Death in Bayswater E-Book

Linda Stratmann

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

Seitenzahl: 523

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

London 1881: Panic reigns in Bayswater as a ruthless murderer prowls the foggy streets of the nation's capital. Residents live in fear, rumours and accusations abound, and vigilante groups patrol by night. It is not, of course, a suitable investigation for a lady detective, but when a friend falls victim to the killer's knife, Frances Doughty is drawn into this sinister new case. Myth and reality collide in another thrilling mystery that will stretch Frances' powers of deduction – and her courage – to the limit.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR THE FRANCES DOUGHTY MYSTERY SERIES

‘If Jane Austen had lived a few decades longer, and spent her twilight years writing detective stories, they might have read something like this one.’

Sharon Bolton, bestselling author of the Lacey Flint series

‘A gripping and intriguing mystery with an atmosphere Dickens would be proud of.’

Leigh Russell, bestselling author of the Geraldine Steel novels

‘I feel that I am walking down the street in Frances’ company and seeing the people and houses around me with clarity.’

Jennifer S. Palmer, Mystery Women

‘Every novelist needs her USP: Stratmann’s is her intimate knowledge of both pharmacy and true-life Victorian crime.’

Shots Magazine

‘The atmosphere and picture of Victorian London is vivid and beautifully portrayed.’

www.crimesquad.com

‘Vivid details and convincing period dialogue bring to life Victorian England during the early days of the women’s suffrage movement, which increasingly appeals to Frances even as she strives for acceptance from the male-dominated society of the time. Historical mystery fans will be hooked.’

Publishers Weekly

‘[Frances’] adventures as a detective, and the slowly unravelling evidence of multiple crimes in a murky Victorian setting, make for a gripping read.’

Historical Novel Review

‘The historical background is impeccable.’

Mystery People

ToTim and MEG

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On the morning of 14 October 1881 Britain was lashed by severe gales, and there was considerable damage in Bayswater, where shop windows were blown in and trees torn up. At Paddington Green police station some chimneys fell into the cells, which were unoccupied at the time.

Norfolk Square and its gardens may be visited today, but All Saints church is no longer there. Originally constructed in eleventh-century Gothic style, it was consecrated in 1847, burnt down in 1894 and rebuilt. Closed in 1919 it was later demolished.

Victoria Place is still there but was renamed Bridstow Place in 1938. Richmond Road has been renamed Chepstow Road.

The Newgate Prison of Frances’ day was completed in 1782 and public executions were performed outside its walls from 1783 to 1868. It was closed in 1902 and demolished two years later.

The Cooper’s Arms is fictional, though Bott’s Mews and Celbridge Mews are real, as was the Shakespeare public house at No. 65 Westbourne Grove, whose landlord in 1881 was Mr Charles Bonsall.

Donald Sutherland Swanson, born in Truro in 1848, was an Inspector with the CID in 1881. He first came to public notice in July of that year when he arrested Percy Lefroy Mapleton, the Brighton Railway murderer. That autumn he was busy with enquiries into the Lefroy case, but in this work of fiction I have allowed him a little time at his disposal to apply his energies to the case of the Bayswater Face-slasher. In 1888, as Chief Inspector of the CID, he was in charge of investigating the Whitechapel murders. For more information see Swanson: The Life and Times of a Victorian Detective by Adam Wood (Mango Books, 2015).

Ignatius ‘Paddington’ Pollaky was a private detective known for his keen questioning and mastery of many languages. He retired in 1882. For more information see ‘Paddington’ Pollaky, Private Detective: The Mysterious Life and Times of the Real Sherlock Holmes, by Bryan Kesselman (The History Press, 2015).

Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park were cross-dressers and defendants at a notorious trial in 1871 accused of conspiring to commit an unnatural offence. They were acquitted. For a detailed biography see Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna (Faber & Faber, 2014).

Angela Burdett-Coutts was an extremely wealthy philanthropist. In February 1881, at the age of sixty-seven, she married her twenty-nine-year-old secretary who was also very active in trading and philanthropic ventures.

‘Men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders’ are mythical creatures referred to in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Mr Barkis, a character in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, indicates with the words ‘Barkis is willin’’ that he wants to marry Clara Peggoty.

The British Bull Dog introduced by Philip Webley & Son of Birmingham, England, in 1872, was a small, double-action five-shot revolver, suitable for carrying in a coat pocket.

CONTENTS

Praise for the Frances Doughty Mystery Series

Title

Dedication

Author’s Note

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

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In the Frances Doughty Mystery Series

In the Mina Scarletti Mystery Series

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Guilty!’ said the foreman of the jury. The word thundered in the packed and shadowy court like a blast from the trumpet of doom. It echoed from the throats of eager spectators, and as the doors were pushed open to release the scampering jostling crowds, the word preceded them, and flowed unrestrained through the corridors. Out it went, into the open air of the walled bail-dock, where prisoners waiting to be tried that day shivered as they reflected gloomily on their chances of meeting a similar fate. It sprang into the thoroughfare of the Old Bailey, where those unable to gain entry to the court had clustered in the autumnal drizzle, kept warm by expectation. ‘Guilty!’ they exalted, and hurried away to drink to the death of the prisoner, for there could be no doubt even before the judge had donned his black cap that Jim Price was going to swing for the cruel murder of his sweetheart Martha Miller.

‘Guilty!’ said the newsmen to the chattering telegraph, ‘Guilty!’ exclaimed the presses as they inked the good news into the morning papers, ‘Guilty!’ wrote the sketch artists for the illustrated editions under pencilled likenesses of the condemned man and his victim. Only one person was silent, and that was the unfortunate prisoner’s mother, who, her initial cry of anguish muffled by the loud approval of the onlookers had sunk into a dead faint, from which it appeared she might never recover.

