‘Perkins, Inspector, of the
Daily Telegraph
. You know me, sir. We’re a reputable newssheet, Inspector, as you know well. We’re not a penny rag. Our readers include important people and respectable citizens in all walks of life. Just let me have something. Is it true the Wraith’s a foreigner? There’s a rumour he’s a Russian anarchist. How about an exclusive?’
I escaped into the Yard with a sigh of relief.
‘I’m going down to Egham again,’ I told Dunn. ‘I need to have another talk to the Marchwood woman. She must tell me the truth. She isn’t doing so at the moment, I’m sure of it.’
‘Taking Morris?’ he asked. ‘Bear in mind that there is a limit to the amount of expenses you can claim . . . and Morris can claim even less.’
‘Morris is still trying to find the butler, Seymour, and I don’t need him for this,’ I assured Dunn. ‘I am doing my utmost to keep within my expense allowance.’
I managed to give the reporters the slip and get to Waterloo Station unobserved by them. I reached Egham and toiled up the hill on foot to The Cedars. Dunn would approve my wearing out my boot leather, but the fact was that the pony and trap that had conveyed Morris and me on our first visit was already taken. It was rolling away as I emerged from the station into the yard. Was it, I wondered, the same vehicle as had taken Angelis from the station to The Cedars to report his failure to find Allegra? If I had managed to secure the trap I could have asked Billy Cooper about that. He would remember a fellow like Angelis and being asked to wait for quite some time outside the house and take the visitor back to the station. He must have been curious about an errand of such importance that a man would travel from London and back on the same evening, late and in poor weather. (Interviewing a witness would have allowed me to bring the cost of the trap within my expenses, too.)
Oddly enough, given the foul weather we had been having, it was a mild day for my second visit, quite warm, as sometimes happens late in the year. The trees were bare of leaves yet the scenery was not wintry. I was halfway up the hill when I saw a walker coming towards me. He was dressed in a dark frock coat and wore a black top hat with a black silk scarf tied round it, its two ends fluttering behind him as he walked. It was Benedict himself.
He was as close as fifteen feet away when he recognised me and I wondered how good his eyesight was without spectacles.
‘Inspector!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have news? You have arrested the fiend who murdered my wife?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ I apologised. ‘But we are leaving no stone unturned.’
He looked dissatisfied. ‘Then what are you doing here again? You are not going to find him here. There is nothing more I can tell you. You are wasting your time travelling out here again, when you could be on his track in London!’
‘I had hoped,’ I said, ‘to speak to Miss Marchwood again. Is she at The Cedars? I hope she hasn’t left.’
‘No, no, she’s still there,’ said Benedict impatiently. ‘I can’t stand the sight of the woman. I have told her to keep to her room. She failed in her duty. I will give her a week or two to find a new place, and then she must go.’
‘How did she fail, sir?’
He gaped at me and then a tide of red crept from his neck up his pale face. ‘Are you a fool, Inspector? She was hired to be Allegra’s, my wife’s, companion! Yet she was not with her when – when it happened.’
‘Forgive me, sir, but a companion is not a gaoler, nor a bodyguard.’
‘You are impertinent, sir.’ From red, Benedict’s face turned white. ‘I shall report this matter to your superiors at the Yard. I do not expect to be insulted by someone supposed to be a public servant! For your information, I did not keep my wife a prisoner. She came and went as she pleased. But she was young, and when she first came to this country everything was strange to her. I engaged Marchwood at that time to take very good care of Allegra. I expected her to do that.Yet she didn’t! I would be entitled to throw the woman out of the house immediately. But, because Allegra was fond of her, I am allowing her a period of grace. She does not deserve it.’ He raised his hand to touch the brim of his hat with his cane. ‘Good day to you, Inspector.’
