An Appetite for Murder E-Book

Linda Stratmann

• Herausgeber: The Mystery Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 519

Beschreibung

The sudden death of overweight 49-year-old Thomas Whibley sparks off an acrimonious furore in Bayswater, and sparks fly between rival diet doctors, vegetarians and the extremist Pure Food Society. Young sleuth Frances Doughty is engaged to discover the author of anonymous libels, when a former colleague of Whibley's, Hubert Sweetman, who has served fourteen years in prison for a violent robbery he claims he did not commit, asks her to trace his estranged family. Before she can start, however, the police arrive and arrest her client for the murder of his wife. There will be more murders and a vicious attack on Frances before she finally resolves a number of knotty questions. Is Hubert Sweetman really innocent? Where are his missing children? And who wielded the poisoned pen? The fourth book in the popular Frances Doughty Mystery series.

Leseprobe

To Lyn Stratmann

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Author’s Note

About the Author

In the Frances Doughty Mystery Series

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Sometimes, thought Frances Doughty, with just a trace of irritation, the people of Bayswater had nothing better to do with themselves than quarrel. Even gentlemen of education and mature years, who really ought to know better, the very same gentlemen who addressed sensible ladies as if they had the intellect of small children, made themselves look ridiculous by puffing themselves up, pontificating about their erudition or their morals, and exchanging gibes and insults with other similarly stubborn and conceited gentlemen. They indulged in this sport not in decent privacy but in the public press, and these petty wars often ended up in a court of law or even in the street, where blows were exchanged, hats dented and noses pulled. Both participants then asserted, usually before a policeman, that the other had started it first, and both claimed to have won. The worst offenders, Frances observed, were politicians and medical men.

Take for example the furore that had erupted recently over the unfortunate death of Bayswater accountant Mr Thomas Whibley. Mr Whibley had been aged only forty-nine when he expired, but his death had not come as a great surprise. He was a wealthy gentleman who enjoyed the good things in life, and had enjoyed them all to excess. His pleasures were rich food, good wine and brandy, fat cigars, and beautiful women of high class and low morals. Such was his indulgence that it was the subject of some discussion, and not a few wagers, which species of gross intemperance would kill him first. Mr Whibley, although not quite a Daniel Lambert, had achieved monumental proportions of stoutness, weighing, although not a tall man, almost thirty stones. This, however, did not appear to have slowed him in his relentless pursuit of pleasure. In the event, he did not expire slumped across a table in his favourite restaurant, or in a cloud of cigar smoke at his club, or even in an actress’ boudoir. He surprised everyone by being found dead one morning, in his own bed, quite alone. His heart, unable to maintain the task he had set it, had decided to stop beating.

There, with a few prayers over his extra wide coffin, the matter should have ended, and it only remained for his executors to dispose of his effects and distribute the proceeds between the four mistresses and twelve children mentioned in his will. Unfortunately someone calling him or herself ‘Bainiardus’ had written a letter to the BayswaterChronicle, and even more unfortunately the Chronicle, which relished a good fight, published it. Bainiardus alleged that while Mr Whibley’s heart had undoubtedly failed him, this was nothing to do with his dangerously imprudent mode of life, or even the strain of carrying so much weight about his person. Mr Whibley, the writer revealed, had been warned by his doctor that he must lose weight. For the last month, he had been on a reducing diet, and it had been no ordinary diet. Mr Whibley had been ‘banting’, and it was this harmful and ill-advised practice that had caused his death.

Mr William Banting, after whom the diet was named, was, Bainiardus explained, not even a medical man, but an undertaker, who had once been extremely corpulent. Some years previously he had advocated a dietary regime that consisted of nothing but meat, fruit, vegetables and dry wine. This had not been deleterious to Mr Banting’s health; indeed, he had lost his excess weight and claimed that he had never felt better. Recent practitioners, however, had taken matters to hazardous extremes, and Mr Whibley had been living off nothing but broiled beefsteak and champagne for a fortnight before his death.

Further correspondence followed. Mr Whibley’s doctor, who declined to give his name, stated that it would not be giving away too many secrets to reveal that he had been advising his patient to lose weight for the last ten years, although he had not recommended any particular regime, other than reducing intake of food, especially pastries and sweets, and taking exercise.

A Dr Adair, who practised in Bayswater and advocated the Banting diet, wrote to the Chronicle in warm support of it, saying that not only was it not dangerous to health, but it was a great boon to the corpulent who had been unable to reduce their girth in any other way.

Several other doctors took up the argument and they were soon joined by Mr Lathwal of the Bayswater Vegetarian Society, who abhorred the excessive consumption of meat advocated by Dr Adair, and Mr Rustrum of the Pure Food Society, who abhorred the excessive consumption of anything. Thus far, nothing being said or written was actually actionable, and while there was a certain amount of placard waving and pamphleteering on all sides, the excitement looked destined to die down, especially when the sudden advent of appalling weather in the middle part of January became the new topic of everyone’s conversation.

After a balmy opening to the year 1881, which had led to optimistic forecasts of a mild winter, London was suddenly gripped by a cruel frost with temperatures dropping as low as fifteen Fahrenheit, while heavy snowfall was driven by gales into deep drifts, blocking windows and doorways, bringing the business of the capital to a halt and endangering deliveries of food, post and newspapers. Traffic in the streets was all but stopped and few pedestrians ventured out; clubs and places of entertainment were deserted, and communication between London and the rest of the country suspended. The enterprising carrier could make something of it, though at considerable risk to himself, charging double rates for the delivery of urgent messages, but for most, venturing onto the streets was a matter of necessity rather than choice. The few cabmen who still plied their trade were shrouded in veils and spectacles to protect their eyes, and on the Gray’s Inn Road, a watchman froze to death.

For Frances, the weather was not only inconvenient for the essentials of food and laundry, it also prevented the arrival of new custom for her business of private detective, and was the perfect excuse for existing clients to delay paying their bills. When a small improvement in conditions later in the month brought new clients, not all of them were welcome, but by then she felt she had little choice in the matter.

