The Riddle of the River E-Book

Catherine Shaw

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 494

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Cambridge, 1898. When the unidentified body of a young woman is found floating in the River Cam, journalist Patrick O'Sullivan calls on the one woman he is sure will solve the mystery: Mrs Vanessa Weatherburn. Vanessa agrees to takes up the challenge, but, with a victim as well as a murderer to identify, she knows it will be no easy task. Forced to go undercover while investigating the owners of Heffer's bookshop, and helped along by the cream of Cambridge's academic community, Vanessa employs all her skills to reel in the killer - but will it be enough to solve the riddle of the river?

Leseprobe

The Riddle of the River

CATHERINE SHAW

Vanessa Weatherburn’s Case Diary Summer 1898

Contents

Title PageDedicationThursday, June 23rd, 1898Friday, June 24th, 1898Saturday – Sunday, June 25 – 26th, 1898Thursday, June 30th, 1898Saturday, July 2nd, 1898Monday, July 4th, 1898Tuesday, July 5th, 1898Wednesday, July 6th, 1898Thursday, July 7th, 1898Friday, July 8th, 1898Tuesday, July 12th, 1898Wednesday, July 13th, 1898Saturday, July 16th, 1898Monday, July 18th, 1898Monday, July 18th (continued)Tuesday, July 19th, 1898Wednesday, July 20th, 1898Thursday, July 21st, 1898Historical background for The Riddle of the RiverAbout the AuthorAvailable from Allison & Busby in the Vanessa Weatherburn seriesCopyright

Thursday, June 23rd, 1898

‘Well, Vanessa,’ cried an eager voice in my ear. ‘Who do you think she might be, then? Any ideas?’

I straightened up abruptly from the scone upon which I had been engaged in spreading a thick layer of clotted cream, preparatory to inserting a small portion of it into little Cedric’s expectantly open mouth.

‘Pat!’ I exclaimed. ‘How you startled me, coming up the garden path so quietly.’

‘I wasn’t particularly quiet,’ he retorted. ‘It’s you who were concentrating so deeply you didn’t hear anything. It happens every single time I come here, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you glance up like a normal person!’ He laughed comfortably, then reverted with typical single-mindedness to his original topic.

‘So – do you have any ideas about our newest mystery?’

‘Oh, Patrick,’ I sighed. ‘I’m sure you mean that you’ve written some exciting article lately that I ought to have read. I’m really sorry to say that I haven’t seen it. I don’t have time to look at the newspaper as regularly as I should, I’m afraid. I just don’t know where the hours and the minutes go, day after day.’

‘Didn’t see it?’ he said in a slightly theatrical tone of amazed disappointment. ‘And here I wrote it specially with you in mind. What a pity! If I’d thought for a moment you hadn’t seen it, I’d have brought a copy with me.’

‘That’s probably all right,’ I told him. ‘Arthur takes the Cambridge Evening News; it comes here every day. It must be lying around somewhere inside. Which day was it – yesterday? Goodness, you are impatient! Here, then, I’ll go and look for it now.’

I recklessly abandoned the whole of the scone and cream into Cedric’s chubby hands. The unexpected boon occupied his attention fully, allowing me to hasten indoors and rummage amongst Arthur’s newspapers for two entire minutes.

‘Here it is,’ I said, finding yesterday’s copy, snatching it up, and returning quickly outside in the hopes that no serious domestic disaster had yet occurred, to find Pat actively encouraging Cedric while discreetly and hastily removing cream from them both with the corner of a napkin. ‘What page should I look at? What is it all about?’

‘Murder!’ he said gleefully. ‘It’s on the front page, what do you think? A scoop for me again – but it could be even greater, if you’d help me!’

I read the article aloud, startled by his words.

Drowned body found in the Cam

The body of a young woman was found floating at the edge of the Cam between the Lammas Land and Sheep’s Green, yesterday morning, by a passer-by who was taking his dog for an early morning run along the footpath. The police, immediately alerted, had the body removed from the water and taken for post-mortem examination. It is as yet uncertain whether the cause of death was actually from drowning, as certain marks on the girl’s neck, partially obliterated by a station of some hours in the water, may in fact indicate death by violence. Dressed in a white evening gown, the young person carried nothing which could reveal who she was, and since no missing person of her description has been declared, her identity remains a total mystery. Any member of the public who has information about a young lady of between twenty and twenty-five years of age, with curly or wavy blonde hair and wearing a flowing ivory-coloured gown with embroidered flowers, probably last seen on the evening of Tuesday, June 21st, is requested to notify the police at once.

‘Well?’ Pat interrogated me eagerly. ‘Are you willing to take it on?’

‘What, the case? Of course not, Pat. I am not the police – I’m just an amateur detective! I only take on cases when I am hired to do so. Nobody has hired me yet, as far as I know.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean take on the murder case,’ he said quickly. ‘I realise that is too big a job.’

I knew he was only trying to make me indignant and rejected the bait with a shake of my head and a smile.

‘What I meant was that you could try to identify the lady,’ he continued quickly. ‘If anyone could manage to find out who she was and what she was doing in Cambridge – it really doesn’t seem possible that she actually lived here – I’m sure you are that person. Then I would get an even bigger scoop, and the police would be better able to get on with their work of finding the murderer.’

‘Is it clear that there really is a murderer?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘Perhaps this poor young lady came from somewhere else to make away with herself, on account of some personal unhappiness.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said seriously. ‘She was murdered, I do know that. My brother-in-law’s on the case; you remember Fred Doherty. The full post-mortem report came in last night, and he showed it to me, though I’m not to publish anything of it yet. She had a problem, that is true enough – she was expecting a baby, Vanessa.’ He blushed slightly and glanced around the perfectly empty garden, as though someone might hear him speaking of scandalous things to ladies. ‘And she wore no wedding ring,’ he went on. ‘Yet she didn’t kill herself. The post-mortem was clear. She was killed; strangled, if you like, by pressure applied to the throat. It’s a very quick death,’ he added as I paled.

