A Case of Doubtful Death (42 page)

Sarah was silent all this time, but at last she gave a grunt and rolled up her sleeves. In seconds the bed had been stripped of its ragged sheets and its hard pillow, and the mattress turned. Finally she took hold of the bedstead and pulled it away from the wall. It creaked horribly and Frances, who had feared that something alive and unpleasant might run out from the dark recesses that had been undisturbed for so long, was relieved that nothing that crawled or scampered was revealed. They saw a stained chamber-pot and one other item, something long, narrow and wrapped in newspaper, which Sarah retrieved and laid on the bed. Frances and Miss Horton peered at it as the papers were pulled back.

‘I think
this
did not belong to your brother,’ said Frances.

‘I have never seen it before,’ said Miss Horton. ‘Is this the thing he was looking after for a friend?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ said Frances, picking it up. ‘That is interesting. It is very much heavier than it appears to be.’

‘Solid metal right through the middle I don’t doubt,’ said Sarah.

It was a gentleman’s walking cane, with a fox’s head device, and the silver top was crusted in blood.

‘I
think,’ said Frances, when the incriminating object had been handed to the police, ‘that Mr Darscot will find it very hard now to deny that he murdered Henry Palmer. Quite apart from the statement made by Dr Bonner, I believe the police will easily discover witnesses who have seen Mr Darscot with the stick, and of course his efforts to find Mr Horton’s lodgings now look very suspicious. There is also the fact that the silver fox’s head may prove to fit the wounds on Mr Palmer’s skull exactly. I believe that young man will shortly be making an appointment that he would much rather not keep.’

‘But what was Mr Horton doing with the stick?’ asked Sarah. ‘And do you think Mr Darscot killed him?’

‘As to the latter, I am not sure. Horton, as we know, had a habit of becoming obsessed with artefacts that reminded him of animals, some of which he saw as friendly but more often as a threat. I think he formed an obsession with the fox’s head stick and stole it from Darscot shortly after the murder of Mr Palmer, not realising that it was a murder weapon. Darscot was, of course, very anxious to get it back. It is possible that the two men fought and that Horton’s death was an accident. It would certainly not have been in Mr Darscot’s interests to murder Horton before he had found his stick.’

The next morning the case against Darscot was heard at Marylebone magistrates’ court and he was committed for trial on the charge of murdering Henry Palmer. Alice Palmer and Walter Crowe were in attendance, and while the young woman still looked deathly pale, the resolution of the mystery and the care of her future husband, friends and family would, thought Frances, restore her health in time. Miss Finch was very solicitous of her dear friend, although she was enduring her grief with the support of a most attentive young man whom she favoured with her simpering smiles. Dr Bonner also appeared, a pitiable looking creature, claiming that Darscot had blackmailed him into transferring his interest in the Life House, but the fickle opinion of society had turned against him in the last few days. No one objected when he was committed to take his trial on a charge of murdering Dr Mackenzie and acting as an accessory to the murder of Henry Palmer. Neither prisoner was charged with the murder of Herbert Horton.

Mr Fairbrother, while deeply grieved at the fate of his mentor, was thankful that the terrible business was almost at an end, especially since the magistrate had explicitly stated that his involvement was only as a pupil of Dr Bonner, and that he had acted under the senior man’s direction. Indeed, he had been praised for the clever observation that the body in the canal and Mrs Templeman were one and the same.

‘Will you be seeking another tutor in London?’ asked Frances.

‘No, my sojourn here is at an end in any case. I am anxious to study for my MD and have found a position in Edinburgh, which I will be taking up almost immediately.’

‘Ah,’ said Frances, ‘then it seems unlikely that our paths will cross again.’

‘Oh, one never knows,’ he said, blithely. ‘But it has been quite extraordinary to meet you, Miss Doughty. I must confess, I had my doubts about ladies studying to be doctors, but if they are all like you, they may well come to be ornaments to the profession – in certain limited spheres of work, of course.’

Frances did not trouble herself to ask what he might consider those limits to be. On her way home she reflected that it was unlikely that anyone would ever know exactly what had transpired on the night of Henry Palmer’s death, but she felt it very probable that Bonner had injected Mackenzie when he had suggested abandoning the plan and running away. Palmer must have witnessed what he perceived to be the murder of Dr Mackenzie and had been struck down by Darscot to stop him going to the police.

Tom came to see her, towing a boy of about his own age who needed some persuasion to accompany him. The boy was dressed in an odd assortment of clothing, none of which had been made for someone of his size, some of it too short in the body and some overly long. His face was a shade of mottled brown, which spoke either of some unknown illness, or being burnt by the sun, or, as was more probable, a long-standing unfamiliarity with soap and water. Sarah scowled at him, pushing up her sleeves as if about to test that conundrum.

‘This is Ratty!’ said Tom proudly. ‘’e’s my best man.’

‘Good afternoon, Ratty,’ said Frances. ‘Do you have any information for me?’

Ratty explored his ear with a dirty fingernail.

‘He dint want to go ter the coppers, but I said ‘e oughter,’ said Tom.

‘Don’ like coppers,’ growled Ratty.

‘Then you can tell me whatever you have to say,’ said Frances kindly.

‘Go on!’ said Tom, giving Ratty a shove.