A correspondent of the Chronicle signing him or herself ‘Sanitas’ had resurrected the argument that had begun with Mr Whibley’s death, introducing a new and worrying tone. The Pure Food Society, claimed Sanitas, was a dangerous movement, and its chairman, Mr Rustrum, had no right to criticise either Dr Adair or anyone else. The Society advocated regular fasting, had undoubtedly been responsible for a number of deaths, and its practitioners were guilty of criminal negligence or worse. The Vegetarian Society, Sanitas hinted, was not a great deal better. Sanitas had struck a nerve, and undoubtedly meant to do so. Many people thought that the letter emanated from a medical man, not a few supposed that Sanitas was actually Dr Adair, and several were unwise enough to say so.

Frances, who had rather hoped that her services would not be required to settle this particular squabble, received three letters on the issue, one from Dr Adair who said he was being libelled and that he was not Sanitas and did not know who was, one from Mr Rustrum and one from Mr Lathwal. These three gentlemen, while deeply divided on the subject of correct diet, were united in one respect; they all wanted to know who Sanitas was, and they wanted the letters stopped. Frances wrote to all three to make appointments, and found, with some difficulty, a cab which proceeded cautiously along the still largely snow-obstructed streets to the offices of the Bayswater Chronicle on Westbourne Grove.

Her appearance at that establishment often occasioned excited anticipation amongst the employees who assumed, always correctly, that she was there because she was working on a case. ‘Has there been murder done?’ she would be asked, rather too eagerly, and the reply that there had not was greeted with disappointment. Frances, whose activities had provided the Chronicle with some of its more sensational stories, was readily granted permission to look at the folder of letters that had arrived following the death of Mr Whibley, and took it to a desk in a corner where she would not be overlooked. She also carried with her the letters that she had received from Dr Adair, Mr Rustrum and Mr Lathwal, and was quickly able to determine from comparison of handwriting and notepaper that neither the Bainiardus nor the Sanitas letters had been written by any of those gentlemen.

The Chronicle had only printed extracts of the letters and their full content made interesting reading. Bainiardus had claimed to be a personal friend and business associate of the late Mr Whibley. ‘While it must be admitted that he exhibited a degree of corpulence that many another man might have found restricting,’ he had written, ‘this was not the case with Mr Whibley. He bore his weight well; indeed, he was remarkably active and light on his feet for a man of his dimensions. He often observed to me that much of what others thought to be fat was in actuality sturdy muscle and the weight of extra-large bones, and his size was in no way detrimental to his health. Imagine therefore my concern when he informed me that a medical man had advised him to take up the practice generally known as “banting”. Over the next few weeks I was distressed to see my friend grow slowly weaker and more miserable under this dangerous regime, and begged him to stop.’

The whole blame for Whibley’s death should, felt Bainiardus, be laid at the door of ‘the man who advised him to take up the pernicious practice of “banting”.’

Several letters had followed, several condemning the practice of banting as unnatural, while others, including one from Dr Adair, declared that it was safe and beneficial provided it was conducted under the supervision of a medical man.

Then Sanitas had entered the fray, commenting, ‘While the practice of banting may be beneficial in some cases of corpulence, there are others in which it is highly injurious. We must not submit men and women to these extremes simply because it is fashionable, but only in cases of necessity, otherwise we may, as undoubtedly occurred in the case of Mr Whibley, do great harm. Banting is only safe where it is actually required. We have heard from Bainiardus, a friend of Mr Whibley, who tells us that Mr Whibley was not in any way inconvenienced by his girth. Why then was there any necessity for him to try and shed flesh at all?’

While most correspondents believed that excess weight was always harmful, Sanitas clearly did not. ‘What is not generally known is that excessive leanness may be as injurious to health as excessive fatness, and lead to decline and an early death,’ he continued. ‘In times of grave illness it is the fat man who has the better chance of life, since he may lose flesh with impunity, whereas the lean man may quickly wither away and die.’

Thus far the letter had been merely an expression of opinion, refraining from personal insult, but then the writer, perhaps in a burst of emotion, had added:

‘These men of the so-called Pure Food movement walk amongst us like so many horrible skeletons and tell us we are better to eat almost nothing, and on some days actually nothing, while the vegetarians would have us renounce the most nutritious and healthful food we have. And, what is most dangerous, this is actually advocated as a life-long practice, so their foolish followers suffer great inconvenience and misery. These men are not doctors, and have no right to criticise qualified medical men. How many members of the Pure Food and vegetarian movements have gone to an early grave? Should there be charges made of criminal negligence or still worse, manslaughter?’

Frances could not help wondering if Sanitas was a corpulent individual who, not wishing to undertake the restrictions necessary for the reduction in his weight, had decided to make it a virtue. She asked the editor if she might be allowed to borrow the folder for further study, and permission was granted with the stipulation that the letters must be preserved with great care, and returned at once if they ever became the subject of legal action, something he hoped her intervention might avoid.

Frances thought it would be useful to learn as much as she could about what diet was recommended by doctors, both for reduction of corpulence and general health, and on her return home, she delved into the collection of medical texts that had been left to her by her late father. Mr William Doughty had once been the proprietor of a chemists shop on Westbourne Grove, and had liked to read about the diseases of his customers to give him better authority when selling remedies. Irregularities of the digestive system along the whole of its turbulent, troubled and lengthy tract had often been discussed with much relish at the Doughty dinner table.

There was however, as Frances discovered, a considerable difference between the opinions of pharmacists, who were in general agreement as to which draught or powder best suited their customers, and doctors, who could agree on nothing at all, and her studies only served to increase her mystification on the subject. Frances’ companion, Sarah, who had once been the Doughty family’s servant and was now a no less indispensable assistant detective, arrived home from an errand to find her employer throwing down pamphlets onto the table in despair.

