, Tibbett would eventually persuade her to dismiss me, I was sure of it. I would go on my own two feet of my own free will first and deprive him of his petty triumph.
‘You know,’ Ross began looking unaccustomedly ill at ease, ‘it’s been a great – well, I’d say it’s been a great pleasure although that’s too feeble a phrase – it’s brought me great happiness to see you again.’
‘And I you,’ I said earnestly. I had a brief memory of burying my face in his coat in the cellar of Fletcher’s house and felt my cheeks burn.
‘Ah.’ He half grinned, scratched his mop of curling black hair and, I swear, also blushed. ‘When I came down to London as a youngster, as I told you, I dreamed of making my fortune.’ He smiled again awkwardly. ‘I haven’t exactly done that. But I have not done so badly, either. I had an engine driving my dream. You were not aware of me. But as I grew up I watched you grow up, too. I saw you walking about in our town. First of all you would be with that French governess the doctor employed. What a strange female she was. The boys at the grammar school were wont to make jokes about her, I’m sorry to say, but not about you. All of them respected Dr Martin. I should never have allowed them to say anything disrespectful, anyway. In later years I saw you shopping with that elderly housekeeper of yours or setting off in best bib and tucker to visit a friend or to go to church of a Sunday. You never saw me. I kept out of the way. But my dream was that if I made a fortune in London, I should be able to return home and claim Lizzie Martin – if she would have me and no one else had claimed her first.’
I couldn’t meet his gaze. Since the moment he had called down into my cellar prison I had had time to reflect on the emotions I’d
felt on hearing his voice. Relief at the prospect of rescue, certainly; but there had been – and still was – something more: a new and strange uncertainty which both exhilarated and alarmed me. It caused me to lose my usual confidence.
I stared down hard at the Turkey carpet and heard myself whisper, ‘No one else claimed her first.’
‘Do you think,’ he went on hesitantly, ‘that Mrs Parry would object if I called on you, while you’re still living here?’

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