by Evelyn James
“I’ll need to talk to everyone again who was in the Noble party and ask who they were with when they climbed back aboard. Miss Dodd can no longer provide anyone with an alibi, unfortunately,” Clara shook her head. “Instead of narrowing things down, suddenly it seems that everyone could be a killer again!”
“I’ll worry about the interviews with the guests,” Park-Coombs told her. “You get on shore and begin work on finding a motive. Only lunatics kill for no reason. Somewhere, out there, is a motive for this crime.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” Clara was relieved to have someone to take the burden off her. “Do you think there any likelihood of someone in your laboratory finding fingerprints on the knife that killed Henry Kemp?”
“Wouldn’t that be good?” Park-Coombs smiled. “I like to give the boys something to work with. I’ll have Dr Deàth examine the body too. I don’t doubt the ship’s doctor; a fatal stabbing is not exactly hard to work out, but you never know what a fresh pair of eyes might see.”
Dr Deàth was the coroner for Brighton and Clara trusted his judgement. If there was anything more to find concerning Henry Kemp’s murder, Dr Deàth would discover it.
“I shall let you get on,” Clara said, returning the stained shirt to the safe for the time being. She handed Park-Coombs the safe key. “I warn you now, the Nobles are obnoxious, arrogant and full of their own self-importance.”
“Sounds just perfect!” Park-Coombs laughed. “I am sure I shall have a lot of fun interviewing them. No doubt they are heartily fed up of questions by now.”
“They are heartily fed up with me, that’s for sure!” Clara managed to laugh too. “I hope, before long, they will wish they never heard my name!”
“You find that motive, Clara, and they will definitely regret committing a crime under your nose.”
“Don’t worry Inspector,” Clara smiled. “I shall do exactly that.”
Chapter Nineteen
Clara and Captain O’Harris collected their luggage and headed for the gangplank, they were almost descending when Charles Walsh hurried over to them.
“Miss Fitzgerald, are you leaving?”
He looked urgent and upset. He had seen two work colleagues perish in the spate of a few hours, and his employers’ reaction to their deaths had not inspired confidence.
“Yes, the police are taking over the investigation aboard the Mary Jane,” Clara told him and his face fell further.
“You will not be assisting them?” He asked.
Clara smiled.
“Whatever made you think that? I shall most certainly be continuing,” she promised. “But, I think the key to this matter lies ashore. I need to discover why Henry Kemp was killed.”
“Will you be going to the Noble and Sons’ offices?”
“At some point.”
Charles Walsh quickly dug in the pocket of his trousers and produced a slip of card. He looked slightly abashed that he had a business card with him on an evening out.
“Mr Noble insists,” he explained hastily. “Never miss an opportunity to do business.”
He mimicked Arthur Noble’s pompous and bloated voice perfectly. Clara almost laughed, but restrained herself.
“Anyway…” Charles Walsh fumbled in his other pocket. He came up empty-handed. “Do you have a pen or pencil?”
Clara opened her handbag. This was not the fancy one she had worn during the evening’s festivities – the one that could only hold a handkerchief – this was her normal, every day handbag. From it she produced several pencils, all freshly sharpened. If Charles was surprised he masked it well. Taking a pencil, he wrote on the back of the card and then signed his name.
“Show this card if anyone is reluctant to work with you at the office,” he gave the card to Clara.
On the back he had quickly written ‘all assistance to be provided to the cardholder.’ Clara thought it could be very useful. She stored the card in her purse.
“Before I go, Mr Walsh, can I ask you a final question?”
“Of course,” Charles Walsh said keenly.
“To the best of your recollection, where did everyone go when they returned from the lifeboat?”
Charles Walsh was swift to reply.
“Mr Simon Noble disappeared quite quickly. I helped Miss Dodd aboard and we returned to the sun deck. Elias Noble followed us. Mr Noble arrived a short while later and eventually Mr Simon Noble returned too.”