I paused, thinking. The girl was dead; how could I help her now? Pat had succeeded in intriguing me, yet one could not simply take up a case directly from the newspaper because it was intriguing. And even if I did wish to help identify her, it was difficult to see how to begin.

Pat put on his most persuasive and wheedling Irish expression, and began again.

‘My editor will hire you, up at the paper, if I ask him to,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t offer any big fee, of course, but just for the identification – they’d be interested in that, I’m certain. News makes sales, Vanessa.’

‘What a vulture you are,’ I remarked. ‘Listen, the thing is that even if I wanted to, I simply don’t see how I should go about it. Why don’t you simply put an advertisement in the paper?’

‘We did,’ he said. ‘That article of mine is an advertisement. It hasn’t received a single answer so far. I don’t think the girl can have been from here. But listen! Don’t say no. Just give it a chance; come with me this evening, to have a talk with my brother-in-law. Let him give you the details. Perhaps there will be something that can start you off.’

‘Well,’ I hesitated, ‘I suppose I will, if Inspector Doherty is willing. I can’t see anything wrong with that. Let me not agree to do anything until we have met with him, and I hear what he is willing to tell me, and think it over.’

‘Oh, he’ll be willing!’ he exclaimed as joyfully as if he had just been offered a gift. ‘He needs any help he can get on this! It’s smooth as a marble sphere for the moment; no handle anywhere. I’ll come by and pick you up tonight after supper, then, shall I?’

We did not go, as I expected, to Inspector Doherty’s home on George Street, not far from where I had lived as a young teacher before my marriage. Instead, Pat directed me to the too-familiar police station on St. Andrew’s Street.

‘Fred is on duty tonight,’ he explained, ‘and it’s just as well.’

‘Does he know I am coming? He might not be pleased,’ I said quickly. The visit to the police station made my involvement seem so much more official, more formal than a simple house call. I wasn’t at all sure that was what I wanted.

‘Fred will be delighted,’ said Pat. ‘He knows all about you, you know that. And even though it seems probable that Scotland Yard will soon be called into the case, especially if it turns out that the girl came up from London, he would be pleased to have something concrete to show them when they come, if that could be managed. Remember,’ he added slyly, ‘we are talking about identification here. Only identification.’

He was not mistaken. A smiling Inspector Doherty welcomed us into his small office, which was littered with a medley of interesting items of all descriptions, and lit by three or four small lamps placed on different articles of furniture, giving the little room an odd, contradictory glow: bright here, dim there. Like Pat, Inspector Doherty was a British Irishman; he had perhaps never set foot in the Emerald Isle in his life, but it was all reflected in his bright blue eyes, his snub nose which insisted on remaining boyish in spite of a hairy growth underneath it intended to increase its dignity, and in the sheen of his dark hair. A different model from red-headed Patrick, yet equally typical. Our Irish contingent.

‘Hullo, hullo,’ he greeted us warmly. ‘Once again, I have the honour to meet the famous Mrs Weatherburn. A pleasure. Pat has told me that you are most interested in the case of the drowned girl he wrote about.’

‘Oh?’ I said. It had seemed to me, rather, that it was Pat who was interested. I am not a sensation-monger. I opened my mouth to say something of the kind, but suddenly realising that I actually was, by now, most interested in the case, I changed my mind, and said,

‘It seems nobody has the slightest idea who she is.’

‘No. And no missing person of her description has been reported since the death,’ he said, plunging without hesitation into the facts. ‘Of course, we looked into the records of missing persons from well back, as we thought she may have gone missing some time ago, and now the result makes things difficult the other way. Far too many blonde girls have gone missing in the last few years. Run away, I should think, most of them, but you never know. It’ll all have to be verified.’

‘How do you do that?’ I asked.

‘We start with physical particularities,’ he said. ‘The girl had a small, heart-shaped birthmark on her left elbow. For that matter, her nose had a rather special shape, too. There was a little wave in it, seen from the profile. Those pieces of information eliminated all the girls from the families we’ve been able to interrogate up to now.’

‘If you found a girl that seemed to correspond, what would you do?’ asked Pat.

‘Family members would have to come and have a look,’ responded his brother-in-law. ‘Somewhat uncomfortable, in a case like this. The body has undergone post-mortem. And it had already spent some hours in the water. It is…it is not very presentable, you know. Not too presentable, but we show only small morsels at a time, avoiding the cut areas. It’s not nice,’ he added, making a face.

‘Oh,’ said Pat. ‘Is she that bad? Can’t one make out what she looked like?

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I meant it is not nice for the families in general. This particular case is not so dreadful, apart from evidence of the post-mortem. Long periods of immersion in water cause swelling and wrinkling, but in this case the body cannot have been there for more than three or four hours. And one or two of the photographs taken before the post-mortem would be quite usable in case of positive response to the preliminary questions.’

‘Photographs? Let’s see them,’ said Pat with authority.

The inspector shuffled about in a drawer and extracted two or three large photos, which he handed to us. I looked at them, studying each one for some time, with Pat staring and breathing over my shoulder. They showed the dead girl lying on a stretcher on the bank, after having been removed from the water. Her hair, though still wet and matted, had lifted into heavy waves. Her features were small and delicate. She looked very dead. One of the photographs was a portrait, showing only her face. I gazed, fascinated, at the slight shadow of her eyelashes, the curve of her cheek, the drops of water clinging to the hair at her temple. The powerful, inexplicable difference between life and death arose from the photograph like a vapour. ‘She is wearing an unusual dress,’ I said, trying to make out the details from a full-length photograph in which the body lay stretched on the bank, and pointing to the lace collar around her neck.

‘Yes,’ he assented, touching a box on the floor at his feet. ‘Her effects are all here.’

‘You’ve got more photographs in there, haven’t you?’ asked Pat, indicating the drawer with his chin.

‘Er, yes,’ replied the inspector. He opened it again, with some reluctance, then finally resigned himself to withdrawing the whole sheaf of pictures. He sighed. I waited.

