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Death in Bayswater Page 9
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The first few minutes of her interview were taken up by Frances attempting to convince him that their transaction was not to involve any large sums of money and she had no fixed schedule of rewards in which the more colourful the information he provided the more she would pay for it.
He grunted in disappointment, and muttered something about it being hardly worth his while to come. Frances was annoyed and spoke to him severely. ‘Might I remind you, that Jim Price is an honest young man who will die in just over two weeks for a crime he did not commit unless I can help him. Of course I will pay for your time but your information must be the truth or it is worth nothing at all, and I will pay nothing for it.’
‘All right, but there’s not that much to tell. I want tobacco money at least.’
‘You shall have tobacco money. Now, in your own words, what do you recall of the night Martha Miller was killed? Start with when you arrived for a drink at the Shakespeare.’
It was a rambling tale, full of inconsequential detail about his health and want of money and people he disliked, although he did remember those he had spoken to at the Shakespeare and who had stayed behind after he left, thus supplying a number of local men with alibis. ‘Then Martha came in, all of a bother, saying she wanted to speak to Jim, her intended.’
‘Did she say what it was about?’
‘No, but she was upset about something. I thought he was wanted at home, perhaps there’d been someone took ill. Anyhow, landlord said he hadn’t seen Jim that night, and he thought if he was going to be there he would have come by then. He said if Jim did come in he would say she’d been in looking for him. So she went out.’
‘She arrived alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was she there long?’
‘No more’n a minute or so. One or two offered to buy her a beer but she said no.’
‘When she left, she was alone?’
‘She was.’
‘Did you ever see Martha with a man other than Jim? I mean a sweetheart, not just a friend.’
He shook his head. ‘No nothing like that. She liked Jim, and only Jim.’
‘Were there other men sweet on her?’
‘Oh, well, she was a good-looking lass, and nice tempered, not like some, so there would have been a few, all right.’
‘Do you know who they were?’
‘No.’
‘That night – did you notice when she left the Shakespeare if anyone followed her or left very soon after she did?’
Mackie looked about him and licked his lips as if he wanted a drink. The carafe of water on the table seemed not to meet his requirements. ‘Not that I saw or would swear to.’
‘The men who offered to buy her a drink – they didn’t attempt any familiarities?’
He shook his head. ‘Landlord won’t stand for that, and they know it.’
‘Did any of them leave after Martha did?’
‘No, I know ’em and they were still there drinking when I went.’
‘You don’t know where was she going?’
‘Back home I suppose but she didn’t say.’
‘Was she carrying anything with her? A reticule? A parcel? An envelope?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘How soon after she left did you leave?’
He held out a dirt-grained finger and thumb as if measuring the depth of beer in a glass. ‘That soon. Not long.’
‘When you left, how busy was the Grove?’
‘It was quiet. Most of the shops had shut up by then. Not that many folk about. I didn’t see anyone sneaking away if that’s what you want to know. Not Jim nor anyone else; the police already asked me all that.’
‘Was there much traffic on the road?’
‘Might have been. A cab, a carrier’s cart.’
Frances wondered if the murderer, seeing Mackie emerge from the Shakespeare, could have escaped unseen by leaping on to the back of a cart without the driver’s knowledge and so been borne quickly away, but that might have applied to anyone, including her client.
She regarded her visitor carefully, wondering how good a witness he was. ‘What is your eyesight like, Mr Mackie?’
‘Used to be good when I was young. Not so good now.’
‘How did you find Miss Miller? She was in a shop doorway. It was dark.’
‘I didn’t see her at first. I heard her groan, only it wasn’t a groan, more like the last breath leaving her body. Do you know what that sounds like? I’ve heard it more than once and it isn’t something you forget. I knew someone was dying there and I went to see.’ He made an odd little movement of the fingers, the kind of anticipatory rubbing as if thinking of getting something and Frances realised that he had not gone to help, but to see if there was anything he could steal. ‘I couldn’t see nothing, as she was all in the shadows, so I lit a match and had the shock of my life. I knew it was her straightaway, she had a blue shawl, only there was all blood on it.’
‘Did you touch the body?’
‘What, and get blood on my hands?’ He pawed at his neck, seamed with dirt under a grubby collar. ‘No, or it’d be me in Newgate now and not Jim. No, I let well alone and went back to the Shakespeare for another beer.’
The last visitor of the day was the rent collector, Mr Seaton. He was a portly man of indeterminate age whose large unshaven jowls flowed over the collar of a long coat, which boasted many pockets, all so heavily stuffed with bundles of paper that the garment was several inches in depth. The coat, Frances realised, was effectively a travelling office, containing everything he required for his business, and he walked about in it as a snail travelled in its shell. He sat down and looked at his watch. ‘You get five minutes of my time for nothing, and after that we talk terms,’ he said abruptly, snapping the timepiece shut.
Frances had already studied Mr Seaton’s testimony at the trial in which he had been adamant that Jim and Martha had quarrelled bitterly the day before she was murdered so decided not to revisit the facts, but test them.
