The Mangle Street Murders Read online

  He stuck to his story, neither adding nor retracting any details, and asserted his innocence quietly under the cross-examination of Sir Robert Finebray QC, but the case against him was strong and William Ashby’s version of events fell apart under the weight of Inspector Pound’s observations, as outlined for him by my guardian. The final question seemed a little odd to the judge. Did William Ashby ever frequent the Duke of Marlborough public house?

  ‘No, sir. I prefer the company in the Black Boy.’

  For a moment there seemed to be some hope. Professor Latingate’s demonstration went wrong. His crystals reacted to three different solutions, but it transpired that his assistant had accidentally contaminated them with a cut finger.

  And then the final nail was hammered in. I hardly recognized Sir Randolph Cosmo Napier as he took the oath. He stood erect and clean-shaven apart from a magnificent pair of waxed and curled moustaches. His clothes were tailored and decorated with a gorgeous red silk cravat, and his manner was authoritative. He had fallen on hard times, he admitted openly, and the suit had been bought for him, but a gentleman was always a gentleman and a gentleman’s word was his bond. Even Judge Peters sat a little straighter as he heard the evidence. Sir Randolph had met William Ashby a number of times.

  ‘Seemed a nice young man. Bought me a drink once in a while.’

  ‘Did he ever mention his wife?’

  ‘Never,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘except for the last time I saw him.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  ‘The Saturday night before he killed her.’

  Mr Treadwell sprang up. ‘Objection, my lord. This man was not a witness to the murder. He cannot assume that my client is guilty.’

  ‘A man is entitled to his opinion,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘and this is still a free country, I believe.’

  ‘Well spoken, Sir Randolph.’ Mr Justice Peters scratched under his wig with a quill. ‘Objection overruled.’

  ‘Except when it comes to digging holes,’ Sir Randolph said.

  ‘Let us move on.’ Sir Robert Finebray rustled his notes.

  ‘They’d have let me dig if there were gold to be found.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Randolph,’ Sir Robert Finebray said.

  ‘Or coal even. Black gold, some call it.’

  ‘On this last occasion, did you talk to the accused?’

  ‘I have already said as much.’ His voice rang out across the courtroom.

  ‘And what line did the conversation take?’

  ‘I observed to Ashby that my glass was empty,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘and he offered to refill it for me, but not as graciously as he might have. Indeed, he seemed quite distracted.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In every way.’

  The audience chuckled.

  ‘Please continue,’ Sir Robert said.

  ‘That is what I am trying to do,’ Sir Randolph retorted.

  ‘Then please do.’

  ‘I shall. Did you not fag for me at Rugby?’

  Sidney Grice was clicking halfpennies in his left hand.

  ‘I was at Eton,’ Sir Robert said.

  ‘So was I,’ the judge said. ‘Did you fag for me, Finebray?’

  ‘I did not, my lord.’

  Mr Justice Peters banged his gavel to quell the laughter and signalled the witness to proceed.

  ‘Ashby seemed agitated,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘and, when I asked him what the matter was, he told me he had had an argument with his wife.’

  I watched William Ashby as this evidence was being given. He leaned forward, listening intently, but his face betrayed no particular concern.

  ‘I asked him what the trouble was,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘and he told me that he had scolded her over her extravagance. She had bought some material for a curtain and was having it made up by a local seamstress. He thought the material too expensive and that his wife should have made it up herself.’

  William Ashby nodded slightly.

  ‘He told me that the money could have gone towards more stock,’ Sir Randolph said, ‘and that he had stormed out of the house when she refused to cancel the order.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’ Sir Robert asked.

  ‘Indeed, he did,’ Sir Randolph said. ‘We talked about the lack of respect modern youths have for their elders and we agreed that they lacked the discipline that a spell in the army would have given them. Ashby is an army man himself. He knows all about that.’

  Sir Robert struggled to conceal his frustration. ‘Yes, but did he mention his wife again?’