‘Some of these are not so easy to look at,’ he told me. ‘Here she’s still in the water; we haven’t touched her yet,’ and he handed me the first one.

‘Ophelia,’ I said, astonished. I had unconsciously braced myself for a scene evoking murder; instead, the image in front of me was one of sublime and peaceful beauty quite incompatible with that notion. The grass and flowers, all the little life that flourishes on the edge of a stream, formed a frame for the figure of the floating girl. She lay face down in the water, caught in the rushes near the edge, her hair fanning out like algae, and her white dress forming a poetic, ghostly shape as the lines of those parts of it which floated under the water were deformed into waves. The back of her head emerged from the stream, and the wet hair floated, echoing the ripples of the Cam itself. My river – my river contained this mermaid. She was murdered.

‘I don’t like to show these others to a lady,’ said Inspector Doherty uncomfortably. ‘Photographs of the corpse as we took it out. I don’t think you would learn much from them, actually. It’s not that it’s as horrible as many other murders I’ve encountered in my career. But there’s something weird, ghostly about these images.’

‘Oh, be a good fellow,’ said Pat, exactly as I was about to say that I didn’t want to see them. Shrugging, the inspector handed them over, obviously not wanting to seem superior or to put obstacles in the way of help. Pat spread them out. I took one look, and shuddered. There was no horror, nothing spectacular, nothing overtly revolting, yet they emanated death. My eyes were held by an image of a hand, a dead, limp hand, hanging down as they lifted her onto the bank, white against the dark background. I turned away, and picked up the portrait photo again. It was the only one whose image spoke more of the living girl than of her miserable demise.

‘May I see her things?’ I said after staring at it for a while.

He took the photographs back and stuffed them into his desk drawer with some relief, I thought, then lifted the box onto his desk.

‘If anything could tell you something, it might be these things,’ he said. ‘Here is where a lady’s knowledge can be useful. The quality, the make, all that.’ He opened the clasp, and lifting back the lid, began handing me the items one by one. I examined them carefully, starting with the underwear: a pair of Dr Jaeger’s woollen knit combinations, plain white cotton corset, white cambric corset-cover and petticoat with a simple ruffle and no lace.

‘These are very standard items,’ I said. ‘Such things can be purchased in any number of large shops, or by catalogue. They are mass produced.’

‘Well,’ he said, disappointed, ‘suppose I asked you to tell me what they reveal about the young woman herself. Would such items tend to indicate a person of good family?’

‘Good, perhaps, but middle class,’ I replied. ‘They would not belong to somebody dressing at the height of fashion. That is confirmed by the corset strings; you see how they are marked by the lacing holes? They were loosened to remove the garment, but look: this is how she laced herself. A pretty form, as you see, but not as tightly pulled as today’s fashion seems to encourage.’

‘She wouldn’t be,’ he said, ‘given her, uh, condition.’ He looked at me carefully to see if I was aware of the situation.

‘True,’ I concurred, nodding briefly. ‘But the corset shows no signs of ever having been laced more tightly.’

‘But it looks very new. Don’t you think it must have been purchased recently?’

‘It is practically new,’ I agreed. ‘What is odd is that all these garments seem to be new – the, well, undergarments, I mean. Obviously, people buy themselves new items as the old ones wear out, but one’s garments do not usually all wear out at the same time; that’s why it seems a little odd. Girls often do keep a collection of new things aside, of course, in their wedding trousseau. However, they are not supposed to be worn before the wedding. I wonder if this girl had a particular reason either to use her trousseau, or to completely renew her wardrobe.’

‘It’s a little unfortunate,’ he remarked. ‘The newness of the things makes it impossible to deduce anything about her ordinary habits. The dress is different, though. Have a look at it.’

I took it from him, and gave an exclamation of surprise. Made of silk, it was loosely cut, and embroidered with a scattering of pansies and green sprigs. I turned it over, then inside out, and examined it closely, studying the seams.

‘It’s an unusual gown, isn’t it?’ he remarked.

‘Quite unusual,’ I agreed. ‘In fact, I have never seen a pattern just like it before. It’s not a true evening gown; it’s more like a tea gown. Although peculiar even for that. It must have been very pretty. Oh, I know what it might be – Aesthetic Dress!’

‘An aesthetic dress? I should hope that all dresses are aesthetic,’ he said.

‘No, I mean Aesthetic Dress, with capital letters. It’s a movement, the Reform Movement in Dress, you know. It’s rather old already, decades, I should think; it gained a little popularity when Oscar Wilde adopted it and began wearing the clothing and writing about it—’

‘Oscar Wilde? The playwright-turned-convict?’

‘If you want to put it that way,’ I answered with a sigh. There would be a great deal to say about the fate of the once celebrated and adulated writer. But this was definitely neither the time nor the place. I turned the conversation quickly back to dress. ‘The clothing was inspired by the work of the pre-Raphaelite painters,’ I went on, ‘Rossetti, Morris, and the others. They painted women wearing loose, romantic draperies. They just meant it artistically, but the reform movements, Aesthetic Dress, Rational Dress and so on, were inspired by those images to create very beautiful, very comfortable clothing for both men and women. Never cinch the waist; hang from the shoulders, that was one of their main creeds for both beauty and health.’

‘And such dresses would have been fashionable…when?’ he asked, eyeing the white dress with its old lace and sparse scattering of embroidery doubtfully. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any like the ones you describe.’

‘I don’t think such dresses ever actually became the fashion, in the sense that they were not adopted by the majority,’ I replied. ‘But there are still women who are known to wear them frequently. I am thinking of some rather well-known figures such as Ellen Terry.’

‘The actress?’

‘Yes, such dresses are typically worn by ladies who wish to appear – or really are – artistic and bohemian.’

‘Interesting. So do you think we can conclude that about this particular young lady?’ he asked, fingering the silk.

