Devoured (28 page)

Hatton took his cue. ‘Lady Bessingham set out deliberately to rock the boat. To print a theory which she knew would destabilise everything. That’s why she chose the
Westminster Review
. She wanted a political furore. But why didn’t she just send them to Babbage herself? Why all this subterfuge?’

Canning shook his head as if the answer was obvious, and said, ‘Because she was a woman, Professor. A clever woman, but still a woman, and she needed the affirmation of men. And who better than myself and Mr Babbage? But the letters were dangerous, Professor. There are many who would not gain by such thinking. There are those who speak against Science, damning us to hell at the pulpit and decrying our names in Parliament. Well, let them. Ignorance will bury them. Olinthus Babbage was a good friend to the enlightened. The
Westminster Review
is one of the few forums open to these ideas. That’s why we gave him the letters, Professor. I presume as a Man of Science, you are sympathetic to the cause.’

The cause? At least four people were dead, possibly more, yet this man spoke of the cause as if it was all that mattered. But before Hatton could say so, another voice spoke.

‘But Dr Canning, forgive me in pointing out the obvious, but they were not really your letters to give. Nor Lady Bessingham’s, and on return from Borneo I suggested she wait. I no longer wanted them circulated. I wanted to think it through a little.’ It was Broderig, a half smile of query on his lips. ‘They were private letters, poorly written in haste from the depths of a forest. They were not fully formed and certainly not for public consumption. Some of my thoughts to Lady Bessingham were of a personal nature. And though I should not speak ill of the dead, they were not Katherine’s to further distribute, although at first, I had stupidly encouraged her. They were my letters, weren’t they, Flora?’

Flora reddened at the accusation and Broderig shook his head at her. ‘They were my letters, but not my ideas. You passed on Mr Wallace’s thoughts on species, didn’t you, Flora? And Dr Canning, you read them and perhaps elaborated with your knowledge of the native man, acting as a rubber stamp of authority. Lady Bessingham knew she couldn’t just pass them into the world without a real Man of Science’s support, and you, sir, are a member of the Linnean Society. It all makes perfect sense to me now. Poor Mr Babbage must have been salivating at the very thought of it. How very clever of her. It was her final triumph.’

Inspector Adams turned around and faced Broderig. ‘Mr Broderig, if these letters are as you two gentlemen describe, then I would like to understand what ideas really passed between you and Lady Bessingham, before another tragedy unfolds. I want names, sir. I want detail. Speak now, very plainly, because it seems to me you are being deliberately abstruse. Do these letters deny God? Are they heretical? Are they seditious? Are they perhaps even criminal?’

‘As I said to you, Inspector, the letters were private and now, it seems, stolen. You are the policeman, after all. Why don’t you find them? It seems to me you leave a lot of stones unturned.’

‘Be careful, for you are treading on thin ice,’ said Adams as he stood up and glowered at the young man and Hatton watched them for a moment. They were not exactly arguing, more a war of attrition.

‘Perhaps you should make more notes. Take a leaf out of the world of the scientist, and catalogue your thoughts, Inspector, because justice requires it. I have watched your work with interest and tried to help where I can. Take the little girls, for example. In my work, we must look at the detail first, but then how the detail relates to everything else. How the death of the smallest creature can signify something bigger. How everything is connected, everything is a pattern.’

‘You have lost me, Mr Broderig. I am not like your London botanicals. I am a simple man,’ quipped Adams.

Broderig laughed. ‘I’d say you were very complicated, Inspector. But what I think of you doesn’t really matter. All I know is that you are not very thorough. Perhaps it is your age? My father is similar.’

Adams, unperturbed or perhaps just bored by the juvenile insult, looked away from Broderig and directly back at Dr Canning. ‘Do you have names, Dr Canning? Anyone you could specifically point to who might want to destroy these letters or bury them?’

Canning shook his head. ‘Not to the point of killing someone, if that’s what you mean, but when I return to London this evening, I’ll talk to some of my colleagues. I’ll send a note to Scotland Yard if I learn anything useful. You never know, I might find something to help.’

Adams thanked the academic, and turned back to the girl. ‘So, Miss James. Can you think of anyone who might have had access to your mistress’s room in Chelsea? Anyone at all? Somebody she knew?’

‘There is one person, sir. We were at sixes and sevens and some of my duties had fallen to Violet, the scullery maid, but she is such a meek creature.’

