Forgotten Murder

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  Dr Roude skirted the debris and nodded to Jack. ‘Hello, Haldean. The Chief Inspector said this was one of yours.’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t,’ said Jack tightly. ‘The poor woman’s got a family. I feel sorry for them.’

  ‘Poor beggars,’ said Dr Roude. ‘Unfortunately, we’ll have to ask them to formally identify the body.’

  Jack winced. ‘It seems rotten to put someone through that for no good reason. I can’t see how anyone could identify her, just by looking.’

  ‘No, neither can I, but it’s the law.’

  ‘Is there any way to say for certain who she is?’

  Dr Roude shrugged. ‘The relatives could identify her belongings, perhaps. If she had a dentist, his records would confirm who she was. You met her, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, and so did Bill Rackham, but I couldn’t swear to her.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone could.’ He raised his voice. ‘Can we remove the body, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, I think we’ve finished here for the moment.’

  Dr Roude waved the mortuary men forward. They rolled the body onto a stretcher and covered it with a canvas sheet. With a sense of relief, Jack watched them leave. ‘Shall we have a look at the flat upstairs?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Give me a moment,’ begged Bill. ‘After seeing that, I could do with a breather and a cigarette.’

  ‘I could do with a stiff drink,’ muttered Jack. ‘But that’ll have to wait.’

  Number 8, the flat – or, rather, the pied-à-terre – upstairs had, according to Mr Cullin, the porter, been taken a fortnight ago by, ‘A gent of the name of Smith. Posh-like,’ continued the porter, ‘but that’s what you’d expect. Very nice, it is, here. As I say, posh. They rents them ready-furnished. No, there weren’t no servant. None of the residents have servants, with only having the one bedroom, you see, though most have a char come in daily. No, Mr Smith didn’t have no char. I ’spects he would have made arrangements sooner or later. Very nice people we get, very nice. He seemed very nice too, but at first sight, I thought he was foreign. He had very dark hair and brown skin, like he might be an Indian or some such, but he was English, right enough.’

  ‘Did he have a beard?’ asked Jack, swapping glances with Bill.

  ‘Yes, he did. There was a lady too. I saw her a couple of times. Well, it’s no business of mine what the residents do, as long as they don’t cause annoyance, but she stayed over, that I do know. Describe her?’ Mr Cullin puffed out his cheeks. ‘Ordinary. Nicely dressed. Round about forty, I suppose. There’s nothing much to describe. I haven’t seen either of them for at least a week. Not that I see everyone who comes and goes, of course. All the residents have their own keys and see to themselves, unless they need help with bags and so on.’

  ‘Were there any visitors?’ asked Bill.

  The porter shook his head, then hesitated. ‘No, wait, I tell a lie. There was one, a lady. She came in with the lady I spoke about, chatting away they were, very friendly, and didn’t need any help from me. That was just after Mr Smith had moved in. I can’t swear to the day, so don’t ask me. And don’t ask me to describe her, either, cos I can’t. I only seed her in passing.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything you can remember?’ demanded Bill.

  Jack picked up the newspaper on the porter’s desk and flicked through it until he came to the picture of Mrs Rotherwell. ‘I don’t suppose that rings a bell, does it?’ he asked, showing the man the photograph.

  Mr Cullin gaped at the picture. ‘That’s her! True as I’m stood here, that’s her! She had a different hat, one of these that’s all over with wax fruit, but that’s her.’

  ‘I thought it might be,’ said Bill grimly. The picture in the newspapers had, if not come up trumps, proved its worth after all.

  A telephone call to Brook and Bailey, the landlords, established that the rent was four guineas a week and Mr Smith had paid a month in advance.

  ‘It did cross my mind,’ said Jack, as they walked up the stairs, ‘that our Mr Smith was lucky to get a place like this, with flats being so hard to come by, but I suppose if you wave enough money around, that problem disappears.’

  ‘It certainly helps,’ said Bill. ‘He paid cash, naturally. He would. And, of course, it was banked a fortnight ago, so there’s no hope of getting the numbers of the bank notes. So what about it, Jack? Our Mr Smith sounds a dead ringer for Miss Langton’s delivery man, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Apart from the accent, of course, but that’s easily assumed.’

