Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  Nell took this to mean a word in private and escorted him to the Cooking Pot. This didn’t go unnoticed by Mrs Fielding, who just happened to be emerging from her nearby still room.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on Kitty for you,’ she said gloatingly, heavy with the implication that Nell was once again sneaking off and leaving all the work to her. She was clearly delighted with the opportunity to score.

  Nell schooled herself to smile in gratitude. ‘Thank you, Mrs Fielding.’

  Alex looked amused. ‘My apologies, Nell.’

  ‘Nothing new. If it wasn’t this, she’d take the next chance that came along.’

  ‘The Yard has its Mrs Fieldings too.’

  ‘I’ll suggest ours takes a job there then.’

  ‘Too kind. Nell, you’ll be relieved to know we’ve finished our search here, though less relieved that we are now treating this as a murder case. A large dose of arsenic was indeed found in the post-mortem. All our search came up with here, however, is that there’s a tin of rat poison possibly missing from one of the outhouses.’

  ‘They’re usually locked, but I did find Jethro James in the game larder late one night. Either the door was left unlocked, or he managed to get in anyway.’

  ‘Part of his so-called job he professed at the inquest, if I remember correctly. The possibly missing rat poison though would have been taken from the barn with the farm equipment and stores in it. The only keys to it are kept by Mr Ramsay and Mr Peters, as I’m sure you know, but they have admitted that they are sometimes left unlocked for periods of time.’

  Nell’s heart sank. This was not going to be plain sailing for Wychbourne Court then. ‘Oh,’ was all she could find to say.

  ‘That’s not a sleuth-like comment,’ Alex replied lightly.

  ‘Most amusing.’ She was determined not to be riled. ‘How’s this then? The poison could possibly have come from Wychbourne Court, but it’s easy enough to buy arsenic in some form or other.’

  ‘Not so easy. These aren’t the days of yore for the would-be poisoner. Under the Arsenic Act you can’t simply put on a false moustache, pull your hat over your eyes and rush into any old supplier to buy it over the counter. Registers have to be signed and the seller has to know the buyer. Flypapers aren’t so handy either. The law was tightened after the Frederick Seddon case.’

  ‘There must be thousands of tins of rat poison and flypapers already in people’s houses, just as there are here,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That’s true, Nell, but think it through. One doesn’t get invited to a country house and go ferreting around in the hope of finding a half-used tin of poison; nor does one climb up to grab a flypaper in one’s host’s drawing room; and nor does one attend a funeral service clasping tins of rat poison in the hope of finding some way of murdering someone.’

  ‘If Mr Jarrett’s murder was planned in advance, one of the funeral congregation could have come prepared with the arsenic,’ she contributed. ‘It wouldn’t take up much space in a pocket or handbag.’

  ‘That, I concede, is possible.’

  Well done, Nell, she thought savagely. She realized she’d neatly trapped the shadow over Wychbourne Court instead of lifting it. ‘What you say could apply to anyone at the funeral gathering,’ she made haste to add. ‘Except John Palmer, of course.’

  ‘Agreed. Nell, I managed a brief visit to Rocke’s home yesterday to look at those files and drawers you mentioned. One very strange man, to say the least.’

  ‘Tell me what I missed.’

  ‘What both of us might have missed. Like you, I’m sure there’s something there, but what? Signs of an inflated sense of self together with an unhealthy interest in other people, chiefly those on the stage. I did notice one thing: the reviews and photographs in the files mostly cover the whole of each subject’s career. The dates written on the photographs in the drawer are of the day they were taken, but almost every one of them coincides with the point in their file at which there’s a neat line drawn across the page. Couple with it the as yet unexplained black crosses, and we have some important unanswered questions. There are crosses on only a few of the file subjects, Lynette Allison, now Mrs Reynolds, is among them and of course Mary Ann Darling. My sergeant thinks they were Rocke’s random choice of victims, perhaps those who didn’t pay up or pay enough.’

  ‘Why would black crosses and lines be random?’

  ‘He frowned. ‘Unlikely, I agree. Tobias Rocke doesn’t seem to me a man who did anything at random. See what you think. I broke my own rules and brought some of the photographs in the drawer and several of the files.’ He hauled out the contents of his holdall and spread them out on her table.