‘I wish we could conclude something more precise than just a reflection on her character. She was no conformist, that much is certain. But it is impossible to say whether she dressed in this manner from personal taste, or as an echo of some artistic profession, or, let me be very frank, quite simply because she found this style of dress more comfortable in her condition.’ I peered at the dress slowly, then turned it inside out.

‘You know,’ I added, ‘this is rather curious. The seams of this dress are stitched well enough, but they have not been finished! That is very odd.’

‘Oh, girls nowadays,’ replied Inspector Doherty with a wave of the hand. ‘Don’t know how to do things properly any more. Only think about what will show on the outside.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ I said. ‘It is foolish to leave the seams unfinished; even the most inexperienced seamstress is taught that one cannot leave them like this – they would begin to come undone after just a few wearings, as the edge of the material frays. No one wants to find themselves with an unravelling seam in the middle of the day. Also, this dress has been altered, and probably more than once. It was originally sewn to fit a different person, someone rather larger. You can see the traces where the seams were undone and redone. Here are the marks of the former seams; at the waist, and on the shoulders and under the arms. And the extra material on the inside has not been trimmed away.’

‘Perhaps the dress was borrowed, and would need to be altered back to the way it was before? That would explain not finishing the seams, wouldn’t it?’

‘It could,’ I said, ‘though it seems like going to a lot of trouble. Still, it is possible. The thread is obviously fairly new, whereas the dress itself looks to me as though it has been worn quite a number of times, and washed many times as well. We’ll keep that in mind; a borrowed, altered dress.’

‘She didn’t have any handbag or reticule?’ asked Pat hopefully, as I put the dress aside and turned to the other items.

‘No. It may have been taken from her, or else it floated off down river. It may still be found. But look at her jewellery. This is quite interesting, don’t you think?’

He handed me a remarkable bracelet of intricately carved ivory beads threaded on a silken twist. I looked at them intently.

‘It comes from the East,’ he said. ‘Now, where might she have got hold of an Oriental bracelet? I’ve never seen one like it.’

Hmm, I thought to myself, looking at it.

‘The ring holds a single pearl set in silver. Banal, though pretty enough. Do you think you could discover anything about any of it?’ the inspector asked me. ‘It’s annoying: the purchased items seem too typical to trace, and the personal ones too original to have been purchased.’

I fingered the bracelet of ivory beads, wondering if I had not seen something quite like it…not long ago. Surely – yes, surely…Pat’s eyes met mine, and he stood watching as I tried the bracelet on my wrist, slipped it off, and stood holding it, thinking, and wondering. He stood up and began helping the inspector to pack the unknown girl’s affairs back into the box. They rolled up the dress with pansies and put it away, and I watched them, and thought of the young body itself lying under the scalpel on a brightly lit post-mortem table…and from thence to a hard, dark coffin. Pat piled up all the undergarments and placed the sad little pair of water-soiled slippers together on top. He looked at them a little wistfully.

‘Where is the ring?’ said Inspector Doherty suddenly, glancing suspiciously at his brother-in-law.

‘Here it is, everything is back in the box,’ said Pat cheerfully, placing the ring carefully inside a shoe. Inspector Doherty closed the lid and snapped the clasp firmly, then handed me the portrait photograph.

‘Pat says you’re willing to see what you can do in the way of identification,’ he said. ‘Sometimes locals can find out things more easily than the police. Take this, if you think it might be useful. I can spare it, I have all the others.’

‘I will see what I can do,’ I said, rising and taking it. Not that I could really imagine myself using it. Going around showing photographs of dead faces to people – what better way to look like a policeman? Goodness gracious! Yet I did want the photograph, if only for myself. I wrapped it in a piece of paper and slipped it into my bag.

Pat accompanied me home in a silence quite unusual for him. I had expected him to inundate me with questions as to my intentions. But he seemed wrapped up in his thoughts, and when he did speak, it was not about the murdered girl, but about quite other things. He shook my hand warmly when we separated, and told me to let him know about anything particular which came my way. His handshake was unusually long and firm, and when he dropped my hand, I felt something unfamiliar slide onto my wrist.

‘Pat!’ I called, but he was already striding off into the distance. I looked down unwillingly. The Chinese beads hung there looking innocent. They gleamed and winked at me in the darkness.

‘All right,’ I said to myself. ‘I knew he was going to do it, that is, I didn’t really know, but really, I did. I saw that he saw I was thinking about them. So there we are. I think these beads are going to be useful, and I shall use them – and then it will be up to Pat to make his misdemeanour good.’

I returned home and placed the ivory beads carefully in the little alabaster dish on my night-table, where I habitually put my jewellery when going to bed if I intend to wear it again in the morning.

A Chinese ivory bracelet – I saw such things not long ago, and right here in Cambridge. Not just like this one, to be sure – carved ivory bangles, rather, and bangles and beads of jade. Yet they all differed from each other, and this one may have been among them. I plan a little investigative shopping trip for tomorrow.

1874

The servants, tenants and farm workers pressed into the large bedroom to admire the new baby, snuggled in its mother’s arms. Still weak, she made the effort to smile at them from her bed.

‘Goodness me, what enormous ears he has,’ observed old Vornelli, who had lived and worked at the villa for forty-four years and had the right to make remarks.

The mother looked up at him.

‘He will hear the still, small voice of the air,’ she replied softly, running her fingers over the baby’s fuzzy head.

Friday, June 24th, 1898

It is one of the moments of the day I love best; the children are in bed, and a peaceful silence has descended into every corner of the small house, which is nestling quietly in shadows relieved only by the glow of the lamp. This is the only moment at which I can take up my pen to write down the events of the day without fear of instant disturbance of one kind or another, whether it be visitors, tradesmen, urgent household duties or scampering twins. So here I am with my notebook, freshly begun yesterday, in front of me, and the inkpot conveniently to hand. Oh. Arthur has looked up from his newspaper.

‘Hum,’ he said. ‘Not writing letters? Fresh notebook? What does this mean, Vanessa? Have you a new investigation on hand?’