  Bill unlocked the door of number 8 and led the way from the tiny hall and into the living room.

  The first thing that struck Jack was the stale smell of old tobacco. He could see at a glance there were three ashtrays in the room, but they were all empty. He looked into the waste-paper basket by the hearth. It was nearly a quarter full with the crushed-out stubs of untipped cigarettes and slim cigars. Jack looked at the old cigarette ends.

  ‘I’d say a man smoked at least some of these cigarettes, Bill,’ he said, picking out a couple. ‘There’s no trace of lipstick on them.’

  ‘Could it be a woman? She’d use a holder.’

  Jack clicked his tongue. ‘Maybe, but some of these ends have been bitten.’

  He looked round the room. ‘It’s a very blokey room, isn’t it?’

  The room was divided into two parts, a sitting room and a dining area. The sitting room was smartly furnished with fashionable square-shaped easy chairs and a sofa in a primrose and black jazz pattern. A wireless set on a mahogany stand stood by the large window. The furniture, Jack reminded himself, had come with the flat. It wasn’t any sort of clue to the elusive Mr Smith’s personality. From the crumpled cushions and general untidiness, it was only too obvious that, as the porter said, he hadn’t employed a cleaner.

  A typewriter, its cover to one side, stood on the dining table. ‘Any clue from the typewriter, Jack?’ asked Bill. ‘That’s much more your line of country than mine.’

  ‘It’s an Underwood number five,’ said Jack. ‘There’s thousands of them about.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘I say, Bill! You said the note on the packing case that was delivered to Jenny Langton was typewritten. I wonder if that note was written on this machine?’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Bill. ‘Let me check it for prints.’ He opened his case and took out a bottle of grey mercury powder and an insufflator. He puffed the grey powder over the machine.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said in disgust. ‘That machine’s been wiped clean. Jack, can you type Miss Langton’s name and address?’ He tore out a sheet from his notebook and handed it to Jack. ‘We can compare it with the note on the packing case.’

  ‘Right-oh,’ said Jack.

  Bill wandered round the room, unimpressed. ‘I must say that for four guineas a week, I’d expect more room.’

  ‘It’s a pied-à-terre,’ said Jack, concentrating on his typing. ‘You aren’t meant to live here, just use it for visiting.’

  ‘I wonder if this can tell us anything?’ said Bill, picking up a man’s tweed jacket that was slung across the arm of the sofa. ‘Good God!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jack, taking the paper from the machine and looking up.

  Bill pointed down to the sofa. ‘This was under the jacket.’

  It was a straw hat ornamented with wax fruit. ‘It’s Mrs Rotherwell’s,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Jack, it has to be her hat.’

  Jack picked up the hat and looked at it, remembering Mrs Rotherwell’s earnest face which had peered out from under that hat. ‘It is,’ he said, pointing to a tiny little white chip on one of the cherries. ‘I didn’t think of it until I saw it, but I remember this cherry was damaged. It bounced up and down as she spoke. She was fairly worked up. It was when she told me that Michael Trevelyan was in London.’

  ‘And we’ve just found out where he was,’ said Bill heavily. He breathed deeply, then shook himself. ‘Come on. Let’s see what we can find out.’

  The flat, in addition to
the sitting room with the dining area, consisted of a kitchen, a cloakroom and toilet and, of course, the bathroom.

  The door to the bathroom was shut. Bill tried to open it but it was jammed part way by the broken planks of the floor. He managed to put his head round the door and inspected the devastation within. Light shone up through the floor from the flat below.

  ‘I bet there’s nothing to find out in there, even if we could get in the room,’ he said, shutting the door. ‘That room’s a write-off. Let’s have a look at the rest of the place.’

  It didn’t take them long.

  It seemed obvious that the flat had been left in a hurry. In the bedroom the wardrobes gaped open. In one there were some men’s clothes, two lounge suits, some shirts and a couple of jerseys. In the drawers were men’s underwear and socks but none of the clothes were labelled with a name.

  In the other wardrobe and drawers were three dresses, two hats, some underwear and a coat.

  ‘The coat and these dresses are from Debenhams and Freebody’s,’ said Bill.