  ‘Look at Hubert Jarrett’s file,’ he said. ‘There’s a huge number of clippings from 1893 onwards and several photographs. None with crosses, though. A line is drawn under the clipping from June 1893, the month Mary Ann Darling disappeared, and there were photographs of him in the drawer: one of him – we think – in the bushes possibly at her home, and two others. The Alice Maxwell clippings date from 1896, the line is drawn under 1909, and again no black crosses. But the Cannes photo of her with Tobias and Doris Paget is taken the same year. The file on Constance Jarrett presents the same puzzle. And here’s Mary Ann Darling herself.’ He opened the file. ‘Clippings from 1891 with a few interesting early ones, as you noted. I agree that Elsie Hawkins must have been her birth name. Line drawn under 1893. No photograph of her with Tobias, but a black cross scarring her photograph at the end of the file. Do you make anything more of it, Nell?’

  ‘Only a custard definitely curdled,’ she admitted. It should have been a smooth mystery to solve, but it wasn’t coming together.

  ‘May I leave this with you then? I have to return to London.’

  ‘Certainly, Chief Inspector Melbray,’ she replied in her best sleuthing voice, hoping she sounded more confident than she was.

  ‘I’m obliged to you, Miss Drury.’ He bowed to her gravely.

  Alex Melbray wasn’t the only caller that morning. Arthur Fontenoy also popped in unannounced, as she was about to begin the chrysanthemum salad. It was another of Mrs Leyel’s exciting recipes and Nell had begged a few of the flowers from Mr Fairweather. He had been depending on them for providing flowers for the house, a difficult task in January, but he’d graciously parted with just a few of the precious blooms.

  ‘I’m told Lady Ansley and Mrs Jarrett aren’t arriving until tomorrow, Nell. After luncheon, I gather,’ Arthur said. ‘However, I thought I should mention, in the interests of your detective work, that Mr Trotter is very anxious to make his departure before she arrives just in case Mrs Reynolds chooses to reappear with them. I understand that she and Mr Trotter are not on good terms. I’m also aware that because of his faking spirit photographs he has a motive for Tobias’s murder and possibly therefore for Mr Jarrett’s. Furthermore, since his so-called photographic embellishments have come to our attention, he is clearly anxious to leave Wychbourne behind him. It occurs to me therefore that I could offer to take him by motor car to Sevenoaks station after luncheon, and so—’

  ‘It might be essential for me to have an errand or two there. How wise you are, Arthur.’ True, she had been intending to grapple with Tobias’s files and photographs, but she couldn’t miss this offer.

  ‘What an excellent opportunity to hold Mr Trotter captive for the motor journey,’ she declared, when she duly appeared outside Wychbourne Cottage after luncheon in her role of eager shopper. She insisted diplomatically on taking the rear bucket seat of the Armstrong-Siddeley, yielding the front one to Mr Trotter. That way he would effectively be ‘trapped’, rather than let him sit isolated in the rear. He was clearly nervous, and she deliberately remained silent while Arthur was cranking the engine. As he climbed back into the motor car, Mr Trotter was forced to speak.

  ‘So unfortunate, this business of Mr Jarrett’s death,’ he said miserably.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Nell piped up from behind him. ‘And worrying too, as we
were all in the Coach and Horses when the poison might well have been administered.’

  ‘As were many other people,’ Mr Trotter replied immediately.

  ‘If only there hadn’t been all this misunderstanding over your photographs,’ Arthur said helpfully, gently manoeuvring the Armstrong-Siddeley around a hedgehog plodding across the driveway. ‘The police have necessarily had to look at everyone who had reason to dislike Tobias Rocke and by extension Hubert Jarrett – after all, he might have known who killed Tobias.’

  Mr Trotter clutched the lifebelt he’d been thrown. ‘A misunderstanding, yes indeed. They were merely touches to embellish the photographs in order to reassure the spirits I summoned from the spirit world.’

  ‘Mr Rocke,’ Nell observed, ‘might have gained a totally different impression when he visited your darkroom on the Saturday morning.’