  ‘He said she was a pretty little thing,’ the witness said, and Sir Robert flapped his notes.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Sidney Grice said under his breath. He was rattling the halfpennies furiously now.

  ‘Did he make any threats against her?’ Sir Robert asked.

  ‘None that I ever heard,’ Sir Randolph said, and Sir Robert opened his mouth in dismay.

  ‘But—’

  ‘He made a vow, though,’ Sir Randolph broke in. ‘He swore that he would kill her if she did not mend her ways.’

  William Ashby cried out, ‘No!’, but was silenced by a constable’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘What were his exact words?’ Sir Robert asked.

  William Ashby had a choking fit, almost doubling as he spasmed with the effort to catch his breath.

  ‘If the prisoner cannot be silent I shall have him removed from my court.’ Mr Justice Peters banged his gavel as William Ashby tried to stifle his coughs with his hand. ‘Proceed, Sir Randolph.’

  Sir Randolph looked a little irritated. He glanced at his watch and muttered something about a horse.

  ‘He swore that he would kill her if she did not mend her ways,’ he said.

  ‘No, Sir Randolph, please tell the court exactly the words that he used.’

  ‘His exact words were that he would kill her if she did not mend her ways.’

  Somebody hooted in derision.

  ‘Silence,’ the judge barked. ‘I will have this court cleared if there are any more unseemly displays. Carry on, Sir Robert.’

  ‘Imagine that you are he and I am you,’ Sir Robert tried. ‘I say something like What’s the trouble, old boy? And you say…’

  ‘My glass is empty.’

  The judge brought down his gavel several times to restore order, and said to Sir Randolph, ‘We need his words verbatim.’

  ‘Then why did you not say so,’ Sir Randolph asked, ‘instead of all this silly playacting? He said, I will kill her if she does not mend her ways, and I said, You do not mean that, surely? And he said, As sure as we are standing here. I have had more than enough of her. I will stick her with one of my knives if she does not improve.’

  The whole chamber erupted at this revelation and I looked across at William Ashby. He shook his head and clutched it with both hands. And, in the gradual quieting, a low sound emitted from him, the man with no face.

  22

  The Trained Monkey

  The instant the judge sent the jury to consider their verdict Sidney Grice was on his feet.

  ‘Come, March,’ he said. ‘There is not a moment to lose.’ And he was racing jerkily up the steps before most people had even stood up.

  I caught up with him in the central hallway.

  ‘This way.’ He propelled me along a series of crowded corridors and through a door on to the pavement.

  ‘What is so urgent?’ I asked. Had he thought of another line of investigation? But Sidney Grice’s face was set determinedly silent as he hurried me up an incline along a street opening into a wider, leafier road.

  ‘Here we are.’ The smell of coffee greeted us the moment he opened the door. ‘Ceylon for three,’ he called before the waitress had even reached our table, ‘and hurry.’

  I did not have to ask who the third tea was for because the bell tinkled and Inspector Pound came in, a little out of breath.

  ‘Inspector,’ Sidney Grice called, ‘I have reserved you a place and o
rdered you a tea.’

  ‘You always manage to beat me to it, Mr Grice.’ Inspector Pound flopped down in a chair between us. ‘And not a moment too soon by the look of it.’

  The door was flung open and four men, one struggling with a large black-draped camera on a tripod, rushed in, followed by two couples chattering excitedly and a coachman in splendid livery.

  ‘Bitter experience sped me here,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘I shall never forget the Nurse Raddison case.’

  ‘Was she the one who drowned her elderly patients to pawn their clothes?’ I asked. ‘That was dreadful.’

  ‘More dreadful than you know,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘There was such a crush for that one that I was unable to obtain a cup of tea for two consecutive days and my first Heat Retentive Bottle was smashed in the general mayhem.’

  ‘He was almost in tears,’ Inspector Pound told me as the waitress brought a tray and set its load upon our table. Sidney Grice lifted the lid from the teapot and asked, ‘From what part of Ceylon did this tea come?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Is it the part that mixes old leaves with new in the hope that the customer will not notice?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Take it away and bring a fresh pot immediately.’

