The Dorset House Affair (15 page)

Julia Maltravers knelt down beside the wronged Frenchwoman, and took her hand in hers. How strange life was, that they two should have been so inextricably bound up in the life of a young
man who had brought disgrace to one of them, mourning to another, and death to himself.

‘You should have told him,' Julia whispered. ‘He would have married you. You should not have yielded to all this doomed fantasy of rank and station.'

‘It was what I had to do, Julia. These things are instilled into one from birth. But now you will understand where my hatred of Maurice came from. It died with the news of his own death, but I had good cause, before then, to wish him dead.'

‘What happened afterwards?'

‘I suffered a severe brainstorm, which led to temporary insanity. I was confined for three months to the insane asylum of Bon Sauveur in Caen – the same institution in which my own father died. When I was better, I came back here, and Alain and I plotted our revenge. Thank God, it came to nothing, and hands other than ours sent Maurice Claygate to judgement.'

Elizabeth glanced around the faded room which still held the silent reproach of something that had fallen on evil days for the loss of its former magnificence.

‘Alain has great hopes of receiving enough money to re-found our fortunes,' she said, ‘and to restore this house to its ancient glory. Then, perhaps, I will be able to move in society again. We may induce the higher echelons of the Norman nobility to dine here. It is from small beginnings of this sort that one can be drawn back into the fold of the
ancienneté
.'

Poor Elizabeth! It was time for Julia to renew her expressions of regard for the stricken girl, and take her departure. Elizabeth de Bellefort seemed incapable of living in the present, and facing up to the fact that the world for which she and her brother craved had passed away for good.

Julia made her way thoughtfully along the main street of the little town of Saint-Martin de Fontenay, noting the ancient church, and
the civic buildings facing it, from the roof of which fluttered the tricolour of the French Republic. Carts laden with farm produce made their way along the roads, and two separate smithies seemed to be doing a roaring trade. In this bustling little town, thought Julia, there was no sign of the tragic inertia afflicting the old manor-house and its demesne on the outskirts.

At one end of the main street a fine two-storey house of white stucco, its windows flanked by smart green shutters, rose up in well-tended gardens behind black iron railings. Behind it stretched an array of greenhouses, and Julia could see a number of men moving purposefully between them.

The front door of the house opened, and the young fair-haired man, this time without his slouched hat and sword, emerged on to the path. She heard him call a name, and one of the men raised his hand in an informal salute. Monsieur Delagardie, then, was not too proud to earn his own living by what appeared to be extensive market gardening.

Julia made her way to the little railway station, where an
afternoon
train would take her back to Caen. She had learnt a lot from her visit, and there was valuable information that she would have to impart to Inspector Box. She would not betray Elizabeth de Bellefort's intimate confidences, but there were a number of things that the police would have to know.

For the dead Maurice Claygate she felt only pity. He had known nothing of Elizabeth's pregnancy, or of its terrible
aftermath
, but there could be no doubt that he had behaved abominably to her, and had been content to dismiss her when he was ready to forge another alliance – namely, with her, Julia. From that moment, Maurice would be relegated firmly to the past.

She glanced back along the main street at the elegant and prosperous house of Monsieur Delagardie, and wondered. Perhaps that interesting man would one day be able to exorcize that decaying old manor of its presiding spirit of death and decay, and take Elizabeth away with him to live in the real
world. Well, it was none of her business, but it was a pleasant thought, for all that.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Adrian Kershaw stood at the window of his temporary headquarters in the London Pavilion, and looked down at the crowds thronging Piccadilly Circus. Soon, he hoped, his business there would be finished, and he could disappear from public scrutiny, and the cares of his office, at least for a short while. With luck, he would be back in uniform for three weeks, supervising the instructors at the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness, lost from sight amidst a host of soldiers on the vast, empty firing-ranges of the Maplin Sands.

But not yet. One of the trim little Baker Street omnibuses had just drawn up at the island, and a rather aggressive-looking workman, clutching a newspaper in his right hand, had hurried down the stairs from the top deck. Without looking to right or left, he pushed his way through the throng and disappeared from sight. In a moment, thought Kershaw, our friend Cadbury will show him in here….

‘Ah! Mr Ames. I'm very glad to see you. Thank you, Cadbury. This man is one of our people. He only
looks
like a dangerous ruffian.'

Mr Cadbury smiled to himself, and closed the door behind him as he left the room.

‘Now, Ames, what's amiss?' asked Kershaw. ‘You know that it's highly irregular to come barging in upon me like this. Sit down.'

Ames wore the rough working clothes of an artisan. He sat down at the table opposite Kershaw, putting down his peaked cap carefully on the floor beside his chair.