Adams gestured at his little tin. Miss James nodded to go ahead. ‘Miss James.’ He rolled it up and lit the penny smoke. ‘Would you be good enough to accompany myself and Professor Hatton upstairs? Perhaps seeing the last place you spoke to your mistress alive might jog another thought.’

Flora smiled weakly in submission and was helped up by her attentive companion. Hatton glanced across at Broderig, who had his back to them now. He was looking out of the window towards an iced-up pond and the way he stood, so upright, so stiff, his hands so resolutely clasped behind his back, Hatton knew the young man was deep in thought. Hatton often enough struck the same pose himself in the morgue.

But he knew he needed to keep Adams close. And he’d noted that the Inspector, for some reason, had said nothing yet about Dodds or Finch. And if Adams didn’t mention them soon, he knew he would have to.

The private rooms upstairs were bare of ornament. Lady Bessingham’s quills were still laid out on a polished desk, as if she had left them and gone to speak to a servant, or perhaps receive a visitor. Flora ran her hand lovingly along the polished mahogany saying, ‘She wrote her letters here. I brought her paper and sealing wax, anything she needed. Lady Bessingham was quite old-fashioned when it came to correspondence.’

‘Lady Bessingham used sealing wax? May we see it please, Miss James?’ Hatton caught Adams’s eye, but let the maid continue.

‘She used the indigo wax for all her letters and pressed them shut with this.’ Flora held a little brass sealing stamp in her hands.

‘Would you be so kind, Miss James?’ The inspector reached into his pocket and gave the maid a box of matches. Obediently, she complied, lighting a taper and melting a pool of deep-blue wax. She dipped the stamp in the pool and then pressed it down onto a blotting pad.

‘It was something Lady Bessingham had only recently adopted. In fact, it’s a copy of something she saw once which caught her fancy. She often caught damsel flies in the summer when they landed on the pond here at Ashbourne. It’s frozen up at this time of the year, but in the summer it abounds with dragonflies and her favourite, these delicate creatures.’

Hatton’s mind was racing. She used blue wax for sealing her letters. Blue wax. It was there on Babbage’s neck. It was smudged on her hand. But nothing on Finch or the body of Mr Dodds. No connection there at all.

The Inspector had fallen quiet. He seemed distracted. Hatton knew that he was married with children and called himself a Christian. Hatton inwardly shuddered at the lingering image of this man, caught in the dimmed lamplight of a hotel, his lips brushing the hand of a molly boy. Hatton again spoke up for him. ‘Can you remember, Flora, where Lady Bessingham got the idea of the seal from? You said it was something she had seen which gave her the idea. Caught her fancy?’

‘It was a daily visit, sir. For years she has used the same dressmaker – her parcels were always sealed this way. She delivered them herself, and often stayed late to talk. She was very charming and interested in madam’s work. Madam loved the damsel fly which sealed the wrapping for the dresses. It was this image we had copied. The dressmaker’s name is Madame Martineau.’

It was as if Adams had suddenly woken up. ‘Madame Martineau, you say?’

Flora nodded. ‘Every lady of fashion and taste uses her, Inspector. Madame Martineau’s cut is not to be beaten for its delicacy. She is a very elegant mantuamaker and owns her own workshop along the river in The Borough. I’ve never been there, although I believe Violet knows the place.’

Adams seemed flustered. ‘We should go there at once.’ He turned to Hatton. ‘Do you remember what I said about Babbage? That he was stitched up good and proper. And although I did not say so at the time, a woman is capable of such violence. God knows, I’ve seen it before. But if she took the letters, then this Madame Martineau must be very well informed. Or was working for another and knew what to look for. Was she alone with Lady Bessingham often, Flora?’

Flora nodded.

‘And where did Lady Bessingham keep Mr Broderig’s letters?’

‘They were kept underneath the brushing tray in the dressing room in Chelsea, which Madame Martineau used from time to time. In order to present new dresses at their best, Inspector. Even with the brown paper packaging, it’s very grimy on the streets of London. I suppose she might have seen the letters. They were very distinctive, written on golden parchment tied with a string of rattan.’

‘But surely this dressmaker wasn’t allowed just to wander into the house and snoop about at will. Who dealt with her appointments, if you were busy elsewhere? Think now, Flora, this is very important.’

‘Well, as I say, many of my duties had fallen to Violet. And Cook thought it might stretch the girl a bit.’ She turned beseechingly to Hatton. ‘To give Violet a little more confidence. Do you think the dressmaker has some importance here, Professor?’