Cool rain was rattling the windows, but in his comfortable parlour, Inspector Bill Sharrock of the Paddington police was cosy and content. He had just eaten a good dinner and was sitting in his favourite armchair, warming his toes by the fireside, enjoying a pipe and a bottle of beer. The children had all been put to bed, the house was quiet and his wife Bessie was knitting him a new muffler.

Earlier that day Jim Price had been rightfully condemned for a murder that had shocked all of Bayswater. Sharrock had seen the body of his victim, a pretty young thing, who had trustingly and innocently loved the man who had killed her. Martha Miller had been stabbed in the chest and stomach more than twenty times in a frenzy of jealous rage following a rumour that she had been seen in the company of another man, a rumour that had since been proved false. Sharrock found it hard to understand how anyone could expend such savagery on a defenceless girl, and mused that had any man dared to show more than a polite interest in Mrs Sharrock, it was the man he would have sorted out, and enjoyed doing it, too.

Murder, he reflected, was thankfully rare in Bayswater, although that prying detective woman Miss Doughty had an annoying habit of uncovering old murders that no one had ever thought were murders in the first place. There was only one unsolved case at present, a nasty one, where the victim, a shop girl called Annie Faydon, had been killed while walking home from her work in the dim of the evening, her throat cut right back to the spine, and great disfiguring gashes made on her face. Sharrock felt sure, however, that the culprit would not kill again. Marios Agathedes was a young confectioner who, having come to England entrusted with the investment of his family’s fortune, had recklessly lost every penny. He had recently been committed to the public asylum after being found wandering the streets in a state of hysteria. Agathedes, who had had some slight acquaintance with the murdered girl, was not fit to be interviewed, but the police, convinced that the perpetrator of such a gruesome crime had to be either mad or a foreigner, and preferably both, had decided not to look any further.

Other than that Sharrock had the usual assaults and burglaries and forged cheques to deal with, and a recent spate of window breaking, but the cold and damp were keeping most of the idlers indoors, and that suited him very well.

An urgent tapping at the front door disturbed the peaceful scene, and Bessie started anxiously, lest the children should hear. Once one of them was awake the other five would join in the unrest and then it would take time and careful soothing to get them to settle again. She knew better than to ask who might be calling at that time of night. As a policeman’s wife, she already knew the answer.

Sharrock grunted and went to open the door. He was unsurprised to see young Constable Mayberry on his front step, the lad’s pale face blanched by the shine of the gas lamps, rain spotting his pimpled cheeks like teardrops. Mayberry was often a close shadow to the Inspector in his work, and despite his inexperience, could show commendable reserves of courage and common sense. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Mayberry, but there was a strange wild look in his eyes that needed no further explanation.

‘All right, I’ll get my coat,’ growled Sharrock, and turned to see that Bessie had already brought it, his stout warm wool that repelled the rain if it was not beating down too hard. There was a touching little domestic scene as she buttoned the coat and saw to it that his old worn muffler was properly wound about his neck.

‘Young woman dead, sir,’ said Mayberry, as they trudged along the damp street, its paving stones slick with mud. ‘Norfolk Square. Not sure who she is, yet, but looks like a respectable type, servant class. Clothes all wet, so she’s been lying there an hour or more.’

‘Drunk or killed?’ asked Sharrock. Public drunkenness was not unknown in Paddington, and sometimes people staggered out of beerhouses, lay down in the street to sleep it off and were found dead next morning. Norfolk Square, however, was another matter, quiet and select. When its residents were mentioned in the newspapers it was usually in the births, marriages and deaths columns of the quality publications and not in the doings of the coroner’s or police courts.

‘Killed sir. No doubt about it. I whistled up Constable Cross and sent for Dr Neill. They won’t move her until you say so.’

‘Good.’

‘It was a horrible sight, sir. I’ve never seen anything as bad.’

‘Early days yet, lad, early days,’ said Sharrock, reflecting that Mayberry would not have said what he did had he seen what Marios Agathedes had done to Annie Faydon.

That thought provoked a question that started eating busily away at Sharrock’s brain, but he said nothing to Mayberry. It was a worry and he pushed it aside. No need to jump in too quickly and make the wrong assumptions. One murderer about to hang, another one locked away where he could do no more harm, that was nice and neat, just the way he liked it, but a third one, and in a fashionable square, that was bad. Most murders were simple; man strangles wife, wife poisons husband, man gets drunk and stabs his best friend; you didn’t need to look far for the culprit. If a servant was dead in Norfolk Square, then, Sharrock reassured himself, most likely her killer was another of her class, and someone she knew well – probably rather too well. The guilty man would be in the cells before the week was out.

They turned on to Edgware Road, a broad busy thoroughfare that never truly slept. Nothing seemed out of place; carts and cabs rattled by, candles glowed from apartment windows, and if the people who clustered in shop doorways were up to no good then they did not, as the two policemen passed by with a searching glance, have the guilty look of murderers. The more peaceful residential streets they traversed on their way to the boundary of Norfolk Square appeared similarly untroubled by serious crime.

Norfolk Square was oddly named because it was not a square at all, but an elongated rectangle, where two rows of town houses faced each other, roughly north and south, across some pleasant enclosed gardens. To the west was London Road, leading directly up to Paddington railway and Praed Street underground stations, while the east was dominated by the Gothic spires of All Saints church.

‘She’s lying in the gardens under some bushes,’ said Mayberry. ‘They lock it after dark, so I had to climb over the railings. I only saw her because the lantern light shone off her – her lower limbs, sir.’

Sharrock did not know how much experience Mayberry had of female lower limbs, although from the young policeman’s hesitation, he suspected not a great deal.

‘There wasn’t any – I mean her skirts weren’t pushed up far, not as if there’d been any interference. It was just the way she fell, like she’d been struggling.’

Sharrock nodded. That was useful information. There was too much business with well-meaning people messing about with a body so the police never found it as the killer had left it and what were they to make of it then?

