The Curse Of The House Of Foskett (The Gower Street Detective Series) Page 33

  ‘No, you need not,’ I agreed, ‘though you have just done so.’

  He scratched the back of his hand.

  ‘What about that cat man you told me of – Mr Piggety,’ Dorna suggested. ‘Could he not have acted with Rupert until Rupert killed him?’

  ‘Which might explain why Rupert committed the last crime alone,’ I said, but he shook his head.

  ‘Two people were needed to kill Piggety.’

  I took three lumps of sugar. ‘What will happen to the money if Miss McKay is executed?’

  ‘A moot point,’ he said. ‘I suspect the fight for it will go through the courts for years, every distant relative coming forward with a claim, but there is no one who can reasonably expect to inherit everything. The constitution of the society obliged their solicitor to draw up a list of all legal claimants in the unlikely eventuality of the last two members dying simultaneously, and it is a tortuous forest of family trees indeed.’ He picked up his coffee and swirled it round. ‘What I often do when faced with these conundrums is try to reconstruct the sequence of events in my imagination. I have used March for this in the past but she is pretty hopeless at it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and he waved my words aside.

  ‘You are the fourth most intelligent woman I have ever met, Dorna, so perhaps you could assist me this time.’

  ‘Where do I come on your list?’ I asked and he blinked.

  ‘You are not on it,’ he said, and Dr Berry reached over and rested her hand on his.

  ‘I will do whatever I can to help,’ she said.

  ‘I know you will.’ He stroked her fingers.

  I gazed at them. ‘Would you like me to leave?’

  ‘Oh, March,’ my guardian said, ‘I can see that you are irrationally insulted, but you must allow Dorna to be the murderer just this once.’

  70

  Playing in the Garden

  Dorna laughed in a way that would not have seemed possible half an hour previously. ‘You make it sound like a game.’

  ‘Life is a game,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘and it always ends in tears.’

  ‘Perhaps this one will end happily.’ She tried to force a smile. ‘And you must feel free to join in, March.’

  ‘Thank you, but I would rather go outside and play,’ I retorted.

  ‘Sulking is one of her less attractive qualities’ – he held his coffee under his nose and savoured the aroma – ‘but preferable to her clumsy attempts at humour.’

  ‘Do not be so hard on March,’ Dorna said and sat forward, her green eyes sparkling. ‘So how shall we start?’

  ‘Let us begin with the second murder, the man who died in my study, the chemist Horatio Green.’ He sipped his beverage and rolled it around his mouth before swallowing. ‘How did you kill him?’

  Dorna wrinkled her brow. ‘I believe you told me he was poisoned with prussic acid.’

  ‘Indeed he was, in one of the wax capsules which he inserted into his ear, but how was it replaced?’

  ‘I do not know, dear.’

  Though I knew Dorna was fond of Sidney Grice, I had never imagined her ever calling him dear. It seemed an affront to his pomposity, rather like addressing Her Majesty as ducks. He appeared to be happy enough with the epithet, though.

  ‘By the man claiming to be Reverend Golding,’ I said before they started cooing. ‘When the urchins wrecked Mr Green’s shop.’

  ‘Who better to impersonate a man of the cloth than another man of the cloth?’ He took his hands from hers and unclipped the lid of his snuffbox. ‘Remember, March, how Green told us that the vicar picked things up and gave them to him to put away. Perhaps the vicar could not reach the shelves himself.’

  ‘And Reverend Jackaman was a very small man,’ I said. ‘So whilst they were doing that, his alleged daughter put the poisoned capsule in his pill box. But who was his daughter?’

  ‘Who indeed?’ My guardian took a pinch of snuff. ‘Jackaman had no children.’

  ‘So let us assume that I – Primrose McKay – am posing as the daughter,’ Dorna said. ‘But if Reverend Jackaman were the murderer, who murdered him?’