Frances and Sarah had only been detectives for a year, and both, though they would not have admitted it to their clients, had been obliged to learn the art as they practised it. At first, Sarah had acted only as directed, but the former maid of all work, with more insight and initiative than anyone other than Frances gave her credit for, had a hard cynical view of the world and soon showed that she could see to the heart of problems and determine a course of action on her own account.

‘There is almost no article of food or drink,’ exclaimed Frances, ‘that has not been both denounced as the cause of fatness and praised as the natural food of man. Here we have a doctor who tells us that we are made fat by drinking pure water, and others who urge us to drink nothing else. Meat is of course either the best food of all, or a snare for the unholy. One man says that butter is to be avoided at all costs by those wishing to lose excess weight, but another declares that it cannot make us fat at all. It seems he tested his theory by feeding doves on nothing but butter and found that they grew very thin and died.’

‘Do doves eat butter?’ queried Sarah, looking dubious.

‘They do not, I am sure of it,’ said Frances, ‘but this gentleman, while a person of education, seemed not to know that.’

‘I am not considered fat, am I?’ asked Sarah, suddenly. She was a woman constructed on generous principles, large in every part of her person, especially about the waist, shoulders and forearms.

‘You are exactly as you should be,’ Frances reassured her firmly. She had read a great many opinions, all of them expressed by gentlemen, as to the correct amount of fat a woman should carry on her person, and there was considerable disagreement on that too, leading to pages of animated exposition on the subject of bosoms and hips and abdomens and how full and rounded and soft they should be. Frances was tall and thin and wanting fat on every part of her form, and it was no comfort to have it confirmed in medical prose, that sometimes approached indecency, just how far she deviated from the most admired female proportions.

That evening, as Frances and Sarah enjoyed a hearty supper of mutton stew followed by a pie made from the best bottled gooseberries, Frances wondered how it was possible for so many persons to disagree on the diet that was best for health. Surely if one simply ate wholesome, nourishing and digestible food, neither too much nor too little, that ought to be enough?

As they ate, another letter arrived, hand delivered, which was, thankfully, nothing to do with diet, and which Frances discussed with Sarah. A Mr Hubert Sweetman, who revealed that he had not long emerged from a term in prison, wanted to trace his estranged family; a wife, son and daughter from whom he had heard nothing since his conviction in the autumn of 1866. A man who had been in prison for over fourteen years, and who might well have originally been sentenced to twenty and granted an early release, had clearly not committed a trivial offence. ‘He might be a murderer,’ observed Sarah with a thrust of her lower lip. Frances agreed, pointing out that she had interviewed murderers before, although admittedly she had not known them to be murderers at the time.

It was, thought Frances, an unusual proceeding for two single ladies to consider allowing a potentially dangerous convict into their home without at least securing the protection of a man. Fortunately, one of the two single ladies concerned was Sarah, whose powerful hands were equally well adapted to kneading pastry or knocking a man unconscious. She could show a fearsome aspect in times of danger, and had learned the secrets of personal combat from her eight brothers, one of whom, Jeb Smith, was, when in the roped ring, known professionally as the Wapping Walloper.

For the last two months, Sarah had been ‘walking out’ with Professor Pounder, proprietor of a gentlemen’s sparring and self-defence academy. While the Professor was good-looking, modest, kind and respectful, Sarah had made it very clear to Frances that no tender words had been exchanged, were expected, or wanted, and that the friendship made no difference to her steadfast allegiance to her employer. Frances felt sure that had Professor Pounder attempted to introduce a little romance into the association, the result would have been bare-knuckle fisticuffs, with no guarantees as to which of the pair would be able to come up to the scratch after the first round.

Since Frances had been a child of six when Mr Sweetman entered prison, and Sarah had then been living in Wapping in conditions that had given her little leisure for reading, neither recalled Mr Sweetman’s crime, and both felt that more information was required before deciding how to reply to the letter. After supper Frances and Sarah went down to the kitchen to make tea, and shared an amiable cup with their landlady, Mrs Embleton. That lady’s generosity in allowing them to remain in the house even after discovering their profession was something for which Frances was constantly grateful, and she tried, not always successfully, to do nothing that might alarm either her landlady or the other tenants. Admitting a hardened criminal to her apartments was, she thought, most probably beyond what Mrs Embleton might deem acceptable behaviour.

‘I do recall the event,’ she said, when Frances broached the subject of Mr Sweetman. ‘It was all the talk of Bayswater at the time, a man who had never given any trouble before, but brought low by debt. He robbed a safe, and used great violence to an unfortunate old man, who nearly died.’

‘He is out of prison now and has asked me to find his family, from whom he has heard nothing since his conviction,’ said Frances.

Mrs Embleton was usually a very calm lady, but even she drew a sharp little breath. ‘If they have not visited or written to him in all that time he must be a very abandoned character,’ she said.

‘I think,’ said Frances, ‘you would prefer it if I did not accept him as a client. I will abide by your wishes, of course.’

‘You have not yet seen him?’

‘No.’

Mrs Embleton sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps we should not judge him. He was by all accounts once considered respectable, and even the worst of men might be reclaimed. He may be truly penitent. I think he should be allowed the chance to prove that he has seen the error of his ways and wishes to lead a useful and honest life.’

‘Then you would not object to him coming here?’

‘I would object to your going to meet him anywhere else,’ said Mrs Embleton. ‘I am glad that you are so confiding as to ask. See him, and use your judgement. You will know very soon if he is fit company.’ She glanced at Sarah. ‘I am sure he will give you no trouble.’

