A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) (30 page)
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Authors: Ann Granger
‘THE WRONG man?’ roared Dunn. His eyes bulged. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Ross?’
‘I mean, it would be dangerous to congratulate ourselves too soon, sir. We may not have solved this case yet.’
‘Of course we’ve solved it! Do you seriously mean to suggest that, with Mas downstairs in the cells, we have arrested an innocent man!’ Dunn gurgled into silence, gulping for air in the manner of a stranded fish.
‘No, no, Hector Mas is not an innocent man, sir,’ I hurried on. ‘Except, possibly, of the murder of Thomas Tapley. On other counts I’m quite sure he’s guilty and we have the right villain locked up in the cells. He killed Jenkins and tried to abduct Flora Tapley. It may have been his original intention – and that of his accomplice Guillaume – on coming to England, that they seek out Thomas Tapley and that Mas murder him. But we cannot place him at the scene of that murder. Let us suppose that it’s just possible someone else was there. Someone found Thomas Tapley before Mas did.’
‘Let us suppose, for the sake of a mental exercise, that the moon is made of blue cheese,’ offered Dunn sarcastically.
‘All I am saying, sir, is that I don’t think we have yet
established beyond doubt that it was Mas who killed Thomas Tapley.’
‘Of course he did!’ bawled Dunn. ‘Who else had a motive and opportunity?’
‘For that we must widen the scope of our enquiries, sir. But we have a starting point. We have agreed that there is a clever woman involved in this case, Victorine Guillaume. But I’m thinking there has also been a clever man.’
‘Aha!’ Dunn looked up at me under bushy eyebrows. ‘Hector Mas is your clever man.’
‘He has the quickness and ruthlessness of a wild beast, sir. But he is all instinct. The brains belong to Victorine Guillaume. No, I am thinking of Jonathan Tapley.’
‘Tapley and Guillaume in league? Nonsense!’
‘Yes, sir, that would be nonsense and I don’t suggest it for a moment. I mean they have acted separately and in ignorance of one another. Victorine and her henchman, Mas, have been playing one deadly game. Jonathan Tapley has been playing another. Normally we have one set of villains. This time, I fancy we have two.’
Dunn shook his head. ‘No, no, it won’t do, Ross.’
I persisted. ‘Mrs Jameson saw a man in the street, as I have been telling you, sir, walking up and down outside her house on the afternoon of the murder. When she saw Jonathan Tapley at the funeral, she recognised him as that man. She is quite certain. So, we have no witness to put Hector Mas in front of the house, but we do have a reliable one to put Jonathan Tapley there.’
‘Reliable? We have an elderly lady, whose sight, for all we know, may be failing. She saw a man through her window,
some distance away, and now she is ready to swear that it was Jonathan Tapley? Come, come, Ross, no jury would accept that.’
‘We have to consider it. Of course, Mrs Jameson saw the man at around three in the afternoon or shortly thereafter—’
Dunn interrupted. ‘In that case, how on earth is Jonathan Tapley supposed to have done it? In the medical man’s opinion, the murder took place some time between five and the discovery of the corpse at a little after seven.
Jonathan Tapley could not have done it
. His actions at the time of the murder are accounted for. He was in court all day! By four thirty he was at his chambers, eating cold chicken. At five he held a case conference there. All these things during the period when we know, from our medical man, that the murder was committed! He has given us a list of those people who saw and spoke to him at his chambers. Anyway, why, for pity’s sake, should he kill his cousin?’
‘Mr Dunn,’ I began. ‘Let me explain my thinking.’
‘Please do so,’ said Dunn sarcastically, with a broad gesture of his hand and arm. ‘I confess myself fascinated, Ross. Proceed!’
I did so, carefully laying out my reasons.
‘Guillaume repeatedly tells us that she was told by her husband, or that he gave her clearly to understand, that the cousins had quarrelled. There was a bitter rift, she suggests, between them. Well, now, that might be so. Because Guillaume is thrifty with her evidence, it does not mean everything she says is to be disbelieved. She twists the facts to suit her purpose, but in a curious sort of way, she sticks to them. So, was there animosity between the two men?
