Snobbery With Violence (21 page)

“What’s going on?” asked Daisy.

“I think Becket needs your help to keep the crowd’s attention away from me while I see if there’s a way into the back.”

Harry found there was a narrow alley running down the side of the surgery. He paused and listened as Daisy’s voice, accompanied by Becket’s concertina, rose in song.

“Come where the booze is cheaper, Come where the pots hold more, Come where the boss is the deuce of a joss, Come to the pub next door.
“

Harry grinned, remembering his tutor telling him that a Guards band had played just that song one Sunday afternoon on the terrace at Windsor castle, and Queen Victoria asked her lady-in-waiting to find out the words to the pretty air. It was with great reluctance that the bandmaster told her.

There was a tradesmen’s entrance at the side. Harry studied
the door. It had four panes of glass on the upper half of the door. He could smash one and reach in and slide back the bolt, of there was one. He cautiously turned the handle. The door was unlocked. He stepped inside and examined the other side of the door. No bolts, only a large key in the lock. He extracted the key and went out and closed the door. Now for a locksmith.

A large crowd had gathered around Becket and Daisy. Daisy lad moved onto a sentimental ballad, “The Blind Organist.”

“The preacher in the village church one Sunday morning said: ‘Our organist is ill today, will someone play instead?’ An anxious look crept o’er the face of every person there. As eagerly they watched to see who’d fill the vacant chair. A man then staggered down the aisle whose clothes were old

and torn, How strange a drunkard seemed to me in Church on Sunday

mom; But as he touched the organ keys, without a single word, The melody that followed was the sweetest ever heard.”

By asking one of the few residents who was not listening to Daisy, Harry located the locksmith and handed over the key, saying he needed an extra one to the stables.

The locksmith chatted as he ground the key, saying he had taken over the business from his father, who had died only two months ago. “Funny, I always refused to go into the business,” said the locksmith, “although he trained me. But he left the shop to me, so here I am.”

“What was your trade before?”

“Sort of traveling carpenter. Bit of work here. Bit of work here. There you are, sir. That should do very nicely.”

Harry paid him and took the keys. As he hurried across the
square, he saw to his horror that Rose and Daisy were now standing up in the car with their arms around each other, singing at the tops of their voices.

“Any old iron, any old iron, any-any-any old iron:

You look sweet, you do look a treat,

You look dapper from your napper to your feet
...”

Harry hurried up the alley, opened the door and put the original key in the lock and sprinted back to the car just as Rose and Daisy were bowing before a burst of tumultuous applause.

Coins were raining into the car. Harry groaned and thrust his way through the crowd. “Show’s over,” he shouted. Daisy clambered into the back next to Becket, and Rose sat down in the front.

Harry switched on the engine. “Throw the money back,” he ordered.

“We earned it,” complained Daisy, but she and Rose and Becket scooped up handfuls of coins and threw them back into the crowd as they drove off.

“What on earth were you doing making a spectacle of yourself like that?” shouted Harry to Rose above the noise of the engine.

“It was fun,” said Rose. “Tremendous fun.”

“Dr. Perriman no doubt was called by his nurse to have a look at you performing and he will wonder if your adventures have turned your brain.”

“Did you find a way in?”

“Tell you in a minute.” Harry waited until they were clear of the town and then stopped and turned to her. “I got a copy of the key to the tradesmen’s entrance. I’ll go along tonight.”

I’ll go with you,” said Rose, her eyes shining with excitement.

“No, you most certainly will not.”

“I’d be safer with you than in my room at the castle, policeman or no policeman.”

“We could be the look-out,” said Daisy.

“I don’t know what you were about, singing music-hall songs, Lady Rose,” said Harry.

“King Edward sings music-hall songs,” protested Rose. “His favourite is:

“Hey, hi. Stop, waiter! Waiter! Fizz! Pop! Vm Racketty Jack, no money I lack, And Vm the boy for a spree!”

“But just think if the doctor informs your parents of your behaviour!”

“Then it is up to us to find something dramatic in the records,” said Rose, “so that then no one will be able to think of anything else.”