“Miss Dodd and Elias Noble were on the sun deck all the time before you learned of Henry Kemp’s death?”
Charles Walsh paused just a moment to consider the question.
“Yes, I am certain of it.”
“Thank you,” Clara said.
As long as Charles Walsh was not lying, Miss Dodd and Elias Noble did not have an opportunity to murder Henry Kemp. She felt relieved about that. When Inspector Park-Coombs had opened up the possibility of Miss Dodd being a killer she had suddenly felt her certainty about Simon Noble’s involvement shatter. If she could be brought to doubt her conviction, then most certainly a jury who had not been ‘on the scene’ could be made doubtful. Charles Walsh had provided her with the first testimony that this was not the case. She could no longer confirm it through Miss Dodd, but Elias Noble would surely back him up? Both men had a vested interest in proving they were not the killer. That left Simon and Arthur Noble unaccounted for during the vital window of time when Henry Kemp was murdered.
Arthur Noble’s delay to arrive on the sun deck could be easily explained away – he was on a different lifeboat to the others, but that still meant there was a piece of time when he could have gone below decks. Time to move on, without a motive speculation only made things more complicated.
Saying goodbye to Charles Walsh, she headed down the gangplank with O’Harris. The day had started with a promise of sunshine. Now it had become overcast and rain threatened. Stepping back onto dry land, Clara felt a little unsteady, as if she was still at sea.
“What do you want to do?” Captain O’Harris asked her.
“I would like to visit the offices of Noble and Sons before the Nobles get ashore,” she answered. “But they are all the way in Hove.”
Captain O’Harris grinned, there was a devilish quality to it.
“That actually should not be a problem,” he glanced at his watch. “I believe Jones should be here any minute, I asked him to arrive at nine.”
“Jones?” Clara raised an eyebrow. “Who is Jones?”
“As you know, after my unfortunate flying mishap and everyone thinking I was dead for a year, my staff for the house were all dismissed. Not such a bad thing, to be honest, as many of them were old retainers from my uncle’s time. I’ve had the opportunity to reconsider exactly who I might need to help run the house. I hired Jones just before Christmas, I haven’t had the time to introduce you.”
“And what does Jones do?” Clara asked.
Before O’Harris could answer a dark burgundy car swept into the harbour. It was a Bentley manufactured just before the war and it caught the eyes of all the dock workers. You could not fail to miss it with its spotlessly shiny chassis and its purring engine.
“Jones is now my driver and responsible for all my cars,” O’Harris beamed with pride.
O’Harris had inherited a passion for all things mechanical from his uncle and had the money to indulge his interest. Between his purchases and those of his late uncle he had a garage full of cars.
“Jones is ex-RFC,” O’Harris waved at the car and then hurried towards it with the suitcases. Clara ran behind him, listening to his explanation. “He was ground crew, never flew. Excellent mechanic. I had a letter from another friend telling me that Jones was struggling to find work now he was back in blighty. I hardly had to consider before I offered him a job.”
The man named Jones stepped out of the car. He was in a tidy, but slightly old suit. He opened the back door of the Bentley for Clara and O’Harris.
“We haven’t organised the uniform yet,” O’Har
ris whispered in her ear as they clambered in.
Jones shut the door and returned to the driver’s seat.
“Where to, Sir?”
“We need to get to the offices of Noble and Sons in Hove. I can give you directions. I’ve been there a couple of times before the war,” O’Harris instructed.
Jones had left the engine running, now he drove steadily away from the harbour, guiding his charge around workers and crates of cargo.
“I thought you always drove yourself?” Clara asked O’Harris, with just a hint of concern.
His accident had knocked the captain’s confidence in more ways than one. She was slightly worried that he might have given up driving as well as flying.
“I still drive,” O’Harris reassured her. “But there are times when the car needs to be brought to me. Like today.”