Later, Frances re-read Mr Sweetman’s letter but it offered no further clues as to the man and his intentions. She was not so optimistic as Mrs Embleton. Many of her clients came to her with a sincere and candid manner and a simple request but really wanted something else far less creditable that they were unwilling to reveal. So it might prove with Mr Sweetman, and if he did call, she must make it very clear to him from the outset that she wanted no dissembling. Sweetman, as a convicted felon, would have emerged from prison destitute and might want to find his family only in order to live off them. Or worse – perhaps he blamed them in some way for his predicament and was seeking revenge. His wife could well have very good reason to want to have nothing to do with him, and if necessary Frances might have to take Mrs Sweetman’s part against her husband. It was a potentially dangerous situation, but the more Frances thought about it the more she felt obliged to take the case, since if she declined, Mr Sweetman might go to another detective less concerned for the safety of his wife. If she heard no more from him, which given the fact that he was probably unable to afford her services, she would have a word with Inspector Sharrock of Paddington Green, who might be interested in the recent arrival in Bayswater.

Frances duly replied to Mr Sweetman, who was lodging in Moscow Road, advising him of her fees and adding that she would be able to see him at any suitable time on the following day.

CHAPTER TWO

At an early hour the next morning, Frances unexpectedly received a hand-delivered reply from Mr Sweetman, saying that he would call that evening at seven o’clock. The time of both delivery and meeting suggested to Frances that Mr Sweetman had some occupation that commanded his day, and she wondered what it might be. She spent much of the intervening time composing reports on her investigations, and dealing with correspondence, a significant portion of which she noted unhappily was directed to those clients who had failed to settle their accounts in over a month. One lady, a customer of the carriage class, who were the worst payers of all, had actually favoured Frances with a request to perform a second task before she had paid for the first. Doughty’s chemist shop had never supplied goods on credit, but this client, with a wide circle of acquaintances, all of whom she heartily detested, seemed to think that Frances was a gossip-collection agency, and was therefore too valuable to lose. It was one instance when Sarah’s undoubted skills in the task of extracting payment were best not employed.

Her correspondence done, Frances read the obituary and letters of tribute to Mr Whibley in recent copies of the Chronicle, then opened the folder of letters on the subject of his demise, laid the papers on the table in front of her, and studied them carefully.

Mr Sweetman arrived promptly at the appointed hour, a little ruffled by the gales that still swept the streets, and spattered with fresh sleet. He was something over fifty years of age, with the sallow yet barely lined face of a man who had not been burned by the sun for many a year. Other than that he bore no resemblance to the dangerous felon Frances had been expecting. Altogether he looked well set-up and respectable, and was, under his greatcoat, clad in a suit of clothes which, while obviously made for another man some years previously, was clean and well brushed. He sat at the little table across which Frances met all her clients, and removed his hat, carefully wiping away spots of moisture from the crown with a pocket handkerchief. His hair was trim and quite grey.

Frances introduced Sarah, who sat knitting a woollen shawl with a pair of long steel needles that gleamed in the firelight, and it was to Mr Sweetman’s credit that he did not find the sight especially alarming, something that suggested to Frances that he did not have a guilty conscience.

‘It is very kind of you to see me,’ he said, gratefully, his expression speaking more of unhappiness than anxiety.

‘Have you consulted any other detectives?’ asked Frances, suspecting from his tone that she was not the first.

‘I – yes – I have spoken to two but I took the decision not to employ their services,’ said Sweetman, with an air of distaste. ‘They did not seem trustworthy. You, on the other hand, have been recommended to me as both honest and efficient. I have been told many stories of your successes which I can scarcely credit in one so young.’

‘They are all true,’ declared Frances, not without some apprehension as she knew that the stories of her exploits published in the Chronicle were highly exaggerated, and did not know which ones he had read, ‘and you will find me trustworthy, but I expect my clients to be the same, although I am too often disappointed. You must tell me the truth, and you must not conceal anything of importance.’

He nodded. ‘I will be perfectly frank and open with you, Miss Doughty. In the year 1866, I counted myself as a contented man. I was employed as office manager of J. Finn Insurance, a trusted position I had held for three years, with a salary sufficient for my needs. Susan, my dear wife, and I had been married for nearly fifteen years and we had two children in good health. My only unhappiness concerned my sister, Jane, a widow, who was very ill and lacked means. I assisted her out of my earnings, but later I was obliged to borrow funds both to pay for her care and also to secure the education of her son, a youth of considerable promise. But, I was more than able, with a little economy, to repay the interest on the loan, and Edward – my nephew – promised me that he would repay the capital as soon as he was able. In August that year I arrived at the office one morning to find the safe had been opened and emptied, and one of the clerks, Mr Gibson, who had been working late, had been violently attacked and was hovering between life and death. It was a very shocking thing, of course, and I never imagined for a minute that I might be suspected, but then the police came to know that I was in debt, and also it was clear that the safe had not been forced but opened with a key. Only two men apart from myself had a key to the safe, and they were dining at a club that evening in full view of a large company. I, too, had an alibi; I had been visiting my sister and the police interviewed her, but she was too frail and confused to give a certain reply, and when they looked in my house they found Mr Gibson’s pocket book, which I had never seen before. I had hoped that when Mr Gibson came to his senses he would be able to say that I had not been his attacker, but unfortunately although he recovered, he remembered nothing of the circumstances.’ Sweetman shook his head with regret. ‘Mr Finn, the director, actually came to court and was a character witness for me, but to no avail. One of the other clerks, Mr Browne, had been passing by the office that night and actually saw the thief at the door, but they tried to make out it was me he saw.’

‘Who do you think the thief was?’ asked Frances.

He gestured helplessly. ‘I really don’t know. The police insisted that it must have been someone who worked in the office, and who had tried to make it look as if a thief had broken in but had made a poor job of it. Myself, I think it could just as well have been a burglar, who had stolen the keys to the office and the safe, and had them copied.’

‘What was in the safe?’

‘Three hundred pounds and more,’ replied Sweetman. ‘It was never found. Even now I worry that there are people watching me, thinking I have it hidden somewhere and am about to retrieve it.’ He glanced about, nervously, as if afraid that there were watchers lurking in the shadowed corners of Frances’ parlour. ‘I never took that money, Miss Doughty,’ he pleaded earnestly, ‘and even if I was to find it by some chance, I could not keep it because it is not mine.’

