An Appetite for Murder (30 page)

There was the sound of running footsteps coming towards them and they looked up quickly in case this was the warning of a new threat, but the dim glow soon revealed the shape of a uniformed policeman, and as he came closer they recognised the shiny face of Constable Mayberry. ‘Why, it’s Miss Doughty and Miss Smith!’ he exclaimed. ‘I was on point and heard you call, so I came as soon as I could. Can I be of assistance?’

‘You certainly can,’ said Frances. ‘We have been violently attacked by this man.’ She pointed to the miserable object lying face down on the pathway in a pool of his own blood.

‘Oh my word!’ said Mayberry.

‘And also his associate who has now run away. We must take the miscreant to Paddington Green at once.’

‘Certainly, Miss,’ said Mayberry. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘Inspector Sharrock says I’m to do what you say at all times.’

‘Inspector Sharrock is learning,’ said Frances.

‘He says it’s for your own safety,’ he added, pulling the lanky fellow to his feet. ‘Now then sir, you’re to come with me!’

‘If he tries to get away he won’t go far,’ said Sarah, grabbing the prisoner’s other arm.

A small sponge lay on the path, which Frances deduced was the item with which Lanky had tried to attack Sarah. She picked it up and followed Sarah and Mayberry as they marched their captive, who showed no resistance and was somewhat shaky on his legs, to a better-populated street. A cab was procured and they all boarded it.

Frances knew that after they reached the police station she might have no opportunity to question the man, and determined to do so before he was bundled away into a cell. ‘Now then,’ she said, ‘what do you mean by trying to kill us?’

‘We weren’t trying to kill you,’ he spluttered. ‘We was told not to hurt you.’

‘No? Well you’ve a very strange way of going about not hurting us.’

‘No hitting; we weren’t to leave any marks, those were the orders, just the chloroform, that’s all. So you’d go to sleep.’

‘And who told you to do this?’ she demanded.

‘I don’t know. It was a man, and we didn’t see his face. He paid us and gave us the bottle.’ He dug in his pocket and produced a bottle of chloroform. Mayberry took it into his possession, and Frances handed him the sponge.

‘So your mission was to make us sleep and then what were you to do?’ Frances was suddenly struck with a greater horror, and shuddered. ‘Oh how vile!’

‘No, no, really,’ Lanky protested, ‘we weren’t to do any violence to you, not of any kind, we just had to carry you somewhere – a house – where there were other women – and they were to adjust your dress, and then we had to make sure that you were found there by a press-man.’

Frances understood. ‘So this was not an attempt either on my life or my virtue. The object was to destroy my reputation.’

‘I can punch him again,’ said Sarah. ‘The constable can always look the other way.’

Mayberry looked alarmed. ‘No, leave him,’ said Frances, ‘or he’ll never be able to tell his story to the Inspector.’

They reached Paddington Green with their cowed prisoner showing no inclination to attempt an escape, and Mayberry and Sarah between them brought him to the front desk where the sergeant looked up from his record book. ‘Well, what have we got here?’

‘He tried to chloroform me and send me for a hoor!’ said Sarah, bluntly.

‘I’ll notify the asylum at once,’ said the sergeant. ‘Bring him through.’

Inspector Sharrock was out on another case, so they waited for his return, and Sarah told Mayberry to bring a cup of water. ‘It’s a nasty shock when a man lays hold of you like that for the first time,’ said Sarah, as Frances gratefully gulped the water. ‘You never ever want it to happen again.’ She patted Frances’ hand.

‘I am getting close to the truth,’ said Frances, ‘that much is clear, though I am not yet sure what it is. The man who set those creatures onto us may have known nothing about the proper use of anaesthetics, but he was otherwise clever and subtle. He knew that if he had murdered us that would have told the police that my suspicions should be pursued with vigour. By taking away my reputation, however, no accusation I make will ever be regarded seriously.’

When Sharrock arrived, he stopped and rolled his eyes despairingly when he saw the two women waiting for him, then, after a brief word with the sergeant and a glance at the new prisoner in the cells, he called Frances and Sarah in to his office. ‘Do you know that fellow?’ he asked.