‘I have, since yesterday,’ I said. ‘A case of identification.’

I do prefer to recount things when I feel ready to do so and not before. In any case, Arthur seems to know most things without being told, but as he says little, it comes to much the same. He contented himself now with glancing at me penetratingly before returning to his newspaper. So I shall proceed to my task and recount my search for the origin of the Chinese bracelet.

As it happens, I had seen a number of similar bracelets for sale recently, amongst a large selection of varied decorative objects newly imported by Robert Sayle’s from China. I had visited the sale with little Cecily, but we had not paid much attention to the ivory beads and bangles, her gaze having been captured more vividly by the exotic objects such as fans and conical hats, whereas I spent my time examining the brightly coloured silks, of which I ended up buying a length for my own personal use. And how many ladies in Cambridge, I wonder, did not purchase some object, however trifling, from the far-off land of oriental dreams, during the three days that the sale lasted?

Upon rising this morning, I slipped the bracelet onto my wrist and scrutinised my memories. I could not recall having seen this precise bracelet, yet it seemed to correspond well enough to the kinds of objects spread over the shop counters. I carried it to the nursery and showed it to Cecily, who, with a large napkin around her neck, was deeply engaged in manoeuvring a spoonful of bread-and-milk to her mouth without letting fall a single drop. I waited until the operation had come to a successful conclusion before showing her the bracelet; not, however, with much hope that her three-year-old mind could contain any really useful memories.

‘Ooh, pretty,’ she remarked, admiring it.

‘Do you remember the big shop with bracelets like this, Cecily?’ I asked her, but she merely stared at me, shook her head, and thrust her hand through the circle of beads. I had some difficulty in recovering it from her firm grasp. Dropping a kiss on top of her silky brown head, I returned it to my wrist and set off to Robert Sayle’s shop on St Andrew’s Street by myself.

It is always a pleasant walk, if somewhat long, up the Newnham Road towards the centre of town. The sun was bright and strong, and I failed to open my parasol, letting the warmth radiate down instead upon my hat, comforting and inspiring. The shadows fell, dark and sharply outlined, on the pavement, and all looked so open, so reassuring, so free from secrets that my heart was lifted by a little wave of pure well-being, until the vision of the hand came, unbidden and undesired, floating into my mind. That limp, drowned hand lying like a withered lily on the edge of the photograph, my eyes fixed on it so as not to see the rest, the face, the staring eyes. I quickened my steps, and was glad to finally enter the shop and cool my forehead in its quiet shade.

There were few clients at this hour, and those were essentially concentrated about the areas selling useful items. The counter where jewellery and imported items of all kinds were presented was deserted. A girl sat on a stool behind it, her dark eyes filled with melancholy boredom. I stared at her, wondering, although I did not exactly recognise her, if she might not be the very same girl who had sold the Chinese items on the days of the sale. I could not quite remember – yet if it were she, if this girl had sole charge of the counter, and if my guess about the bracelet were correct – why then, she herself may have seen the dead girl alive…

I shook myself quickly, severely. If I could barely remember her face, then how could she, who sold dozens, no hundreds of objects, possibly remember a single client? There was nothing for it but to ask her. I made my way over to her; lost in her thoughts, she perceived me only as I arrived in front of her. Then she jumped to her feet, arranging a polite, albeit artificial smile upon her features. Her simple white dress bordered with black lines outlined an astonishingly firmly laced waist, whose strained tininess provoked me to an enormously deep inhalation, for the sheer pleasure of feeling my lungs expand. In spite of the prevailing fashion of tight-lacing, which has been if anything reinforced by the controversy swirling around it, I really cannot endure lacing beyond a certain, very reasonable point. I like to breathe, not to mention the frequent necessity of bending down. And I consider that as a mature matron, I have the right to do as I please on this score. Anyway, Arthur says that a womanly figure has just as much charm as a young girl’s, if not more. The girls one sees on the streets, however, seem to vie with each other to achieve waists of such small dimensions that they sometimes resemble ants more than young women. I recalled that the dead girl had not entered into this rather frightening game.

Before addressing the girl, I let my eyes rove over the items spread out in front of her. Today they seemed to be Indian rather than Chinese; a collection of boxes, some of fragrant carved wood and others of gaily inlaid stone, decorated the surface of the counter, and the glass case underneath contained a selection of heavy silver jewellery, necklaces and earrings set with large turquoises. Perching my elbows amongst the things, I leant towards her in a confidential manner and slipped the bracelet off my wrist.

‘May I ask you a question?’ I said engagingly, trying to meet her eyes, for she seemed vaguely absent even as she prepared courteously to come to my assistance.

‘Certainly, ma’am,’ she replied without any show of interest. I imagined her forced, no doubt, into a tedious and wearisome job by the economic straits of a struggling family, and nourishing secret dreams of rising in life to some higher position, thanks, perhaps, to nothing more than her waist measurement. I felt tempted to talk to her about herself rather than about the bracelet, but I did not want to annoy her needlessly or to waste time, and I was afraid another customer might arrive at any moment. So I simply reached out with the bracelet and showed it to her.

‘Do you recognise this? Could it have come from here?’ I asked. ‘Is it possible that you sold it yourself?’

She took it, examined it closely, letting it run through her fingers a moment, while I thought of the many negative answers she might give: never saw it before, was not working here during the Chinese sale, couldn’t say. Then, unexpectedly, she nodded.