  Mr Trotter totally agreed. ‘He must have seen the extra glass plates and old photographs I brought with me to persuade their spirits to join us; also a flash-lamp, and one or two small wigs for the same purpose. There is nothing fraudulent about that.’

  ‘Yet they might have created a false impression,’ Arthur murmured regretfully.

  ‘Only to the untrained eye,’ Mr Trotter said indignantly. ‘Mr Rocke spoke most rudely to me. Even though my darkroom was in proper professional order, he threatened to publicize his findings to the Society for Psychical Research and put a most unfortunate interpretation on them. It might have ruined me.’

  ‘And no doubt Mr Rocke took full advantage of that,’ Nell said sympathetically.

  A silence, then: ‘Yes,’ Mr Trotter mumbled. ‘He wanted me to introduce him to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and made other impossible demands.’

  ‘Much better,’ Arthur commented gravely, ‘to have the truth on the table. Or rather on the Ouija board. Did that have embellishments too?’

  ‘Pray don’t discuss that with Lady Clarice,’ Mr Trotter gasped. ‘I did so much want to please and the Ouija board often doesn’t work without encouragement, so I …’

  ‘Gave it a little help?’ Nell suggested when he stumbled to a halt.

  ‘I tried to, without success,’ he agreed unhappily. Then he rallied. ‘But it moved of its own accord at the end. It really did. I was most alarmed. Such a triumph, though! If you recall, it correctly foretold Death.’

  ‘So there we are, Nell,’ Arthur remarked, when a still gibbering Mr Trotter had been safely deposited at Sevenoaks railway station. ‘Do you really wish to pursue your errands? If not, I hope luncheon at the White Hart might be acceptable to you. We do seem to need sustenance, with all these unseen spirits gathering around us.’

  The Wychbourne Court library was Nell’s first port of call once the dinner preparations were finished. She knew there was a row of bound editions of The Stage Year Book published from 1908 onwards, which would provide a rich harvest of information on prominent actors, character actors, leading ladies and the plays they performed in. Primed with knowledge and a book or two on the earlier period temporarily borrowed, she returned to the Cooking Pot and prepared to buckle down to her task.

  She began with Hubert Jarrett, as Alex had done, and studied the two other photographs Alex had found of him with Tobias Rocke. The first had been taken outside the Garrick Club in 1900, which, checking the clippings file, was the year in which he had come to fame for his Richard II, and a line had been drawn under the relevant review. The other photograph was more recent. It was taken in 1920, the year he had won universal praise for his Othello. This time the two men were standing beside a saucy-looking portrait of Etty’s The Bath. Chosen by Tobias Rocke, perhaps, given his private interests, Nell thought.

  Neville Heydock, subject of the next photograph she looked at, had been the leading actor in a play by Jerome K. Jerome in 1902, but the line was not drawn under his reviews until 1908. No black cross. Lynette Reynolds, then Lynette Allison, had clippings from 1896, but interestingly Nell could not find a dividing line drawn in. But there was a black cross. The same was true of Constance Wilson, as Mrs Jarrett then was. Otherwise, as far as Nell could see, the clippings files and photographs followed the link that Alex Melbray had noticed, the date of the photograph tallying with the drawn lines in the files.

  So what could she conclude from this?

  Nothing.

  Nonsense, she told herself briskly. You’ve got the ingredients, so now make the dish. All you don’t yet know is the order those dratted ingredients should go in. She’d have to make guesses and see which worked.

  First, the murders: two killers or one? Probably one, which meant that Tobias Rocke must be the key. Why these photographs? Why the lines underneath the files’ entries? Why the black crosses? Why the Garrick Club, why Cannes? and so on. Did the locations have any significance? For instance, the Garrick was famed as being the club of choice for leading male actors. It was a most exclusive club, so had Hubert put Tobias up for membership because he was being blackmailed by him? That was possible. Personally, she would have blackballed him.

