The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (22 page)

Lizzie paused. ‘I can’t help but feel sorry for her,’ she added very quietly. ‘It was all for love of Charles Lamont.’

I bent to grasp her hands. ‘Lizzie, listen to me! Never be tempted to feel sorry for a murderer. It is the most terrible of crimes. A life taken cannot be restored. Anyone can feel wretched, miserable, be exploited or misled. It does not justify turning to violence. Perhaps a person can act rashly if they find themselves threatened or they seek to protect a child . . . In the heat of the moment, in desperate straits, any one of us might seize a weapon and strike out. But not everyone can kill in cold blood. That woman stood over a sleeping man of eighty, who had rescued her from penury, and pressed a cushion on to his face.

‘I do not mean to let her get away with it – nor for Lamont to evade justice.’ I paused to think it over. ‘The ridiculous excuse he gave me today – that he suddenly felt the need to look into family business in the Channel Islands – is nonsense, as you rightly said. I don’t think any jury would believe it. A jury would see it for what it was: a sudden dash to escape arrest. He is by nature rash and given to panic. That is why he murdered Rachel Sawyer.’

Lizzie frowned. ‘I wonder if he left his wife a note? He hadn’t seen her to tell her his intention to leave. So, in the morning when she found he was gone, she might have run to the police to declare him missing and raise the alarm. But she didn’t. He knew he’d gone for good. He must have written a letter of some kind for her to find, some sort of excuse for his desertion.’

‘Then she will have destroyed it,’ I said automatically.

But Lizzie was shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so, Ben. It was the last communication she had from him and – if he’d got away successfully – it would remain his last few words to her, just as if he’d died. I think she will have kept it. If it wasn’t in her possession when she was arrested, then it is still in that house. If it were up to me, I should organise a search of her room – perhaps she has an escritoire, one with a secret drawer or two. They are very common pieces of furniture. No lady wants her maid reading her most personal correspondence. That’s where I’d put such a note and that’s where she’d put it for safety – where no other person could happen on it and read it.’

It was a fair point. I needed any and every piece of evidence.

I tried not to give in to a dawning optimism. I still thought that Amelia would have destroyed any note of farewell; cast it into the fire . . . except that there was no fire lit that day! Optimism popped its head up again. Hadn’t I taken Lizzie with me to Putney because I wanted her to judge Amelia’s mood?

‘I’ll send Morris over there first thing in the morning,’ I told her. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him he is to break open any cupboard or drawer he finds locked and if he finds any letter – or anything suspicious – to bring it to the Yard. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes! From the start of this business I have managed to upset just about everyone I’ve encountered and put my foot wrong so often, one more time can’t make it worse.’

Chapter Eighteen

THE FOLLOWING morning early Morris went off on his mission to Fox House. I could imagine with what rage Johnson would watch the place being ransacked; as the butler would no doubt describe the police search in the inevitable complaint.

Amelia Lamont was now my priority. I intended to interview her as soon as I’d discussed the state of the investigation with Dunn. But before that, Mr Pelham arrived in my office.

He stood before me, in his black clothes, like some long thin bird of ill omen. ‘Mrs Lamont is ill!’ he announced.

‘How ill?’ I asked disbelievingly.

‘She has quite collapsed. Her nerves have given way under the stress of her husband’s predicament.’

‘And her own, perhaps?’ I suggested.

Pelham moved his head in a curious sideways motion, tilting it to one side. It made him even more resemble a crow inspecting a piece of carrion. ‘Mrs Lamont has withdrawn the confession you claim was made to you. It was purely verbal, the result of a state of near hysteria, made in extreme and highly irregular circumstances. The only other person you say heard it was your own wife. Mrs Lamont will not sign any written statement relating to it.’

‘Withdrawn it, eh? Well, that’s not so easily done. Far from hysterical, she was perfectly clear when she made it. She spoke at some length, giving all the details. There was another witness to the crime, apart from Rachel Sawyer. Mrs Lamont will be asked again today—’

I was not allowed to finish.

‘There is no question of you interviewing the lady today.’

‘Has the police surgeon seen her?’ I asked.

‘He has and he agrees that she is in no fit state to be subjected to lengthy questioning. Moreover, she is a delicate female of good family and a prison cell is a most unsuitable place for her to be housed, sordid and unhealthy. I intend to make application on her behalf for her to be released pending further inquiries. There can be no reason for her not being allowed to return to her own home. If so released, there is no suggestion she would commit any crime or interfere with any witnesses, especially since . . .’ Pelham favoured me with a particularly unpleasant sneer, ‘despite your assertion that there is another witness to the crime you accuse her of, you seem singularly unwilling to name him, or produce him.’

I knew then, from the flicker of triumph in his pale eyes, that Pelham had found out the identity of my ‘other’ witness; and the circumstances in which he’d given his account. He was confident he could persuade a judge and jury to disregard as evidence the statement dictated to me by Mills that night in Newgate. No wonder I had found Lamont so confident that neither he nor his wife would ever be tried.