‘Read that, Colonel,' he said, slapping the newspaper down on the table in front of Kershaw. ‘The bit that I've marked down the side in blacklead.'

Colonel Kershaw merely glanced at the roughly spoken man
sitting opposite him before doing as he had been bidden. Ames was the son of a corporal in the Royal Artillery and a woman from Haiti. The corporal had perished in one of the several Afghan skirmishes in the eighties, and the Haitian woman had died of an obscure disease in the Royal Infirmary at Liverpool. Ames earned his living as a ship's labourer, but he was also a loyal and devoted member of Kershaw's band of ‘nobodies' – obscure folk who carried out mundane tasks that helped in the smooth running of the Secret Intelligence. Ames could also read and speak French fluently, having learnt that language at his mother's knee.

Kershaw looked at the newspaper, and saw that it was a two-day-old copy of the
Courant
de
Paris,
a popular but responsible French newspaper. He read the passage that Ames had marked.

‘Well, well,' said Kershaw. ‘And what do you think of that, Mr Ames?'

‘The paper's hushing things up, Colonel. Leclerc had been on the edge of a breakdown for weeks, ever since rumours about him began to circulate. I think he realized that the game was up.
You
were on to him, and so were
they
– you know who I mean. So he upped and done for himself. I thought you'd want to know. Unless the French make some kind of an effort, the whole business will come out into the open. The minister's wife and her indiscretion, and all the rest of it. It's going to be dangerous, Colonel, unless something's done soon.'

François Leclerc…. Inspector Box had sent him the notes that someone had left in Sophie Lénart's books for anyone to find. Obviously, other little bits of evidence implicating Leclerc in
skulduggery
and murder had been planted elsewhere, not only in England, but in France. Somebody had wanted the weak François Leclerc out of the way.

‘Who do you think is behind Leclerc's death, Mr Ames?'

Ames laughed, revealing a mouthful of stained and broken teeth.

‘Who do
you
think, Colonel? You know very well who's behind it. It's that sponging parasite De Bellefort – you know it, and I know it. He did for poor Maurice Claygate, and Sophie the spy, and now he's done for François Leclerc by driving him to suicide. I'll have to go, now. I'm due at the West India Dock at noon.'

Colonel Kershaw opened a drawer in the desk, and withdrew a cash box, which he unlocked. He took out ten sovereigns, and pushed them like a croupier towards the rough man sitting
opposite
him.

‘That's a little something by way of a “thank you”,' he said. ‘Yes, it's De Bellefort, and he'll have to be stopped. Could you lay your hands on Théophile Gaboriau for me? I've lost track of him, much to his relief, no doubt.'

‘Gaboriau? Surely you wouldn't—'

‘Can you find him for me? Yes or no?'

‘Yes, I know where he is. But be careful, Colonel. Gaboriau is no shrinking violet. If you put him on a job, and then change your mind, it'll make no difference to him. He'll just go on and do it.'

‘Well, let's leave it there, Mr Ames. When I want your services
again I'll send one of my folk after you. Thanks once again for the information.'

Ames scooped up the little pile of sovereigns from the table, and dropped them into his pocket. He retrieved his hat, and gave Kershaw a clumsy bow.

‘Remember what I told you, Colonel,' he said, as he made for the door, ‘Theophile Gaboriau's no shrinking violet. What he starts, he finishes.'

In a moment he had gone, leaving Kershaw to his own subtle thoughts.

11

Funeral at Kensal Green

A
rnold Box and Jack Knollys stood under a dripping yew tree in the Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green, waiting for Maurice Claygate’s cortège to leave the chapel and make its mournful progress to the Claygate family tomb. It had rained steadily all the previous night, and the downpour showed no signs of abating. It was near eleven o’clock on the morning of Thursday, 13 September, just one week after the young man’s murder.

‘Did you know, sir,’ said Jack Knollys, ‘that this cemetery covers seventy acres, and that there are forty thousand graves here?’

‘No, Sergeant,’ Box replied, ‘I didn’t know it, but I’m not surprised. That’s why we got lost in the main cemetery: all those hundreds of identical upright slabs, and nasty shale paths that don’t seem to lead anywhere in particular. Anyway, here we are, and in a minute they’ll leave the chapel and progress to the tomb, which is over there, just behind Cardinal Manning’s grave.’

‘And we’re looking for Harry the Greek, are we, sir?’ asked Knollys.

‘We’re looking for anybody out of the ordinary who may be loitering on the outskirts of the crowd, Sergeant. You know as well as I do that murderers frequently attend the funerals of their victims – I don’t know why, but they do. If no one suspicious turns up, then we’ll get out of here, and take an omnibus back to the Edgware Road.’