As they entered the square they saw a disgruntled-looking man, evidently the keeper of the keys, shivering in a doorway clad in a heavy greatcoat he had thrown quickly over his nightclothes. The gate was open and through it they saw the light of Constable Cross’s bullseye lantern shining on something that lay huddled on the ground, while the figure of Dr Neill crouched beside it. The glow polished the dark leaves of evergreen shrubs that grew hard against the railings giving privacy and shelter to the gardens, and a fine mist of raindrops sparkled in the air. Neill stood up and stretched his back as they approached. ‘Ah Sharrock, you’ll want to see this one before we take her to the mortuary. Nasty business. Dead about one to three hours I’d say, can’t make it any closer than that. Her throat’s been cut, so it was quick, which is more than you can say about what followed.’

Sharrock took it all in; the victim’s youth, no more than twenty-five, the costume of a servant from a good household, the skirts rippled up to the calves, legs flexed in a last effort to escape before she died, boot heels pushing into the damp earth, hands resting on her breast, fingers clenched. The throat was laid open in a single wide wound, and bloody rain had pooled about the neck and shoulders, but it was the face that it was impossible to forget. One cut had not been enough; the killer had wanted not just to kill the woman but blot her out. He had carved at her, and what was most alarming, he had done so in a way that both Sharrock and Neill had seen before and very recently.

‘Judging by this I’d say your Mr Agathedes is innocent,’ said Dr Neill, ‘and somewhere out there is a homicidal maniac on the loose who has done this twice and will probably try and do it again.’

CHAPTER TWO

Frances Doughty, Bayswater’s youngest and only lady detective, her morning newspaper unread, letters unopened, tea untasted, a breakfast egg congealing on its plate, was studying a marriage certificate. Her burly assistant Sarah Smith, not liking to say anything to interrupt such earnest thought, gave her a worried look, added a piece of bread and butter to the egg and pushed it closer. Frances ate them absent-mindedly.

It was only recently that Frances had learned that her mother Rosetta had not, as she had always been told, died in 1863, when Frances was three years old and her brother Frederick eight, but had, to the family’s great shame, run away with a man. In the following January her mother had been living with that man in a Chelsea lodging house where she gave birth to twins, a girl who had died in infancy and a son who still lived. Frances had confronted her mother’s brother, Cornelius Martin, with this discovery, and he had, after much soul-searching, revealed his suspicion that it was Rosetta’s mysterious paramour, and not her husband William Doughty, who was Frances’ natural father. Frances had long ago forgiven her uncle for hiding the unpalatable truth, something she knew he had done out of kindness, but her lost family were often in her thoughts, and sometimes she ached to find them. She did not even know if the younger brother she had never met, named Cornelius after her uncle, knew she existed. He had once been seen boarding a train at Paddington Station, and she could only hope that his destination was some good school where he was even now distinguishing himself.

It should have seemed obvious for Frances to use the skill and persistence that she brought to her detective work to try and locate her mother, but she had hesitated for a long time, afraid of what she might find. Every so often, overwhelmed by curiosity, she had dug a little further into the mystery, but had applied no concerted dedication to it. For most of the years of her mother’s absence, Rosetta Doughty had known exactly where Frances was to be found, helping William at his chemists shop on Westbourne Grove, and yet she had not so much as sent a message. If she had ever entered the shop to glimpse her daughter she had done so under a veil of anonymity. William had passed away in 1880 in circumstances that would have engaged the attention of anyone who perused the newspapers, and had his presence in the shop been the only factor that had kept Rosetta from visiting her daughter she would surely have contacted Frances after his death, yet she did not. The business was now under new management, and had been advertised as such in the newspapers, but had her mother truly wanted to find her, she would easily have been able to do so. The new proprietor, Mr Jacobs, knew where Frances lived, and often directed potential clients to her address. The only conclusion Frances could draw was that her mother did not wish to see her, the prospect of a meeting being more painful than not seeing her daughter at all. Perhaps she thought that Frances would reject her as a dishonest woman, and revile her for abandoning both her and Frederick at such tender years. The inevitable distress Frances had felt on learning that she had been deserted had, however, been tempered by later thought. She had seen a letter written by her mother after the desertion in which Rosetta had begged her husband to be allowed to see her children one last time before their lives were finally severed. It was obvious that she loved them dearly, and perhaps she was more to be pitied than censured. Frederick had died in 1879 and Frances often wondered if her mother had ever visited his grave.

All this time Frances had imagined, indeed hoped, that Rosetta and her unknown lover, a man enigmatically referred to in the letter as ‘V’, were still together, living quietly, perhaps raising a family, and giving every outward appearance of respectability. They might even have married after William’s death. This recently discovered document proved otherwise.

Frances had been trying to locate Louise Salter, an old schoolfellow of Rosetta’s who had been a witness at her wedding to William Doughty in 1855. The Salter family had left Bayswater many years ago following a business reversal but Frances hoped that Louise might have corresponded with Rosetta and know where she was to be found. The registers in Somerset House held no record of either Louise’s marriage or death, but an old Bayswater directory listed a Bernard Salter, silversmith, and the BayswaterChronicle confirmed that he had gone bankrupt in 1858. An examination of records held at Somerset House revealed that Bernard Salter, silver finisher, had died in Tower Hamlets in 1864, leaving property valued at less than £30 and probate had been granted to his son, Vernon Horatio Salter.

A terrible thrill of excitement had pervaded Frances’ body when she saw this name, the name perhaps of the man who was her natural father. Eagerly, she scoured the registers and found no record of the death of Vernon Salter, only his birth in 1837, which made him five years younger than her mother. If he and Rosetta had married after the death of William, it was too soon to know, as the most recent registers were not yet available for public examination. Frances had previously searched for a bigamous marriage under her mother’s maiden and married surnames, and found nothing, but her new searches had uncovered a marriage record in 1865 for a Vernon H. Salter, in the fashionable district of St George Hanover Square. She purchased the certificate, and it was this horrible document that she was now examining.

