An Appetite for Murder (14 page)

What was anyone to make of Mr Minster’s evidence, thought Frances? He had not been called at the trial and she could see why, since according to his earlier testimony he had been in the Grove fifteen minutes after Browne. The prosecution must have decided not to muddy the waters with conflicting evidence. All that Minster had seen was a light, which proved nothing, and Browne’s evidence was far stronger. Also, Minster’s timing suggested that the robber, having already been spotted in the doorway by Browne, had then remained on the premises for another fifteen minutes, which made no sense at all. Surely after being seen he would have escaped almost immediately? Or had he already fled the scene leaving the light on – careless, but not impossible. Frances re-read Whibley’s testimony but found no mention of him finding a light on when he arrived. It seemed probable that Minster, who had not, as Browne had done, checked his watch against a reliable timepiece, had simply made a mistake about the time.

Following the magistrates’ hearing, old Mr Finn had spoken to a reporter from the
Chronicle,
saying that he fully believed in the innocence of Mr Sweetman and deplored the action of counsel in bullying Mr Browne, who was not a well man, into saying something he had in all probability not intended. To Frances the conclusion was obvious. Mr Browne had not initially been at all certain that the man in the doorway was Sweetman, in fact, he had been inclined to think the man was Gibson until it had been demonstrated that this was not possible. Over the next few weeks he had persuaded himself, or perhaps been persuaded, that he had seen Sweetman and by the time the case came to trial he was certain and Mr Sweetman was duly condemned.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

F
rances was digesting the information when Mr Gillan came in and leaned a little too intrusively over the pages she was studying. ‘What are you busy with today, Miss Doughty?’ he asked, although his casual manner was only a thin veneer over his professional interest.

‘I am reading about Mr Hubert Sweetman’s trial for robbery in 1866,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you know what became of Mr Gibson, the clerk who was attacked?’

‘No, only that he left Bayswater. I think he took a little cottage somewhere on the coast and lived quietly there. He’d be eighty now if he was alive. The papers have commented on the old case, of course, but do you think you can squeeze some fresh interest out of it? Is there a story in it for me?’

‘Not at present, no.’

‘That was a good tip you gave me about his wife’s murder,’ said Gillan with great satisfaction. ‘We were first with it out of all the papers. It seems like Sweetman is a dangerous sort of gent, though I must admit he doesn’t look it.’

‘My hope, when I gave you that story,’ said Frances, ‘was that your article would bring in new information about the case, but so far it has not, unless there is something you have to tell me?’

‘Well,
I
have heard rumours that you are trying to clear Sweetman of murdering his wife,’ he said with a grin. ‘It seems his solicitor, Mr Marsden, has made very merry on that story. That can’t be true, can it?’

‘Mr Marsden is not a merry fellow, but he was present when I agreed to take the case. I must ask for your discretion on that point, and your help, on the understanding that you will be the only correspondent who will receive my secrets.’

Gillan nodded. ‘That seems fair, but I expect that by now most of Bayswater will know you are working on Mr Sweetman’s behalf.’

‘I have been making enquiries to discover where Mrs Susan Sweetman lived and who her associates were between leaving the family home in Garway Road after her husband’s conviction and taking up residence in Redan Place. If Mr Sweetman is not guilty of her murder, the secret may lie in what she did during those years. When one considers the weather conditions at the time of her murder, it is obvious that her killer was not an idle caller but someone who came there for a very particular purpose.’

‘Yes, I see what you mean. But tell me, do you really think Mr Sweetman didn’t do it, or is that just his nephew’s money talking? Have you seen Curtis’ wife, by the way? I saw her coming out of the house once.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Makes me glad I’m single! I’d not want to come home to that face!’

Frances ignored the last observation. ‘I believed Mr Sweetman to be innocent before I was engaged on the case,’ she said, a little stung by the suggestion that her opinions could be bought, ‘and it is not and never will be my business to prove a man innocent when I think him guilty, not for any sum.’

‘It’s a good thing ladies don’t study to be lawyers then,’ said Gillan, with a laugh. ‘You’d never make a penny with that way of thinking.’

Frances did not see the humour in his comment. ‘I take it you have no information about Mrs Sweetman.’