  ‘Mrs Davenham shopped at Debenhams and Freebody’s,’ said Jack quietly.

  ‘I know.’ Bill raised an eyebrow to Jack. ‘And so do many hundreds of other women but it looks as if your idea about Jane Davenham’s new boyfriend may be correct.’

  The usual clutter that would lie on a dressing table – hairbrushes, mirrors and so on – had obviously been swept away. If there were any toiletries, presumably they were in the devastated bathroom.

  In the newspaper rack in the living room there were some magazines, Radiogram and Wireless Answers, Sports Pictorial and the Radio Times, all the latest editions, and a few copies of the Daily Express.

  Bill looked through the newspapers. ‘The last one is dated Wednesday 21st,’ he said. ‘It’s Saturday today, so that’s three days ago.’

  ‘And the day that Mrs Rotherwell disappeared from the Royal Park,’ said Jack.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Bill. ‘Well, there’s something,’ he said, putting down the newspaper. He frowned at the undisturbed layer of dust that coated every surface. ‘The whole flat looks as if it’s been wiped clean to me, Jack. Damn! I’ll get the fingerprint boys in here, but I don’t know if we’ll find anything.’

  ‘You haven’t actually got Trevelyan’s fingerprints on file though, have you?’ asked Jack.

  Bill shook his head. ‘No, but you never know. He might turn up under another name.’ He looked around. ‘Well, it’s obvious that four guineas a week or no four guineas a week, they didn’t intend to return.’

  ‘Not having left a dead body in the bath, no,’ said Jack. ‘That would dampen any householder’s spirits. You could ask your fingerprint lads to look round the hearth.’ He looked at the cinders in the grate. ‘They obviously had a fire burning. There might be something on the coal scuttle or fire tongs.’

  ‘I’ll ask,’ said Bill, ‘but I bet it’s all been cleaned.’ He broke off. ‘Hello! What’s that?’

  He stooped down and fished out a charred scrunched-up piece of paper from the back of the grate. He opened it out on his knee. It was part of a photograph, cut down along one side. Two boys in a garden looked out of the picture. One of the boys, a solid youth of about fifteen, looked familiar.

  ‘That’s Martin Langton, surely,’ said Bill. ‘This must be the photo Trevelyan took from Miss Langton’s room. Or part of it, anyway.’

  ‘It looks as if he’s kept the piece with Jenny Langton in and thrown away the rest,’ said Jack.

  ‘He wouldn’t want a picture of the boys,’ said Bill. He took an envelope from his pocket and put the photograph in it. ‘After hearing the porter’s description of Mr Smith, I didn’t have many doubts who we were looking for, but this confirms it.’

  Jack walked over to the kneehole desk. The lid of the desk was down and a leather-bound blotter lay on the top. Jack slipped the top sheet out and held it so the light from the window shone across the surface. ‘Bill! There’s marks on the blotter. Someone’s written a letter.’

  ‘Let me see that.’ Bill tilted the sheet towards the light. ‘“Dear …” Does that say Amelia?’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ said Jack, with such a note of supressed excitement in his voice that Bill looked round sharply.

  Jack had taken the blotter off the desk and was looking at a piece of paper underneath. ‘This is the letter! It’s not finished, but listen to this.’

  Dear Amelia,

  It was lovely to see you yesterday. Would it be possible for you to call on Tuesday? I’m looking forward to showing you the new place. We’ll have it all to ourselves. It’s small but I like it very much.

  I’m sure you’re wrong about Mike. He can’t be the man you thought

  Jack looked up. ‘It breaks off there and, as it was shoved under the blotter, my guess is that “Mike” came into the room and the writer hid it.’

  Bill strode across the room and looked down at the letter. ‘Bingo!’ he breathed. ‘Mike. He’ll have another surname, but this is Trevelyan or I’m a Dutchman.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘You were right. The new boyfriend was Michael Trevelyan. Well done.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jack in satisfaction. ‘It fits, doesn’t it? Unless …’ He stopped, his smile fading.

  ‘Unless what?’

  Jack shook himself in irritation. ‘Don’t mind me. You know I always like to make things more complicated than they are. I just wondered if we were meant to find that letter.’