Vernon Horatio Salter, son of Bernard Salter, silversmith (deceased), had on 3 April 1865 married Alicia Dobree, daughter of Lancelot Dobree, gentleman, with an address in Kensington. Louise Salter had been a witness to the wedding, the other being a Miss Edith White. For a moment Frances wondered if she had been led astray by a series of coincidences, but then she saw that the certificate gave Vernon’s address as the same lodging house in Chelsea where Rosetta had given birth to the twins. The conclusion was inevitable. Less than two years after stealing Rosetta away from her family, her lover had deserted her for another woman.

Frances, feeling suddenly chilled to her soul, said nothing. She could have tried to discover more, but heart-heavy, the will to do so had drained out of her. She replaced the certificate in its envelope and put it in her desk drawer with the other family papers. By the time she returned to the table to sit there in silence, Sarah was clearing away the breakfast things. She gave Frances a wary glance, but did nothing to disturb her reverie, and took the dishes down to the kitchen. So this, thought Frances, was the bitter reward for her curiosity. She was the daughter of a woman who had abandoned her husband and children and a man who had left his mistress and child to marry money. She had always feared that by prying into her own history she might uncover something that it was better not to know, and now she had. What this might mean about herself and her character she dared not imagine.

Sarah returned with a fresh pot of tea and this had barely been finished when there was a knock at the front door. They exchanged glances of surprise, since no clients were expected that morning and Sarah crossed to the window and peered out. Frances and Sarah occupied the first-floor apartment in what had once been the family home of a man of substance. The other residents were elderly ladies of the most impeccable respectability, whose rare visitors were usually antiquated clergymen, or quiet females devoted to charity work. ‘Two women,’ said Sarah, ‘one young one not so young, mother and daughter I’d say. Daughter holding up the mother who looks like fainting away any minute.’

‘For us, I am sure.’ Frances welcomed the distraction, reflecting that hard as her situation might be there were many others who had worse trials to endure. Perhaps, she thought, the reason that being a detective suited her so well was that she could make wrong things right, and thus avoid the tendency to transgression that she was now very afraid must lurk in her nature. There was just enough time to tidy the little table across which she interviewed all of her clients, make sure that the carafe of water was filled, and bring clean napkins for the wiping of moisture from foreheads and eyes.

All was in place when the maid announced that a Mrs and Miss Price had called asking most urgently to see Miss Doughty. Frances had, like every inhabitant of Bayswater, studied the reports of the trial of Jim Price although she had probably given the details of the case more careful attention than most. Although the clients who came to her door were more likely to be concerned about a lost dog or faithless spouse than presenting her with a case of murder, she thought it best to know all she could about Bayswater crimes, since in that small bustling part of London everything seemed to be connected with everything else, like the strands of a spider’s web. She knew that the mother and sister of the condemned man had, despite the pain it must have caused them, attended every day of the trial, hoping that some miracle would occur to provide the vital piece of evidence that would prove his innocence. Even after the verdict was announced they had not according to the newspapers wavered in their belief that Jim Price had not murdered his sweetheart, a belief that, as far as Frances knew, they shared with no one else.

Frances asked the maid to show the visitors upstairs, and Sarah took up some knitting and settled into an armchair by the parlour fire. Her solid reliable presence was always a source of immense comfort. Sarah had once been a maid of all work when the Doughtys had lived above the chemists shop, but in her new occupation as assistant detective, she had become as indispensable to Frances as her ability to think. Sarah’s strong arms had saved Frances’ life on more than one occasion, ensured her health when sometimes she had been so absorbed in a problem she had almost forgotten to eat, and the former servant’s stout common sense was an antidote to many a wild theory.

If Frances had entertained even a moment’s doubt that the two women who had begged to see her were any other than the mother and sister of the convicted murderer Jim Price, that doubt vanished as soon as they entered the room. Mrs Price was a short round woman in her forties, though much aged with grief, her face, grey with misery, folded into deep lines. It was clear that she cared nothing about her appearance or comfort, but that her daughter had been making gallant efforts to tidy the wisps of faded hair that fluttered about her face, and ensure that she was well-wrapped against the autumn chill in a long coarse woollen shawl that constantly threatened to slip to the floor. Mrs Price, oblivious to heat or cold or anything but the pain within, clung tightly to her daughter’s arm. The girl, who could not yet be eighteen, was a slender shadow of her mother, and looked almost too frail to support her parent, something she was achieving only through courage and necessity. Sarah rose at once to assist the struggling girl, and guided Mrs Price not to the straight-backed chair that faced Frances across the table, but a more comfortable seat by the fire. Mrs Price whispered her gratitude, and panted softly, the dry sobbing of a woman who had no tears left inside her.

‘It is very kind of you to see us, Miss Doughty,’ said the girl, looking relieved at seeing her mother so well looked after and almost falling into a chair with exhaustion. ‘You must be so very busy, and I was afraid, as we had no appointment …’

‘Think nothing of it,’ said Frances quickly. ‘May I offer you some refreshment? You both appear very fatigued.’ As a rule Frances only offered her clients a drink of water but in this case she did not want either of them to faint or, in the case of Mrs Price, actually expire before the interview was over.

‘It is very hard to think of food at a time like this,’ the girl admitted. ‘I do not believe mother has eaten these two days.’

Frances glanced at Sarah who nodded, and went down to the kitchen. It would not be long before a jug of nourishing hot cocoa and a plate piled high with bread and butter appeared. ‘How may I help you?’ Frances asked her guest.

Miss Price cast her gaze to the floor. ‘I expect you have read in the newspapers about my brother, Jim.’

‘I have.’