‘No, none, but I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.’ He put his hands in his pockets and showed no sign of leaving her to her work. ‘I was told you had borrowed the folder of letters that came in after Mr Whibley died,’ he said casually. ‘All that arguing about diets. Funny business.’

‘I did, do you need them returned?’

‘No, I was just curious as to your interest. You know that your adventures are followed with great attention by my readers.’

Frances had long given up trying to persuade him to write more truthfully about her investigations, especially as her embellished reputation brought her new clients and opened a number of doors that might otherwise have been closed.

‘I have been approached by some gentlemen who are very displeased with some of the allegations made in the letters, and in particular they would like to know the identity of the person who signed him or herself Sanitas.’

‘Not thinking of going to the law, are they?’ he said with a frown. ‘We’ve had enough of that round here what with that libel case last year. I know we won, but it still cost us a pretty penny.’

‘I am hoping that if I am able to settle things amicably they will decide against it,’ said Frances. ‘There are altogether too many cases of that nature troubling the courts. Do you know who Sanitas is? Have you received any other letters in the same hand?’

‘No, that is as much a mystery to me as it is you. But if we do receive any more letters from him, whatever the subject, I will let you know. I’m sure you’ll find him out.’

Frances turned a page, and found some advertisements for performances at the Bijou Theatre. They were, she noticed, all for amateur troupes, performing plays and operettas in order to raise funds for worthy causes. A memory suddenly bloomed in her mind, clear and colourful and fresh as if it had been yesterday. She had been ten years old, and her dear brother Frederick, whose loss just over a year ago was a pain in her heart that would never ease, had been fifteen. Their uncle Cornelius, whose many acts of kindness had been the only real paternal warmth she had known as a child, had taken them to the theatre. It had been hard to persuade her father to permit this seemingly innocent amusement, but he had eventually capitulated on the understanding that the works exhibited would be of a morally improving nature, the money contributed being devoted to the restoration of a church roof. The journey there had been brief, and she was sure that they had not left Bayswater, so their destination could only have been the Bijou Theatre. On a stage with brightly painted scenery representing a garden bower, ladies in pretty dresses had sung sweetly about the joys of springtime, and gentlemen with flowers in their buttonholes had carolled on similar themes, while a small orchestra played with energy and determination. No one had whistled, and neither, as far as Frances could recall, had a young girl bemoaned her inability to milk a cow.

‘I am also trying to trace two people who were said to have appeared at the Bijou in 1866,’ said Frances.

‘Oh, what company were they with?’

‘I don’t know. I was told there was a girl who performed songs and a boy who gave a demonstration of whistling. This would seem more suitable for the music hall than the kind of entertainment described here. I had been given to understand that the people I am looking for were hoping for a career on the professional stage, but as far as I can see the Bijou was hired only by amateur companies for charity performances.’

‘Oh there used to be these variety nights,’ said Gillan. ‘Some years back, now. Anyone who could put on a turn was welcome to come and try, and you could get in for a shilling or even less. There was a rumour, and who knows if it was true or not, that people from the big London halls used to come and watch, and if they liked you, they’d offer you a season. I never heard of anyone from round here going on the stage so it might just have been a way of putting on a cheap show. The producer took his cut and the rest was said to go to charity, though it was never said which. I seem to remember one of the managers ran off with the funds and that put a stop to it.’

‘When was that?’

‘I’m not sure, but it’ll be in the papers.’

Frances looked through the pages until she came across an advertisement for ‘Varieties’ in October of 1866. It was the only such evening in the latter part of that year. None of the turns was named, however the evening’s entertainment was made up with a
comedietta
, a play in one act called ‘The Happy Sisters’, performed by members of the Bayswater Ladies’ Society, which was devoted to collecting funds for distressed females. Nothing in the newspaper suggested who the leading lights of this society might be, and the later review of the actual performance was very brief and gave no names.

‘The Bijou has been through several hands since then,’ added Gillan. ‘I doubt the current owners will be able to advise you. In fact, I don’t think there have been any performances there for some time. Weren’t they trying to turn it into a skating rink? So who are you searching for?’

‘This is confidential,’ said Frances, ‘but I am trying to find Benjamin and Mary Sweetman, Mr Hubert Sweetman’s son and daughter. I was told that when they were very young they went on stage at the Bijou.’