‘How do you think Mr Gibson’s pocket book came to be in your house?’ asked Frances.

‘He had called on me a few days before the robbery and might have dropped it by accident, but of course he could not remember having missed it,’ said Sweetman. He paused. ‘Mr Gibson was not known as a gentleman who opened his pocket book very frequently.’

‘Where was it found?’

‘In a drawer. I always thought the maid had picked it up and put it away thinking it was mine, but she denied it.’

‘And now, as you say in your letter, you would like to be reunited with your family? What was the last occasion on which you saw them?’

He gave a deep shuddering sigh. ‘Oh, Miss Doughty, I never saw or spoke to them after my arrest! That was only a week after the robbery.’

‘Your wife did not visit you in the police cells or in prison?’ Frances asked, in some surprise. ‘She did not appear in court? You had no message from her?’

He shook his head miserably. ‘All I received very shortly after I was arrested was a note from her solicitor saying that she was terribly distressed by what I had done and wanted nothing more to do with me. I wrote, begging to see her, to be allowed at least to see the children, but received no reply.’

‘Why do you think she believed you to be guilty?’ questioned Frances. ‘Many a man who has committed far worse crimes is forgiven by his wife and allowed to see his family.’

‘I wish I could say,’ he murmured pathetically. ‘How could she have known me so little? Perhaps it was because the police thought that I had committed the crime; maybe to her mind that settled the matter. And I am afraid, very afraid, that she has convinced my children of the same.’

‘Did you learn anything of her circumstances after your arrest?’

‘No. Nothing at all.’ There was a damp glimmer in his eyes.

He looked so desperately unhappy that Frances almost sent for tea. She glanced at Sarah, who was watching their visitor carefully. If Sarah had suspected Sweetman of being a clever liar it would have shown in her face, but there was no trace of suspicion there. Could they accept his story after all?

‘Who was your solicitor?’ asked Frances.

‘Mr Manley. I think he is dead now.’

‘Yes, his junior Mr Rawsthorne took over the practice.’ Frances reflected that a great deal of the information she needed to help Mr Sweetman might well have gone into the grave during the intervening years. Rawsthorne, however, was her own family solicitor and a friend, and might be willing to offer some insights, or even have retained some documentation relating to the case. ‘Tell me about your family,’ she asked.

‘Susan is fifty years of age – three years younger than I,’ said Sweetman, his voice gentle with fond memories, ‘and she has not sought a legal separation from me, or I would surely have known of it. She was once Susan Porter, and her father was a clerk. We were married in October 1851, and there are two children: Benjamin, our eldest, will be twenty-eight now, and Mary twenty-six. I miss them so much – I –’ he was suddenly so overcome with emotion it choked in his throat, and he was briefly unable to speak. Frances offered him a glass of water, which he took, gratefully. ‘I am sorry, but this is such a grief to me. From the moment I was accused of that terrible crime, I have seen nothing of my wife and nothing of my children. Benjamin and Mary might be married by now – I might even be a grandfather! What a joy it would be to know that they are well and happy!’

‘How do you make your living now, Mr Sweetman?’ asked Frances with a stern edge to her voice.

He wiped his eyes, gave a wry smile and nodded. ‘Ah, I understand you. You are wondering if I want to find my family so that I can demand money from them, or live off them like a leech. No, I will make no demands; they have suffered so much that even though it is no fault of mine I do not think I have any claim on them. But just to see them, to know that they are in health and provided for, even if I cannot speak to them or make myself known, that will be sufficient. I work for my nephew Edward, my sister’s boy, as a clerk and general factotum. He is now a dental surgeon, and very successful. He believes in my innocence. He even thought to offer me lodgings in his home, but his wife – she has daughters by a previous marriage and not knowing me, she was nervous to have me in the house. I live simply, I need very little, and yes, with his assistance I can pay your fee.’

Sarah had stopped knitting and was staring at Frances very keenly. She was strongly aware of how much Frances wanted to find her own mother, whom she had not seen since she was three years old, and yet at the same time feared to find her, feared so much that she had not dared to look. Sometimes Frances felt certain that her mother wanted to see her, but that she too was afraid of a meeting. Perhaps her mother had read about her achievements in the newspapers, especially the BayswaterChronicle, which represented the intrepid lady detective as a towering champion of justice, or even in the halfpenny illustrated stories that were in wide circulation about the exploits of the daring ‘Miss Dauntless’, who, it could not be doubted, was intended to represent Frances. It would surely warm her mother’s heart to know that Frances was well and a success, but it might also deter her from confronting a daughter who she might believe would not want to know her. Frances often liked to imagine that ladies who passed her in the street with a polite greeting and a smile were her own parent. If that was the case, she must have a hundred of them.

‘I expect you have already tried to find your family,’ said Frances.

‘Oh, since I came out of prison last month I have thought of little else,’ said her client with some feeling. ‘I have spoken to everyone who might know where they are, but have learned nothing.’

‘Can you describe to me what you have done so far, and also let me have details of all Mrs Sweetman’s relatives and friends? I will need names and any addresses you can remember.’ Frances poised a freshly sharpened pencil over her notebook.