Pelham accepted my silence as having scored a point. He stood up. ‘Mrs Lamont, if freed, will remain in Putney. She will not go anywhere else.’

‘Unlike her husband!’ I heard myself snap.

Pelham merely twitched an eyebrow. ‘If it is necessary for you to speak to her again, you will be able to do so at her home – or in my presence. I cannot see how the police can object.’

With that he marched out, leather satchel under his arm.

I sent up a silent plea that Morris was successful in his search because it seemed very likely that Pelham would succeed in getting an order for his client’s release from custody. If Mrs Lamont returned home her first action would be to destroy any evidence that might be of use to us.

The Fates must have been playing a furious game of dice that day. Pelham had not long left, and I had just returned from informing Superintendent Dunn of the latest developments, when Biddle appeared and told me two men were desirous of seeing me.

‘Who are they? What is it about?’ I asked testily, still put out by my encounter with Pelham.

‘It’s in relation to the Putney business, sir. It’s a Mr Williams and a man he says is his gardener.’

Williams . . . Williams . . . the name was familiar but I could not put a face to it. Then I remembered. Mr Williams was the owner of the house and gardens where the potting shed was; the shed that had served us as a temporary mortuary for the body of Rachel Sawyer. My heart sank. No doubt he had returned home to the unpleasant news of the use we’d put his property to; and was here to complain.

A clumping of feet on the wooden stairs heralded the appearance of two persons as unlike one another as was possible. One, well dressed, was small, slight, very pale in complexion, with a pointed nose and eyes that blinked short-sightedly at me. He was as like a white mouse as any human could be. The other man, in complete contrast, was burly, sunburned, dressed in working attire, and glowered at me. I recognised him at once as the gardener we’d encountered at Putney.

I addressed the small pale gentleman. ‘Mr Williams, I think I know why you are here and I do assure you, that had there been any other available location to which the body could have been removed at such short notice – and in such urgent need—’

Williams waved both hands at me in an agitated manner. ‘No, no, Inspector Ross, I beg of you! It was indeed very unfortunate that you had to put the body in the shed in my garden. But Mr Harrington, the magistrate, who, as I understand it, oversaw the transfer of the body from the mud to the shed, has explained it all to me. Mrs Williams was at first very upset at the news. She feared it would make our entire household notorious in the neighbourhood.’

‘Both you and your wife were away at the time, I believe,’ I told him hastily, ‘I am sure people won’t think . . .’

He leaned forward. ‘But they don’t!’ he said earnestly. ‘At least, not in the way my dear wife feared. She thought no other lady would call on her in future. That no one would accept an invitation to dinner. That we would not be invited to any respectable house again.’

‘And this hasn’t happened?’

‘No,’ said Williams frankly. ‘We are – or our home is – indeed quite famous in Putney at the moment. But far from being scandalised, everyone seems fascinated. We see a constant stream of callers at our door and they all want to be shown the potting shed!’

‘Human nature, Mr Williams, I am afraid,’ I told him, trying to disguise the relief in my voice.

‘The reason I am here and that I have brought my gardener, Coggins here, along with me, is quite different.’

I turned my attention to the gardener. His face had darkened as his employer described the many visitors to the potting shed and I saw that the sudden fame of the humble building did not suit him at all. Nor, I suspected, did he like so many visitors trampling over the lawns.

‘Mr Coggins,’ I said. ‘You helped move the body, as I recall.’

‘Yes, I did,’ growled Coggins. ‘I didn’t know her, the corpse. Mr Harrington, the Justice, he knew her. The old fellow who looks after the church, he knew her too, and got himself into a fair old state about it. But I didn’t know who she was.’

At this point he fell silent and seemed still to be brooding on the shabby treatment dealt to him and his potting shed.

‘Come along, Coggins, there’s a good chap,’ urged his employer. ‘Tell the inspector what you told me.’ He looked apologetically at me. ‘Coggins is a little nervous, but he is anxious to do his duty as a citizen.’

‘I didn’t know her,’ repeated Coggins obstinately, adding unwillingly, ‘but I’d seen her.’

‘Where? When?’ I asked, expecting to be told he had seen Rachel in the past shopping in the High Street. But he confounded me.

‘Earlier on that morning, really early,
and she was alive then
.’

‘Why did you say nothing of this to us?’ I gasped.

‘What for?’ returned Coggins. ‘I didn’t know
who
she was. I told you that. I just
saw
her. When I got a look at the body, I thought to meself, that’s her, the same woman. But I didn’t know her name and, as Mr Harrington and the other gentleman
did
know her name, there wasn’t any point in my saying anything. So I didn’t. Besides, nobody asked me.’

I felt like burying my head in my hands. Coggins’s attitude was not unusual. It was all too familiar. He didn’t want to be involved in something that was none of his business, and would cause him further inconvenience. His only concern was for his employer’s garden, because if there were any damage there, he would be called to account. But, with the arrest of Lamont, a doubt had entered his head. It was natural that he took his concern to his employer first, and not to the police.

Mr Williams urged again, ‘Please, Coggins, tell Mr Ross exactly what you told me earlier. I am sure he will understand that you did not at first realise the importance.’