  ‘It may take a while. I do have other people to see to, sir.’

  ‘As you so rightly say, they are other people,’ he told her. ‘So we need not concern ourselves with them.’

  She looked at him uncertainly. He pointed to the pot and she took it back to the kitchen.

  ‘It seems we have Ashby well and truly kippered now,’ the inspector said.

  ‘Sir Randolph nearly let us down, though,’ Sidney Grice commented, ‘after all those rehearsals. The man is an absolute imbecile. The only wonder is he did not lose his fortune sooner.’

  ‘You rehearsed the witness?’ I asked.

  ‘Only to tell the truth,’ Inspector Pound said as the waitress brought another pot.

  The bell clanged again and a large red-faced lady in a moss-green coat pushed through the gathering queue, her floral hat almost coming off her head.

  ‘Whose truth?’

  ‘You have been reading French philosophy.’ My guardian felt the temperature of the pot and lifted off the lid. ‘I must strongly advise you to desist before your brain is made complicated. The truth is the truth whatever its source. For example, it is indisputably true that that woman is fat whether I or a notorious liar say it and whether or not somebody has been reminded to say it.’

  ‘She can probably hear you,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’ He sniffed the steam and peered into the pot. ‘There is little point in talking if you cannot be heard. I detest the modern fad for mumbling behind one’s hand. It is very continental.’

  ‘I am very sorry, madam,’ the waitress said, ‘but we do not have a table to spare.’

  ‘We could invite her to join us,’ I suggested.

  ‘That would be the polite thing to do.’ Sidney Grice replaced the lid. ‘But, if word got about that I had started being polite, people might imagine that I had become thoughtful, rumours would spread that I was kind, and that is only one step away from being expected to perform acts of charity.’ He shuddered.

  ‘Little fear of that,’ I said.

  ‘I am not sure if I believe that the road to hell is paved with good intentions,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘but the road to ruin certainly is. The tea is stewing, Miss Middleton.’

  I poured three cups through a silver strainer and splashed some milk into mine and the inspector’s. He spooned two sugars into his and stirred vigorously.

  ‘The water is flat,’ Sidney said, and I raised my hand to attract the lady’s attention.

  ‘We have a free chair,’ I called and my guardian groaned.

  ‘I was about to point that out,’ the lady said, and turned to the waitress. ‘Fetch me a clean cup, miss, and more hot water.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  The lady sat heavily opposite me.

  ‘And a big slice of pie,’ she called. ‘I do hope she heard. Oh, you are that horrid policeman.’

  ‘Am I?’ Inspector Pound smiled uneasily.

  ‘You know you are.’ She turned the pot so that the handle faced her. ‘Trying to convince everybody that that sweet little man is a murderer. Well, you have not deceived the jury, I hope. One look at William Ashby tells you he is innocent.’

  ‘But all the evidence points to his guilt,’ Inspector Pound said.

  ‘Evidence is a trained monkey.’ The woman peeped into our milk jug. ‘It will point wherever you want it to but it does not mean anything by it.’ She sniffed the milk and poured a lot into her cup.

  Sidney Grice laughed and said, ‘I had not thought of it in those terms before. Might I help you with your hat, madam? It looks like it is about to escape.’

  ‘Like an untrained monkey,’ the inspector said, producing a neat meerschaum pipe and a small penknife to scrape it out.

  ‘No, you may not.’ The woman jerked her head away and her hat slipped a little further back.

  The waitress returned with a jug of hot water and a cup and saucer as the inspector tapped some tar-soaked strands into a brown china ashtray.

  ‘No pie?’ As the lady asked, Sidney Grice leaned towards her. ‘Leave it alone, sir.’

  Sidney Grice leaned back.

  ‘I was merely trying to see how it was fastened, or not, in this case.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ I said. ‘A man’s life is in the balance and all you can worry about is tea and millinery.’

  ‘It is from the seemingly trivial that some of our greatest advances have been made,’ Sidney Grice said, and seemed about to take something from his inside breast pocket but then to think better of it.

