Death in Bayswater Read online

  Sarah came away with the certainty that dear as the cost of the landlord’s evidence was, it would, if purchased, prove to be worthless. The Cooper’s Arms was a place where a man might go either to be seen or not to be seen as his business might require and the landlord, whose memory probably rivalled that of the proverbial elephant, made it his concern to know which of his customers demanded which level of attention.

  Mr Bonsall, landlord of the more salubrious Shakespeare on Westbourne Grove, was both pleasant and helpful, and charged nothing for his information. He confirmed that Jim Price, whom he characterised as a quiet and well-behaved young man, moderate in his consumption of beer, and who never gave any trouble, was a regular customer but he had not seen him at all on the night of Martha’s murder. He remembered Martha coming in looking very concerned, to see if she could find Jim, and he had told her that Jim had not been there that night. As she left, Bonsall had glanced at his watch, so that if Jim was to come in later he would be able to tell him when Martha had been in looking for him. It was then almost exactly ten o’clock. John Mackie had been drinking there at the time and they had had some conversation to the effect that Martha had some worry on her mind, but neither knew what it might be. The house was busy and no one heard any screams or cries from outside, but if there had been, he felt sure that they would have been heard. About five minutes later Mackie finished his beer and said goodnight. It was no more than a few minutes after that, that Bonsall heard shouts of ‘Murder!’, and Mackie had come hurrying back very upset and out of breath to say that he had found the body of a woman collapsed in a shop doorway and thought she was dead. Bonsall and some of the other customers had rushed out to see if they could help, and by then a policeman was running up with his lamp. He had recognised Martha straightaway.

  Mackie lived in Redan Place, and Sarah had had no trouble locating him there. He was a seventy-four-year-old retired bookbinder, who was mainly supported by his son, but earned a few coppers doing small repairs. Sarah did not think him robust enough to commit violent murder, but had suggested he come and see Frances to tell his story. He took some persuading, but eventually agreed to do so if he received some compensation for his trouble.

  ‘I may well end up keeping half of Bayswater in beer money,’ said Frances, and Sarah did not disagree.

  The interview she had planned for the next morning would, however, be a far harder prospect than Mr Mackie. The only way Frances could obtain any information about the recent murders in time to save Jim Price was from the police, and she already knew what Inspector Sharrock would think about that.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As Frances alighted from the cab just outside Paddington Green police station she heard a loud roaring from inside which was followed by Inspector Sharrock charging out of the front doors like an angry bull, holding a young man firmly by the collar and shaking him as a terrier might have shaken a rat. ‘And don’t come back or I’ll have you in the cells!’ he bellowed. The youth, a slender individual who seemed to be the least aggressive of persons, gave no resistance, but as he was released, stumbled, tripped and rolled down the front steps to land in a tangle of arms and legs at Frances’ feet. Sharrock was holding a document case and unrepentantly flung it down after him. It burst open and sheets of paper soared up into the air and showered down like giant snowflakes. Sharrock shook his fist and on seeing Frances gave a double-handed gesture of despair and irritation, turned, and stamped back indoors. It was not a promising start to her endeavours.

  ‘I hope you are not hurt,’ said Frances to the young man who was sitting up and rubbing his shoulder.

  ‘The main injury is to my dignity,’ he said, cheerfully, pushing a drift of auburn hair from his forehead, ‘which means no damage at all.’ He jumped up and started picking up his papers, which Frances saw were pencil sketches. One, she recognised from the distinctive Gothic elevation of All Saints church, was a drawing of Norfolk Square, in which a policeman was shining his lantern on a body lying in the gardens.

  ‘Is this your work?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ he said, brightly. ‘Allow me to introduce myself.’ He pulled a card from his pocket. ‘Christopher Loveridge. I am a student of art, a future portrait painter to the wealthy and fashionable, but currently obliged to earn a humble crust by providing sketches for the penny illustrated papers.’

  Frances supplied her own card and he read it with astonishment. ‘Miss Doughty the famous detective? What an honour this is! How fortunate I am to make your acquaintance! You must permit me to sketch you.’ He pulled a pencil from his pocket and searched through his papers for a fresh sheet.

  ‘That is very flattering,’ said Frances, ‘but I am afraid I cannot permit it. I think it would be unwise to have my portrait printed in the newspapers. Sometimes my work requires that I should not be recognised.’

  He had been about to commence the drawing, but stopped at once. ‘Oh – oh yes, I do understand. Why, how very exciting!’

  ‘I assume that you were visiting the police station in your capacity as a newspaper artist?’

  ‘Yes. I have been sent to obtain pictures concerning the recent murder in Norfolk Square.’ He selected a paper from his portfolio and showed it to Frances. It was a sketch of a young woman, a portrait study showing an oval face with too long a chin and too sharp a nose to be called pretty, but interesting nevertheless. ‘This is the victim in life.’

  ‘Miss Kearney? Is this taken from a photograph?’