‘Yes, I think so. This was among the collection of Chinese bracelets we had here a week or two ago. I am almost certain that I remember it. It is so pretty – look how it is carved. Each bead is hollow and the surface is carved with tiny flowers, or perhaps it is just ivory lace. It is incredible to be able to make such things. Most of the other bracelets were made of a single piece; this was the most exquisite and complicated one. Some of the others still remain,’ she added, searching a key out of a drawer and unlocking the cupboard which was low behind the counter, at the level of her knees. ‘We keep the things for the next time we bring out Chinese goods,’ she explained, taking out some items and setting them in front of me. ‘It is not good to allow the public to become tired of the same things, or used to them, or to see that they are not sold. They must think that everything disappeared very quickly.’ She smiled again, her kind, disillusioned smile. I looked at the bangle she held out to me, and at a decorative object in a circular glass window. I had not noticed these things particularly when I had visited the sale, but now I was unable to take my eyes off the almost unbelievably intricate carving protected between the two glass discs. A pagoda stood on a rock, trees made of inexpressibly delicate needles surrounded it, and a stork pointed its threadlike beak into the air. The whole scene seemed to have been created by the hands of fairies, not the thick, clumsy fingers of men (even Chinese ones, whose fingers must be lighter and quicker than our own). I stared into the magic disc, entranced.

‘May I buy this?’ I said suddenly.

‘It is not for sale now,’ she said. ‘I am not allowed to take out these things and sell them.’ She glanced around nervously, for her superior, no doubt, but the shop was functioning peacefully, each lady busy with her own stock, and nobody was watching us.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I will come back and buy it the next time you have Chinese things.’

‘I should like to sell it to you, since you want it,’ she said softly. ‘It is beautiful, isn’t it? I also look at it sometimes. I look at it quite often, when I am here alone. It is even more delicate and miraculous than the bracelet.’

‘Keep it for me,’ I said. ‘I will buy it some day, and in the meantime you can go on looking at it.’ I looked at her sober dress, and felt for a moment how it must be to see, touch and hold pretty things, frivolous things, luxurious things all day long, and probably never have the chance to own even one. I turned back firmly to the subject of the bracelet and proceeded to recount a string of falsehoods that I had prepared while on my way to the shop.

‘I found this bracelet on the street,’ I began, ‘and was almost certain that it must come from here. I thought I would try to return it to its rightful owner if I could possibly identify her. But it would probably be too much to ask, that you should remember to whom you sold it. If it was you who sold it at all – it might of course have been someone else?’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘This is my counter. I’m here all day, every day, except Sunday, of course.’

‘It must be tiring,’ I said.

‘Oh, well. It’s not such a bad place,’ she answered quickly. ‘I help gentlemen choose gifts, I sell beautiful things, and I see different kinds of people. By the way, I do remember who bought the bracelet,’ she added, and then looked up at me, surprised at my sudden access of tension, although I said nothing. ‘I don’t know who they are, of course,’ she amended, ‘but I remember quite well what they looked like.’

‘They?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it was a couple. A rather elderly gentleman bought the bracelet for a – for a woman. A young person. They hesitated over any number of things first – she tried them all on, I think. That’s why I remember it.’

A woman? A young person?

‘Was there only one such bracelet? Were there not several similar ones?’ I asked, just to be certain.

‘Oh no. There were no two the same. Each one was different. This was the only ivory one with beads, as a matter of fact.’

‘Ah! Well then, tell me what the people who bought it were like. Can you describe the girl?’ I said, and my heart beat till the blood rushed in my ears. Those limp fingers…

‘She was…well…she was very pretty and friendly,’ she said guardedly. ‘And curious. She kept on trying things and laughing. The gentleman seemed fond of her. But, well…’

The photograph was in my bag – I reached for it, then hesitated. I was afraid that it would turn our cheerful chat into an investigation, and that she would become suspicious and silent.

‘But what?’ I said.

‘She wasn’t a lady,’ she replied shortly. There was a world of meaning, of contempt, of resentment, of jealousy, in her words. A young person, being offered jewellery by an elderly gentleman, whilst she herself remained forever a prisoner behind her glass counter, a good girl. Thumbnail sketches of the dramatis personae of British society passed in front of me.

‘And the gentleman? What was he like?’

‘Oh, he was distinguished, with a cane and silver grey hair. He had a rather loud voice, and a lot of authority. I don’t know who he is, but I think he lives in Cambridge. I see him sometimes, passing in the street.’

‘Ah!’ I cried, as the import of her words sank into me. This fact presented an astonishing opportunity to succeed in my task.

‘Well,’ she added, ‘at any rate, I believe I’ve seen him passing in front of the shop more than once. I spend a lot of my time staring out at the street.’

I turned involuntarily, and followed her gaze out of the broad display window. The sunlit street appeared like an aquarium, with brightly coloured fish floating past, deprived of their legs by the lower wall.

‘I wonder how I could manage to find that gentleman?’ I said.

‘If all you want is to give him back the bracelet, then why don’t you simply leave it here with me? I can dash out and catch him next time I see him passing by, and give it back to him.’

‘No!’ I said, struck suddenly by the awful image of a man suddenly being handed, in bright daylight, a bracelet he knew to belong to a dead girl – a bracelet he may even be aware that she was wearing when she died.

It could be dangerous; he could see it as a preliminary to blackmail…

‘No, no. No thank you. What I really want is to meet this man myself,’ I said firmly. ‘Will you help me?’

‘Why do you want to meet him?’ she asked, looking up at me directly, her curiosity awakened.

The position was most awkward. I disliked telling the truth – goodness, how dishonest that makes me sound – but I have found it immensely useful to have my professional identity utterly hidden while detecting. Yet it was clear that there might be much to be gained by telling her everything, now, at once. And indeed, I could not see any other way to obtain the information I needed.

‘I can tell you, and I must,’ I decided quickly, looking around to make sure no one was within earshot. ‘I need your help, and I see that I cannot ask you for it without making you aware of the facts.’ And with a quick gesture, I withdrew the portrait of the dead girl from my handbag and placed it on the counter in front of her.

‘That’s the woman who bought the bracelet!’ she said at once. ‘But – how strange she looks! What is this picture? Is she sleeping? She looks as if she were dead!’

I felt the taut, narrow possibility of imminent success stretching before me, so fragile, so easily snapped.

‘She is dead,’ I said. ‘Her body was found floating in the Cam, and the bracelet was on her wrist.’

‘Oooh,’ she breathed, staring at me. ‘Was she killed?’