Adams cut across them both. ‘I think we should speak to Violet immediately. Professor Hatton, would you do the honours and stay with Miss James? I’ll fetch her myself. We don’t want any more maids taking flight.’

The Inspector left the room and Flora looked at Professor Hatton, a question in her eyes. ‘He won’t hurt her, will he?’

Hatton shook his head and came a little closer. ‘Miss James, may I call you Flora?’ Flora nodded. ‘I understand that Lady Bessingham knew another academic, Dr Ignatius Finch?’

‘Oh yes, Dr Finch. He had attended one of her parties, but after some short correspondence they had little to do with each other. They fell out sometime ago, I think it was something Dr Finch wrote or said. Something very shocking. I remember my mistress saying that he was a hateful man, and she wanted nothing more to do with him. Why, does he know something about my mistress’s death?’

‘Dr Finch is dead, Miss James. So there’s nothing else you can think of which might link Dr Finch to your mistress, then?’ Hatton held Flora’s gaze, but she shook her head.

‘No. I’m sure of it. Dead you say? I didn’t know him but God rest his soul.’

‘One more question. Lady Bessingham was an avid reader, wasn’t she?’

Flora looked back at Hatton. ‘She spent hours reading, Professor.’

‘Every tiny detail that you tell us now could save a life.’

‘Lady Bessingham was most particular. Her entire private library was regularly updated by a Fine Purveyor.’

Hatton’s heart was in his mouth and he instinctively crouched at the foot of her chair. ‘And the company’s name, Flora? This is very important.’

Flora looked astonished and awkward at this forwardness, and pulled herself bodily away from this man, who had a look of death upon his face. ‘Please, Professor. You do not need to kneel at my feet! It’s no great secret. Lady Bessingham got all her books from the Linnean Society. Lord Bessingham had been a member before he died, and my mistress still enjoyed a standing order. All the journals came to her directly, once a month, every month, in her dead husband’s name. She would use no other and was most particular about it.’

‘Take a seat, Violet.’

The scullery maid stepped in, accompanied by Inspector Adams, Mr Broderig, and Dr Canning. Hatton didn’t approve of such heavy-handedness where women were concerned, and this creature was the meekest little thing. The words ‘boo’ and ‘goose’ instantly came to mind. She looked at the gathering wide-eyed, and Adams gestured her to take a seat. She made a little curtsy, but didn’t sit down. Instead she simply stood near Flora, or rather hovered.

‘Sit down, Violet, please. I insist,’ said the Inspector.

‘Have I done something wrong, sir?’

‘Well, I think you have lied, a little. When I asked you before if anyone had come to the house, you said no. But that wasn’t true, was it?’

Violet sniffed and rubbed her hands together a little. ‘I’ve told you already. I didn’t see nothing. Why do you press me so?’

‘No lady called Madame Martineau, then? It wouldn’t be very hard to prove that she came that night. She did, didn’t she? And you let her in, perhaps around the back. Why would you do that, Violet, and then lie?’

Was he guessing? Hatton was about to intercede on the maid’s behalf, but before he could take a step, she was up and running for the door, but Adams was quick, blocking her path.

‘Tell the truth, damn you, child. No more lying.’

‘Cook, help me,’ she pleaded, shouting to be heard downstairs. ‘For pity’s sake, please, sir. I didn’t lie. I’ve never heard of that lady. No, sir. Please, let me pass.’ But Adams wouldn’t, and held up his hand as if to thump the girl, and she cowered and then threw herself to the floor and started to crawl towards Hatton, saying, ‘You’re a gentleman. Tell the copper, I don’t know nothing. Help me, sir.’ And she was quickly at his feet, sprawled prostrate and sobbing. Pleading, over and over again, ‘Please, sir. I didn’t do nothing, so help me God, I’m innocent. Cook says so. Says I’m an innocent lamb. I am, sir. Please, please …’ and slowly she pulled herself up. The others melded into nothing. The room was spinning and she had her face pressed against his lap. ‘Please, sir, I’ll do anything.’ And he felt her bite, and her hands wrestling, and she was sobbing, her hands working quickly. ‘Anything, anything, sir,’ Violet’s tear-stained face, saliva dripping down her chin. ‘Please, sir. Anything you like. I saw it in your eyes, sir, and I know what you want. Just don’t send me back to her.’ And Hatton wrenched her up, noticing a myriad of scars and pricks all over her spindly arms.