‘Only consider, sir, Jonathan had forced his cousin to leave the country, had taken away his cousin’s only child, his daughter Flora. We have good reason to believe Thomas was devoted to his child. Lizzie discovered how he had sought out Flora secretly here in London and how worried he was that she was about to make a disastrous marriage. We have this from Flora’s own lips.
‘But Jonathan’s account of the arrangement made with his cousin is that it was entirely amicable; that Thomas was grateful to Jonathan and his wife for taking in little Flora and raising her as their own. Thomas found visiting the child “difficult”, says Jonathan, and that is the reason his visits were so few and brief. But is that true? According to Jonathan, Thomas agreed it was best he leave the country for France and never return. Did he put up no argument against the plan? We don’t know, because if he did, then Jonathan has been careful not to tell us so. To my mind, there is a discrepancy between what Jonathan has told us, and what we know from Flora herself of her father’s actions when he was back in London.
‘Because Jonathan is a respected barrister at law, our instinct is to believe his version of events. Because Victorine appears to have led a rackety life when young, has been difficult to deal with and obviously mistrusts the law, we are tempted to be suspicious of everything she says. That includes her report of some old quarrel she says took place between the two men. It could be that Victorine is simply her own worst enemy. Consider, sir, that Thomas never tried to contact Jonathan when he returned to England over a year ago. He lived in London, south of the river, near to Lizzie and me. He
crossed the river, using Waterloo Bridge, regularly on his way to spend his day in town. Lizzie met him in the area. Jenkins, waiting about in his clown’s costume, ran him to earth there. Yet Thomas did not walk as far as his cousin’s house; or even his cousin’s chambers in the Gray’s Inn Road. Thomas sought out his daughter in a public library, and swore her to secrecy about their meeting. He agreed to her dressing up and visiting him in disguise. This, to me, is a man who did not trust his cousin Jonathan and was anxious, above all, that Jonathan never learn Thomas was back in London.
‘Was this just because Thomas knew he had broken his word about never returning? Because he feared Jonathan’s anger? Did he fear resurrection of old scandal? Or something else altogether? You know, when I first met Jonathan, he said something odd. It struck me at the time as merely tasteless, but now I wonder. I had noticed his cane, with the skull pommel. He saw it had taken my interest. He held it up, saying that he had not used it to beat in his cousin’s brains. I would not have thought him a man to make such a crude joke at so inappropriate a time. So, then, why did he say it? Was he meeting my suspicion head-on in order to deflect it?’
‘Supposition . . .’ growled Dunn.
‘At least give me a chance, sir, to go through Tapley’s alibi again. If I can crack it . . . find a loophole somewhere . . .’
‘You’ll but offend him and make us look ridiculous!’ Dunn grumbled. ‘How are you going to crack his alibi for the time of the murder, when we have medical evidence that the victim died after five that afternoon?’
‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘as to that, I have an idea I’d like to try out.’
Dunn threw up his hands and brought them palm down on his desk with a thump. ‘An idea? It seems to me you’re full of ideas, Ross, each one crazier than the last. Where, if I may ask, did you get this latest idea?’
I allowed myself a smile, which seemed to alarm the superintendent. ‘I got it from a steak and kidney pie, sir.’
At that, Dunn looked even more alarmed, until I explained. ‘Hum,’ he muttered. ‘Forty-eight hours, Ross, I give you forty-eight hours. If you haven’t got a case against Jonathan Tapley in that time, I shall personally charge Hector Mas with the murder of Thomas Tapley.’
Elizabeth Martin Ross
‘I heard your old man has arrested a Frenchie for the murder of the gent living in your street.’
The voice appeared out of nowhere and made me jump. I looked around and a movement in the shadow of a doorway materialised into the familiar ragged form of Coalhouse Joey.