‘No, I think he is just a hireling,’ said Frances. ‘I do not know who my real enemy is.’

‘You see, Miss Doughty,’ said Sharrock, heavily, ‘this is the very thing I have been warning you about. You could have made a dozen enemies or more, what with all your goings-on, and they might try it again. Chloroform, nasty stuff,’ he said, looking at the bottle and sponge on his desk. ‘You don’t seem to be marked by it, are you sure that’s what it was?’

‘It was unmistakable,’ said Frances. ‘Try it for yourself. I think there may still be the scent of it on the sponge.’

‘Well
I’ve
no intention of sniffing it,’ said Sharrock, with a short laugh.

‘Such a small trace will do you no harm,’ she reassured him.

‘Hmmm,’ said Sharrock, dubiously, ‘but if it was chloroform, why didn’t it work?’

‘Our attackers had assumed incorrectly that we would fall unconscious in moments, so they took no steps to prevent us resisting them. And the remainder of their unsavoury plot could never have succeeded. They no doubt imagined that we would be soundly asleep for as long as it took to remove us to some low establishment, but the effects of chloroform last for only a minute or two if not re-applied.’

‘Now I know that can’t be right,’ said Sharrock. ‘There was a jeweller’s shop robbed only the other day and the assistant said he was chloroformed almost before he knew it and didn’t wake up for an hour.’

‘Then he is lying,’ said Frances. ‘I suggest you interview him again as he is obviously in league with the robbers.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Sharrock, taken aback. ‘Well, perhaps I better had. In the meantime, I suppose it is too much to hope that you might give up this kind of life? There are lady clerks nowadays; that kind of work might suit you. You might meet a nice gentleman clerk.’

‘The profession of clerk is not without its dangers, as Mr Gibson learned,’ Frances pointed out to the Inspector, ‘and I sometimes think that the role of wife is the hardest and most dangerous of all.’

Frances and Sarah took a cab home, Sarah with an expression more than usually grim. ‘Now then,’ she said, ‘I’ll not hear you say no, because you’ve had a bad shock – you’re to have hot cocoa with a double dose of brandy and then straight to bed. No detective work, no letters, no newspapers, no reading about Miss Dauntless. And a big plateful of fried ham and eggs for breakfast tomorrow.’

‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Frances.

Tom was waiting for them in the hallway. ‘It’s late,’ snapped Sarah, ‘can’t this wait?’

‘Oh it can wait all right,’ said Tom, ‘but only if you don’t mind not knowing straight away who Mr Sanitas is.’

‘Come up,’ said Frances. ‘Sarah is making cocoa.’

Sarah stamped off resignedly to the kitchen, and Frances and Tom went up to the apartment where Frances compared the original of the Sanitas letter with a scribbled note with an enquiry to a grocer about the availability of best dried peaches. ‘You’re right, Tom! We have our man!’ she exclaimed.

‘An’ it’s a gent you already know,’ said Tom with a grin.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-O
NE

T
he following morning, after receiving a report from Tom that Mr Finn had departed for his office, and Mrs Finn and Mary Ann were out strolling with the children, Frances called at Hereford Road and asked to see Mr Yeldon.

‘Is he expecting you, Miss?’ asked the housemaid, who was the identical young person Alice Finn had entrusted to carry her private messages.

‘He is not,’ said Frances, presenting her card, ‘but he will know my name. Please give him this and tell him it is a matter of considerable importance.’

‘Please come in and wait in the parlour and I will tell him that you are here.’

Frances, after hearing Sarah’s favourable reports, was interested to see the interior of the house, and saw that it was a home decorated and furnished in good taste, neither ostentatious nor austere, and meant for the comfort and ease of its occupants. It was a minute or two before the maid returned alone and with a troubled expression. She was still holding the card.

‘I am very sorry Miss Doughty,’ she said hesitantly, ‘but I was mistaken just now in believing that Mr Yeldon was here. I am afraid he is not at home.’