‘Of course, I will tell you everything I know. Unfortunately, Susan has no brothers or sisters living, and her parents were deceased long ago. My own dear sister died while I was in prison and left no message for me to suggest that she knew what had become of Susan and my children. My nephew, likewise, knows nothing. He was away at school when the catastrophe occurred. I went to our old home in Garway Road, but Susan was not there and the neighbours, all of whom were unknown to me as they had lived there under ten years, could tell me nothing. I have no way of finding our maid, Betty – I never even knew her surname. I went to the school that my children attended, but the building was gone – all knocked down and a furniture warehouse where it once stood, and I was told that the headmistress had retired to the country many years ago. I placed an advertisement in the newspaper but there was no reply. I thought then to go to the offices of J. Finn Insurance, as Susan did very occasionally come there when she had a message for me. The company is still in the same building, but old Mr Finn died some years ago, as did Mr Browne, and all the others I knew when I worked there have left. Gibson – well he was sixty-five at the time of the robbery and I was told that he was never well enough to come back to work, so he can scarcely be alive now. Of the other three clerks, Minster left to become a publican, and Elliott and Whibley went to join an accountancy firm, Anderson and Walsh. Anderson was Whibley’s uncle.’

‘Whibley?’ said Frances, startled at the familiar name. ‘Is that the Thomas Whibley who died recently?’

‘Yes, and that was rather upsetting because I went there and spoke to him only two days before he died.’

Frances paused to consider this unexpected development. She always entertained a suspicion of coincidences, but in the busy world of Bayswater finance it was perhaps not too surprising when two individuals were acquainted. There seemed to be no obvious connection between a fourteen-year-old robbery and the controversy surrounding the reasons for Mr Whibley’s recent death, but the opportunity to interview someone who had recently spoken to the deceased man was too good to miss. ‘Tell me about your visit to Mr Whibley,’ she requested.

‘I went to see him because out of all the people at J. Finn Insurance, only he and Mr Finn knew Susan at all well. We had sometimes dined together. I hoped he had heard from her or knew something of what she did after I was convicted, but he was unable to help me.’

‘Did he seem unwell to you?’ asked Frances. ‘I appreciate that you could not have been aware of any recent deterioration in his health, but in view of the allegations that have been made about him in the press I would value your observations.’

‘Oh, are you enquiring into that?’ he exclaimed. ‘The most terrible things have been said!’

‘I like to keep informed of all matters of current interest in Bayswater,’ replied Frances, evenly.

Sweetman nodded. ‘Of course. Well, I can tell you that I was very shocked by his appearance. He was always rather portly, but since I last saw him he had become enormously fat and looked quite aged, although he was not yet fifty. He did not look like a man destined to live long, although of course I could not have anticipated …’ he sighed.

‘So,’ said Frances, looking at her notes, ‘of the employees of J. Finn Insurance who might have known or heard about Mrs Sweetman; Mr Finn, Mr Whibley and Mr Browne are deceased, and in all probability Mr Gibson is too. Did Mr Browne have any family?’

‘No, he was a bachelor and lived alone.’

‘And was Mr Whibley able to tell you where the others were to be found?’

‘Yes, Minster is now the landlord of the Cooper’s Arms, a small beer house on the corner of Bott’s Mews, a very low establishment. He inherited some money and used it to start the business. I did try to see him, but he made it very plain that he thought I was a criminal and told me to leave. He was never a very pleasant individual and the years have not improved him.’

Frances raised her eyebrows. ‘Mr Minster inherited money? From whom, and how much?’

‘Yes,’ said Sweetman, ‘I had thought of that, too. Even at the time I wondered if it was he who stole the money. Whibley also suspected him, but I suppose Minster was able to account for his movements, for there was never any suggestion of his being arrested. I don’t know about the inheritance and Whibley couldn’t tell me any more, but it does appear that out of all the employees of the company Minster is the only man to have suddenly acquired any wealth shortly after the robbery. Elliott went to work for Anderson and Walsh as a clerk. Whibley started as a junior accountant and eventually became a partner. Later, when his uncle, Mr Anderson, died, he inherited the business. Elliott married the widow who was a great deal younger than Anderson and not only left well provided for, but is very beautiful so I am told. The only person at J. Finn Insurance I haven’t been able to find is the messenger boy, Timmy, but he was scarcely nine years old at the time.’

‘But, to clarify, you are not asking me to prove you innocent of the crime, or find the real thief or the stolen money,’ Frances established.

He looked surprised. ‘No, I can hardly think that would be possible, after so long.’

‘All the same,’ said Frances, ‘I imagine that if you were to find your family you would like to be able to offer them proof of your innocence.’

‘They are my family,’ said Sweetman, with some dignity, ‘not a jury. What proof should they need?’

Frances questioned him closely and made a note of the full names and last known addresses of everyone who she might need to interview, including the unfortunate clerk, Arthur Gibson, in the faint hope that he was still alive and had recovered a memory that could exonerate Mr Sweetman. ‘The two other men who had keys, the ones who had alibis for the robbery – who were they?’

‘Mr Finn, and Whibley,’ said Sweetman. ‘But really I can’t believe that either would have been capable of such a crime. Both of them I remember were horribly shocked by what happened.’

‘Do you have a portrait of your family?’ asked Frances.

He shook his head. ‘No, that is a great regret to me.’

‘Then I would like a description.’

He nodded, and a wistful smile spread across his features. ‘Susan is about the same height as myself, about five feet and seven inches, so a little above what is common for a woman, and very pretty with light brown hair. Benjamin resembles me; I think once grown he would be a little taller, and his hair is brown, as mine once was. Mary …’ he sighed, ‘such a pretty thing, the image of her mother, hair like spun gold.’

‘They were not portrayed in the illustrated papers at the time of the trial?’

‘No, and I was glad of it,’ Sweetman said with some feeling.

Frances was completing her notes when there was a loud rapping at the front door. She exchanged glances with Sarah, since the insistent quality of the knock had already told them whom they might expect to see very soon. Sarah rose and went to look out of the window. Their rooms were on the first floor and afforded a good view of who stood on the doorstep. It was not a feature that had especially recommended the apartment when Frances had first seen it, but since moving there it had proved to be very useful. Sarah gave a grunt. ‘Inspector Sharrock,’ she said, ‘and he’s got a constable with him.’