‘We were allowed to see him yesterday. He is bearing up well, trying to maintain hope of a reprieve. But I fear that unless something new is discovered …’ She sighed, a sigh that seemed to have been torn up from the depths of her thin body. ‘We have met with Mr Rawsthorne the solicitor. He is writing a letter to the Home Secretary on our behalf. He mentioned you, Miss Doughty; he thought you might be able to help us. He said that you had often succeeded where others had failed. But there is so little time, eighteen days before the …’ Her eyes filled with tears. The effort of saying the last word ‘execution’ was beyond her.

Mrs Price uttered a gulping sob. Sarah returned with the refreshments so swiftly that Frances felt sure she had found some cocoa ready-boiled and begged it from their landlady, Mrs Embleton, a kindly soul who had suffered far worse inconvenience with very little complaint since Frances had taken up residence.

‘This is what you need,’ Sarah told Mrs Price, in a tone that anticipated only compliance. ‘Drink it all up!’ As she poured the thick liquid into a cup a faint whiff of warm brandy enhanced the atmosphere.

‘What is it you would like me to do?’ Frances asked, as Sarah brought the jug to the table, poured cocoa for the daughter, and began to distribute thickly buttered bread.

Miss Price held the warm cup as one would have cradled a gift. Her fingers were pale and slim as bone, the tips abraded from long hours spent plying a needle. ‘We want you to prove him innocent,’ she said, earnestly. ‘Jim has sworn to us on all that he holds most holy that he did not commit this dreadful crime. But it looked so bad for him when the police found blood on his hands and clothes. He has always said, and still says that the blood was not Martha’s but that of a man he found lying in the street, a drunken man who had fallen, and whose face was bleeding. Jim helped him up and set him on his way, and that was how he was stained with blood.’ She sniffed the aroma of the cocoa cautiously, then sipped.

‘But the man was never found, he never came forward,’ Frances observed.

‘No, and it is possible, of course, that since he was the worse for drink he does not even remember the incident. Or perhaps he was doing something he ought not to have been doing, and dare not admit where he was. But supposing he could be found, and even if he is unable or unwilling to speak up, then some person who knows him might recall that he came home that night with blood on his face.’

Frances had undertaken and triumphed in harder tasks than this one, but not, she knew, in so short a time. ‘I will see what can be done, but even if this man is found, and can tell his story, it may not ensure that your brother is exonerated.’

‘I know that,’ said Miss Price with a little quiver of her lower lip, ‘but Mr Rawsthorne said that where doubt is raised in a case then a respite is possible. If Jim’s life can be spared, if the – his fate –’ at this, Mrs Price uttered a wail of misery, ‘if it can be delayed by a few weeks while new witnesses are examined then there will be time for the police to find the real murderer.’

At least, thought Frances, with some relief, she was not being asked to solve the murder. Sarah disapproved of Frances getting involved in cases of murder, which seemed to happen quite often, and Frances, without even needing to look, knew that her assistant was frowning hard. ‘Let us approach our task one step at a time,’ she said gently. ‘The first thing to do, I agree, is to find this witness. I can guarantee nothing, but I promise I will do my best.’

‘Anyone who knew Jim would never have believed he could have hurt Martha,’ pleaded Miss Price, ‘why they were sweethearts since they were children, and we always knew they would marry one day. Martha was such a dear good soul, she would not have been untrue.’

The unhappy client was undoubtedly sincere, but Frances judged her to be a girl who would always think the best of others. She had not, as Frances had, come into contact with the worst elements of Bayswater – the liars, the cheats, the thieves and the cold-hearted murderers. ‘I must interview your brother as soon as possible, it is essential that I hear the whole story from his own lips.’

‘You’ll need to write to the justices to get an order to let you in to see him,’ advised Sarah, returning to her knitting. Frances could not help wondering how Sarah was familiar with the protocols of visiting a condemned felon in a death cell at Newgate, and decided it was best not to enquire, at least not until they were alone.

‘There won’t be any trouble about that,’ Miss Price reassured them. ‘Mr Rawsthorne told me that if you call on him he will let you have the paper you need. Mother and I have promised to go and see Jim once we had spoken to you. If you could come with us and tell him you were helping him it would give him new heart, I know!’

‘Then we will go at once,’ said Frances.

Miss Price turned to her mother with a brave smile. ‘There, mother, what did I say! Miss Doughty will put it all right!’

Frances was not so confident, but she knew that there was no time to waste. Both she and Sarah would have to concentrate all their energies on the task. She examined her appointment book. ‘Sarah, while I am out I would like you to send a note to Ratty to say that I want to see him later today. Then could you study the newspaper account of Mr Price’s trial and make a list of all the witnesses and most especially anyone who was mentioned in court but did not appear. I will need to see them all. I have one client calling this afternoon, it’s Mr Candy again; if I am not back in time, see him and find out what he needs.’

Sarah nodded. Ratty was one of a band of messenger boys who knew the streets of Bayswater and the comings and goings of its inhabitants better than anyone. Sarah’s young relative Tom Smith had organised what might have been a ragged rabble into a flourishing concern that fetched and delivered anything and everything all over west London with speed and reliability, and counted Ratty as one of his best ‘men’. Ratty, a bright and industrious youth, harboured ambitions of becoming a detective and now commanded his own group of agents who were dedicated exclusively to carrying out searches for Frances. If anyone could find the man with the injured face it was he.