  ‘I was nonplussed by this for a long time.’ He wriggled his nose. ‘First, I could not understand why he would have done it. The simple explanation is that he hoped to get rid of one of the other members of the society, but how did such a ruthless killer become such an easy victim?’ Sidney Grice put another pinch of snuff to his right nostril. ‘But then I thought, what if Enoch Jackaman did not know he was helping to kill Mr Green and thought he was merely assisting in a schoolboy jape, perhaps in revenge for a trick that Horatio Green, a notorious practical joker, had played on Miss McKay.’

  ‘Reverend Jackaman did not seem like a prankster,’ I pointed out. ‘And why did he not go to the police when he realized the consequences of his actions?’

  ‘Who would have believed him against the delightful and powerful Primrose?’ Sidney Grice produced a large blue handkerchief with white polka dots. ‘The mistake I made was in wondering what Jackaman had to gain by his actions. What I should have been wondering was what he had to lose.’

  ‘Blackmail,’ I said.

  ‘Precisely.’ He turned to Dr Berry. ‘Do you have any observations about that?’

  She unfolded a napkin. ‘Perhaps I tempted him into improper behaviour – got him to write me a letter, for example. The consequences of that being made public could be ruinous to a clergyman.’

  ‘I can think of no more seductive a temptress.’ He dusted his upper lip.

  ‘I feel a little queasy,’ I said.

  ‘Is the coffee too strong?’ Dorna enquired.

  ‘Not the coffee.’ I took another sip to remove the taste in my mouth. ‘So Primrose has lured the reverend into a compromising situation and tricked him into helping her with a murder. What next?’

  He folded his handkerchief and tucked it away. ‘Let us proceed to the third death, that of Silas Braithwaite.’

  ‘The dentist?’ Dorna asked. ‘I believe you told me he was not even a member of the society.’

  ‘He perplexed me the most,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘especially as his death was probably suicide.’

  ‘I thought that you said it was an accidental death,’ I objected and he tutted.

  ‘I said it could have been accidental. He was not killed by Jenny, his Salopian maid. You would need a cool head to carry out a crime like that, but the moment I put her coolness to the test she fainted. I would have been moderately satisfied with the misadventure theory, especially as I was not investigating his death,’ he turned the tray and pulled it towards him slightly so that it was exactly in the middle of the table, ‘until you, Dorna, spotted Primrose in his house. Let us imagine that Silas Braithwaite had been involved in the murder of the taxidermist Edwin Slab and that he was also acting under duress. Perhaps pressure was being applied to make him commit another murder. There are two kinds of blackmailers. The most common are after a reward, sometimes – how shall I put this? – personal services, but more often money, and they usually increase their demands until they have drained their victims’ finances. The cleverer blackmailers operate what I describe in my paper – A Brief History of Felonious Extortion Techniques in Modern Society – as a cascade. The victim is first caught in or enticed into committing a small offence. It may not even be illegal, but its exposure could be highly embarrassing and socially ruinous. He or she is then coerced by threats of exposure to commit an act which is illegal. From then on, the victim is trapped in a descending spiral of offences. The more he does, the more he is compelled to do and, once he has been implicated in murder, why then his very life is in the extortionist’s hands. Handing over all his money would be the least of his problems. You, Dorna—’

  ‘In my role as Primrose,’ she put in.

  ‘I thought we had established that.’ I was getting a little impatient with her coyness.

  Sidney Grice continued as if neither of us had spoken. ‘Persuaded Silas Braithwaite to t
ake part in the murder of Edwin Slab. The chances are that he did not know what he was letting himself in for until it was too late, but somebody held Mr Slab whilst he was injected.’

  ‘Perhaps Primrose told Silas Braithwaite that she was just going to give Mr Slab a sedative while she hunted for incriminating letters,’ I suggested.

  ‘Which would tie in with my observation that the study had been searched.’ He rolled his carrots around the plate before selecting the most symmetrical of them.

  ‘They then go back to the workroom where Silas is horrified to find that Mr Slab has suffered a fatal seizure,’ I said. ‘So he helps to tip Mr Slab into the tank of formaldehyde in the belief that it will make the death look accidental, not realizing that it will do the exact opposite as the lungs will not inhale any liquid.’