  ‘No, I was unable to obtain one, but I spoke to her friends and they described her to me. I showed them this result and they all say that it is a good likeness. My intention here was to obtain permission to visit the mortuary and portray the body, not a task I would relish, but the editor was eager for me to do so if at all possible. But as you saw the Inspector was most insistent that I should not. However, I will not leave without something of interest.’ He began to draw swiftly.

  Frances could not help but watch enthralled as the picture took shape as if by magic, and laughed as she saw Inspector Sharrock’s angry features and raised fist appear.

  ‘There are those who say that the camera will replace the artist, but I disagree,’ said Loveridge. ‘My eyes are a camera, but one that can take a portrait in an instant, without any machinery or preparation, capturing a scene that is there for a moment and then is gone forever. Where is the camera that can do that? Then my pencil acts as a darkroom and develops and prints the picture on the page. No chemicals required. I can draw the discovery of a body, something no camera was ever there to see. I can picture an accused in court where no camera is allowed. Only an artist can do this.’

  ‘You have caught the Inspector’s likeness very well. Not just his appearance but his character.’

  ‘It is all in the face,’ he assured her. ‘The face is more appealing to me than any landscape. Sometimes I just stand in the street and watch passers-by and draw those whose features interest me. I have placed an advertisement in the newspapers offering to produce sketches of subjects gratis hoping that it might lead to a commission, but so far, I am sorry to say, without success.’

  ‘I would be happy to recommend you. May I have some of your cards?’

  ‘But of course!’ He supplied them with a smile. ‘And I really would like to sketch you. If I might be so bold, and speak as an artist, your face is very striking and characterful. It would make a wonderful study.’

  Frances didn’t like to mention it, but she thought that the young man had a pleasant face; not handsome by most standards, but engaging; although not being an artist she could not say if she might like to draw it. ‘I will consider it,’ she conceded, ‘as long as you do not send it to the newspapers.’

  His portfolio case had been re-stuffed with sketches, and he clasped it to his chest in a gesture of great earnestness. ‘I promise faithfully I will not. It would be yours to do with as you wish. Oh, but I am delaying you! You must be busy on one of your enquiries. Are you looking for the murderer of poor
Miss Kearney?’

  ‘No, I hope very much that the police will catch him. I am acting for Mr Jim Price, who was recently convicted of the murder of his sweetheart and is currently in Newgate awaiting execution. He declares that he is innocent and I am looking for a witness who might be able to prove it.’

  He stared at her in awe. ‘I admire anyone who would take on such a task. I wish you good luck in all your endeavours.’

  ‘And I wish the same to you.’

  ‘I must take up no more of your time, every moment of which must be of great importance. I bid you good day and hope that we may meet again.’

  ‘I am sure we will.’

  Somehow neither of them really wanted to end the conversation, but at last he raised his hat, bowed, and they took their leave of each other.

  When Frances entered the police station it was to find Inspector Sharrock standing glaring at her with folded arms, and the desk sergeant sniggering behind his hand.

  ‘All right,’ snarled Sharrock, ‘since I know I can’t make you go away, I can speak to you for five minutes but no more. But –’ he waggled an angry finger at her – ‘if you tell me you are trying to solve the murder of Miss Kearney I will have you handcuffed and taken away and locked up as a lunatic.’

  The sergeant went red in the face and almost choked.

  ‘There is no danger of that,’ replied Frances, calmly.

  ‘We shall see!’ Sharrock jerked his head at his office door and she followed him in.

  Inspector Sharrock had always had the untidiest office Frances had ever seen, but recent events had placed even further strain on the amenities. The shelves on the wall behind his desk were stuffed with folders and boxes, piled so high that they threatened to cascade on to the floor at any moment; the desk itself was invisible under disorganised heaps of paper, and a small side table for which there was barely space had been brought in to better accommodate further material. Frances looked about her in dismay.

  ‘Yes, well if people stopped murdering each other round here I’d have more room, wouldn’t I?’ snapped Sharrock. He threw himself into his battered chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘Well, what is it now?’ He looked very tired and strained, and Frances felt quite sorry for him. All the weight of the murders that she had decided were not her province was falling on to his shoulders.

  Frances took a stack of folders from the only available chair other than the Inspector’s and finding nowhere to put them, sat down and rested them on her lap. ‘I have been asked by the family of Jim Price to try and locate the man he helped on the night of Martha Miller’s murder.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Sharrock with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘Well we haven’t found him, and neither have we found the man in the moon. Perhaps they’re off having a drink together.’

  Frances knew far better than to be put off by this for even a moment. ‘I was hoping that with your permission I might speak to Constable Stuckey whose beat led him past the Cooper’s Arms that night.’

  Sharrock’s glance encompassed a world of weary skepticism. ‘I don’t know what you hope to learn from him, seeing as how he said all he had to say at the trial, and you must have read that in the papers.’

  ‘But you don’t object?’

  He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Would it make any difference if I did? I very much doubt it. I suppose I ought to be pleased you asked permission. Is that all?’ he added hopefully, starting to rise from his chair.

  ‘No,’ said Frances and he groaned and flopped back into his seat again. ‘I wanted to ask you if in the light of the two most recent murders the police are re-examining the Miller case.’