Frances and Miss Price helped the older woman down the stairs, Mrs Price murmuring grateful blessings on Frances with every step, and a cab was secured to take them to the office of Mr Rawsthorne. That gentleman had been the Doughty family solicitor for many years, and he and Frances’ father William had counted themselves as friends. It was a matter of some embarrassment to Frances that one of her earlier investigations had inadvertently resulted in the failure of the Bayswater Bank which had very nearly ruined Mr Rawsthorne’s business, but he had recovered from this setback and bore her no ill-will. Many of her clients came from his personal recommendation and she in turn was happy to direct those in need of a solicitor to him. She rather hoped that he would be available to speak to her that morning and she would not have to deal with his confidential clerk, Mr Wheelock, a scrawny young man with ink-stained teeth and an insolent manner, a hoarder of secret and sometimes damaging documents. Mr Rawsthorne’s office occupied the ground floor of his handsome villa in Porchester Terrace, which ran north from Bayswater Road. There were no means by which the Price family could afford his services, but Frances knew that some solicitors took on important cases such as this with little or no fee, as success could be just as lucrative in terms of fame. She had not yet discussed her fee with her visitors and felt that a similar arrangement must have been expected and could hardly be refused.

The early morning fogs that had recently been such an unwelcome feature of the season had thankfully cleared, to be replaced by an unfriendly breeze, making a cool day into one that excited wintry shivers. Frances looked anxiously at her companions, but they appeared to be not so much impervious to cold, as accustomed to it. She was just boarding the cab when a voice called out and she turned to see a slight but energetic figure, Mr George Ibbitson of the BayswaterChronicle, running up waving his hand. Ibbitson was a seventeen-year-old clerk, who having displayed both promise and enthusiasm, was currently being instructed by his superiors in the ways of a newspaperman, and was always to be seen where there was information to be gleaned. He often called on Frances for the exchange of intelligence. ‘Miss Doughty, have you heard the latest?’ he exclaimed.

‘No, I have had urgent matters to attend to this morning,’ Frances admitted, a little shamefacedly as perusing the newspapers and her correspondence was usually the first thing she did.

‘I’ll call on you this afternoon,’ said Ibbitson, and hurried away.

Miss Price’s expression was suddenly alight with interest. ‘I think I know that young man. He was at the inquest on Martha, and the police court and trial. He –’ she paused, and a little glow appeared on her cheeks, ‘he was very kind to mother and gave up his seat to her when she felt faint.’ Her face fell and she sighed. ‘I suppose he might not have been so kind if he had known who we were.’

‘He is a good young person,’ Frances assured her, ‘a junior correspondent with the Chronicle with excellent prospects. And I think he is kind by nature.’

Miss Price said nothing, but she appeared pleased, and a little wistful. She had obviously, thought Frances, been impressed by young Mr Ibbitson, but felt that she had little prospect of a better acquaintance. As the cab moved away, Frances studied her two clients more closely. Their gowns were poor and thin, yet neatly patched, Miss Price’s reticule looked as if it had been made by cutting up a scrap of faded black velvet and adding a twisted cord, while holes in Mrs Price’s shawl had been artfully concealed with darning that resembled rosebuds. There was care and love and a quiet fortitude in every stitch, demonstrating the family’s constant struggle to make an honest living and appear tidy and respectable, but their rank in society was far lower even than that of a humble junior clerk with or without prospects.

‘I read about your brother’s trial in the newspapers, of course,’ said Frances. ‘Am I correct in that he claimed to have been drinking in the Cooper’s Arms at the time of Miss Miller’s murder?’

‘Yes, but no one remembered seeing him there,’ sighed the girl. ‘It wasn’t where he usually went, so his face wasn’t known, and he knew no one there to speak to. Jim often liked a glass of beer at the Shakespeare on his way home from work, and poor Martha called there that night to speak to him, but he wasn’t there.’

‘I recall that the landlord at the Shakespeare said he remembered her coming in briefly at about ten o’clock to ask after your brother, and it was hardly more than five minutes later when her body was found in a shop doorway nearby. So we do have an accurate time for the murder. The prosecution case was that your brother’s alibi was a lie, and he went to the Shakespeare, but didn’t go in, as he encountered Martha in the street as she was leaving, then they quarrelled and he murdered her.’ Frances reflected that even if Price had gone to the Cooper’s Arms, which was just a few minutes’ walk from the Shakespeare, after committing the murder, it was an establishment where bloodstained clothing did not excite comment. According to Price, however, he had not acquired the bloodstains until after leaving the Cooper’s Arms.

‘But he didn’t do it, Miss Doughty! You do believe that, don’t you?’ pleaded Miss Price.

‘I believe in uncovering the truth.’ Frances was already sketching out in her mind a diary in which she would enter the events of the fatal night, moment by moment. She would have to establish the location of every possible witness throughout the evening, and since many of them were probably either too inebriated to remember, or unwilling for a variety of disreputable reasons to give an account of their movements, it would be a difficult task.

As the cab proceeded, Frances encouraged Miss Price to talk about her family and that of Martha Miller. The two households lived within a few doors of each other, not far from Richmond Road, which was a busy thoroughfare just off the main shopping parade of Westbourne Grove. A little to the north of the Grove was the uninviting entrance to Bott’s Mews where the Cooper’s Arms beerhouse was to be found, for those who really wished to find it. Just a few steps further on was the turning into Victoria Place, a narrow alleyway where two rows of small rented cottages faced each other across a cobbled track. Widowed Mrs Price, her son and daughter occupied the lower part of a cottage, the outside amenities being shared with another family consisting of a labourer, his wife who made paper bags, and two small children, who lived in the rooms above. Mrs Price had always been on good terms with Mrs Miller although the continued absence of Mr Miller, on what had once been referred to as ‘a long voyage’, was never discussed. It was generally suspected that the voyage had not gone very much further than Pentonville Prison, but Mrs Miller was an honest, brave, industrious woman who took in washing, sought no pity and never made a complaint. Martha was her youngest daughter, the two elder both being married and raising families of their own, and there was a son, Stanley, a carpenter who worked with Jim.

Alighting at the office of her solicitor, Frances went inside. She was shown into a waiting room and very soon a man who was a stranger to her entered and approached her with an envelope in his hand. A scrupulously groomed fellow in his thirties, he greeted Frances with a deferential bow and a confiding smile which was meant to be friendly but served only to arouse her distrust.