‘Then we will get to business without delay. Do you think that it is possible that the quarrel you overheard was not a serious disagreement but something more in the nature of joking or teasing?’
His glance was hard and unfriendly. ‘I know what I heard! He asked her right out; demanded to know if she had been untrue with another man; and she said she had not. Then he said that she had been seen with this man, and she said it was a lie and then she cried. Real tears. Nothing joking or teasing about that!’ he added sarcastically thrusting out his lower lip.
‘Had you heard them quarrel before?’
‘No.’
‘So you have no way of knowing if that was the usual manner in which they had a disagreement?’
‘No. I don’t see that matters. I heard enough to know what was going on. I’ve heard people argue before,’ he added with a sneer. ‘If that was how they usually went on, then I’m not surprised how it turned out.’
‘But according to your testimony you weren’t in the same room as Jim and Martha. So you couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, their gestures.’
‘Didn’t need to.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I was in the parlour waiting for Mrs Miller to fetch the rent money.’
‘And where were they?’
‘They must have been in the back, in the wash house.’
‘My point is that if you didn’t see them you can’t know if Martha cried real tears or just pretended to. You don’t know if Jim was really angry.’
‘Well, I heard them,’ he said obstinately.
‘Was there washing being done? I know Mrs Miller takes in washing.’
He hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘So was water boiling in the copper? And were clothes being plunged and rinsed? That would have made some noise.’
‘I suppose so. I was in the next room, I didn’t see all that.’
‘And are you saying that with all that noise of boiling and washing you could tell that Martha wa
s genuinely crying, and could tell just from their voices that it was a real quarrel and not a pretend one? Because Jim Price told me they used to have pretend quarrels because they enjoyed the making up.’
He made no reply but looked at his watch again.
‘You have three minutes to satisfy me that I ought to believe your testimony at the trial.’
‘Well I can see I won’t do that!’ he said scornfully. ‘I know what I heard and I know it was a real quarrel and I stand by what I said.’
‘I must remind you that your words, your assumptions, based on a conversation you may not have fully heard, will hang Jim Price.’
‘Yes, and good riddance, too.’ He looked at his watch again.
‘You think he murdered her?’
‘Of course I do. Everyone does except his own family. Who else could it be?’
Frances was concerned, although she could hardly say so to his face, that Seaton’s memory and therefore his testimony had been coloured by his belief in Jim Price’s guilt. ‘Would you be prepared to re-think what you heard that day, and consider whether or not you might have been mistaken in your interpretation?’
‘No, I wouldn’t, and I won’t. I’m not going back on my word.’
‘I assume that you didn’t discuss what you heard with anyone else until after you learned of Martha’s murder?’
‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said with a triumphant grin. ‘Because when I came home I said to the wife how there was an unhappy couple in the making round at the Millers and how Jim Price’s jealousy could be the death of that girl. And when I said that she was still alive.’
CHAPTER NINE
Next morning, as early as was reasonable given the urgency of her mission, Frances went to the lodging house in Richmond Road to see what she could learn from Mr Gundry. The morning fogs were just dispersing and there was a fine damp mist in the air that swirled about her in the sharp and changeable breeze. As she drew near she saw something that she felt sure Ratty would have mentioned had it been there on the occasion of his visit the previous day. From the door knocker there hung a wreath of black crape. Frances touched the wreath and it was barely speckled with moisture. It had not been there long. She hesitated, but reminding herself that since the house was divided into apartments, there was more than one individual to whom this recent addition might apply, decided to give a firm knock at the door. After about a minute it was opened by a diminutive maid in a faded dress and greying cap.
Frances produced her card. ‘Miss Doughty. I am sorry to intrude, since I see this is a house of mourning, but I have an appointment to see Mr and Mrs Gundry.’
The maid nodded with a doleful look. ‘Missus is expecting you, but Mr Gundry died last night. You’re to come in.’
Frances’ heart sank, but she entered and followed the maid up the stairs to a door. A black ribbon was tied about the doorknob. The maid knocked, and the door was opened by a lady of some fifty years, clothed in widows’ weeds. ‘Miss Doughty,’ said the maid, in a grim monotone, and Mrs Gundry nodded and ushered Frances in.
There was a small parlour, very tidily arranged, where a gentleman sat at a table with documents before him, his sombre suit and hat trimmed with black ribbon pronouncing him to be an undertaker. He stood and bowed very formally as Frances entered. ‘I will take my leave of you, now, Mrs Gundry. I can assure you that all the necessary arrangements will be made without delay.’
He gathered up his papers, and Mrs Gundry, touching her fingertips to the mourning brooch at her throat, saw him to the door and gestured Frances to sit. ‘May I offer you any refreshment?’ she asked, with the air of one who expected all visitors to require this politeness.
Frances, reflecting that even an expected death can be shocking when it actually occurs, would have liked a cup of tea, but did not wish to put the new widow to any further trouble. ‘Thank you, that will not be necessary. I am so terribly sorry to learn of your husband’s passing. It must have been very sudden.’