Given that the only other residents of the house were Mrs Embleton, the Allaby sisters, who occupied the ground floor apartments and never went out except to church, and Mrs Parmiter on the second floor, who thought of nothing but her charity work, it was almost certain that the Inspector had come to see Frances, though why he had felt the need to bring a constable with him was a mystery. ‘It seems I have visitors,’ she told Mr Sweetman, ‘but I believe our business is done for today. I will take the case.’

Sweetman heaved a sigh of relief, and handed her a small envelope. ‘The advance payment you require,’ he said. ‘And may I expect a weekly report?’

‘Of course,’ said Frances.

There was a loud thumping sound as two pairs of heavily booted feet advanced rapidly up the staircase, but no sooner had the housemaid’s knock sounded at the apartment door when it burst open, and the policemen entered. Their caped figures were smudged with sleet, and Sharrock’s coarse red face glowed like a beacon.

It was a year since Frances had first met Inspector Sharrock, and he had made a very poor initial impression since he had attempted to bully her father into admitting that he had accidentally poisoned a customer of his chemists shop. The bullying and blustering were, she now knew, the Inspector’s normal mode of address, which he rarely varied and were necessary tactics when dealing with some of the rougher criminal elements of Paddington. In his world, doors were there to be pounded with fists, stairs to be mounted at the double, and rooms to be invaded. He came boldly to the front of Bayswater homes minding nothing about the quality of the residents, and brushing aside any suggestion that he should go humbly to the tradesman’s entrance. Frances had learned to do a little of that herself. During that eventful year, Sharrock, while still remaining convinced that detective work was an unsuitable occupation for females, had grudgingly come to accept that Frances was adept at untangling the knottier problems that he had no leisure to attempt, while she had come to see him as a sound and hardworking policeman, even if he did have the untidiest desk she had ever seen. Sharrock worked long hours either at the station or out on cases, usually pleading that his home, where Mrs Sharrock was busy with the needs of six children under the age of nine, was a domestic pandemonium which he preferred to avoid. Frances happened to know that Mrs Sharrock was in the habit of asking a married but childless sister to look after her noisy offspring while she attended meetings of the Bayswater Women’s Suffrage Society, but had decided not to mention this to the Inspector.

‘Inspector Sharrock,’ said Frances, rising to her feet, ‘if you would grant me a few moments, my client is just leaving.’

‘I don’t think so,’ announced Sharrock, slapping moisture from his cape, ‘or at least, he isn’t leaving alone.’ He fixed Sweetman with a sharp look and gestured to the constable to stand guard by the door.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sweetman apprehensively, starting to rise from his chair.

‘You are Hubert Sweetman?’ said the Inspector.

‘I am.’

‘Your nephew said you would be here. You’re to come to the station, now.’

‘But I was released – I have all the papers!’ Sweetman exclaimed, delving into his pocket with trembling fingers. ‘Here, I can show you.’

‘Never mind that now,’ said Sharrock brusquely. ‘Hubert Sweetman, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder.’ He nodded to the constable who stepped forward and secured the astonished man. ‘And you, Miss Doughty, should be more careful about who you allow in here.’

‘I don’t understand!’ exclaimed Sweetman. ‘Who am I supposed to have killed? And when? I have been working for my nephew all day and came straight here.’

‘You’re not going to cut up rough, are you?’ warned Sharrock, although nothing looked less likely.

‘No, of course not, I will come with you, but this is all a mistake!’ Sweetman was hustled towards the door, and as he reached it he turned and cried, ‘Miss Doughty, you must help me!’ before he was taken downstairs.

‘I suppose,’ said Frances, ‘it is too much to hope that you will tell me what all this is about?’ She showed Sharrock the envelope. ‘Mr Sweetman’s advance payment,’ she said. ‘He is my client.’

Sharrock raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? And what did he want you to do?’

‘He is hoping to find his family. He became estranged from them after his conviction for robbery in 1866.’

‘Well, if I was you, I would hand him his money back,’ said Sharrock with a sarcastic grin. ‘He’s using you as a smokescreen. He’s already found his wife, and he’s killed her.’

CHAPTER THREE

When Sharrock had gone, Sarah, with silent disapproval marked deeply in every line of her face, quickly cleaned the scattered mud spots from the carpet, then went down to the kitchen and made cocoa. All they had succeeded in learning from the Inspector before he departed with his prisoner to Paddington Green police station was that Mrs Susan Sweetman had been found dead at her home, where she lived alone.

As the two women sat thoughtfully before the fire and sipped their drinks, Frances commented, ‘Inspector Sharrock was noticeably reticent about what evidence he has against Mr Sweetman. I am inclined to think that there is none, and all he actually has is suspicion and a likely man near to hand. When hard-pressed, as is usual with him, he will take the easy way, and for the most part he gets good results from this principle. But for all we know Mr Sweetman’s hours of work will give him an alibi for the time of the murder, and come tomorrow he will have been released.’

‘You’ll want to find the son and daughter in any case,’ said Sarah, ‘if only so they can go to their mother’s funeral.’

‘They must surely have been in touch with her,’ said Frances, with a little sigh as she thought of her own absent mother. ‘They will have called on her and the neighbours might know something, or if not they will hear of her death soon enough through the newspapers. Then they will attend the funeral and I will speak to them. But if they had reason not to wish to see their father before, they are unlikely to change their minds now, unless he can be cleared of the murder. I’ll send a note to Mr Gillan so he can place a report in the Chronicle.’ Max Gillan was a newspaper correspondent who sometimes supplied Frances with intelligence he obtained from what he called his ‘secret sources’, whom Frances suspected were policemen. The police were officially prohibited from supplying information to the press, but unofficially all pressmen cultivated those officers who appreciated that newspaper reports published during the course of their enquiries might bring in important witnesses. In return, Frances gave Mr Gillan material for his columns, which gave him priority over his rivals. He wrote a regular piece for the Chronicle about Frances’ adventures, although he firmly denied being the author of the Miss Dauntless detective stories.