‘Miss Doughty, it is my very great honour to make your acquaintance,’ he began in a smooth, high and rather nasal tone. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Carter Freke, Mr Rawsthorne’s confidential clerk.’

‘A recent appointment I presume?’ Frances wondered what had become of Mr Wheelock, who had dug himself deeply into the body of the firm like a burrowing parasite, so much so that she would have thought him impossible to remove without killing the whole.

‘Indeed. Mr Wheelock, who you would no doubt have encountered previously, is no longer with us. He has gone on to …’ There was a pause and an airy wave of the hand, ‘higher things.’

‘Deceased?’ exclaimed Frances before she could stop herself.

Mr Freke tittered. It was not an attractive sound. ‘No. Married.’

‘Well, that is a surprise!’ Frances struggled to imagine who in the world might want to marry the horrid Mr Wheelock and could come up with no possibilities.

‘As it was to very many persons, so I believe. I have not met the gentleman but have heard nothing good of him. Mr Rawsthorne is with a client at present, but he told me that he was expecting you to call, and you would require some documents, which I have here. If you wish to make an appointment to see him he will be available this afternoon at five o’clock, if that is convenient.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Frances, taking the envelope. She wondered as she returned to the cab whether she would have preferred to deal with Mr Wheelock after all. He was unremittingly unpleasant but at least she knew where she stood with him.

CHAPTER THREE

Frances had never before visited Newgate Gaol although she had read a great deal about that grim institution in the newspapers and history books. She was, however, rather too familiar with the Central Criminal Court in the Old Bailey, which lay adjacent to the prison, where she had sometimes been called upon to give evidence, and had seen men condemned to hang. Newgate Street was a busy thoroughfare with a characteristic stench, since it was much used by butchers and carriers, whose carts churned up straw, mud and ordure beneath their wheels as they passed, the debris being cleared away too rarely for any visit to be comfortable. It was not a place to take a pleasurable stroll, rather it was to be hastened along and left as soon as possible, or better still, avoided altogether. There were other far worse streets in the capital, but few so deeply shadowed with memories of the hangman’s noose.

Necessary business still brought Londoners there, however, and as the cab turned into Newgate, Frances drew aside the window blind just enough to peer out in curiosity. Sour-faced men hurried by clutching dirty parcels, youths slouched past without a sideways look, hands thrust deeply into their pockets, and ragged children ran after them watching for opportunities to thieve, but there were also the idlers, drinkers and beggars who did not mind the aroma because they probably formed a part of it, or the history, which they relished in the telling, and they were not inclined to go anywhere.

If the dark granite gaol was meant by its appearance to inspire a dread of entering its gates in those who saw it then the architect had succeeded, but the worst of its days were behind it, and there had been talk of pulling it down. The time was mercifully past when felons were hanged outside its walls for anyone to see; that awful duty was no longer carried out in front of a filthy jeering mob who welcomed executions as free entertainment, but privately within, attended by only a very few approved observers. Gone also was the time when the cells were crowded with long-term prisoners of every description, and were breeding grounds for disease from which few hoped to emerge. Today the prison, although still lacking adequate sanitation or ventilation, housed only those who had been committed to take their trials and the condemned awaiting execution. One of those condemned was Frances’ new client.

The cab brought them to a stout iron-studded door housed in a granite arch, and Miss Price stepped down, her mother leaning heavily on her arm, while Frances rang the bell. A servant answered and looked at their papers. He gave Frances a curious look before he ushered the visitors inside. Currently there were no prisoners awaiting execution who were there because of her handiwork, but the servant might not have known that, and Frances hoped he did not imagine that she had come to gloat. They were conducted to a small office where an ancient clerk in rusty clothes perched on a stool in front of a desk piled with ledgers, and were asked to wait. There was nothing to while away their time other than the requirement to enter their names and addresses in a record of visitors, and Frances brought forward a chair so that Mrs Price did not need to stand. Miss Price delved into her reticule, and produced a small green glass bottle with a pinch of salts at the bottom, and offered it to her mother, who waved the pungent item under her nose and pronounced herself better for it although she scarcely looked any different.

Frances’ presence did, however, seem to comfort the unhappy mother, who reached out and took her hand and pressed it, wordlessly. Whatever the rights and wrongs, Frances felt determined to do all she could. Even if it should transpire that the trust of the mother and sister was misplaced and Jim Price had indeed murdered his sweetheart she wanted to know that he suffered for a crime of which he was guilty.

A uniformed officer arrived and gave the visitors a sympathetic look. ‘Come along ladies, I’ll take you to the consulting room, that will be more comfortable for you.’

‘That is the room where the prisoners see their legal men,’ explained Miss Price, with an expression of great relief. ‘I am glad we are to go there because the cell where he is kept is such a terrible place. Mother finds it almost too much to bear.’

Mrs Price was helped to her feet, and the little party was conducted along a chill stone passageway. It must have been an illusion but to Frances she seemed to be travelling downhill as if she was being taken to a dark place from whence no one, neither the living nor the dead, could ever return to see the light of day. On the way they passed a door from which hot savoury fumes billowed, advertising the fact that the prisoners’ dinner – some sort of greasy meat soup judging by the smell – was on the boil.

The corridor opened out into a large hall with a vaulted ceiling like old cloisters, where there were uniformed warders standing in attendance. In the centre of the hall, bulky square stone columns and low walls enclosed a room whose arched windows and door were glazed in thick plate glass. The room was furnished after the fashion of a counting house, with a desk and chairs. A young man wearing the coarse grey garb of a prisoner, his hair cropped close to his skull, was seated there, looking about him expectantly. Seeing the visitors approach, he sprang up with hope bringing a warm new light to his expression.

Their guide paused outside the entrance. ‘We leave this door open when family are here so the warders can hear all that is said. You may converse, but you cannot touch the prisoner or pass anything to him. You will be watched, and he will be searched before you go.’

