An Appetite for Murder (33 page)

Draper, for all the acclaim that came his way, said he felt unhappy that he had not been able to save all the victims. He thought that had he helped the elderly man out of the carriage before his sister, he might have saved them both, and this troubled him so much that his head had ached ever since the accident. Three days later, Draper suffered a fit, collapsed and died.

The inquest and detailed inquiry that followed concluded that the weather was at fault. All the railway officials had acted as they ought to have done, and no one was to blame. The cause of Mr Anderson’s death was suffocation, to which the diseased state of his lungs had undoubtedly contributed. Mr Walsh had died after a splinter of wood had entered his throat. Whether Mr Anderson had gasped his last before or after Mr Walsh shed his last drops of blood, was impossible to determine.

Frances was now able, from the newspaper accounts, to establish where everyone had been seated in the fatal carriage. On the side nearest the rescuers, at the window seats, Mr Walsh had sat facing Mrs Anderson. Mr Anderson had sat beside his wife, facing Mr Whibley. The two occupants who had been most badly injured by the falling wood, Miss Walsh and Mr Elliott, had both sat on the far side, which had suffered the greatest damage.

There could be no doubt that the accident was unplanned and unforeseen, but Frances could not help wondering who, apart from Mr Whibley, had gained from the two deaths on that day, and in particular the fact that Mr Walsh was deemed to have died first? Was it possible that someone might have seized the chance of eliminating Mr Walsh?

Mrs Anderson financially had neither gained nor lost. She had been widowed possibly only a matter of months earlier than she might have been, given her husband’s poor state of health, and had been left only those things that she already enjoyed.

Mr Elliott had gained a wealthy wife, but then again, only a few months earlier than he might otherwise have done.

Miss Walsh, Mr Walsh’s elderly sister, had been badly injured. She had inherited an annuity from her brother’s estate, but was no more comfortable after his death than she had been before.

As far as Frances could see, it was only Thomas Whibley who had truly gained by the accident, and gained very substantially in a way that he would never have done without it. When Mr Walsh had last been seen alive the only other occupants of the carriage were Whibley and Anderson, who were both unconscious, and Elliott, who had been trapped immobile under debris on the side furthest from Walsh. The other two people present who were uninjured were the railwayman Mr Draper, who could scarcely be considered a suspect, and the gentleman who had assisted him.

Inevitably, the newspaper listed only the names of the dead and injured and some of the railwaymen, but if as Draper had said the unnamed gentleman had come from the next carriage, there were really only two people he could have been, the close-mouthed chief clerk, Mr Richardson, and the son for whom he harboured ambitions. Frances had been thinking that the only person in the carriage who had any motive to hurry Mr Walsh to his end, and who knew about the reciprocal wills of Mr Anderson and Mr Walsh was Mr Whibley, who had not been able to take any action. She now perceived that one other person who might very well have known about the wills was the trusted chief clerk Mr Richardson, and he had an excellent motive for the business not to go to Mr Walsh’s relatives. Frances resolved to interview him once more.

There was also, she reflected, one other living person who had been in the fatal carriage and whom she had not yet interviewed, and that was Emily Anderson, the future Mrs Elliott. It seemed unlikely that she had been in a position to observe what occurred since the heroic Mr Draper had removed her from the carriage soon after the accident, and while Mr Walsh was still alive, but all the same, Frances made a note to pay her a visit.

Her one final mission in the
Chronicle
offices that day was to examine everything the newspaper had published about the Bijou Theatre during the period when young Benjamin Sweetman had been working there. Since he had occupied such a minor position, and only the managers and performers were ever mentioned, it seemed unlikely that she would find any reference to him, however, she persevered, studying every notice advertising future performances and every review. In 1873, when Benjamin would have been twenty-one, she found that a play had been performed, the story, which was of no consequence, being about a lonely village in which there was an inn which was reputedly haunted. The piece was apparently comedic in nature, and involved various persons coming to the inn and being frightened away by pieces of white cloth being waved about on the end of broomsticks. The account in the
Chronicle
had been kind, since the performance was for charity and the actors all amateurs. Without actually saying whether the play was a good one or not, which rather suggested that it was not, the reviewer made generous remarks about the energy and enthusiasm of the players, one of whom represented a whistling post boy. Neither the character nor the actor, who, it was said, ‘whistled very tunefully’, were named, however the title of the play was
The Yeldon Mystery
.