‘It seems she might have been,’ I admitted.

‘Are you from the police?’

‘No,’ I said quickly. Nothing causes witnesses to close up like clams so much as the mention of that hard-working, earnest and deserving body. ‘I’m just a friend,’ I continued, both vaguely and untruthfully. ‘I thought that I recognised her bracelet as coming from here, and offered my help in trying to identify her. You see, the body is completely unidentified. Nobody has any idea who she is.’

‘Oh,’ she breathed thoughtfully. ‘And the gentleman that I saw – is he the murderer?’

‘Very likely not,’ I said. ‘It would be a bit too dangerous for him to have done it, wouldn’t it, after all kinds of people like you had seen them together?’

‘Well, but he might be,’ she insisted. ‘That kind of gentleman wouldn’t think anything of being seen by people like me. People like me don’t even exist for him.’ She gave an impatient little gesture of frustration.

‘Well, that’s as may be,’ I said. ‘People do tend to take more care if they are about to commit a murder. I don’t know, but I do think that if we can find the gentleman you saw, he will at least be able to tell us her name, and that is all I want right now.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, if that’s all, I could just run out and ask him about it, next time he passes.’

‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t speak to him – I definitely advise you not to speak to him at all if you see him, least of all about the young woman or the bracelet.’

She gave me a quick, penetrating glance. ‘So you do think…’ she murmured.

‘I don’t really, but of course we must remain on the safe side,’ I said firmly. ‘We don’t know, that’s all there is to it. It would be best if he were not even to lay eyes on you. What I would like to ask you to do, next time you see him passing, is to follow him a little way and see where he goes. Then send me a message at once.’

‘But I’m not supposed to leave my post,’ she hesitated.

I looked around. To the left of the exotic items was a stand selling silk scarves, and to the right several handbags were on display. There was a young woman behind each of them, and neither of them was doing anything.

‘Well,’ she admitted, following my glance, ‘I could run out for just a few minutes if I see him again.’

‘How often do you think you see him?’

‘It’s hard to tell. But fairly often, I think. Every few days, maybe? Though I don’t believe I’ve seen him since the Chinese sale.’

‘If you see him, have a note sent to me immediately,’ I told her, writing down my name and address on a piece of paper which I handed her together with a modest financial encouragement. She flushed.

‘I can’t take this,’ she said.

‘This is a job I am asking you to do for me,’ I said. ‘It is work, honest work. It is quite all right. In fact, it is very important – you do realise that? A girl hardly older than yourself has died. We must find out who she was and how she died.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do see that. Even if she was just a…even if, well, what I mean is, whoever she was, she was enjoying her life and didn’t deserve to die. I see what you mean. Even if she is dead, this is still like giving her a helping hand. I’ll do it.’

Our eyes met across the counter, scattered with its litter of objects, delicate, frivolous, artistic objects, all made uniquely for pleasure – the pleasure of young girls. Her eyes like deep pools showed me anxiety, concern, a consciousness of suffering, a search for meaning.

‘She shouldn’t have died,’ she said again, thoughtfully. ‘She was happy.’

‘That’s an interesting remark,’ I said. ‘Do you think she was in love with the gentleman?’

‘Him? Oh, no. That was just – well, professional. She was very nice to him. He was a gentleman friend. And she liked the bracelet. No, she was just happy in general, I think, happy and excited. Maybe a little too excited. Maybe almost nervous. I can’t remember exactly.’

An unwed girl, ‘professionally’ befriending an elderly gentleman, a baby on the way…and yet the impression she gave – to another girl of her own age, no less – was of being happy. Why happy? Would not a girl in such a situation be rather fearful and troubled, if not in despair? Yet she seemed happy. And days later, she was dead.

‘Vanessa – you’re waiting again,’ said Arthur, after dinner had been cleared away and the twins sent upstairs to be put to bed.

‘Who, me?’ I said, dropping a ball of wool which I had taken out of my workbasket and put back twice already.

‘Yes, you. Listen, nothing is easier to observe than a waiting Vanessa. You fidget and don’t do anything.’ Rising, he came to lean over me and smiled.

‘I won’t ask you what you’re waiting for, but I will ask you if you’ll have to wait long.’

‘I don’t know, that’s the trouble. It could be days and days. Oh, Arthur, you’re right, I do hate waiting and not being able to do anything. It’s my worst defect, I know. I really ought to cultivate the Eastern art of patience.’

‘Well then,’ he said, ‘since you haven’t done that yet, let me suggest instead that you relieve the anxiety by spending the weekend in London with me. You know Ernest Dixon and his wife have been inviting us for ages – they have an extra room in their flat. He’s just written to me about it again, and he even asked what we’d like to see. Do let’s go, it would do you good.’

‘Oh, I would love to,’ I said eagerly, thinking secretly that Robert Sayle’s is closed on Sundays anyway. ‘But how can I leave the children for a whole weekend?’

‘Stuff,’ he said. ‘Sarah will spoil them rotten and they’ll simply love it. And we’ll come home on Sunday. We’ll spend just one night away.’

‘But what if the message I’m waiting for comes while I’m gone?’ I worried. ‘I don’t expect it so soon, and yet that is just what would happen, isn’t it?’

‘Well, there I can’t give you any advice, as I don’t know what kind of message you’re waiting for. Once it comes, what need you do?’

‘Well, that will depend on what it says,’ I admitted, wondering what the shopgirl – whose name I suddenly realised I had stupidly omitted to ask – could possibly write, even if she did spot the familiar gentleman. Come at once – he’s in the tea-shop? Or better, Have managed to talk to him and found out his name? No, no, she mustn’t do that!

‘Yes, do let’s go,’ I said.

‘Good! I knew you would want to!’ he said happily. ‘And I simply can’t face a whole weekend at home with you waiting. I’ll send Ernest a telegram. Let’s have a look at the paper to see what plays are on.’ He rustled the pages of his newspaper to the theatre section and read over it with undisguised pleasure.