  ‘Quite so.’ Inspector Pound brought out a scratched leather pouch and unbuttoned the flap. ‘Where would we be today, for example, without James Watt’s observations of the steam from a kettle?’

  ‘It would be nice to see a bit more steam from the kettles in this cafe,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘This tea is cold as Sarah Ashby.’

  Inspector Pound laughed and tamped some tobacco lightly into his pipe with his finger.

  ‘That is a filthy thing to say,’ I said as the doorbell clattered again and a police constable came in breathlessly, brushing past the waitress and straight to our table. He bent and whispered into Inspector Pound’s ear.

  ‘So soon?’ The inspector raised his eyebrows and the constable mouthed, ‘Yes, sir.’

  Inspector Pound slipped an unstruck match back into its box and nodded to Sidney Grice.

  ‘Come, Miss Middleton.’ My guardian stood up abruptly.

  ‘Are you going?’ the woman asked.

  ‘It would seem so,’ I said, and she smiled contentedly and tapped the pot with her spoon, saying, ‘All the more for me then.’

  Sidney Grice slapped a shilling on to the table and said, ‘Good day, madam. I hope your pie arrives soon or there shall be nothing left of you.’

  There were still people queuing to get into the cafe as we hurried back down the street.

  ‘Why the hurry?’ I asked. ‘The jury cannot have been out for half an hour yet.’

  ‘Well, they are back in now.’ Sidney Grice was limping badly. ‘So we should be in time to see how Ashby takes the news.’

  ‘Two to one says he tries to change his story,’ Inspector Pound said.

  ‘Not him,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘Besides, what could he change it to?’

  ‘He could claim it was suicide,’ the inspector said with a thin laugh.

  I made no response as we re-entered the building. I was still hoping that the jury would see what the lady and I had seen – the innocence of his eyes.

  23

  The Verdict

  We had hardly reclaimed our seats when it was time for us to rise for the judge. The twelve men filed in and William Ashby was brought back into the dock. He stumbled as he climbed the step
s and grabbed his escort’s arm to steady himself.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said and stood looking about him, at Grace Dillinger sitting anxiously with the priest, at the jury grave-faced in their box, at Inspector Pound, Sidney Grice and me, then back at Grace Dillinger who tried to force a smile.

  ‘All be seated,’ the usher called as the judge adjusted his wig.

  The chairman of the jury handed a note to the usher, who gave it to the clerk, who passed it on to the judge, who unfolded it with a weary air.

  ‘Members of the jury in the case of the Queen versus William Ashby, have you come to a verdict?’

  The chairman stood, a petty thin-lipped man, suddenly finding himself important.

  ‘We have, my lord.’

  William Ashby coughed helplessly into a bloodstained handkerchief.

  ‘And is it the decision of you all?’

  ‘It is, my lord.’

  ‘The prisoner will stand.’

  William Ashby rose painfully, his eyes etched grey, his right hand holding the polished brass rail.

  ‘On the charge of wilfully murdering his wife, one Sarah Ashby, how do you find the prisoner?’

  The chairman paused to savour the greatest moment of his life and the words which decided William Ashby’s rang out proudly. ‘Guilty, my lord.’ His face glowed with the death that he delivered and the courtroom burst into a fusillade of clapping and cheers.

  ‘Oh dear God,’ I whispered.

  ‘Excellent.’ My guardian clapped his hands together.

  William Ashby swayed. He closed his eyes and flung back his head as the judge banged his gavel repeatedly.

  Eventually the usher restored quiet and the judge addressed the prisoner. It was a foul deed that William Ashby had performed. He took a young and innocent wife, who looked to him for support and protection, and he slaughtered her with a savagery that would have been unworthy of a wild beast. And all in the false hope of filling his coffers with silver. To compound his felony, he had cruelly deceived the poor girl’s mother into supporting him, the murderer of her child. Why, even the private detective who had been hired to clear his name was forced to the same conclusion as the court.