Frances stared at this. It was probably not long afterwards that Benjamin had left his employment. Had he started a new life with better prospects under a new name? Was Mr Yeldon actually Benjamin Sweetman? Was that why he had grown such a large beard and coloured it red? There was also the milkmaid song, sung by the Finns’ nursemaid Mary Ann, which was another connection with the Sweetmans and their time at the Bijou.

Frances recalled that when she had confronted Mr Yeldon about the Sanitas letter she had suggested she should call him by another name and he had been very alarmed. She had thought nothing of it at the time, but now she felt sure that when she had mentioned the name Sanitas, he had appeared to be almost relieved that it was the letter she wanted to discuss with him and not something else. Was that because he had feared she had caught him out in a far greater deception? If Mr Yeldon was indeed Benjamin Sweetman, however, Frances was unsure as to how she might prove it.

And then there was Mary. Mr Curtis had spoken of how devoted his cousins were to each other, and how sure he was that if one of them was found then that one would know where the other was. During the time that Mr Yeldon had been followed to see if he was purchasing foodstuffs for Mr Finn, he had not visited any young women or indeed any women at all. There were, thought Frances, four possibilities. The first was that he had not communicated with his sister during the time he was being followed. The second was that he had not visited her but had communicated with her by letter. The third was that she worked at one of the shops on the Grove, or for Dr Collin, whom he had visited. The fourth was that she was one of the women in the Finn household. The housemaid was too young, but Mrs Goswell, the cook, Mary Ann, the nursemaid, and Mrs Finn herself were all about the right age.

It was a delicate issue, and Frances was sensitive to the fact that the Sweetman children, if they were living under other names, must want to conceal their identities, so as not to be associated with a convicted felon. She must make it plain that she did not wish to expose them, only to beg them to see their father.

When Frances had completed her reading, she wrote a short note to Mr Yeldon saying that she understood that he had once been employed in an administrative capacity by the Bijou Theatre and she wished to speak to him in connection with this. The note delivered, she hastened at once to the offices of Anderson, Walsh and Whibley, only to discover that it was no longer trading under that name. A new and very highly polished brass plate announced that the business was now to be called Richardson & Son.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

F
rances walked in, her step brisk, her manner dignified. She brushed aside the enquiries of an obviously very junior person, who was so startled by her effrontery that it was several moments before he followed her. She knew her way and pushed open the door of what had once been Mr Whibley’s office but was now, judging by the crisp new sign, the office of Mr F. Richardson. She was unsurprised to find that the occupant was Mr Richardson senior; in fact, she had already deduced that his son played as yet only a minor role in the business.

Richardson was at his desk, pen in hand, attending closely to a well-ordered pile of papers, but on hearing the door, he raised his head sharply and regarded Frances with the eyes of a very annoyed tortoise. ‘There is clearly some mistake, Miss Doughty,’ he declared. ‘You have no appointment with me.’

‘Thank you, but I need none,’ she said, and sat down. The clerk she had earlier ignored now hovered in the doorway, unsure of how to deal with the intruder.

‘I am a busy man. I have a great deal of business on hand and cannot see you now,’ said Richardson, gesturing to the clerk. ‘Please escort Miss Doughty from the building.’

Frances did not move. ‘I am a busy woman and I have a murder to investigate – several in fact,’ she said.

‘Really, Miss Doughty,’ said Richardson, more in dry scorn than irritation, ‘I hope you have not come here to accuse me of murder.’

‘Not at all, however, if you are offering to make a confession I will listen with interest.’

He put his pen down. ‘Extraordinary!’ he said.