Dinner was a long and tedious affair, enlivened only by the effect Sir Gerald was having on the grim American, Miss Fairfax. They were seated together and he seemed to consider all her blunt utterances the highest form of wit. The more he laughed, the more Miss Fairfax glowed.

To his amusement, Harry, on the other side of Miss Fairfax, heard Gerald saying at one point, “You really must let me take you around when we are both in London. I see you in midnight taffeta with a high-boned collar, very grande dame.”

“I’ve never bothered about fripperies,” said Miss Fairfax.

“But you must, dear lady,” said Gerald. “And your hair would be magnificent if it were red.”

“Wicked boy,” she said with a great bray of laughter.

So enamoured was Miss Fairfax of Gerald’s company that she only turned once to Harry during the long meal and that was to ask him what the hunting was like in the countryside around. When Harry replied that he did not hunt, she said, “I should have known,” and turned back to Gerald.

Harry had told Rose he would leave the castle at two in the morning. He now wondered whether he should trick her and leave earlier. He had a sudden picture of her standing up in his motor car with her arm around Daisy, singing her heart out. She had looked really young and carefree for the first time since he had known her.

Lady Hedley was complaining that police had been crawling over the roof of the castle all day. “All Lady Rose’s fault,” she said loudly. “The young women of today are prone to fantasies and hysterics.”

Rose felt like shouting a denial down the table but kept quiet. She had told Daisy to use her wiles on Becket and make sure Harry did not change his mind about taking her with him.

Daisy had rummaged in the hamper of costumes for charades and had managed to get two boys’ outfits. Giggling nervously, they put them on and crammed their hair up under a couple of tweed hats. Long overcoats completed their disguise. Before they changed into their costumes, Rose told the constable on duty that she would sleep in her mother’s room that night and suggested he take up his guarding duties outside Lady Had-shire’s door.

Becket had told Rose firmly that if his master planned to leave them behind there was nothing he could do about it. So it was with relief that they saw the car parked on the other side of the moat. They hurried across the drawbridge, Rose clutching Daisy’s arm and looking nervously to right and left.

When they climbed in, Harry let in the clutch and cruised down the slope away from the castle, not switching on the engine until they were well clear. Once out on the road towards Creinton, he stopped the car and got out and lit the headlights, climbed back in and set off again.

Rose found driving in the dark very exciting, fascinated by the square of light the two headlamps created before them.

When Harry reached the outskirts of Creinton, he parked the car under some trees, got out and extinguished the headlamps and said, “Now, Lady Rose, you and Daisy are to stay here with Becket to protect you. I will be as quick as I can.”

“But I wanted to be a burglar,” protested Rose.

“Stay here and don’t dare move,” hissed Harry.

“Spoilsport,” muttered Rose. “Honestly, Becket, there was really no reason for us to come. This is not an adventure.”

“It’s better this way, Lady Rose. If the captain gets caught, it won’t be nearly so bad as if you were found with him. Imagine the headlines in the newspapers. There are still two reporters staying at the pub in Telby.”

Harry walked swiftly along, glad it was one of the days when his leg was not paining him. When he reached the square, he felt very exposed and kept close to the buildings, relieved there was no moon.

When he turned the key in the side door, the lock gave a loud click, which, to his ears, seemed to echo around the silent
town like a pistol shot. He waited for a moment, Ustening, and then opened the door and went in. He lit a dark lantern. He found himself in a small kitchen. The door leading out of it was fortunately bolted on his side. He slid back the bolts, top and bottom, and found himself in a narrow passage. Ahead lay the front door, the panes of stained glass on the upper panels gleaming faintly. He remembered that he had entered the waiting-room on the right with Rose and then had gone through to the surgery. There was a door before he reached the waiting-room door, which probably led into the surgery. He tried the handle. It was locked. He hurried along to the waiting-room door. Locked as well. Both were stout mahogany doors. He tried a door on the other side of the corridor. Locked as well.

