Ann Granger (27 page)

I was beginning to think the lad must be simple. I yelled, ‘Dr Barton!’ at him and would you believe it, all he replied was, ‘A tooth to be pulled?’

It seemed to me the doctor undertook just about any task in the medical line. But if I wasn’t to be all day trying to find out if the physician was at home, I had to take some action. I dismounted, handed the reins to the boy, and told him that he should have sixpence for looking after the animal, if I spent any time with the doctor.

‘This one?’ says the boy as if I’d arrived with half a dozen ponies all tied together, ‘that’s Ma Garvey’s pony.’

‘It is,’ I said, ‘and you will catch it from her if you let the animal wander off.’

It was in my mind that if the pony got free, it would take itself off back home without me. Luckily just then a female looking like a housemaid appeared at the door. I asked her to tell her master Sergeant Morris was here, and would be glad if he could oblige me with a few minutes of his time.

To my relief she did admit he was at home. I was shown into his consulting room. It seemed partly that and partly a private study. It was very cluttered, and if that housemaid has the job of dusting it, well, all I can say is, she is a slapdash worker. The place was full of medical books, all appearing very old to my eye, and a number of indecent-looking things in jars. I chose to avert my gaze from them, sir. But from the look of them they’d been there a few years.

As for Dr Barton himself, he turned out to match the rest of the room. He was much older than I’d expected, at least seventy. He wears an old-fashioned wig the like of which I’d not seen on anyone’s head since I was a boy.

We got off to a slow start because he thought I’d come to consult him. He asked me what was wrong with me and before I could answer, observed that I was a very unhealthy colour.

I replied that if I was a bit red in the face it was because I’d ridden there and added I wasn’t ill.

‘Not ill?’ he replied. ‘What do you want, then? Are you selling anything? I don’t want anything.’

I managed to get him to look at my warrant card and persuade him what it was, as he seemed puzzled. I then asked if I could put a few questions to him, as we were investigating the death of the rat-catcher. After a bit of argument, he agreed. Unfortunately he’s somewhat on the deaf side. I had to bellow out my questions. I dare say the whole household heard me. Even the boy holding the pony outside could have heard me.

I began by asking whether he had attended Mrs Craven in childbed. He said he had and it had been a very easy birth. (Just as well, thought I! I wouldn’t have much confidence in this old fellow if there were to be a complication.)

‘Mother and child well?’ I asked.

‘As well as could be expected,’ says he.

‘Yet two days later the infant was dead,’ I pointed out.

He gave me a sharp look then, as if I had suggested some neglect on his part. ‘These things happen,’ he said. ‘They sometimes die in their cradles for no known cause.’

‘You examined the dead infant?’ I asked.

‘I certified death,’ he said in a manner I’d call shifty.

‘You did not examine the baby, then?’ I repeated.

He looked huffy. ‘There was no need. The child was dead. I detected no heartbeat and there were other signs of death. The body was cold and turning blue. I was more concerned for the mother.’

‘Why was that, Doctor?’ I asked, glad he had brought the conversation round to Mrs Craven without my prompting.

Dr Barton straightened his wig, which I took to mean he was gaining time to think out what he should say. At last he came out with, ‘She took the barest glance at the dead infant, when it was shown to her, and would not look again. She screeched out that the nurse should take it away, it wasn’t her child. I attempted to soothe her and persuade her of the true case, but she became distraught. I prescribed a sleeping draught.’

‘What did you make of her reaction?’ I asked. ‘Have you seen that before?’

‘Oh, well,’ says he, ‘it is a difficult moment. Of course the mother does not wish to believe it at first. But my suspicion was that her wild manner indicated the onset of childbed fever. Indeed, it is my opinion that was the case and her incoherent statements following this tragic episode, and somewhat, ah, eccentric behaviour, were due to the lingering presence of the fever. Eventually she recovered. She’s a healthy young woman and I expected no less.’

‘What had the nurse to say? Was she a local woman?’ I thought there must have been a nurse.

‘She’d come from Hythe on my recommendation,’ he puffed at me. ‘She is a very experienced lying-in nurse. She told me the child appeared well when put down to sleep after its last feed. She, too, recognised the mother’s state of mind as the result of a touch of childbed fever.’