‘Here they are, now, sir,’ said Knollys.

The doors of the chapel had been thrown open, and the bearers carrying Maurice’s coffin moved slowly out into the rain. They were followed by a priest in black requiem vestments, attended by acolytes. A moment later, the family appeared, and there came a flurry of unfurled umbrellas from their attendants.

‘There’s the old field marshal,’ Box whispered. ‘That lady in full veils will be Lady Claygate, I expect. You can’t see much of her, can you? There’s Maurice’s brother, Major Claygate, and that’s the major’s wife, linking his arm. I had a very interesting
conversation
with that lady. And now, these will be other relatives and friends emerging…. Here are more people coming through the gate from the main cemetery…. Dear me, Sergeant, there’s quite a crowd forming, now!’

By the time the cortège had reached the Claygate family tomb the area around Cardinal Manning’s grave had filled with mourners, a veritable sea of top hats and umbrellas. The Latin prayers of the priest rose into the air, after which the coffin, crowned with a wreath of white lilies, was borne into the tomb.

Box’s eyes scanned the crowd. No; it had been a wild goose chase. Everything was going according to Cocker. Time to make themselves scarce, and dash for the Edgware Road omnibus. And then—

‘There he is, Jack! Harry the Greek!’ cried Box. ‘Up there, between those two big monuments. Strewth! What’s the matter with him?’

A man who must have been standing motionless on a little rise containing two massive tombs had suddenly leapt into full view. He was respectably dressed, but hatless, and he appeared to be preaching some kind of involuntary sermon. Box could hear some disconnected words – ‘judgement’, ‘damnation’ – and then the man gave a despairing cry and clutched his head in his hands. Some of the mourners glanced up at him in surprise, but no one felt inclined to approach the unwelcome visitor.

‘Come on, Sergeant,’ Box whispered. ‘Let’s go after him. It’s Harry the Greek, all right, but he’s far from being his usual suave self. Something’s happened to him, and we’d better find out what it is.’

But their pursuit of Aristotle Stamfordis proved to be in vain. He had evidently caught sight of them, and had stumbled away into the impenetrable forest of tall stones and monuments. Box and Knollys stood panting on one of the saturated paths, blinking the rain out of their eyes.

‘We’ve lost him, sir,’ said Knollys. ‘Are you going to put out a general alert? He must know something pretty damning if he’s started to lose his nerve like that.’

‘There’s something very wrong there, Jack,’ said Box. ‘He looks ill – demented. Yes, we’ll put out a general alert. I wonder how he got here today? He could have come on the train to Westbourne Park, and walked in from there. He’ll go back to town the same way, I’ve no doubt. Come on, Jack, let’s leave this dismal place and get back to the Rents.’

It was still raining in the afternoon when Box received a note from Julia Maltravers in the four o’clock post. It was written from her apartment in Canning House, Park Lane. She had returned that morning from Normandy, and was anxious to tell him the results of her quest. The note concluded: ‘Please let me know by return when you can receive me.’

Box smiled to himself as he read these words. The peremptory tone of the letter reminded him of the unconscious arrogance often found in young ladies of Miss Maltravers’s type. Born into the landed interest, and with wealth enough to lease an apartment in Park Lane, she assumed that a police inspector would naturally let her know ‘by return’ when he could see her.

Still, she had impressed him with her dogged determination to confront the other woman in her dead fiancé’s life, despite the fact
that she herself was in mourning for a recent bereavement. Yes, he would send her a reply immediately; she would get it in the seven o’clock post.

Box recalled his visit to Louise Whittaker at Finchley on the previous Monday. He had told her then that Maurice Claygate’s fiancée had disbelieved the tale of Elizabeth de Bellefort’s heroic defence of her brother when she was a mere child. ‘I should like to meet Miss Julia Maltravers,’ Louise had said. ‘She sounds to me like a woman of discernment.’

Julia Maltravers and Louise Whittaker – why not bring the two women together? Louise had given him her own invaluable gloss on the Dorset House affair, and it was only right that she should hear what Julia Maltravers had to say.

Box left his office, and made his way upstairs. Tiptoeing past Superintendent Mackharness’s office, he walked along a narrow windowless passage, at the end of which an iron spiral staircase took him up to the telegraph cabin, a small room that had been built upwards through the roof of 2 King James’s Rents. There was no landing: you stood on the top step of the spiral staircase, and pushed open the narrow door.

The duty telegrapher, PC Mackenzie, sprang to his feet as Box, still standing on the staircase, half leaned into the bright little room.

‘Constable,’ said Box, ‘I want you to send a telegram via Charing Cross Post Office, for immediate delivery.’ He gave Mackenzie Louise Whittaker’s name and address, and then dictated the substance of the message.