There was a staircase facing the front door. Perhaps some old files were kept in the upper rooms. Harry crept up the stairs. There were three doors leading off a landing. All were locked.

He retreated to the kitchen, defeated. He could possibly find some implement in the kitchen that might jemmy the door to the surgery open, but that would lead to a full police investigation. All he wanted to do was to read Lord Hedley’s file. He sat down for a moment at the kitchen table to rest. Rose was going to be so disappointed in him, he thought with a wry smile.

Perhaps there might be something he could use to pick the lock. But he had never picked a lock before and hadn’t the faintest idea of how to go about it.

There was a Welsh dresser against one wall. He set the lantern down on it and opened the first drawer. It was full of knives and forks and spoons. He picked up one of the knives. It had been cleaned so many times with Bath brick that it was thin
and fragile. He put it back and opened the other drawer.

At first he could not believe his eyes. He held up the lantern and stared down. The drawer held keys with labels attached.

One label read “Front Door,” another “Waiting-Room.” There was even one marked “Safe.”

Harry grinned and selected the one marked “Surgery.” He was about to leave the kitchen when he heard footsteps in the alley outside. He extinguished the lantern and crept to the kitchen door and locked it and then crouched down. The footsteps came closer. A hand rattled the door. Then the footsteps moved on. Glancing up, Harry saw a police helmet bobbing past the window. The constable on his nightly rounds.

He waited and then cautiously relit the lantern and made his way to the surgery and unlocked the door.

He searched along the rows of files, looking for a folder marked “Lord Hedley,” but there was nothing there.

It might be in one of the upstairs rooms, thought Harry. I should never have let Rose come. This might take all night and she might do something silly like come looking for me.

He went back to the kitchen and collected the keys to the upstairs rooms. The first had been a bedroom, but the bed was now piled high with odds and ends and the rest of the room was full of discarded furniture.

The next room was an office with a roll-top desk. There were bookshelves all round, mil of medical books, some very old indeed. And beside the fire stood a large safe. Harry studied it. lb his relief, it was an old-fashioned one without a combination lock. He went back to the kitchen and collected the safe key and went upstairs again.

He unlocked the safe and knelt down in front of it, the lantern on the floor beside him.

There were various items of jewellery in a box: a gold half
hunter, dress studs, a gold Albert and a gold toothpick. Another box contained, to his surprise, an opium pipe and a small quantity of opium. Was Dr. Perriman an opium smoker? Or had that vice been one of the late Dr. Jenner’s? There were various title deeds and business papers, and a cash box containing a few hundred pounds.

There was one thick file which he took out and laid on the floor and opened. In it was Lord Hedley’s medical file and also correspondence between Dr. Jenner and a Dr. Palverston in London. Harry let out a soundless whistle. The correspondence between the two men discussed the use of arsenic to counteract the effects of syphilis. And in Lord Hedley’s file, he found Dr. Jenner had started to treat Lord Hedley for syphilis last summer.

He carefully replaced everything and locked the safe. In order to give Kerridge this information, he would need to cover up the fact that he had broken into the surgery.

He went downstairs and put the keys back in the drawer, being careful to lay them back in the order he had found them.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he locked the kitchen door behind him and hurried off towards where he had left the others in the car.

Daisy and Becket were excited at his news, but Rose seemed a trifle disappointed.

“It all seems so easy,” she complained. “I had imagined you having to behave like a real burglar.”

Harry had carried that bright image of Rose singing in his car. It popped like a balloon and disappeared. She was really a very silly little girl.

Harry called on Kerridge first thing in the morning with his new information.

“Where did you get this?” demanded the superintendent.

“I can’t really tell you.”

“You must.”

“Superintendent, I know you pay informers and you do not demand where they got their information from and drag them into court.”

Kerridge drummed his fingers on the desk. “I can confront Hedley. Even if he admits he has syphilis, he will deny having anything to do with Mary Gore-Desmond. We will then need to approach her parents for further proof—was she sleeping with anyone else?—and that will shake them rigid. But it shows Hedley has arsenic at his disposal.