Ratty wriggled uncomfortably in his clothes and capitulated, revealing a curious tendency to add extra syllables to any word he felt unsure of, as if by making it long enough he was sure to get all the necessary parts in. ‘It’s about that there Mr ‘orton. The one what was shoved into the area an’ bashed ‘is ‘ead in. I saw ‘im, dint I? Outside the Piccadillilly Club, walkin’ up ‘n down th’ Portichester Road, and cursin’ and swearin’ ‘n then this woman comes up an’ they ‘as a few words what I dint catch, but I thought she were a doxy, ‘cos they goes off arm-in-arm as friendly as anythin’, ‘n then not long after that, the Pounder, what does all the pugilistics, ‘e comes out and ‘e walks off on ‘is own, but goin’ the other way.’

‘Can you say when this happened?’ asked Frances, hopefully.

‘I don’ know the day, not like the day of the week or anythin’, or any of the numbers, like,’ said Ratty.

Frances sighed. Horton had been a well-known figure outside the club for three days before he was killed.

‘All I
do
know is that it was the day after I saw ‘im when they found ‘im face down dead.’

‘The very next day? You’re quite sure?’

He nodded.

‘Well Ratty, that is a very important story, and I think you should go and tell the police at once.’

‘Don’ like coppers,’ repeated Ratty.

‘If you go and tell them what you know, then I will see that you have a fine dinner and new clothes and a shilling,’ said Frances.

Sarah raised her eyebrows since she strongly suspected who was going to be serving the fine dinner.

Ratty thought about it. ‘Two shillin’s,’ he said.

‘Done!’

Tom grinned. ‘An’ finder’s commission!’

Frances could hardly argue with that. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that this means that Professor Pounder will be released. I shall hear soon enough if he is.’

A few hours later, Joseph arrived with an invitation for Frances, Sarah, Tom and Ratty to enjoy a celebratory tea at Cedric’s lodgings the next day at which they might meet the legendary Professor Pounder, who wished to express his gratitude.

Professor Pounder was a tall, broad man of about thirty-five, with an honest face, short, light brown curly hair and blue eyes. His clothes were worthy of the man, and although he might have felt more comfortable in the garb of an athlete, he wore them well, to do honour to the company. He was quietly spoken and very polite, a man who would not use two words when one would do.

The company sat around an elegant table on which Joseph had arranged the thinnest sandwiches, the lightest cakes, the most delicate biscuits, and scones like tiny white pillows just waiting to be anointed with delicious spoonfuls of jam and cream. He hovered about them wielding the teapot with discreet bravura, and their teacups were never empty.

Tom had been scrubbed and put in a suit and Ratty, whose screams had rung the length of Westbourne Park Road on being introduced to the concept of cleanliness by Sarah, was silent and shocked in his new clothes. Neither let their discomfort inhibit them from sampling every foodstuff in sight.

‘I thank you all most humbly,’ said Pounder, raising his cup to make a toast. ‘To you I owe my freedom, and my reputation.’

‘Inspector Gostelow said he was a model prisoner and they were sorry to see him go,’ said Cedric, ‘but even the force’s finest could not find a stain on his character. I am sure they would have him in uniform tomorrow if he would agree to it. Now
that
would be a sight to see!’

Joseph looked wistful, but refrained from comment.

‘The Inspector has asked me if I might train his men to defend themselves against criminal types,’ said Pounder, ‘which I have agreed to do.’

‘The Professor,’ said Cedric, enthusiastically, ‘is the finest exponent of the noble art of boxing that has ever lived. He rivals the best athletes of the Greeks, and can be relied upon to perform a display with such taste and decorum that even ladies do not disdain to attend. Indeed, they are very partial to watching him. The most beautiful ladies in London simply swoon at his feet!’

‘That must be very awkward,’ said Frances, picturing how the Professor might appear in the roped ring. It was not an unpleasant portrait.

Pounder nodded. ‘Some,’ he said, ‘but I don’t take no mind.’

‘Do you not admire beauty?’ asked Cedric, teasingly.

‘I do,’ said Pounder, and jabbed a thumb at his chest. ‘Beauty of the heart.’

‘I agree,’ said Cedric, ‘and I am happy to say that for beauty of character, of strength, and cleverness and loyalty, of everything that truly counts in this world, we have at our table the finest two ladies in Bayswater! Miss Doughty has a mind that all men should regard with terror – it has killed several to my certain knowledge – and once you have seen Miss Smith crack walnuts with her bare hands you will avow that there is no finer sight that the capital has to offer.’

‘That’s Jeb Smith’s trick,’ said Pounder, ‘the Wapping Walloper. Best bare-knuckle man in England.’

‘’E’s my uncle!’ said Tom, ‘or cousin, I c’n never work out which. An’ it ain’t ‘is trick, ‘cos it was Sarah what taught it ‘im.’

Pounder looked from Tom to Sarah and back again. ‘Ah,’ he said to Tom, ‘well, you be proud of him, lad, however he’s related.’

Joseph replenished the teacups and brought fruit tarts.

‘I suppose the police have not found the murderer of Mr Horton?’ said Frances. ‘It may have been a drunken fight with the woman he was last seen with, a robbery, perhaps. You know that I was with his sister when his lodgings were searched and the poor woman was in great distress. I hope, for her sake, that the culprit is caught soon.’

‘Oh,’ said Tom, eating three sandwiches at once, ‘she’s not as sorry as she makes out.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ asked Frances.

Sarah took a napkin and applied it briskly to Tom’s mouth, and it was some moments before he could speak again.

‘Well, when I talked to the man at the last place where ‘Orton lived, ‘
e
said that when the sister came round she was asking about ‘er good-for-nothing waster of a brother what was going to break ‘er poor mother’s ‘eart.’

‘That was a little unkind,’ said Frances, ‘even if true.’