‘When Sweetman came out of prison last month he advertised in the paper for his family to write to him,’ responded Gillan. ‘So he’s got you on the case, has he?’

‘Either Benjamin and Mary have not heard of recent events or, as seems very possible, they prefer not to come forward,’ replied Frances. ‘When the advertisement was unsuccessful Mr Sweetman came to me. In fact he was arrested at my home.’

‘Was he now?’ Gillan replied, his eyes lighting up. ‘Now that must have been a drama!’

‘He is very anxious to find his children. But please be discreet. I fear that advertising for them openly may only make them withdraw further into obscurity and then he will never find them, and you will lose your story.’

Gillan nodded, but drew out his notebook and jotted down some lines in his usual shorthand. Frances had never taken any particular notice before, but observed that his name was written in normal script on the cover of the notebook, and was thus able to satisfy herself that he was neither Bainiardus nor Sanitas.

She turned another page and saw a column headed ‘Horrible Murder in Notting Hill’ in November 1866. It was reporting that Jack Sidebottom, the moneylender to whom Mr Sweetman had been indebted, a man whose financial dealings had grown like a strangling weed through all of Paddington, had been found dead with his throat cut in a narrow alley leading to Ledbury Mews. Ledbury Road, which ran from north to south across Westbourne Grove, was a busy commercial and residential street, the area close to the Mews a noisy cluster of carpenters, goldbeaters, butchers and dairymen. The Mews itself was mainly given over to stabling and the homes of cabmen, who, so Frances had gleaned from her regular perusal of the newspapers, were more inclined to settle their financial and domestic differences with fists than knives. Assaults were common, murders were not.

‘You’re not interested in that, are you?’ said Gillan.

‘No, not at all,’ said Frances, although it was natural for her mind to retain any item which was out of the common way.

She paused at another page. In December, Mr Edward Hatfield, who had been the sole producer of the varieties at the Bijou Theatre, had appeared before the magistrates at Marylebone police court charged with stealing funds from his employer, a manufacturer of gentlemen’s shirts. He had made a tearful confession of guilt; pleading straitened financial circumstances and was sent for trial. It was believed that as a consequence, the varieties would be discontinued. If this was true, thought Frances hopefully, it meant that if the Sweetman children had ever been on stage at the Bijou, there was only one variety performance when it could have occurred, the one in October.

‘Now, I know that look,’ said Gillan. ‘You’re like a bloodhound who’s caught the scent.’

‘Oh, it seems I can hide nothing from you,’ said Frances, who could and did as a matter of necessity hide a great deal from Mr Gillan. ‘No, I have just discovered the little scandal you mentioned – Mr Hatfield the producer of the varieties being tried for embezzlement. I assume he lost his theatrical employment thereafter. Do you know if anyone else replaced him as producer of the variety evenings?’

‘I don’t believe they did,’ said Gillan. ‘I was a very young fellow then and they sometimes sent me to report at the Bijou, but I don’t remember any varieties being put on after that.’

‘Can you tell me anything about the Bayswater Ladies’ Society, who produced a
comedietta
on the same day as the last variety performance?’

He shrugged. ‘Oh, just one of a number of charitable societies.’

‘To keep idle ladies amused,’ said Frances, ‘and therefore of no note?’

He opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated and gave a quick laugh. ‘Oh that may have been the view of the editor, when deciding what to print, but of course
I
would not dare underestimate the efforts of dedicated ladies.’

Frances could not recall seeing anything about a Bayswater Ladies’ Society in recent editions of the
Chronicle
and assumed that it had disbanded or changed its name, however she felt sure she knew some ‘dedicated ladies’ who might be able to advise her. Once home, she wrote a letter to Miss Gilbert and Miss John of the Bayswater Women’s Suffrage Society. Ardent admirers of Frances’ abilities to a degree that sometimes veered towards suffocating excess, they enjoyed a wide circle of female acquaintances in Bayswater, and conducted meetings at which hundreds of interested parties attended. Frances felt confident that with a single-minded application that would put any mere bloodhound to shame, they would soon discover a friend who could tell her all about the Bayswater Ladies’ Society.