An Appetite for Murder (42 page)

He smiled with relief. ‘I had hoped you would say that,’ he said. ‘You know of course that my wife, Ethel, is very much my senior and has two children of her own.’

‘So I understand.’ Frances waited while he hesitated, trying to choose the best way of expressing what was clearly causing him some embarrassment.

‘We are not well-matched and in fact we spend very little time in each other’s company. Before we were married, she had for many years been a patient and a friend of Mr Cowan, who, as you recall, left the practice to me. He did so on the condition that I married Ethel, and gave a home to the children. As far as society is aware, Ethel was a widow when we married, but, in fact, she was not; she was a spinster.’

‘Ah,’ said Frances. ‘I think I understand. Mr Cowan was providing for his own natural offspring. But I do not see what it is that you would like me to do. Do you suspect your wife of infidelity?’

‘Oh no! Not at all!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have never seen Ethel and she is not exactly – er – and in any case she has no interest at all in – in –’

‘I see.’

‘Whereas of course I am still a young man.’ He blushed.

‘Are you saying that you have taken a mistress? Is that the difficulty?’

‘No, no,’ he said, alarmed at the suggestion. ‘You will appreciate, Miss Doughty, that in my profession reputation and respectability are everything. After all, I administer nitrous oxide gas to ladies in my surgery and they must be able to regard me with complete trust.’

‘Of course.’

‘And it would be wrong of me to have any association with women of a certain class; the consequences to my position in respectable society would be appalling.’

‘I agree. That is very wise of you,’ said Frances approvingly.

‘What I was thinking, Miss Doughty,’ he explained, ‘is that what I really require is occasional intimate conversation with a lady, a young lady of impeccable character, who knows how to keep secrets, and can be discreet.’

Frances stared at him. He seemed to take her silence as encouragement for he gave an unnaturally bright smile, and slid his hand across the table until his fingertips were within an inch of hers. ‘There are hotels,’ he continued, ‘not in Bayswater of course, but very comfortable, elegant hotels, where –’

Frances rose to her feet. ‘Not another word, Mr Curtis; not one more word. Yes, I can keep secrets and be discreet. I will, therefore, not reveal to any of your friends or patients what has transpired here. In fact, I will do my best to forget that you have ever spoken to me in this way. Go home. Treat your wife with respect. Never come back here again.’

He nodded. Nothing more was said and he made a hasty exit.

Frances found that her heart was thudding with fury. She made tea, and it calmed her. What would Miss Dauntless have done she wondered? That indomitable lady would surely have taken a horsewhip to a man who insulted her in such a fashion. As she sipped her tea, she read again the story of Miss Dauntless and the Valentine’s card. The author did not reveal what Miss Dauntless thought about the card, whether she was pleased or discomfited by its arrival, only that she was curious as to the identity of the sender, wondering if it was a gentleman she already knew, but who had not yet made his intentions known, or an as yet unsuspected admirer. Frances wondered whether the sender felt genuine love for Miss Dauntless or had other, baser motives. Given the lady’s unusual mode of life, she thought the latter to be more likely. Was this the lot of the lady detective? Miss Dauntless undoubtedly had many loyal friends, but would she ever know the warmth of manly affection?

On an impulse, Frances went to her father’s desk and took out the packet of family papers, which included the marriage certificate of her parents; the mother who had deserted her when she was three and the father who had neglected her thereafter. Frances had known the close and fond attachment of her late brother Frederick, the sincere kindness of her Uncle Cornelius, and the fierce unswerving devotion of Sarah, but not, she reflected, that elusive and indescribable thing, true love. She re-read the certificate, which showed that Rosetta Ann Martin married William Henry Doughty on 10 January 1855, both being of full age. Her mother’s father was James Cornelius Martin, bookseller, deceased, and her father’s father was Henry Doughty, apothecary. She had previously neglected to pay any attention to the witnesses at the wedding and now saw that they were Miss Maude Doughty, her father’s sister, and one other, a Miss Louise Salter. Frances had never met this lady or even heard her name. Was she a friend, relative or neighbour? If she could be found, might she know something about Frances’ mother? Frances folded the papers and put them away. Her uncle must have attended the wedding, and she could ask him about Miss Salter, but she did not yet feel ready to do so.

Frances was pleased that the Sweetman family had resolved their peculiar situation. In the next few weeks, as February and its snows disappeared to be replaced by a showery but warmer March, she learned that the business of J. Finn Insurance was being sold, and the house in Hereford Road offered for rent at a good price. The classes conducted by Sarah at Professor Pounder’s establishment to enable Bayswater ladies to take healthful exercise had proved to be a success, while the Professor was busy training the police on how best to apprehend and immobilise criminals. One evening he held a demonstration of his talents at Westbourne Hall, to which Frances was invited. Sarah distributed handbills and Inspector Sharrock and as many constables as he could spare, as well as the Kilburn police, were in attendance.