  Why would Hubert Jarrett have been a blackmail victim though? Easy one that. He had probably been the man who harassed Mary Ann and perhaps her murderer. What about Alice Maxwell? The review nearest to the line drawn in the file was for her role in Medea in 1909, and the photograph taken in Cannes with Tobias was the same year. Was he on holiday with them there, or was it by chance that they met? No black cross either for Hubert or Alice Maxwell. Nell considered Lynette Reynolds again. No line drawn in her file but a very definite black cross positioned in the 1890s’ reviews. There was a photograph though, marked Diamond Jubilee 1897 and featuring both her and her then husband Neville Heydock with Tobias at an unnamed grand reception. Lynette did not appear happy in it.

  For Constance Jarrett, the reviews were sparse, and no line had been drawn in the file. But there was a very heavy black cross on the photograph.

  Black crosses. People who had stood up to Tobias Rocke and his attempts at blackmail? She checked again: Lynette Reynolds, Mary Ann, Constance Jarrett. So far there were no black crosses for men, only women. Not every woman, though. Where did that take her?

  Could it be her saucepan was beginning to bubble at last? It could be coincidence, but suppose the black crosses were allotted to women who had rejected him sexually? And did the lack of files on Lady Ansley and Lady Kencroft imply that he had decided not to approach either of them because of their powerful admirers? Nell decided she could give a cautious yes to this and to her solution of the crosses. Tobias Rocke had let his injured pride fester.

  The lines drawn in the files still puzzled her, though. It was possible that they had to do with the people he was blackmailing, which would explain why the files on some people – again Lady Ansley and Lady Kencroft – did not have them. Could the lines therefore indicate the date Tobias Rocke began the subtle blackmail? Above the line was the general information he had gathered on potential victims before he made his bid for power. Why though would those drawn-line dates tie in with the photographs of himself with the file subjects? She could award herself another shaky yes for the drawn lines theory, so now she needed to pin down the significance of the photographs.

  Start at the beginning, she told herself. What would Tobias Rocke have asked for in return if not money? Were nods and winks enough for him, just to remind his victims that he was in control, that he knew their secrets? Did he demand – ever so gently – that the victim handed over their prize mascots and in the case of the women – she shivered – their intimate clothing? Surely even the knowledge that he knew their innermost secrets wouldn’t be sufficient to make his victim tremble over a long period? That could be where the ‘keepsakes’ came in, for him to gloat over and his victims to silently rage. Could he also have made it clear to the victim that it was time he had another little reward? He’d demanded from Mr Trotter a social introduction, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so perhaps he did from his other victims. A membership for the Garrick, for instance, or a holiday in Can
nes, an entrée to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and so on. A photograph at least would be taken at each such event. It could be shown to others and duly noted in society. He would climb the ladder of social importance and cease merely to be a tolerable character actor and instead become a principal in the world he coveted – if not on stage then offstage. Nell sat back, well pleased with this theory – no, surely it was good enough to be termed a deduction that she could share with Chief Inspector Melbray.

  The opportunity to do just that came quickly – it would be the very next day. Apologizing for the short notice, Lord Ansley asked her to accompany him to London to attend the inquest. ‘As my wife is returning to Wychbourne tomorrow, I should welcome your company. It might also assist you in your work for Chief Inspector Melbray,’ he added with a straight face.

  Opportunity, yes, although Nell wasn’t too sure that sitting through the inquest would be the privilege it sounded. It was all too soon after the previous one. Nonetheless, she accepted graciously, with the other half of her mind rapidly concocting Friday’s list and estimates for the weekend for Mr Fairweather. He liked matters orderly, did Mr Fairweather. Vegetables, fruit and flowers had to be ordered in advance, based on his weekly report of what should be available – Subject to Weather. Nell always allotted capital letters to this in her mind, given Mr Fairweather’s often dire warnings in this respect.

  The inquest was being held at the Coroner’s Court of West London in Fulham, and immediately they arrived in the hall (driven there in Lord Ansley’s beloved Rolls-Royce, another treat) Nell spotted Chief Inspector Melbray on duty and sitting in the witness seats by the coroner. She steeled herself for the morning ahead, rightly as it turned out, as the medical details seemed to go on for ever. She was much relieved when the jury took only a brief time to give a verdict of unlawful killing. Even so she had a long wait before she could corner Alex Melbray, who was busy talking to everyone save her, or so it seemed.