‘Miss L. Whittaker. Want you to attend a meeting with self and Julia Maltravers as soon as possible. Saturday a.m. convenient. Suggested venue: King James’s Rents. Box.’

‘Very good, sir. Do you want a reply direct?’

‘What? Oh, yes. Thanks very much, Constable. You can bring it down to me when it arrives.’

Box returned to his office, and wrote a reply to Julia
Maltravers’s letter. He put it into an envelope and affixed a penny stamp. Crossing the wet boards of the entrance hall, he looked into the reception room, where an elderly bearded sergeant was busy writing in a ledger.

‘Pat,’ said Box, ‘would you make sure that this letter gets the next post? I’d go out myself, but I’m expecting an answer to a telegram. Use the box at the end of Aberdeen Lane.’

Half an hour later, PC Mackenzie came down from the telegraph room with Louise Whittaker’s answer.

The Acanthus Club, an institution for women who had managed to enter business and the professions, occupied a dignified old house in Scrivener’s Lane, a winding narrow road off Pall Mall, not far from the Burlington Arcade. A few stunted plane trees rose from the pavements and added a touch of faded green to the drab greys and browns of the Regency buildings.

Despite his best efforts, Box was half an hour late for the meeting with Louise and Julia Maltravers. The portress, a
formidable
lady in black, with jet appurtenances, conducted him up the wide staircase and along a passage, at the end of which was the strangers’ room.

Louise and Julia were sitting at a table in the window, evidently deep in conversation. When the portress announced him, they stopped speaking, and stared at him for a moment, as though wondering who he was. Evidently, the two women had established a rapport with each other at this, their first meeting.

‘Mr Box,’ said Louise Whittaker, ‘you’re a trifle late, you know, but Miss Maltravers and I have spent the time talking about the various members of the Claygate family. I’ve ordered coffee for the three of us, and the maid should be along soon. Meanwhile,
let us not waste any more time. Come, Miss Maltravers, let us now hear an account of how you fared in your interview with Elizabeth de Bellefort.’

Julia Maltravers launched into her account of her visit to Normandy. Although Louise Whittaker had seized the initiative, Box was gratified to note that Julia addressed all her remarks to him.

‘At first, Mr Box,’ she said, ‘Elizabeth de Bellefort was wary of me, and treated me distantly. But very soon she began to confide in me. I found her in a distressed, haunted state, evidently very near a breakdown. She sensed my pity and concern, I expect, and that was why she made me her confidante.

‘There’s no doubt,’ Julia continued, ‘that Maurice treated Elizabeth de Bellefort shamefully. She told me in confidence what had happened to her, and I swore that I would keep that
confidence
secret. Indeed, it would be perfidy to do otherwise. Suffice it to say that she has been grossly wronged.’

‘You can tell us no more than that?’ asked Box.

‘No. But I
can
tell you that as a result of Maurice’s behaviour, that poor woman’s life has been permanently compromised. It was monstrous! What she told me will remain a secret. But when she talked about the plot that she and her brother had concocted to take revenge against Maurice Claygate by shooting him dead, I knew where my duty lay. Attempted murder is something to which I had no intention of giving silent assent, especially on this particular Saturday, which, had Maurice lived, would have been my wedding day.’

The others grew quiet for a moment, as they felt the pathos of the words that Julia had just spoken.

‘You did right, Miss Maltravers,’ said Box, breaking the silence, ‘though, in the event, that act of revenge was never carried out. As far as the law is concerned, Miss de Bellefort is innocent of any crime.’

Box was quick to see Louise Whittaker’s little movement of
impatience. Although she said nothing, he knew that she was thinking of her own interpretation of the events in the garden passage. Elizabeth de Bellefort, according to Louise’s theory, had behaved in that frantic way because she had just come through that door herself, and so knew for a fact that something frightful remained in the passage.

At that moment, the maid arrived with a tray of coffee, and busied herself with laying out the cups and saucers. While she was doing this, and later, when she began to pour the steaming hot coffee into the cups, Arnold Box took swift stock of the theory that had taken shape in his mind ever since his visit to Louise at Finchley.

If Louise was right, and Elizabeth had really shot Maurice Claygate dead, what must have happened next? Perhaps Harry the Greek had come to Dorset House that night with one or two accomplices, who could have been concealed among those screens and cupboards halfway along the passage. After Elizabeth de Bellefort had shot Maurice dead, she had returned to the vestibule, where he, Box, had accosted her.

The accomplices rush out from their hiding place and drag the body as far as the door into the lane – what was it called? – Cowper’s Lane. Meanwhile, one of them, would have retrieved the note and the pistol….