‘That’s it,’ said Coggins. ‘That’s what I saw – I saw
her
early on, alive and arguing with Dandy Jack, down near the river.’

‘Dandy Jack?’ I cried. Surely a hitherto unknown suspect was not about to enter the case?

Coggins had the grace to look discomfited. He glanced at his employer and mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir.’ He turned back to me. ‘I should have said Mr Lamont, as lives at Fox House. Some of the local fellows call him Dandy Jack, because he strolls round the place with that walking stick, and the moustache, and always turned out like a toff. It’s a sort of local joke, sir.’

Revenge is sweet and I felt an ignoble moment of pure delight at the thought of that fine fellow, Charles Lamont, going by the name of Dandy Jack in the public houses of Putney, and being the object of mirth and derision.

‘Coggins became concerned when he heard of Mr Lamont’s arrest,’ Williams explained. ‘He was shocked as indeed we all are. He came to me and I told him he must lay his information before the police immediately. But he didn’t want to come alone, so I have come with him,’ finished Williams tactfully. He did not add that unless he’d come with the gardener, he couldn’t be sure the man would come at all.

‘Biddle!’ I called.

Biddle appeared promptly.

‘Fetch pen and paper! This witness is about to make a statement. Sit there and take it down. Please begin at the beginning, Mr Coggins. Don’t leave anything out, however trivial.’

Coggins stared at Biddle and at Biddle’s pen and paper and then at me. ‘All right, I’ll do me best. Mr and Mrs Williams had been away. I wanted the garden to look all neat and trim when they got back the next day. So I went in to work early and was there at six of the morning. It’s a good time to be working in a garden. The birds are singing; the dew is on the grass and all’s right with the world. Well, all’s right in my world, at any rate.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ I urged him. ‘Don’t go too fast, or the constable will not be able to keep up.’

‘All right,’ growled Coggins. ‘Keep your hair on! After a while I heard the church clock strike seven. I carried on working, but don’t ask me to be exact for how long, because I can’t be sure. But the clock hadn’t struck eight. My back was requiring a rest and I took a fancy for a cup of hot coffee. There’s a fellow sets up a coffee stall by the bridge of a morning. He does good business with people going across to work on the Fulham side. The quickest way for me to get there is out of the back gate and along the path by the river. I stepped out of the gate and just before I turned to the left – towards the coffee stall – I chanced to look to my right. There I saw two people and one of them was Dandy – was Mr Lamont. He was talking to a woman. I took a look at her and thought that she wasn’t the sort I’d have expected to see him bothering with. She was as plain as a pikestaff and not a young’un. They seemed to be having a bit of an argument. I thought it probably about the price. I know it was early for that sort of thing. But the drabs are always on the lookout for a customer at any time of day. Not that she looked like any kind of dollymop, as I was saying. But then, perhaps she was just down on her luck, and trying to stay out of the workhouse. Then they walked off into some trees a bit beyond, so I thought they’d come to an agreement.

‘I thought no more of it. I went off to the bridge and drank my coffee. I had a bit of chat with a couple of people I knew who turned up there.’ Coggins glanced a little furtively at his employer. ‘Again, I can’t say how long I was there but it couldn’t have been very long. As I was walking back to my work, along the same path, I heard someone hollering. I saw it was Mr Harrington, the magistrate. There was a group of ’em round a body lying on the mud: Mr Harrington, the old chap who looks after the church, and some kids.’

Coggins paused. ‘There was no corpse lying on the mud when I went past earlier, I can tell you that! Well, they were beckoning to me to come over there and give them a hand. I helped move her. Mr Harrington had the idea to put her in my potting shed.’ Coggins turned to his employer. ‘It wasn’t my idea!’

‘Quite, quite, Coggins,’ Mr Williams placated him.

‘So that’s it, then. I didn’t get much of a look at her face when we were carrying her, but when we laid her out flat on my bench – ’ Coggins scowled dreadfully – ‘and knocked my cuttings on to the floor, I saw her better. I recognised the woman who’d been talking to Dandy Jack – Mr Lamont. I still didn’t think I needed to say anything. Mr Harrington and the other gentleman, they knew her by name, so they knew more than me. I didn’t think Mr Lamont could have anything to do with it. Why should he? I thought perhaps she’d approached another fellow and he’d cut up rough. Then the police came, local bluebottles first off, and then you.’ Coggins fixed me with an accusing eye. ‘All trampling over the lawn and knocking the shrubs about. I thought you’d never be finished. I don’t know how long it was before they moved her out. It was evening before I even got started in the garden. I had to come in early the next day, too, to finish it off. Talk about having my time wasted!’

‘What of police time? This was a murder and you could have helped with important information! You were able to fix the time of death, man. Didn’t you realise that?’ I demanded.

‘Of course, not!’ argued Coggins. ‘Police work isn’t my business. Gardening is. It wasn’t until I heard you’d arrested Dandy – Mr Lamont, as I thought I’d better mention it to Mr Williams.’