They made it out of the harbour and were soon on a country road heading to Hove. Jones was a cautious driver, which Clara greatly appreciated. O’Harris might have been more impatient with his relentlessly steady driving, except that he was concentrating on the way they had to go.
Hove was a town just on the outskirts of Brighton. Very often the two were lumped together as Brighton and Hove. Neither the residents of Brighton or of Hove liked that much. They considered themselves separate places, with separate identities. However, they were also very much dependent on each other and interconnected. They therefore had to accept that, from the perspective of the outside world, they were more one place than two.
The rain began to fall and Clara was very glad to be in the dry car. She usually walked everywhere, or caught a bus. She watched the grey clouds drifting overhead and reflected that they were jolly lucky it had not rained last night. That would have made the evening unbearable.
She still felt sorry for Captain Pevsner; his last voyage had proved eventful for all the wrong reasons. Two of his guests had died. That was the sort of thing that haunted a person.
“I believe this is it, Sir.”
They had driven into the town of Hove, following O’Harris’ directions. As they took a right they came in sight of an old red-brick building. It had white faux pillars attached to the front and pale stones outlining the windows and corners. A large sign that stretched the length of the property declared that this was the home of Noble and Sons. The old building was their headquarters, actual storage of wine would be taken care of in great warehouses on the docks. It wouldn’t surprise Clara if the red-brick property had belonged to the Noble firm since the time it was constructed. It certainly had a sense of grandeur to it that only comes with age.
Jones opened the car door again and Clara hurried to the building’s entrance, which was sheltered by a narrow porch. O’Harris joined her a moment later, having given Jones instructions to wait for them where he was. Clara tried the door and found it was unlocked. She stepped into a foyer that encompassed the entire right front side of the building. Straight ahead was a staircase and a corridor, with doors leading off it. To her left there was another door, leading presumably into the front room opposite the foyer. The foyer was tiled in black and red squares. A large desk was positioned diagonally across the rear corner and faced a small seating area. A man sat behind the desk. He was dressed in a black suit and looked to be in his mid-twenties.
“Can I help?” He asked as they entered.
Clara approached the desk.
“I hope so,” she said. “I am here due to an unfortunate tragedy that has befallen two of the employees of Noble and Sons. Mr Henry Kemp and Miss Jane Dodd both passed away last night.”
The young man looked stunned.
“Oh,” he said, unable to say more for a moment. “That is something of a shock. They went out for the evening, last night.”
“They did, it was during the New Year celebrations that misfortune overtook them. The police are already involved, but I am also assisting the investigation. I have the permission of Mr Charles Walsh to do so.”
Clara produced the signed business card and showed it to the man. He read it, his fingers trembling slightly as he held the card, then he gave it back.
“Yes, that seems in order. Please, what happened?”
Clara had anticipated such a question. In the car she had thought how best to answer it. Lies were never a good idea, but the truth was also difficult. Telling someone a colleague has been murdered can only shock them. In the end, you had to just be honest and hope people did not fall to pieces because of what you said.
“Mr Henry Kemp was murdered last night.”
The man behind the desk blinked fast.
“Murdered?” He repeated the word very carefully, as if it was from a foreign language and he had never heard it before. “By whom?”
“That is what I am trying to determine,” Clara explained. “I would like to take a look at Mr Kemp’s office and I wish to have any details you hold on his next of kin.”
The man looked like he might protest, then he remembered the card he had been shown.
“Mr Walsh knows about all this?” He asked, still struggling to comprehend everything.
“Mr Walsh was present last night. He is very aware of what occurred. He has placed his full support behind me.”
“And Miss Dodd?” The man’s face slowly crumpled into despair. “Was she murdered too?”
“Miss Dodd fell overboard,” Clara said. “She was very distressed by what had occurred. She was not thinking rationally.”
