Death in Bayswater Read online

Page 3


  ‘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 gao
l 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 al
l 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.’