Hum! I thought. I might have handled that better. But in the end, I needed to shake up a few people in this matter. Everyone had his or her story off pat to tell me. When Allegra Benedict died, everyone was somewhere else: Benedict at home, Miss Marchwood ostensibly looking for her or at the gallery. Angelis, also, was either at the gallery or out looking for the missing woman. Gray, the assistant, likewise. The beadle at the Arcade did not remember the ladies. Tedeschi, the jeweller, had confirmed to Morris they had been there. I’d have to talk to him again. But he was in his shop at the time of the murder. The only person to speak frankly and supply me with important information had been the crossing sweeper, Charlie Tubbs.
The same parlourmaid, still weepy, opened the door to me and told me that Miss Marchwood was upstairs in her own room.
‘She won’t come down, sir. I know she won’t. It’s very bad here. Everyone’s so upset. Mr Benedict . . . well, you can understand how he feels, poor gentleman.’ She dropped her voice to impart a confidence. ‘Miss Marchwood won’t want to meet him, sir, because the sight of her seems to irritate him.’
‘Mr Benedict has left the house,’ I said. ‘I met him halfway down the hill. I am sure it will be in order for me to talk to Miss Marchwood in the drawing room in his absence.’
The parlourmaid, whose name I belatedly remembered was Parker, looked unhappy and dithered for a moment, but as I remained firmly where I was on the doorstep, gave way.
‘You’d best come in, sir. I’ll go up and ask the lady if she can come down and have a word with you. She’s very distressed, too. I’m sure we all are!’
With that, and a sob, Parker showed me into the room I’d been in before, where the piano stood. As I waited by it for Isabella Marchwood to appear, I spent the time re-examining the photograph of Allegra Benedict. In it she looked so very young, beautiful and innocent, but perhaps also a little unpredictable. Behind those eyes staring so frankly at the camera, those lips turned up in a slight smile, perhaps intended for the photographer, what was running through her mind? Everyone, it seemed, had loved her. But what did she, still half a child, expect of her life? A passionate romance? Certainly Sebastian Benedict was no dashing hero of one of those tales. Travelling to England, now, that must have seemed an exciting prospect to a youngster. What had been her expectations of her new life? Rather more than she had found here, I suspected.
I sighed in sympathy with that young girl in the silver frame and touched the ruby vase. Italian glassware, perhaps. The red rose of my last visit had been replaced with a pink one. This was not the season for roses. This one and its predecessor had been forced under glass in some way and must be expensive.
A faint click behind me caused me to turn and I saw that Isabella Marchwood had come into the room and stood by the door, watching me apprehensively. As on the previous day she was dressed in black with the lace mantilla. She had been a very plain woman when I saw her then. Now she looked ill, white, drawn and with a nervous tic at one corner of her mouth. I wondered how far she was from complete collapse.
‘Your employer will not disturb us,’ I said reassuringly. ‘He has gone out. I saw him myself, walking down the hill towards Egham. Please, sit down.’
She came forward hesitantly and seated herself not far from the door so that, I presumed, she could bolt out if she heard Benedict return . . . or if I frightened her too much.
‘I am afraid I must trouble you again,’ I began.
‘Have you found him?’ she asked eagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands pressed against her flat bosom.
‘Not yet,’ I admitted, wondering if I was to be subjected to the reproaches Benedict had heaped on me.
But she only sighed, shaking her head. With her gaze averted, she asked very quietly, ‘Do you think it likely that you will find him?’
‘It is my job to find him, Miss Marchwood. I shall do my utmost. Perhaps, although I know it will distress you, you could tell me again about the events of that Saturday afternoon?’
She didn’t protest but began to recite her story again in a low, monotonous tone. I use the word ‘recite’ advisedly. She used very nearly the same words as before and it confirmed my suspicion that she had rehearsed all this in readiness for my first visit. When a person is afraid to deviate by so much as a phrase from an account, it often means they are afraid they will let slip something they mean to hide, contradict themselves, or become in some other way inconsistent. I have experienced the same with many witnesses. It is not what they are telling you that counts. It is what they are not.
When she had finished I asked, ‘There was no other reason for travelling up to London on that Saturday afternoon, apart from wishing to take a brooch to the jeweller?’
‘We did take the brooch to the jeweller!’ she said at once, sounding frightened and insistent at the same time.