‘There’s Hamlet, Lear and Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ he said in a faintly hopeful tone, ‘but we’ve seen all of them already, of course.’

‘Many times,’ I agreed.

‘So perhaps you’d like something different,’ he continued. ‘How about this? The Second Mrs Tanqueray has come back after a break, with the same cast, at the St. James. Do you remember? It was a great hit about two years ago.’

‘I remember hearing something about it,’ I said. ‘It’s one of Pinero’s comedies, isn’t it? We couldn’t go at the time.’

‘It isn’t a comedy. It’s supposed to be rather a powerful critique of social mores. It was the big revelation of the actress Stella Campbell, who’s become very famous since then.’

‘Oh, I remember now! It’s the play about a woman with a past!’ Indeed, I had been intrigued at the time, both by the ‘dangerous’ content and by the flamboyant reputation of the young actress impersonating the main character. But the twins were tiny, and travelling had been out of the question. I had not even had time to think about it again since.

‘Yes, that’s the one. It made quite a splash. What do you say? Shall we go?’

‘Yes indeed, if the Dixons haven’t already seen it.’

Like a magician, Arthur had eased the anxious pressure which seemed to constrict me, and filled my mind with eager anticipation. While not necessarily the most exotic thing in the world, a day in London, a visit to friends and a trip to the theatre is a sufficiently rare event in my quiet life for it to cause quite a stir and a ripple there. Taking my candle, I went upstairs to pack a few small items in readiness for a departure early in the morning, glancing out of the window as I did so.

The sky was clear and starry, and beyond being pleased that the weather seemed fine, I felt moved by its endless depth. But my joy was suddenly marred by the thought that that infinity of twinkling eyes had looked down so recently on this same garden, on the road which ran past the bottom of it, on the Lammas Land beyond, on the river which flowed and whooshed softly through it, and on the corpse of the dead girl floating there, carried by the current, held by the weeds.

Saturday – Sunday, June 25 – 26th, 1898

The four of us sat together at a table beautifully laid with white cloth and crystal glasses, awaiting the arrival of the fish. Ernest and Kathleen had quite insisted on bringing us to this little restaurant near the theatre, a newly discovered favourite of theirs, perfect for a late dinner after the play. I settled down contentedly and indulged in feeling experienced and cosmopolitan.

‘So what have you been working on lately?’ Arthur asked Ernest, unfolding his napkin and spreading it on his knee. Ernest is of course primarily a physicist rather than a mathematician, and an experimentalist, at that. But Arthur is fascinated by any and all sciences.

‘Still the old magnetism experiments,’ replied Ernest. ‘It’s just extraordinary, the power they have. I showed Kathleen some field lines the other day. You know – if you put iron filings on a sheet of paper and hold it over a magnet, the filings literally shift into a picture of force lines, going from one pole to the other. It looks like this,’ and he began scratching out a picture with a point of his fork onto the tablecloth. ‘It’s extraordinary. It means, you must realise, that those lines are more than just abstract pictures of the directions of force. They represent physical action on the atoms! That’s the direction of my present work.’ He completed his thumbnail sketch and displayed it to us proudly. ‘If you do this with a magnet, you literally see in which direction the forces of the magnet’s poles will pull the iron filings. But if you know the theory, you don’t need the experiment!’

‘No physics during meals,’ said Kathleen in a hurried whisper, cutting short his enthusiasm as the waiter arrived balancing several dishes on his arm, and hastily rubbing over the scratches with her fingers, ‘and stop spoiling the tablecloth!’ ‘Got to stop them, dear,’ she added, turning to me with a smile, ‘otherwise they’d be at it all night. I simply can’t stand science at the table.’ She shook a finger playfully at her husband to smooth the prickle behind her words, but she meant business clearly enough. Personally, I find these discussions quite interesting, although I am but a poor contributor. However, Kathleen preferred to talk about the play.

‘Mrs Campbell is sublime,’ she said. ‘Goodness, how I love to watch all that spunk and fire up there on the stage for all to see! What a difference with Ellen Terry. Terry can portray the divine in woman as no one else can, I’ll grant you that. But Campbell gives you a flavour of the devil.’

‘Redhead that you are,’ said her husband.

‘Well, Mrs Campbell may not be a redhead, but she might well be Irish, if you ask me,’ said Kathleen.

‘Campbell is hardly an Irish name.’

‘No, but it’s her married name. I’ve no idea what her own name might be. She likes to be known as Mrs Patrick Campbell – it keeps up some semblance of respectability, I suppose.’

‘That is an interesting point,’ I said. ‘It makes her sound just like the woman in the play.’

‘Yes, you’re right, poor Mrs Tanqueray, trying so hard to tear some respectability from the fabric of her life, and discovering the thing to be impossible. The whole play is about nothing else, really.’

‘Yes, and yet it’s dramatic, tragic even. It’s odd that a notion like respectability should take on such importance that tragedy can be based on it. What is wrong with our time? Shakespeare would never have employed such stuff for his plots. Since when has social approval been given the power of life or death over us?’

‘Oh, well – the power of life or death? Let us not exaggerate.’

‘But yes, in the play it does, doesn’t it? After all, Mrs Tanqueray takes her own life at the end. Is she not destroyed by the realisation that her sinful past will prevent her ever obtaining a respectable social position?’

We all four fell silent, trying to understand why Mrs Tanqueray had committed suicide, or, rather, why the author had caused her to do so, after she had managed to pull herself out of the mud of loose living by contracting a marriage with a gentleman.

‘I think it was because of guilt. She felt guilty about having revealed to the pure young girl that her fiancé had been her own ex-lover,’ said Ernest after a moment.

‘No,’ argued Arthur. ‘She didn’t feel guilty, for it was her own choice to reveal it; she clearly says that she would feel guilty to hide it.’

‘It wasn’t that at all,’ said Kathleen. ‘It was because she realised that her past would not leave her alone, that she would always meet people in society who knew about it. Marriage or none, in fact, respectability was simply out of her reach.’