  ‘And Primrose makes certain that foul play will be suspected by leaving the syringe on the floor and moving the ladder from the tank’ – he dipped his carrot into the salt – ‘little knowing that Rosie Flower, the senile housekeeper, will supervise the most thorough destruction of evidence I have ever seen.’

  ‘If I had not had my suspicions, they might have got away with it,’ Dorna said.

  Mr G straightened his back. ‘It is unlikely any murderer could escape my investigations.’

  ‘And Silas Braithwaite is so appalled at what he has done, or so frightened of being made to commit another murder, that he kills himself,’ I suggested.

  ‘This is all guesswork.’ Dorna finished her coffee. ‘What makes you think that Silas Braithwaite was involved at all?’

  ‘His trousers.’ Mr G waved his carrot as if conducting the conversation. ‘First, they had been splashed with a bleach which smelled very like formaldehyde, though I did not know the significance at the time.’

  ‘But why did he not change them?’ I said.

  ‘Because, as Jenny his maid told us – if you were listening and not daydreaming about wandering lonely as a cloud or some such nonsense – his other clothes were at the laundry, which was holding them in lieu of payment.’

  ‘And second?’

  ‘When I picked at them I found traces of a fine white powder, which Dr Manderson of the University College chemistry department analysed as hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate, otherwise known as alum, which is used by taxidermists to tan animal hides.’

  ‘It is also used by unscrupulous millers to adulterate flour and Jenny’s father was a miller.’ Even as I pointed that out I knew it was a meaningless coincidence.

  He clicked his tongue. ‘I am afraid that March tends to say the first thing that flits through her head.’

  ‘There was a sack of white powder on the floor of the workroom where he died,’ I remembered, and was rewarded with, ‘Well done, you have finally bleated out something relevant.’

  Dorna put her cup down heavily. ‘She is hardly more than a child. Do you have to be so rude to her?’

  ‘No, but I choose to be,’ he said. ‘She is little enough use as it is without making her any more swollen-headed.’

  I was not sure whether his intentional or her unintentional insult wounded me more, but something jogged in my mind, though I could not think what it was.

  ‘But who rang the bell that Rosie Flowers answered before she found Mr Slab’s body?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, I did, to vex Sidney.’ Dorna smiled. ‘You know how he hates being teased.’

  Mr G tisked. ‘It is a pointless exercise, like trying to teach the French to cook.’

  Dorna and I looked at each other and raised our eyes, while he smoothed a crease out of the tray cloth.

  ‘A few days after Mr Braithwaite died, I believe you saw somebody in his house,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps it was a patient seeking to destroy any connection with him,’ Dorna suggested, ‘to avoid any taint of scandal.’

  ‘Or you looking for a suicide note implicating you in the crime,’ I said.

  ‘Me?’ Dorna queried. ‘Goodness, I have been busy.’ She touched her blouse and I remembered the time when we had been alone in my guardian’s study. ‘Perhaps it was his shade.’

  ‘Please do not start seeing them,’ Mr G beseeched. ‘March has friends who see them everywhere.’

  ‘And for a moment I thought I saw the ghost of Eleanor Quarrel in the hospital once,’ I admitted, and Dorna shivered.

  ‘Well, I hope she does not reappear. I think I have seen enough murderesses for one day.’

  ‘Be careful, March.’ My guardian handed me his napkin. ‘You have spilled your coffee.’

  71

  Gas Leaks and Crumbs

  Dorna passed me two napkins.

  ‘I hope I did not get any on the rug.’ I mopped my dress.

  ‘Do not worry.’ She refilled all our cups.

  ‘Shall we continue?’ Sidney Grice looked at his watch.

  ‘Where were we?’ Dorna asked.

  ‘Well, so far,’ I counted them off on my fingers, ‘you have killed Edwin Slab with the aid of Silas Braithwaite, Horatio Green assisted by Reverend Jackaman, driven Silas Braithwaite to suicide and searched his house.’

  Dorna laughed a little too loudly. ‘It seems quite a hectic life being a murderess.’

  He huffed. ‘Do try to take this seriously.’

  She trembled and I stood to put my shawl around her. ‘If I did that I should have to take to my bed for a year.’ Her voice became shaky again.