‘Indeed, you did. An officer has spoken with the jeweller, Tedeschi.’
At this she looked up and blurted, ‘What did he say?’
‘That Mrs Benedict, with you, had visited him and left a brooch at his shop.’
‘Yes, yes!’ she said quickly. ‘That is what we did. I told you so. Why are you asking about it again?’
‘Because, Miss Marchwood, I have a problem. It is this. You left the jeweller’s about four thirty, but did not arrive at the gallery until a little after half past five. Mr Angelis is certain of the time. So, there is a period of an hour unaccounted for. Where were you both during that time? Or, more to the point, where was Mrs Benedict?’
‘But I don’t know!’ she wailed. ‘I don’t know what time we left Tedeschi’s shop. We were separated in the fog. I wandered up and down looking for her. I have no idea how long it took me!’ She scrabbled at her sleeve and dragged out a lace-trimmed handkerchief. ‘How can I tell you where poor dear Allegra was? I had
lost
her, lost her forever. She may already have been lying dead on the cold ground . . . oh, it’s more than I can bear!’
I felt sorry for the poor little woman but I had to ask my questions.
‘Then let me ask you bluntly, was there any other reason for travelling up to London on that afternoon? Some other errand? Did either of you hope to meet someone?’
‘No, no!’ she cried, looking terrified. ‘It’s just as I said.You don’t believe me, but it’s true, I swear it! I lost Allegra in the fog. Mr Benedict blames me, of course he does. After you came here yesterday, he flew into a terrible rage. He said some dreadful things but nothing could be worse than the things I’ve said to myself in my head. I blame myself! Since your visit, he won’t see me. I am to stay in my room and take my meals there. If I go out into the garden, then I am to walk out of sight of his study windows. If I am in the garden and see him coming, I am to turn back and go some other way. I have written letters to all the ladies of my acquaintance, asking if they know of a situation. I want to leave. I don’t want to stay here! He hates me! I hate myself! It is all my fault, all of it!’
Tears had begun to roll down her cheeks as she spoke. Now she was sobbing uncontrollably, just as according to Angelis she had been when she arrived at the gallery to report Mrs Benedict’s apparent disappearance. The tiny lace-edged square was inadequate to stem the flow.
A sobbing witness can’t give any kind of coherent account. I attempted to soothe her. ‘Come, come, it is not your fault a murderer was at large. But I must know how it came about that Mrs Benedict was in Green Park. That she was wandering up and down Piccadilly, yes, I can understand that. But that she should go into the park in such dreadful weather and when, as you tell me, the intention of the pair of you was only to go as far as the gallery . . .’
There was a scurrying outside the door and it opened to reveal the parlourmaid, Parker.
‘Sorry, Miss Marchwood, and sorry, Inspector. But the master is coming up the drive. He’s just stopped to have a word with the gardener, but he’ll be here directly.’
Isabella Marchwood jumped to her feet. ‘He mustn’t see me. He will throw me out on the spot! I have nowhere to go! Please, Inspector, leave now. I can’t talk to you any more!’
With that, she rushed out of the room and I could hear her running up the staircase.
I picked up my hat and walked out of the front door as Benedict arrived at it.
‘I trust,’ he said when he saw me, ‘that this journey has proved worth your while, Inspector. The next time you come, I shall expect you to have news of some progress to report to me.’
He stalked past me into the house. The door was shut and I was alone on the doorstep.
‘Damn, damn, damn . . .’ I muttered to myself as I walked away. ‘Another ten minutes and I might have got something useful from that woman. She’s terrified of him, that’s clear. If she had been helping Allegra to do something Benedict would not have approved of, she’ll be determined he won’t find out. She’d rather the murderer went undiscovered!’
All the way back to the station and on the train back to London, I turned over in my head every word spoken by Isabella Marchwood that afternoon. The first time I’d spoken to her, she had been much more in control of herself. This time she could barely keep from breaking down. Surely, in that distressed state, she must have said something, if only one word . . .