‘They might have gone away, and not get here in time,’ worried Sarah.

‘True,’ said Frances, ‘and I have thought of another difficulty. Benjamin and Mary Sweetman might be so ashamed of their father’s crime that they will not want their connection with him known. They could be living under other names to conceal their identity and decide not to attend their mother’s funeral but pay their respects privately at a later date.’

‘They might come in disguise,’ Sarah mused, with a smile at the prospect of a dramatic unmasking.

‘Well,’ said Frances, ‘Mr Sweetman has paid me a fee and while I wait for his son and daughter to appear I will start the work.’

‘They could have married, or died,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll go to Somerset House; see what’s in the registers.’

‘And Mrs Sweetman might have made a bigamous marriage,’ Frances observed. ‘A woman in that position might risk discovery to secure a better future. If she used her maiden name of Porter that will cause us some difficulty, as there will be dozens to choose from. I shall go to see Inspector Sharrock tomorrow. We should at least find out when the police think Mrs Sweetman died and when the inquest is to open. Once I know her address we can make enquiries there.’

After composing a note to Mr Gillan, Frances wrote a letter to her solicitor, Mr Rawsthorne, hoping that he might still have his predecessor’s papers relating to Mr Sweetman’s conviction and would be willing to discuss them with her. She then studied the list of people Mr Sweetman had already visited. Any or all of them, she thought, might conceivably know where Mrs Sweetman had recently lived and where her son and daughter were, but had perhaps been unwilling to reveal what they knew to Mr Sweetman. With the death of Mrs Sweetman and the arrest of her husband, they might now speak to Frances.

‘Where will you go first?’ asked Sarah.

‘I think,’ decided Frances, as she sealed the letters, ‘I will start at the beginning.’

Early the next morning, Frances braved gales and cold drizzle to visit the Sweetman family’s old home. The damp air held the promise of a lasting thaw. Everywhere windows were sparkling with a steel-blue frost that she hoped would disperse as the temperature struggled to rise during the day. Walking was difficult, even for someone with Frances’ long stride. The snow that had once lain inches deep had been churned by carriage wheels into dirty brown ridges speckled with soot and tiny ice jewels of yesterday’s refrozen sleet. She was grateful to secure a cab, which crunched its way over the brittle surface. Her destination, Garway Road, ran south from Westbourne Grove, and its houses were neat and plain with two storeys and a basement – the homes of senior clerks, company secretaries and comfortable though not wealthy annuitants.

As Frances had anticipated, Mr Sweetman’s earlier visits had helped prepare the ground for her arrival and the name on her card, which was fast becoming notorious in Bayswater, was enough to ensure her admission to the homes she wished to enter and agreement to interviews.

Frances also carried with her the shocking news of Mrs Sweetman’s murder and the fact that the police were questioning her husband, which was enough to arouse anyone’s interest. She discovered that Mr Sweetman had been painfully honest in revealing the full circumstances of his absence from home for so many years, albeit with earnest assurances that he was an innocent man. In all cases he had been seen by the gentlemen of the house, none of whom had wanted to submit their wives, sisters or servants to the presence of a convicted criminal, however respectful his manners.

The family currently living in the Sweetmans’ old home had been there for eight years and had never met them, neither did they know anyone who might have lived in Garway Road in 1866. Sweetman had spoken to a Mr Willis, a youthful solicitor still making his way up in the world, and his wife now informed Frances that while naturally suspicious of their visitor’s motives, her husband had told him nothing because he had nothing to tell. Frances asked about the previous occupier, but Mrs Willis said that when they had first rented the house – the owner being a gentleman who lived abroad and acted through an agent – it had been empty. The property agent was long since retired.

The neighbours on either side were similarly unhelpful, and none could give any information about the current address of the persons who had previously occupied their properties. Frances, thankful to find that the rain had stopped and detecting a watery glisten on the surface of the melting snow, was just descending the steps of the third house she had visited, and wondering if she might have to call on every one of them in the street, when a figure in a heavy dark servant’s gown, her head and shoulders wound about with shawls, ran down the steps of the Willis house.

‘Miss Doughty! Might I have a word?’

‘Certainly,’ said Frances, pausing to allow the woman to approach.

Close up, it could be seen that the figure was a person of middle years. Her mittened hands smelt as if they had been rubbed with lemon and her cheeks were lined and reddened by frequent closeness to fire.

‘I’m Mr Willis’ cook,’ said the woman, breathlessly, ‘and the maid just told me you were asking after the Sweetmans. I’d been wondering if I ought to write to Mr Sweetman after he came asking questions last time, and then I thought better of it in case – well – I just now heard that Mrs Sweetman is dead and he is suspected so it looks like I was right not to.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Frances. ‘Were you living here in 1866?’

‘No, but my father used to deliver fish all round these parts. He’s old now, and his head isn’t what it was, but he might remember something.’ She handed Frances a scrap of wrapping paper with an address. ‘Say that Eliza sent you. My sister Nora looks after him, but he doesn’t get many visitors now, and I’m sure he’d like to talk to you.’

Frances thanked her, and the woman turned and ran back through the snowy puddles, her heels kicking up little spurts of icy liquid. The paper gave the name Jack Jennings and the address of a lodging house in Newton Road, which was just a short walk away. Frances pulled her mantle tightly about her and set off.

A small, thin girl of about thirteen with a face like smudged paper and a ragged excuse for a cap opened the door, and on being told Frances’ business admitted her and asked her to wait while she took her card and the message up to Miss Jennings. There was nowhere to wait except the hall, so Frances stayed there. It was a narrow space innocent of paint or paper, and rarely swept, with a single unlit candle on an iron holder sagging dangerously from the wall. The air was damp, and although the floor was just bare boards, there was a smell of rotting carpets, while a bitter draught under the front door made it seem colder inside than out. After a few minutes, the maid returned saying that Frances could go up to the third floor, and should knock at the door with a number eight chalked on it.