  ‘Can you go on?’ I sat down and she nodded silently.

  My guardian bit off the tip of his carrot. ‘Let us consider the peculiarly cruel death of the diminutive Reverend Enoch Jackaman.’

  ‘Well,’ Dorna shook herself, ‘you told me how he died but did I kill him by myself or with yet another accomplice?’

  ‘One moment.’ We watched in silence as he re-dipped his carrot and nibbled it slowly. ‘Delicious.’ He dabbed his lips. ‘And all the way from Lincolnshire, if I am not mistaken.’ He put the carrot down. ‘Here is where you strike a bit of luck. You find a man who is greedy, lacks any kind of compassion and is not in the least bit squeamish.’

  ‘Prometheus Piggety,’ I said.

  ‘The cat man?’ Dorna lowered a lump of sugar into her coffee and opened the tongs to let it sink.

  ‘The very same.’ He twisted his chain and let the watch spin round. ‘I cannot imagine that he would have needed much persuasion to participate in a murder that was very much to his advantage. If he could dispose of the vicar and Warrington Gallop, there would only be Miss McKay and Baroness Foskett left. Whoever won the duel between Prometheus and Primrose could probably anticipate waiting for the baroness to predecease him or her naturally. After all, she was an old woman and to kill her would have made the survivor the only suspect.’

  ‘So how do we dispose of the vicar?’ Dorna stirred her beverage and clinked the spoon dry.

  ‘You make him sound like a waste product,’ I objected.

  ‘Perhaps that is all he was – to Mr Piggety,’ she said despondently.

  ‘The greatest problem is getting into the church,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘The front door is locked but the back door lock was faulty and could not be used. This would not have worried Jackaman overly as it led into a high-walled garden with a securely bolted solid gate, leading on to Mulberry Street, and the only other entrance was through the rectory, which was also locked, with his trusted housekeeper inside. But she is the weakest point of his defences. It takes a rare level of expertise to break into a house from the front on a busy street unobserved in broad daylight – I have only managed it twice myself. But servants are almost invariably dull-witted. Why else would they be servants?’

  ‘Perhaps they have not had our advantages,’ I suggested.

  A furniture van paused outside the window, cutting the daylight, and then reversed.

  ‘Indeed they have not,’ he agreed, ‘our greatest advantage being our superior minds. Remember I found that cloth cap? Piggety, wearing an old coat with the collar up and the cap low over his face�
�’

  ‘He must have bought them from that road digger with red hair,’ I interrupted. ‘I said at the time that the—’

  ‘Piggety rings the rectory doorbell,’ Mr G carried on tetchily, ‘and tells the housekeeper that there is a gas leak from the roadworks. She must evacuate the house immediately, taking the cook and maids with her, to the safety of nearby St Michael’s Church until she is told it is safe to return.’

  ‘She must have been told that her employer had already gone or she would not have left without him,’ I speculated.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Now, where was I? Piggety tells her he must come into the house to secure the gas supply. She goes out and leaves him to it. He lets you in. You both exit the rectory into the garden, enter St Jerome’s through the back and perform the deed – whilst we are helpless to assist on the other side of the church door. You put a noose over Jackaman’s neck, lead him to the screen, nail him to it, pierce his scalp with a crown of needles, and finally his side with a spar of wood from the smashed crucifix.’

  Dorna swallowed. ‘I have seen some terrible injuries in my profession but they were all industrial or road accidents. I have never heard of anything so cruel as that.’

  Sidney Grice touched her arm. ‘Would you like to stop?’

  ‘Not if I can be of any help. This woman must be brought to justice.’ She looked down. ‘And who is to say she will not make another attempt to kill me?’

  My guardian raised her chin and held her gaze. ‘I guarantee it.’ And she forced a small smile.

  ‘How did they get out?’ I asked.

  ‘Piggety went through the back gate.’ Mr G selected another carrot, leaving his half-eaten one aside. ‘He threw his bloodstained overclothes into the bushes and went out on to Mulberry Street where, if he was noticed, no one would think it worth mentioning as he has a stall there, selling…’ He pointed at me with the carrot.