Clara did not specify that Miss Dodd had attempted suicide, that was a harsh thing to say about anyone, even when it was the truth. She felt that Miss Dodd had been placed in a dreadful position and pushed to her limits. Her toppling over the rail had been impulsive, a moment of insanity. It was plain she had not truly considered death, as she made sure to float face up in the water and had reached out to hold onto the lifebelt. A person who really meant to die would have made sure to go underwater and would not have assisted the rescuers. Miss Dodd’s fall had been an impulsive act of frustration and grief. She had not deserved to die for it.
“This is terrible,” the man at the desk had gone ashen and he gripped the wooden top of his desk with his fingers so tightly they went white at the knuckles. “I can hardly fathom it. Miss Dodd is something of an institution here. She never misses a day of work and she always says hello.”
He rocked back in his chair, as if reeling from the news.
“Fell overboard? Murdered? How can this all be?”
“That is what I hope to find out,” Clara told him. “But I need to look in Mr Kemp’s office first.”
“I’m not supposed to let anyone in without his direct consent,” the man said, rubbing at the back of his head and realising how absurd his last statement had been. “Mr Kemp is never going to give that consent, but I should really ask the management as there could be private documents in his office.”
Clara held out the card Charles Walsh had signed once more.
“You have the consent of a senior manager and I can assure you I have no interest in business secrets, unless they somehow contributed to Henry Kemp’s death. Even then, my information will be going straight to the police and no one else.”
The man stared at the card a long time. He seemed very torn.
“You will not take anything from the office?” he asked.
“Not unless it is evidence of the crime committed against Henry Kemp,” Clara replied, careful to hedge around the possibility.
Still the man hesitated.
“Henry Kemp was murdered,” Clara reminded him, though she doubted he needed it. He just needed to be nudged into action and to realise that helping her was more important than any private documents. “To find his killer, I must explore all avenues. I have to look in his office.”
Palpably upset, the man slowly nodded. Then he slipped from his chair and went to a cupboard mounted on the wall. When he opened it dozens of keys on hooks were displayed. He picked one and handed it to Clara.
“I hope this helps. I ho
pe you find who did this.”
Clara thanked him as she took the key.
“I know I shall find who did this,” she promised; an easy thing to say as she already did know.
Thanking the man at the desk again, Clara and O’Harris headed up the stairs and towards Henry Kemp’s private domain.
Chapter Twenty
Henry Kemp had a spacious office that overlooked the street outside. It was lined with oak panels on the walls and the ceiling. There was something rather oppressive about the dark wood, it also cast an aura of complete masculinity. This was not a room a woman was supposed to enter without permission, or to feel comfortable in.
A large bay window cast grey light from the dull day outside onto a great desk. Henry Kemp kept his work space clean and uncluttered. There were no loose papers on his desk; ones that needed urgent attention were stacked in a shallow wooden tray. A fountain pen sat in a leather case, Clara opened the box and saw that it was a black pen engraved with the initials H.K. She wondered if it was an act of vanity on Kemp’s part, or a present from someone who cared about him.
Pencils and a rubber sat in a rectangular wooden tray, all ready for use. A large mechanical pencil sharpener stood on the edge of the desk. That was everything, aside from a green blotter that filled the centre of the desk.
“Last time I saw a desk this obsessively tidy it belonged to an army colonel. I had a rough landing just behind the front line and I was a bit bruised. I was escorted to his office while waiting for a transport to take me back to my base,” O’Harris ran a finger down the edge of the desk as if looking for dust. “This colonel had made a temporary office in the ruins of a beautiful chateau. You could tell, even though the place was a wreck, that it had once been stunning. Only a handful of rooms remained and he had found one with this antique desk. I remember walking in and there he sat behind it, surrounded by rubble, dust and plaster occasionally falling from the ceiling, broken furniture shoved to the sides of the room. And yet, his desk was pristine, not an extra object or one out of place. It was his way of taking control of a situation that had grown out of hand. He could not stop the war, or the destruction, but he could take charge of that desk and keep it perfect.”