‘When we last spoke,’ said Frances, ‘you referred to the railway accident in which Mr Whibley was injured. There were details which you omitted from your description of the incident. In fact, virtually all of the details.’

‘That was not, as I recall, the main topic of our conversation,’ he said reasonably.

‘Details that could be vital to my investigation and which I suspect you did not want me to know.’

Richardson hesitated, his expression moving from displeasure to hostility.

‘Sir?’ asked the clerk.

‘Leave us,’ said Richardson. The clerk vanished.

‘Interesting,’ said Frances. ‘I take you to be a man who, given a choice, would prefer there to be a witness to the kind of conversation we are about to have, yet you choose not to.’

Richardson gave her a cold stare. ‘I have nothing to hide,’ he said sharply, ‘but some things should remain private.’

‘In the last few days,’ said Frances, ‘I have found some very full descriptions of the accident and accounts of the subsequent inquest and inquiry in the newspapers. I also questioned Mr Elliott, who has been quite forthcoming. In addition, I learned about the reciprocal wills of Mr Anderson and Mr Walsh. I am sure that a man in your position would have been well aware of the existence of those wills and the consequences should Mr Walsh predecease Mr Anderson.’

‘Of course I was,’ said Richardson, ‘but the accident was simply that, an accident that no one could have predicted. I really can’t imagine why you attach any significance to it.’

‘I understand that you and your lady wife were travelling in the carriage that was immediately in front of the one that took the greatest impact. Can you confirm who was sharing the carriage with you?’

Richardson looked as if he was about to protest at being questioned, but then replied in a tone that suggested he was only doing so in order to draw the interview to a close as speedily as possible. ‘My son, Roland. He was just fifteen at the time. And there were two ladies who were travelling together. We were shaken and bruised but fortunately none of us suffered serious consequences.’

‘Did any of you get out and try to help the people in the carriage that had rolled down the embankment? The carriage with your associates in it?’

‘The ladies did not, of course, climb down to the other carriage, but they offered to tend the injured. I told Roland to stay with his mother and went to see what I could do.’

‘There was a conductor, a Mr Draper, who had been on the express and was thrown clear. He was first at the scene and he helped Mrs Anderson and Miss Walsh from the broken carriage. He said that after he had done this a gentleman came and helped him. I believe that gentleman was you.’

‘Yes,’ mused Richardson, as a scene that he would have preferred to forget was conjured up afresh before his eyes. ‘I remember the railwayman who rescued the ladies.’

‘What happened next?’

‘We did what we could, but we had no tools, only our hands, and could not cut through the fallen wood. We tried to move Whibley first because he was lying on top of Mr Anderson. It was hard work, made more difficult as we could see how badly his leg was injured and we naturally did not want to exacerbate matters, but we succeeded at last, and brought him out and laid him down on the ground, then we went back for the others. Of course, by then it was too late.’

‘When you lifted Mr Whibley out of the carriage was Mr Walsh still alive?’

‘Yes, he was, in fact he tried to help us move Mr Whibley. He was almost seventy-five but very strong and active for his age.’

‘So,’ said Frances, trying to think about the timing of events, ‘you and Mr Draper together brought Mr Whibley out, and then carried him a short distance away. How long did that take? How long was it before you were able to return to the carriage?’

‘It’s hard to say; it wasn’t an easy task. At least a minute or perhaps two.’

‘And what did you find when you looked in the carriage again?’

There was a short silence. Richardson rose, and went to a small side table where he poured a glass of water from a carafe. He offered some to Frances but she declined. He returned to the desk and stared into the glass, then took a small sip. ‘This is not a pleasant subject, Miss Doughty,’ he said. ‘It is not one I choose to dwell on; rather I have tried to expunge it from my mind. Mr Walsh was a man for whom I had enormous admiration, and Mr Anderson was also someone for whom I entertained considerable respect. On that terrible day, I saw that both those excellent gentlemen were beyond our help. Please do not ask me to describe how I knew this! Mr Elliott, however, was calling out for assistance, so we did our best to move the wood that was trapping him and got him out.’