Mrs Gundry sat at the table, with her new grief sitting beside her. ‘He was never right after that fall,’ she reflected. ‘I don’t really know what happened. The doctor said it was blood in his brain, but it was his mouth he hurt. When I found him on the floor his lip was cut open and one of his teeth was gone.’ She took a small black-bordered handkerchief from her sleeve but did not use it; she just stared at it, waiting for the tears to come. ‘What was it you wanted to ask him?’
Frances showed Mrs Gundry her copy of the Illustrated Police News, and pointed to the portrait of Jim Price. It was a good likeness and she wondered if it was the work of Mr Loveridge. ‘I was hoping to show this to your husband to see if he could recognise the man in this picture. After his fall, was he able to tell you what had happened to him?’
Mrs Gundry shook her head. ‘Never a word did he utter about that night. I’m sure that he knew me and he knew where he was, but he couldn’t remember falling. I asked what had happened and he just shook his head. I told him that if I asked a question he was to squeeze my hand once if it was yes or twice if it was no.’ That was when the tears started to flow, as it dawned on her that her husband would never squeeze her hand again.
If Frances’ errand had not meant life or death for her client, she would have left her questions for another day, but instead she went into the small kitchen and made tea for them both, and they drank it until Mrs Gundry was able to talk again. For a while she spoke only of how they had been married almost thirty years without a cross word, and how devoted her husband had been to his sister who was his only family.
‘Did you notice,’ asked Frances gently, ‘when he came home that night after visiting his sister, was there a scent of oranges about him?’
‘I suppose so. He’d taken some to her; he didn’t eat them himself, but she was very fond of them. They were hard for her to peel along of her arthritis so he had to peel them for her.’
‘Did he often take her oranges or was it just that evening?’
‘He’d taken her some before, but not recently.’
‘What time were you expecting him home?’
‘No later than ten o’clock. He never liked to be out after that. When the clock struck the quarter past I started to worry and I went down to look for him. That was when I found him at the bottom of the stairs.’ Her black-bordered handkerchief was by now bunched into a damp knot, and she wiped her eyes with it.
‘Do you know what time he left his sister’s house that night?’
‘No. I went to see Liza this morning to tell her about poor Bob, and she was that upset, I didn’t think to ask her. Is it important?’
‘It could be. Your husband could still provide an alibi for a man suspected of murder.’
‘This man?’ said Mrs Gundry pointing to the picture of Jim Price. ‘I thought he was guilty.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Well he was found guilty at the Old Bailey wasn’t he?’ she said reasonably.
‘True, but courts have been known to make a mistake, or sometimes new evidence comes to light later on that was never presented at the trial.’
Mrs Gundry did not look convinced.
‘Was your husband perfectly well when he left his sister’s house that night?’
‘Now you mention it, she told me he said he thought he had a headache coming.’
‘Do you know if anyone saw him on his way home on the night he was taken ill? Has anyone mentioned seeing him talking to someone?’
‘No, but there are some round here who are up to no good and wouldn’t want to say where they were.’
Frances reflected that if Mr Gundry had left his sister’s house in order to reach his home no later than ten and had been found collapsed there at fifteen minutes past the hour, then his encounter with Jim Price must have taken place at a time which fitted her client’s memory of events. The available time for Jim Price to have killed Martha and then arrive at Richmond Road was still there but it was shrinking.
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��I would like to speak to your sister-in-law.’
‘Well you can go round and see her if you like. She knows you were coming to see me this morning. She likes visitors.’ Mrs Gundry gave Frances the address and she wrote it down.
Frances thanked Mrs Gundry and took her leave. The walk from the Gundrys’ home in Richmond Road to the lodgings of Mr Gundry’s sister in Hereford Road took Frances barely five minutes. Unfortunately she did not know how long the walk would have taken Mr Gundry. He had been taken ill on the way, but where and how much it had delayed him could only be guessed at.
Mr Gundry’s sister, a lady of about sixty, was bedridden with arthritis and being attended by a nursemaid who looked to be no more than thirteen. Miss Gundry confirmed that on the night of Martha Miller’s death her brother had brought oranges and peeled one for her, and that he had complained of a pain in his head before he went home. She was sure that he had left at about his usual time, between five and ten minutes to ten. If that was the case, thought Frances, then Jim Price’s encounter with Mr Gundry had taken place very close indeed to ten o’clock, which was, as near as could be guessed, the time of Martha Miller’s murder.
There was one piece of information which Frances thought the most powerful argument that Jim Price had been telling the truth. He had mentioned the scent of orange peel before Mr Gundry had even been traced. It was a very strong indication that the two had indeed encountered each other.
Once home, Frances wrote a full description of what she had discovered and had it sent by hand to Mr Rawsthorne, trusting to his skill to convert the facts into enough evidence for a reprieve. She also wrote to the Price family to advise them of her progress, and sent a note with the details of her findings and actions to Inspector Sharrock.
The rest of her day was occupied in interviews. It was, when she thought about it, a crowded and exhausting time, in which a great deal of work had to be packed into a few days, but then she pushed the idea away and drove herself on.