  Sharrock was visibly startled by this question, and sat up straight. At least, thought Frances, she now had his full attention. ‘Why on earth would we do that? We’ve got the man who did it. Found guilty in a court of law by twelve Englishmen and ordered by the judge to go and explain himself to his maker.’

  ‘Is it not possible,’ Frances ventured, ‘that the person who murdered Miss Faydon and Miss Kearney was also responsible for killing Miss Miller, and that Mr Price is innocent?’

  The Inspector gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘I don’t know where you get your ideas from, I really don’t. The answer, Miss Doughty, is no, for the very good reason that the murder of Miss Miller and the other cases are clearly the work of two different criminals.’

  Frances pounced on the revelation. ‘Then you do believe that Miss Faydon and Miss Kearney were killed by the same person?’

  He made a sour grimace. ‘I’d rather not think so, but it looks that way, yes.’

  ‘Would you care to elaborate on that opinion? Is it to do with the way they were killed?’

  Sharrock growled, stood up, and pummelled at a pain in the small of his back. ‘Did you know, that there are some things it isn’t right that I should talk about with properly brought up young ladies? And you were properly brought up, weren’t you? All these stabbings and cuttings – do you really want to hear about that?’

  ‘Inspector,’ said Frances very calmly and firmly, ‘this is not about me, or what I want to hear, or ought to hear, this is about saving a man’s life. I am fully prepared to risk being shocked and upset for that. Was it you who questioned Jim Price when he was arrested? Did he strike you as a man who might be guilty of such a horrible murder? I have questioned him and I believe that there is a good chance he is innocent and about to suffer for the crime of another.’

  Sharrock pushed his hands into his pockets and walked up and down, his face furrowed with indecision. ‘Martha Miller was killed by someone she knew,’ he said at last, ‘someone she trusted. She let him come right up close to her and she can’t have been alarmed until the last moment because she was never heard to scream. The killer put his hand over her mouth –’ he suddenly pulled a hand from his pocket and thrust it towards Frances, palm first and shaped like a claw, ‘there are bruises on her face, the marks of his fingers where he dug them in hard –’ the fingers clenched ‘– and he pushed her into the corner of the shop doorway; and then he started stabbing her. It was quick. I don’t think she could have known what was happening.’ His other hand came from its pocket, the fist bunched as if holding a knife, and he made a series of sharp thrusts. ‘Stab stab stab, in the chest and the stomach. Twenty times and more. By the time she knew she was being killed she was too weak with fright to cry out.’ His hands suddenly opened. ‘Then he let her fall to the ground. I don’t think it took more than a half minute, if that.’

  Frances made an effort to look at him steadily despite the horror he had just enacted. ‘Are you sure it was a man? She might have trusted a woman to come up to her.’

  ‘A man or a strong woman. But I’ve never seen a woman stab over and over like that. Women put one through the ribs and then they’re done.’

  ‘Was there a lot of blood?’

  He looked at her carefully, and judging that she was equal to hearing the rest of the story he went on. ‘Less than you’d think. No arteries slashed, no spraying. A lot of it was soaked up by her clothes. I doubt that the killer would have been covered in it, and of course Mr Price wasn’t. There was blood smeared on his hands and the front of his shirt. About what I would have expected.’

  ‘And you have never found the murder weapon?’

  ‘No. But the surgeon thought it was a very common kind of knife.’

  ‘Constable Cross was the first policeman at the murder scene?’

  ‘He was, and did what he had to well enough. But he didn’t see anyone running away. I wish he had, that would have made all our lives easier.’

  ‘Regarding the other two murders – you say that they were similar to each other but different from Miss Miller’s?’

  ‘Exactly. Miss Faydon lived in Douglas Place and we think she must have been followed there on her way home from the confectioner’s shop where she worked. It looks like the attacker approached her from behind, pulled her head back,’ he mimed the action with his left arm, �
��and cut her throat.’ A swift movement of his right hand. ‘She could never have cried out with an injury like that, and would have been dead in about a minute. Then he dragged the body into the shadows, and used the knife on her face.’

  ‘So it was also a very quick murder.’

  ‘Yes, but Miss Miller was killed in the heat of passion; the man who stabbed her was angry. Miss Faydon’s murder was a cold-blooded disposal, like slaughtering an animal.’

  ‘Except for the cuts on her face. That was not the work of a slaughterer, surely. Can you describe them?’

  Sharrock folded his arms with an air of great determination. ‘I can, Miss Doughty, but I will not do so. I have said too much already and no further will I go. No point in having every criminal in Paddington carving up their enemies in the same style. I don’t want to put ideas in people’s heads – they’ve got enough there without it.’

  ‘It seems as if the killer is signing his name to the murders. I can understand that you would want to keep those details confidential.’

  He looked relieved that she didn’t press him further. ‘I see you understand me, which is more than the press do.’

  ‘And Miss Kearney?’

  ‘Out late visiting family, coming back to Norfolk Square where she worked. Must have been crossing the gardens before the gates closed, and the attacker came out of the bushes and surprised her. Same method as Miss Faydon, attacked from behind, cut throat, then the face.’ This time he spared her the mime.