‘Stout fellow,’ said Sharrock, approvingly.‘Are those two making it a match?’

‘I don’t believe so,’ said Frances.

‘
You
could do a lot worse,’ he hinted.

‘Inspector, please stop trying to find me a husband.’

‘Hmph! Well, all right then,’ he said reluctantly, ‘I suppose when you
do
get wed the crime rate in these parts will go up, so it wouldn’t really be in my interests would it?’

‘There are less law-abiding parts of London than Bayswater,’ Frances pointed out, ‘so you have little to complain of.’

‘Oh no? Well it doesn’t matter to those up top how many criminals I put away, there’s always crimes that don’t ever get solved and they want to know why.’

Frances had often wondered about other detectives and their unsolved cases, but of course, she thought, the police must also feel frustrated in a similar way. ‘Do you remember the murder of Mr Sidebottom the moneylender?’ she said, recalling that Miss Gilbert and Miss John had suggested she might try to solve it when she had a moment to spare. ‘I believe there were altogether too many people who would have profited by his removal. Did you ever find the person responsible?’

‘No, never, and it’s too late now, even for you. Mind, whoever killed him was a benefactor. It would have been a pity to stretch a desperate man’s neck for it.’

‘Could it not have been Mr Hatfield, the man who stole money from the Bijou?’ asked Frances. ‘I was talking to a lady who performed there and she said he must have owed Sidebottom money because they were seen talking – although she did think that he couldn’t have done it because he was short and Mr Sidebottom tall.’

‘He couldn’t have done it because he had an alibi,’ said Sharrock. ’Sidebottom was still alive when he was found, so we knew when he was stabbed almost to the minute. As to how tall or short the killer was that doesn’t matter – Sidebottom was knifed in the throat but he could easily have been bending down to talk to someone shorter. He was lured into that mews, I’m sure of it, probably by someone offering to pay off a debt. I thought it was one of the dairymen who worked round where the murder was done. We talked to all of them but we didn’t get anywhere.’

‘Why a dairyman?’ asked Frances.

‘The constable who was called to the scene heard Sidebottom’s last words before he pegged out. He said “dairyman” or some such; the constable swore it sounded more like “dairymaid” but that can’t have been right because there weren’t any maids working there.’

Frances thought of a brother and sister trying to protect their distraught mother, the girl in the costume of a dairymaid offering – what? – money she did not have, or even her virtue, to pay the debt; arranging an assignation, the man leaning down perhaps for a kiss, and not seeing the knife in the darkness. A brother and sister who had had more than one reason to protect their true identities thereafter. Which one had wielded the knife – the girl alone, or her brother creeping out of the shadows? ‘As you say,’ agreed Frances, ‘that is a mystery I will never solve.’

END

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE

Daniel Lambert (1770–1809) weighed over fifty-two stone at the time of his death, when he held the record of heaviest man in the world.

Bainiardus was an abbot who held lands with springs of water in the area now known as Bayswater and after whom it is named.

The character of Mr Lathwal is inspired by, but in no way intended to represent, Mohandas K. Gandhi, who started the Bayswater branch of the Vegetarian Society in 1891.

William Banting’s
Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public
was first published in 1863. He died at the age of eighty-one in 1878.

The mid-January frost of 1881 was widely reported in the newspapers. Fifteen degrees Fahrenheit is ¯9.55 Celsius.

The idea of the affinity of fat with water and the treatment of obesity by drinking less, as well as the experiment of feeding doves on butter, is in
Obesity or Excessive Corpulence
from the French of Dancel translated by M.A. Barrett (Toronto, W.C. Chewett, 1864) available at
www.archive.org
.

The Bijou Theatre was at No. 21 Archer Street (now No. 291 Westbourne Grove) and was hired out to amateur companies for charitable performances. The variety nights are the author’s invention. It closed down in the 1870s and efforts to turn it into a skating rink were abandoned. It was later refurbished and renamed the Twentieth-Century Theatre, and remains open today.

The Car of Juggernaut was a Hindu temple car. The expression was used colloquially to mean an unstoppable force.

The Photographic Society regularly exhibited their latest innovations at the gallery of the Watercolour Society in Pall Mall. On 4 January 1881,
The Times
reported on the ability of the new art to capture a sharp image of a train travelling at sixty miles per hour.

On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics
by Dr John Snow was published in 1858. For more information about the action of chloroform read the author’s
Chloroform: The Quest for Oblivion
.

The Forfeiture Act of 1870 abolished the rule whereby the property of a convicted felon was forfeit to the Crown.

The accident described in Chapter Twenty-Two was based on an actual disaster that happened on the Brighton line on 23 December 1899. A Mr Draper was one of the victims.

Until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 property inherited by a married woman became the property of her husband.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR