An Appetite for Murder (19 page)

‘Please think very carefully about everything he said to you in his final days, however slight and unimportant it might seem,’ Frances urged.

Elliott smiled suddenly. ‘Well of course I was acting for him in the capacity of executor, and he spoke a great deal about the ladies in his life for whom he entertained a genuine regard, and also their children, who were generously provided for. He said – I don’t know if this has any relevance – he said that it was his pleasure and privilege to take care of his dependents and how sorry he felt for any woman who found herself alone in the world with no man to take care of her, and who might be tempted to dishonesty.’

‘Do you think that was a general observation or was he describing one lady in particular? Mrs Sweetman, perhaps?’

He gave a little shrug of his right shoulder only. ‘Who can say? I suppose it is just possible that –’ he shook his head, ‘but no!’

‘What is possible?’ asked Frances.

‘I just wondered, and this is only a supposition, if Sweetman had found his wife living in disgrace and killed her in a temper. But from the little I know of the man, I find that hard to believe. How was she killed? The newspapers said it was very violent.’

‘Oh I am not privy to information of that nature,’ said Frances.

That evening Frances wrote a letter regarding her wish to pay a visit to Mr Sweetman. Inspector Sharrock did not know it, in fact very few people did, but there was another aspect to Frances’ work, one for which she received a small monthly fee to secure her services, on the understanding that she would always be available to meet the very discreet and hidden requirements of some of the most exalted names in the land. No word of this would ever escape her lips, any papers on such cases were always destroyed and it was understood that she would never include these adventures in her memoirs, should she ever decide to write them. The work was in itself of a very dull nature, and no doubt other things occurred which she was never told of and might have made a more exciting story. For her part, she delivered notes or passed on information by word of mouth, or went to an appointed location and made observations. Her youth, her sex, her quiet self-composure, and her drab clothing were all the essentials she needed. There was a gentleman in an office, who received her messages, and it was to him that she now wrote to ask for a small favour.

While she waited for Sarah’s return, she took out the folder of letters sent to the
Chronicle
on the subject of Mr Whibley’s demise, and studied them again. Someone in Bayswater she felt sure must know the handwriting of Sanitas. A wife, a brother, an employer perhaps. She could scarcely show the letter to every person in the district, and a notice in the newspapers would only cause alarm and lead to precisely the kind of legal tangle that Dr Adair, Mr Rustrum and Mr Lathwal wanted to avoid. It then occurred to her that Tom and his band of ‘men’, who handled dozens of messages every day and therefore saw the handwriting of a great many individuals, might be able to help, and it would be better still if they could have a copy of the letter constantly to hand for comparison. She took a sheet of notepaper and her best pen, and struggled for a while to make a good enough facsimile of the handwriting for the purpose, as she could hardly entrust the original to them, but the task was beyond her capabilities. She then thought about having an engraving made, although that in itself relied on the skill of an artist to reproduce the writing exactly. Then another thought sprang to mind. Only a few weeks ago she had read an article in the newspapers about the advances made in the science of photography. There had been a recent exhibition in Pall Mall displaying a photograph in which a train travelling at sixty miles per hour had been captured with the most astonishing sharpness. Surely, even though the Westbourne Grove photographic studio was not yet in possession of the most modern equipment, it ought to be possible to obtain a good enough image of the letter?

Sarah returned from her day at the Finn household with a very thorough report, which she delivered across the supper table, which Frances, exhausting the limits of her culinary expertise, had laid ready with cold pie, cheese, pickles, bread and stewed apples.

Frances already partly knew Hereford Road, which ran parallel to Garway Road where the Sweetmans had once lived, and was not far from Chepstow Place, where, as Inspector Sharrock had been at some pains to remind her, the Bayswater Academy for the Education of Young Ladies had once, before her involvement in its affairs, been an ornament to the neighbourhood. The Finns’ home had met with Sarah’s warmest approval, from which Frances gathered it was an immaculately kept property, clean and well appointed with everything arranged in good taste and for the pleasure and comfort of the family. ‘None of them showy ornaments with gold painted on and lots of old pots full of dust,’ said Sarah.

‘If the home reflects the wife,’ said Frances, ‘then would you say she is a wife who is very fond of her husband?’

‘Well, I don’t know much about these things,’ said Sarah, ‘but it’s a home where anyone would be pleased to live. If she wants him to stay away then she is going about it wrong.’

‘Tell me about the other servants.’

‘There’s a cook-housekeeper, Mrs Goswell, who knows her business very thoroughly, and Mary Ann, who looks after the children and is lady’s maid to Mrs Finn, though Mrs Finn is not one of those women who has no time for her own children – she likes to amuse them as well. There’s also the housemaid, Lizzie, a young girl but strong, reliable and willing. Mrs Finn sees the housekeeper in the morning and gives the orders for the day. Mrs Goswell writes out the lists for the tradesmen and checks deliveries when they come in. She does most of the cooking but she’s training up the maid. And the economy is good, there’s no waste in that kitchen, all leftovers turned to another use.’

‘What of Mr Yeldon?’

Sarah wrinkled her nose. ‘He’s one of those dandified types, who thinks he’s more important than he is. He sees to Mr Finn’s shaving and dressing in the morning and supervises his wardrobe, gives orders for mending and cleaning. He went into Mr Finn’s private office once, but he was only in there a few minutes. All he took in was some bottles of mineral water and he took nothing away. Then he went out, and Tom had Ratty follow him. He went to see Mr Finn’s tailor, and was in there for an hour, then he went to see Mr Finn with what looked like samples of gentlemen’s suitings. No pastries, no eatables of any kind. Then at dinner, Mr Yeldon acted as butler and footman, saw to the silver and glass, and poured the wine.’