‘Might I beg a cup of water for mother?’ asked Miss Price. ‘She is so very weak.’

‘I’ll see that one is brought,’ said the officer, and withdrew.

As the women entered the prisoner exclaimed, ‘Mother, Effie, and this must be …’

‘Miss Doughty, yes,’ said his sister, with an encouraging smile. ‘She has agreed to look into your case.’

Frances had expected that the prisoner would be in irons, as she was sure she had read somewhere that this was the custom for those condemned to die, but he was not, and she felt thankful that this was another barbaric practice that had been given up.

‘I am so grateful to you,’ he said earnestly, sinking back into his chair. ‘It gives me hope that someone like yourself believes me innocent!’ Frances looked into his face, pale but unblemished, although thin lines of care and pain had drawn themselves about his eyes. His hands, which were loosely clasped and resting on the table before him, were those of an artisan. Frances wondered what it must be like to stare into one’s own death, not after a long life lived well, but as a young man, seeing only a vanished future. She could not imagine how that must feel – like a bad dream, perhaps, from which it was impossible to awaken.

Frances had often looked into the bright open faces of men and women who had assured her they were innocent of any wrongdoing, and she knew all too well that words and appearances could hide the basest deceivers, and the most charming manners conceal a propensity to murder in cold blood. Despite this, she could not help but like the look of young Jim Price, his haunted brown eyes, broad shoulders and hands that did honest work.

‘Mr Price,’ said Frances, taking a seat opposite the prisoner and placing her notebook and a pencil on the desk, ‘you may be sure that I will do my best for you. I have a great many agents who will today receive instructions to search for the man whose blood was found on your hands. But first of all you must make me a promise. You must tell me all the truth of your circumstances, and omit nothing, including most particularly anything that you might feel would place you in a bad light. If you lie to me, or leave out something of importance, and I find it out later, then you will not have dealt honestly with me, and I will not be able to trust you or act on your behalf.’

He nodded solemnly. ‘I have heard of you, Miss Doughty; I know it is said that you seek out and expose all the secrets that people thought were long hidden, and I am sure I wouldn’t dare try to hide anything from you, not that I think I have anything to hide.’

‘Well then tell me your story.’ She opened her notebook at a fresh page and took up the pencil. ‘First of all, what is your occupation?’

‘I am a cabinet maker, like my father was before. Apprenticed from the age of fourteen.’

‘And Martha?’

‘Martha was a shirt maker, and she helped her mother with the washing. We knew each other from children.’ There was a brief silence as his hands tightened about each other, and he ground the palms together as if moulding clay. Frances wondered what words he was forming out of this hesitation. He took a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to say that we never had a cross word, because all folk do from time to time, but there was never a bad quarrel between us. I always hoped we would be wed and I do admit that I sometimes worried about other men admiring her, but if they did it was all on their side. There was never any thought in her head that when she married it would be anyone but me.’

‘At your trial it was said that you had quarrelled because you believed that Martha had been walking out with another man,’ Frances pointed out.

He shook his head. ‘That was all nothing, but it was blown up to look like something the way lawyers do. A friend of mine – Jonas Strong – one Sunday he came to take a cup of tea with us, and while we were just talking about this and that I could see that there was something on his mind. I thought at first that he was sweet on Effie, and had come to ask if he could court her. But then, when mother and Effie were out of the parlour, he told me that the night before he had seen a woman who looked very like Martha, with a bonnet on just like hers, and she was all cuddled up to another man. He said he hoped for my sake it wasn’t her, but he thought it was. So the next time I saw Martha I said to her “What a nice story Jonas has told me” and she pretended to be angry saying I didn’t trust her; that was the way we talked sometimes, teasing like, just pretending to have cross words, so then we could make it up and she would kiss me.’

‘So are you saying that there wasn’t a quarrel at all?’

‘Yes, I am. We didn’t know we were being overheard, and if it had been Mother or Effie who had heard us they would have known how we spoke, and took no notice, but the rent man had called and he heard us and misunderstood.’

‘This was the man who gave evidence at the trial?’

‘Yes. If I’d been allowed to speak I would have put him right. My counsel did his best to shake him, but he was so sure of himself, and that was what carried the jury.’

‘But this story that Jonas told you – did it weigh on your mind? Did you give any credence to it?’

A warder called with a cup of water for Mrs Price, and her daughter helped her sip it. ‘I know it troubled you,’ said Effie quietly, ‘but it was only a little bit.’

Price bowed his head briefly then looked up again. ‘Well, I know I am to be honest with you, Miss Doughty, and I have to say that yes, it did eat at me a bit. I started to wonder if it was true or not and I thought the best thing to do was to go out and look about me to see if there was another woman with the same bonnet as Martha, so then I would know that Jonas had made a mistake. So that was what I did, then when I didn’t find her, I thought I would go and see Jonas and ask him about it again. Jonas is an apprentice to a stationer’s on Richmond Road. I went to see him at the shop but it had just closed for the day, and I thought he might be at the Cooper’s Arms. I don’t suppose you would know the place, Miss, it’s on Bott’s Mews. Not a place for ladies; I usually have my glass of beer at the Shakespeare; but Jonas says Cooper’s is warm and the beer is cheap.’

Frances simply nodded. Due to a previous investigation she was better acquainted with the Cooper’s Arms than she was prepared to admit.

‘So I went in and looked about, but Jonas wasn’t there. I thought he might come in later, so I had a glass of beer and waited for him, just sitting in a corner with my thoughts, but he didn’t come.’

‘Who sold you the beer?’

‘A man. The landlord I suppose.’

‘Did you see anyone you knew there?’

‘No.’

‘The landlord doesn’t remember you. In fact there are no witnesses at all to your being there. Why do you think that is?’

‘They can’t have noticed me, sat where I was.’

‘Where were you sitting?’