The doctor then suddenly remembered discretion and declared he couldn’t discuss his patient any further. Very hoity-toity, he was, when he said that.

‘If you are here about the death of the rat-catcher,’ he said, ‘I can’t see what all this has to do with it. I was not called upon to certify his death. There was, I understand, another medical man visiting the house at the time and he did that. I can’t help you.’

So I left him. I wasn’t best satisfied but I felt there was no more to be gained. If you ask me, he learned his medicine fifty years ago, hasn’t learned a thing since, and wouldn’t hold down a practice anywhere but in a rural backwater like this. I certainly wouldn’t let him near my teeth or any other part of me. He is only interested that no one should blame him for the death of the infant Craven – or blame the lying-in nurse he recommended. I can seek her out, if you wish, sir, but I reckon she’ll back him up and will only be afraid we’ll say it was her fault.

I got back to the inn rather quicker as Comet knew he was on the way home. I had to give the boy his sixpence. I don’t know if that will be covered by our expenses. What with that and the hiring of the pony it’s been an expensive morning for me, sir. I can’t say as it’s been a very productive one, either.

Inspector Benjamin Ross

I was glad of Morris’s account of Dr Barton’s somewhat chaotic household. (It was one of the details he probably wouldn’t have written down if I’d left him to compose the report himself on paper.) But from what he told me, I was inclined to agree that the doctor hardly sounded a man at the top of his profession. He wouldn’t have held down a practice anywhere but here in the middle of nowhere. He also sounded like a man who would take great care not to offend his wealthier or more influential patients. If he’d thought there was anything irregular about the death of the infant Craven, he wouldn’t have said so at the time and was extremely unlikely to say so now.

But he would know a dead baby from a live one. There was no doubt now the child had died. Lucy Craven had suffered from childbed fever. No wonder she’d raved. With better care after the birth she’d have recovered her senses (and probably not taken a fever in the first place). In Barton’s hands she’d been left unwell and confused. Barton could pull teeth, set bones and do other routine doctoring. But by the sound of it afflictions of the mind were beyond his competence. That, I thought sadly, was why Lefebre had been sent for.

I thanked Morris for his efforts and promised him I would do my best in the matter of his out-of-pocket expenses. I then suggested that as it was noon, we take the opportunity to eat. Mrs Garvey offered thick slices of the ham boiled the day before, with fried eggs. There was a freshly baked fruit tart to follow. That sounded excellent to both of us and we proceeded to make a good luncheon.

We’d hardly finished it when we heard a commotion outside. It seemed from the clatter of hooves and rumble of wheels that someone was arriving. I got up and went to the window to see the very fly that had brought us to The Acorn and descending from it, with some effort and the help of the potboy, no other person than Charles Roche.

The sight of him was as unwished as unexpected, but there he was, puffing and panting. Though still city-smart in his black cutaway coat and brocade waistcoat, he grasped a stout country walking stick in his hand in lieu of a gentleman’s cane. He clapped his silk hat on his head as I watched, and fell to paying off the driver and ordering the potboy to take his bag.

‘Confound it!’ I muttered. ‘So he’s decided to turn up at last. I don’t know that I want him here just now.’

Morris had joined me and enquired who the stout gentleman was.

I explained and added, ‘He will have come to protect his sisters from being unduly troubled by us, mark my words.’

But I was wrong, as we soon found out.

Mrs Garvey flung open the door of the snug and announced, ‘Gennelman to see you, sir!’

She gave one of her bobbing curtsies and Charles Roche, sweating and patting his forehead with a large handkerchief, erupted into the room.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ he gasped. ‘I have dreadful news!’

The door was still open and Mrs Garvey goggling at us. I called out to her to bring us some tea and urged Charles Roche into a chair. Morris shut the door and took up position before it.

‘Calm yourself, sir,’ I told Roche. ‘Have you come directly from London?’

‘Yes, yes,’ he wheezed, ‘I came straight here, hoping to find you. I wanted you to have the news first and I’m still not sure how I’ll break it to my sisters – and my niece, of course. I suppose my niece must be told straight away. It would be much better if she weren’t. Yes, that’s it … she mustn’t be told yet. We’ll wait for a better moment, as if there could be one … Oh dear…’ He mopped his head again. ‘My sisters will be so distressed. They lead quiet lives, you know. This will be all too much for them.’