‘Oh, Joey!’ I exclaimed in relief. ‘Where have you been recently? I’ve been looking out for you.’
‘Was you?’ Joey’s features twisted into a scowl. ‘I thought as you might be, so I cleared off, didn’t I?’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because,’ said Joey patiently, as if speaking to someone slow on the uptake, ‘you would have told your old man what I told you, about the young swell what I spotted signalling to old Tapley from the street. Then your old man, being a rozzer, would have come questioning me. I don’t like talking to rozzers. So I cleared off. But now I heard he’s gone and
nabbed the villain, he won’t be interested in me no more, and I can come back.’ Joey paused. ‘So I have, and here I am!’ he concluded.
‘My husband would have liked to talk to you,’ I admitted. ‘But not now, because the mystery of the young man you saw has been cleared up.’
‘Oh? Has it?’ Joey looked disappointed. ‘Nuffin’ to do with the murder, then?’
‘No, not exactly. But you were right to tell me what you saw. If you ever see anything else unusual like that, you can always tell me. Witnesses are always very important.’
Joey obviously liked the idea of being important, but tempered his enthusiasm with the knowledge it meant talking to rozzers.
‘A Frenchie, eh?’ He stared at me thoughtfully. ‘I heard they went chasing him all round Wapping, River Police, too. The Frenchie climbed up a building and stood on the top of a chimney, shaking his fists and defying all the p’licemen. Then ran across all the roofs in Wapping before he leaped into the river. He swam across the Thames to escape ’em; but they went after him in a boat and hauled him out of the water, swearing and cussing and fighting for his life. It took six of ’em to hold him down.’
‘Well, more or less,’ I agreed. I could see why the chase after Mas, witnessed by so many bystanders, would become folklore immediately. At each retelling, Mas’s exploits would grow and become more fantastic until he turned into the Springheeled Jack of legend.
‘But I am still very pleased to see you, because I want to talk to you, Joey. You like horses, don’t you?’
‘Yus . . .’ agreed Joey cautiously.
‘I know a cabman by the name of Wally Slater. He’s a very nice man, Joey. He used to be a prizefighter so he looks rather frightening, but really, he’s very kind. He needs someone to help him look after his horse, and clean his cab – it’s a growler – when he gets home at the end of the day. So, I told him about you and he’s agreed to give you a trial. I don’t suppose he’ll pay very much, but it would be a regular wage and far better than just living on the streets.’
Joey’s expression had gone through surprise to incredulity to alarm to something like panic. ‘Yes, an’ very likely knock the living daylights out of me if I don’t do it properly, if his horse don’t kick my head in first!’
‘Mr Slater would not do that, Joey. He’d know I would find out about it and he wouldn’t want to upset me.’ I was reasonably sure of this. I wasn’t certain Wally Slater was worried about upsetting me so much, as he’d be worried I’d lecture him. ‘You can’t stay on the streets, doing nothing for the rest of your life, Joey.’
‘I don’t go thinking about the rest of me life,’ objected Joey. ‘That’s a waste of time, that is. I might not have one.’
‘What? A life?’
‘No one knows it,’ said Joey, in a surprising recourse to philosophy. ‘I might get the cholera. I might get murdered meself, like that old feller, Tapley. I might . . .’ he added, squinting up at me ferociously, ‘
get run down by a cab
!’
‘Yes, you might,’ I agreed. ‘And if you go on living on the streets as you do, it’s more than likely. Why don’t you let me take you along to meet Wally Slater? It’s worth a try.’
‘All right . . .’ agreed Joey unwillingly. ‘But if he starts
hitting me or his ’orse starts biting me, I’ll be off!’
‘Good! Agreed, then. Nelson is a very placid horse and I’m sure he doesn’t bite. Now then, we’d better clean you up a bit.’
‘
Clean me up
. . .’ Now there was no disguising Joey’s horror. ‘Whatcha mean?’
‘Well, I can’t take you to Wally without a wash and some proper clothes . . .’
‘
WASH!