‘Did he tell you that himself?’ asked Frances who knew very well that Yeldon was in the house.

‘He said –’ the maid went a little pink about the face.

‘Very well,’ said Frances, gently, ‘I am not blaming you. Please go and speak to him again, and tell him that I am being very difficult; that I am refusing to go away and insisting that he is here.’

The maid hurried away and returned rather more slowly. ‘Mr Yeldon still says that he is not here, and that he might be out all day, and even if he does come back today he will be too busy to see anyone, and after that he will be going away.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Frances, ‘the trip to Bath for Mr Finn to take the waters. When will they be going?’

‘Next Monday.’ She paused. ‘So Mr Yeldon says.’

‘But in actuality?’ asked Frances.

‘
I
think they’re really going on Friday afternoon.’ They exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Frances sensed that the maid did not care a great deal for Mr Yeldon.

‘Wonderful,’ said Frances. ‘Such strenuous efforts to avoid speaking to me. Where is he now?’

‘He is not in the house at all, Miss, and most especially he is not in master’s dressing room,’ added the girl, mischievously.

‘I understand,’ said Frances. ‘And you have been a good girl not to reveal any information to me. I will go up at once.’

She mounted the stairs and arrived on the landing in time to see Mr Yeldon emerge into the upper hallway. He was clearly startled, and glared at her angrily. He might have been dyeing his beard, since its curled margins were an even more unnatural red than before. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘Has that girl let you in?’

‘It is entirely my fault,’ said Frances. ‘I am a detective as you know, and therefore an ill-mannered person. It is my profession to enter places where I am not wanted.’

‘You will leave this house at once!’ he exclaimed.

‘I will not do so until I have spoken to you, Mr Yeldon,’ said Frances. ‘Or should I perhaps be addressing you by another name?’

‘I don’t know what you mean!’ he said but his eyes flashed with sudden shock; she knew that her words had found their mark.

‘I will not argue with you, since I have proof,’ she replied.

‘What proof is this?’ he retorted. ‘You are lying, I do not believe there is any!’

‘The letter you wrote to the
Chronicle
under the name of Sanitas; I have the original and also a sample of your handwriting. I have compared them and they are the same.’

He was silent for a time, making a determined effort to calm himself, while lost in thought. ‘Very well,’ he said at last, ‘we will discuss this if you must, but I consider it to be a trivial matter. Let us go down to the parlour, it would not do at all to be talking here.’

‘Or we might meet in Mr Finn’s study?’ suggested Frances.

‘Out of the question,’ said Yeldon, rather too abruptly, and ushered her downstairs.

Mr Yeldon showed none of the politeness Frances might have expected, not even suggesting she take a seat, which would have been usual for a lady visitor but not, Frances supposed, for someone who he regarded as an intruder. She could easily manage without courtesy if by so doing it brought her closer to the truth. They stood facing each other, he with arms folded close to his body.

‘Do you admit that you wrote the Sanitas letter?’ asked Frances.

‘Very well, what if I did?’ he said defiantly.

‘You should know that I am acting in the interests of Dr Adair who is a believer in the Banting diet, Mr Rustrum of the Pure Food Society and Mr Lathwal of the Bayswater Vegetarian Society. These three gentlemen have been put to some trouble and distress over your letter. Many people have been whispering that it is Dr Adair himself who is the author, and I must point out that there are sentiments expressed in it which both Mr Rustrum and Mr Lathwal were very offended by and which could, were they so inclined, form the basis of an action for libel.’

‘I only said what I thought and what I believe to be true!’ Yeldon protested. ‘That cannot be libel.’

‘It can if it is untrue and damaging,’ Frances told him. ‘However, the gentlemen are prepared to avoid any legal action on the strict understanding that you will not write such letters again. May I give them that assurance?’

‘Is that all you require?’ he said, with evident relief. ‘You may tell them that I have no intention of addressing the question again. In any case, the newspapers have dropped the subject and moved on to other matters.’