It – whatever it was – was evidently all too much for Mr Roche; I hoped he wouldn’t have a heart attack, since the only medical man on hand to attend him was Dr Barton. Although there was Lefebre: he must know more medicine than the inside workings of people’s heads.

‘Just tell me, sir,’ I encouraged him, ‘and we’ll see what’s best to be done.’

We were interrupted before he could begin by a knock at the door heralding the tea. Morris relieved Mrs Garvey of the tray and shut the door in her face before she could look past him.

‘It’s my nephew-in-law, James Craven.’ Roche’s fingers fumbled at the teacup and the liquid spilled.

‘Not dead?’ I asked sharply.

It wouldn’t astonish me to hear that he was, the death rate among Europeans in the Far East being so high. I was a little surprised at Roche’s extreme distress, if that were the case. He must have realised the possibility when he sent the young man to China. Perhaps, as I’d already conjectured, he’d even secretly hoped it. (Police work makes a man cynical.) Now that it had happened, he was suffering pangs of conscience. More likely, he was dreading the moment when he told the young widow.

But Roche was shaking his head. ‘No, no…’ he said despondently.

I must have raised my eyebrows at his tone, because he went on, ‘I’ll confess to you, Inspector Ross, it would be better for us all if he were. There! That’s a cruel thing to say, a barbaric thing, and I’d say it of no other living soul. But that boy has never been anything but trouble. I really did think that sending him out East would at least get him out of the way. But no…’

He paused as if the recital were all too much for him and managed to drink a little of his tea.

I was by now in nearly as distraught a state as he was. If not dead, what? I wanted to shout, ‘Get on with it, man!’ I actually said, ‘Take your time, sir.’

He set down the cup and made an effort to pull himself together. ‘I’ve heard from our agent. James Craven disappeared from everyone’s sight and knowledge more than twelve weeks ago. For three days our agent did not know. He hadn’t returned to his bungalow for a couple of nights, but that had happened before. The manservant engaged to look after him thought nothing of it. But when Craven failed to return for a third night the fellow got alarmed and reported his master’s absence.

‘Our agent began enquiries. He didn’t let me know at once, as he had no wish to cause unnecessary alarm. He was in a dilemma, you understand, since he didn’t want to raise the possibility of scandal. He thought Craven might be with a woman. He made discreet enquiries among the Europeans there first but drew a blank. He asked more openly. No one knew a thing. Craven had not been seen, not had he given any indication he intended to absent himself for any reason. Our agent found himself obliged to visit some insalubrious places where Craven had been known to go, opium houses and – and other places of entertainment. But no amount of reward offered there drew the slightest response. So he was forced to involve the Chinese authorities and that proved a complicated business and wasted more time. They eventually instituted a search but again with no success. Then, when our man was in despair and about to write to me that Craven had almost certainly been murdered and his body disposed of, a shipping agent called at his office. He told him that a young Englishman of Craven’s description, but using the name Harrison, had taken ship on a tea clipper bound for Bristol. It sailed just about the time he went missing.

‘I made immediate enquiries here and discovered that ship, the
Lady Mary
, docked a week ago. The passenger known as Harrison disembarked and no one knew where he’d gone.’

‘Craven’s
here
in England!’ I cried, jumping to my feet. No wonder Roche was so distressed. This was the worst possibility of all, from his point of view. The black sheep had returned.

‘I’m afraid so, Inspector,’ Roche confirmed. ‘But
where
in England, well, that’s another matter.’

‘He’ll very likely be looking for his wife,’ observed Morris gloomily from the door.

Roche winced. ‘I agree. He’ll have gone first to London and finding my niece was not at the Chelsea house, set off to find her.’

‘But he hasn’t enquired at your London house openly, or quizzed the servants?’ I pressed him.

‘No, no, I should know of it if he had. The servants have all been with me some time and are utterly reliable. They would have reported it. But there are other means of finding out. Delivery boys, chimney sweeps, postmen and laundrywomen, all manner of people are in a position to mark the comings and goings at a house, and are able to tell if someone is in residence or not.’