’
If I hadn’t grabbed him, he’d have been off down the street and this time, I doubt he would have come back. He wriggled but I clung on. He could have got free if he could have given rein to his normal tactics of biting and kicking, but he didn’t feel free to kick me or bite me, so in the end he gave up and stood glowering at me resentfully.
‘I’d never have agreed to it, if I’d known it meant all this . . .’ he grumbled as I hauled him along to our house. ‘It’s just like being arrested, it is!’
I must say Bessie looked just as horrified when she saw him. ‘Wash him?’ she yelled.
‘I’ll give you a hand. Get the tin tub down, out in the yard, and put on some kettles for hot water.’
‘I’ll drown . . .’ said Joey despondently.
‘Not in a tin tub, Joey, with Bessie and me standing by.’
‘I ain’t taking all me clothes off in front of no women.’
‘All right, I’ll give you the soap and a towel; and Bessie and I will wait in the kitchen.’
He looked pathetic. ‘I’ll get a chill on me chest. I’ll cough me lungs up. Lungs carry you off in no time, lungs do.’
‘Not if you’re quick about it. Come on, now. And don’t forget to wash your hair.’
We filled the tub, handed Joey a bar of soap and the towel, made him promise not to run off, and told him to get on with it. He sniffed at the soap and said he’d smell like a ladybird.
We retired to the kitchen. Bessie, peeping from the window, reported that Joey had climbed into the tub, and was amusing himself by flicking water at a neighbour’s cat.
‘At least some dirt will come off,’ I told her. ‘Here’s some money. Run along to the old man who keeps the barrow of second-hand clothing, down by the bridge. Get some trousers and a shirt, a jacket if you can. I don’t know about boots, what size.’
‘I’ll get them plenty big enough. We can stuff them with paper if we need to,’ said Bessie.
When she returned, Joey, wrapped in his towel, was sitting damply before the kitchen range with a mug of tea in hand. The range was smoking rather badly because I had stuffed his old clothes into it to burn, but smoke didn’t worry Joey. I had trimmed his hair and, although I’m no barber, it was at least tidy. Joey had allowed me to do it without much protest. I think he had resigned himself to the inevitable. Dressed in his new (old) clothes, he looked transformed from his former self. He wasn’t sure about the boots, never having worn any. He walked up and down the kitchen in a comical fashion, raising each foot too high and placing it carefully on the stone floor.
‘You’ll get used to them,’ we promised him.
Now that we were all ready, I thought it well to be on our way at once to Kentish Town where I knew the Slaters lived. Joey’s willingness was already fading. I think the boots in particular had something to do with that.
‘It don’t seem normal,’ he muttered, as we set out. ‘That’s what feet are for, walking on.’
‘In boots,’ I pointed out, ‘you are safe from sharp stones or bruises from having someone stand on your foot. Your feet are dry in wet weather and warm in cold weather.’
‘They slows you up!’ argued Joey. ‘You can’t run in these things. If I had to run, I’d have to take ’em off first, and while I was doing that, I’d be caught!’
‘Stop making a fuss!’ Bessie ordered him. ‘You’d make a fuss to be hung, you would!’
We took an omnibus for the third time in our recent adventures and set off for Kentish Town. I think Joey liked the omnibus ride, but did not wish us to think he had no experience of this vehicle.
‘It ain’t the first time I took the ommybus, you know,’ he informed us. ‘Only the first time I’ve been sitting inside one.’
‘You’ve travelled on the open top before?’ I asked.
‘No, I hung on the back and rode for free.’
I knew Kentish Town to be a place with some history behind it. It had not begun to grow from its original village until comparatively recent years. Now there were new buildings of all sorts, and a railway line running through it, but plenty of older houses remained. We were directed to one of these in a side street. Wally was well known, as I’d guessed he would be, and our first enquiry told us the way.
Wally’s home was still a cottage with an entrance beside it, wide enough to admit his cab, and leading into a yard. At the back of the yard was a wooden building, Nelson’s stable. Family washing flapped on a line.