‘What was served?’

‘Vegetable soup, fish, roast mutton with gravy, cabbage, leeks, and currant jelly. Luncheon was a vegetable salad with cheese and brown bread.’

‘Of course you would not have seen how much was eaten by the two parties, but we can assume that Mrs Finn does not eat as much as her husband.’

‘I only know what was sent up and came back. They ate well, but it wasn’t a feast. There was only one bottle of wine opened for dinner, and from what I saw, they had a glass each. No wine for the luncheon. They drank water.’

‘What was the order for breakfast?’

‘Coffee, oranges, toast and an egg. I don’t believe there is enough there to keep a man as fat as her husband is.’

‘Neither do I,’ agreed Frances, ‘but if doctors cannot agree on the best diet for reducing corpulence, how may we judge as to whether they followed the best arrangement?’ She had read the pamphlet supplied by Dr Jilks which was a very long winded way of talking common sense, however, she supposed that he would not have felt able to charge sixpence for a publication consisting of just four words, ‘Eat less, work more’. ‘What about the servants? They cannot be similarly restricted.’

Sarah grinned. ‘Oh, they do very well! I gave Mrs Goswell my recipe for pound cake and she said it was the best she had ever tasted. And she gave me her recipe for fig tart.’

‘I assume that Mrs Finn would not have pound cake or fig tart served to her husband,’ said Frances with a smile.

‘No, I am told that when he is home for tea he has meat sandwiches cut very thin, and little dry rusks, and not too many of those.’

‘But there is more substantial fare in the larder,’ said Frances. ‘Did Mr Finn go into the kitchen? Perhaps he crept in and helped himself?’

‘He could have done, but I didn’t see him. Mr Yeldon did go in when he was making the dinner arrangements but I didn’t see him take anything. Mrs Goswell didn’t go into the other rooms in the house but of course the maid did.’

‘That is just one day’s evidence,’ said Frances, ‘and we may find another day is different. Do you think we need to look as far as the shops for the cause of Mr Finn’s girth? If Mrs Finn keeps a careful eye on the accounts then could additional deliveries, presumably financed by Mr Finn, be coming in either in the form of prepared foods or as materials to be converted into cakes and pastries and brought to him secretly?’ She shook her head. ‘No, that is altogether too complicated. I really cannot believe that the entire household is united in both serving Mr Finn and deceiving his wife. If he is eating too heartily then he is doing it on his own account or with one accomplice he can trust.’

‘Mr Yeldon,’ said Sarah. ‘He is the only man allowed in the study. And if he brought no food in today he might do tomorrow.’

‘I agree. You seem to be on good terms with Mrs Goswell, perhaps you could give her some assistance and see what she thinks of Mr Finn’s diet. If she trusts you and is in some way complicit in his excessive eating, she might even engage you in the deception. Is Mrs Goswell a large lady?’

‘No more than middling, but she’s a youngish person with a good hand for pastry so she might go that way.’

‘Then she might sympathise with Mr Finn and be willing to help him obtain the sweet things he craves,’ said Frances. ‘There is another possibility, which has suggested itself following my conversation with Dr Jilks. Mr Finn’s weight may be nothing at all to do with his consumption of food but the result of disease. There are such cases, although they are rare. I would like you to carry a note from me to Mrs Finn asking for the name of her husband’s doctor and if he has ever consulted him about his weight.’

A letter arrived which, from the specially embellished envelope, was from that energetic
doyenne
of the Bayswater Women’s Suffrage Society, Miss Gilbert. Frances opened it with some anticipation, and was not disappointed. Miss Gilbert’s great talent was language, and she both spoke and wrote in the same tone of breathless enthusiasm, so the missive, which ran to four pages of script, commenced with her deep gratitude and almost unbearable excitement at being asked to assist Frances. This overflowed without restraint into her curiosity as to the reason for the enquiry, but was subsequently modified by her appreciation of the need for great secrecy. It ended, at last, with the news that if she and her devoted companion, Miss John, without whom no enterprise could or should be undertaken, could call the next morning, they would introduce Frances to a Miss Rose, a lady who had once been a member of the Bayswater Ladies’ Society and who had, in her day, been a leading light of the theatrical company that had performed at the Bijou Theatre.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

N
ext morning, after Sarah had departed for her second day at the Finns, Frances attended to her correspondence, of which there were four items. The milder weather had thawed the temporary freeze of crime and dissatisfaction in Bayswater into a rivulet of new clients, and while not every case was of interest or every task to her taste, she was obliged to appreciate the way in which they transformed themselves into her bread and butter.

On opening the first letter she acknowledged with weary dismay that since last year’s incident with the parrot, she was somehow expected to find every lost pet in the vicinity. Fortunately this was the kind of commission she could always turn over to young Tom and his ‘men’. The distressed owner in this instance was missing a monkey. Quite what anyone would want with a monkey in the house Frances did not know, as this hardly seemed to be the best place for such a creature, which according to its description and pedigree ought by rights to have been living somewhere in the East Indies. She would have thought that anyone having purchased such an expensive pet should have taken the trouble to ensure that it did not escape into the cold, which would not suit the animal at all. She composed a note to Tom and a letter to the client, but it was a sorrowful task, since she felt certain that the unfortunate creature was very unlikely to be found alive.