  ‘Meant to find it?’ repeated Bill. ‘But you said yourself that Jane Davenham must’ve shoved it under the blotter when Mike came into the room.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jack ruefully. ‘And that probably is what happened. It just seems a bit neat. I mean, we were looking for Michael Trevelyan and Jane Davenham, and here they are.’

  ‘They’re not actually here, Jack,’ corrected Bill. ‘As far as that goes, we’re no closer to finding either of them than we were. Knowing where they were isn’t the same as knowing where they are. And as for neat – well, take a look in the bathroom.’

  ‘Okay. You’re right. So what do we think happened?’

  Bill sat down on the sofa. ‘Well, we know that Mrs Rotherwell and Jane Davenham have known each other for years. Matthew and Julia Rotherwell told us that. Naturally, when Mrs Rotherwell returned from Ceylon, she got in touch with her old friend. You worked out that the two women were together when they saw Michael Trevelyan.’

  Bill nodded towards the desk. ‘I think that letter was written as a result of that chance encounter. I don’t know why it wasn’t sent, but it seems to me that, despite what she wrote, Jane Davenham was actually a bit uneasy about Trevelyan. Otherwise she wouldn’t have, as you said, broken off and shoved it under the blotter when Trevelyan came into the room. Presumably, as we know from the porter that the two women came into the building together, Mrs Davenham must’ve seen Mrs Rotherwell on a subsequent occasion and invited her here. We know from the letter that’s what she intended to do. What’s more, Jane Davenham didn’t intend Trevelyan to be around.’

  ‘No. You’d hardly invite a guest who’s going to accuse the host of murder. That would be awkward.’

  ‘Very,’ said Bill with the ghost of a smile. ‘Now this is guesswork, but I’ll be surprised if it’s too far off the truth. I think Trevelyan came in unexpectedly, saw Mrs Rotherwell, and, knowing what she knew, killed her.’

  He gestured round the room. ‘And then the pair of them ran for it.’

  ‘D’you think Jane Davenham was a willing partner?’

  Bill shrugged. ‘That’s something we can only find out when we find her. If Trevelyan’s holding her against her will, she might manage to escape.’

  ‘Or she could end up dead,’ said Jack soberly. He stood silently for a few moments. ‘Look, I know Dr Roude is a first-rate man, but one thing we really need to prove, beyond all doubt, is that the dead woman, poor soul, really is Mrs Rotherwell.’

  ‘Of course it’s Mrs Rotherwell, you idiot. Who else could it be?’


  ‘We know there was another woman here. There could be a substitution going on.’

  Bill stared at him speechlessly. ‘Don’t be daft. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘I met Mrs Rotherwell,’ said Jack. ‘So did you. Could you say that woman we saw downstairs is Mrs Rotherwell?’

  ‘No, of course I couldn’t, but who else could it be?’

  ‘Jane Davenham, of course.’

  ‘But …’ Bill sighed in exasperation. ‘Jack, are you making difficulties for fun?’

  Jack grinned. ‘No. I’m honestly not, Bill, but I want to know why the body was put in the bath. After all, she could have been left in this room, say, and no one would be any the wiser.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Bill thoughtfully. ‘Damn it, Jack, you are. As you said, this flat is a pied-à-terre. The fact that the occupant hadn’t been seen for a while wouldn’t raise any alarm bells with anyone. As long as the rent was paid, there’d be no reason for the porter or anyone else to come in here. The rent was paid for a month,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘If it had been a month before we discovered the body, we wouldn’t be any the wiser in any event. We both saw enough in the war to know what a month’s decay looks like. We wouldn’t be able to recognise her, that’s for sure.’

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. ‘How about this? Trevelyan comes in, sees Mrs Rotherwell, they have a set-to and he wallops her. However, he’s not sure she’s dead – she might not have been – so he sticks her in the bath while she’s unconscious, so she’ll drown. How about that?’

  ‘That’s very convincing,’ said Jack. ‘And it’s the most likely explanation of what happened. However, if you could make a point of making sure we’ve got the right corpse, it really would help me to think about what actually happened instead of what might have happened.’

  ‘All right, Jack. I don’t have any doubts at all that it really is Mrs Rotherwell who’s been murdered, but if it can be proved, it will be proved.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Right, Doubting Thomas, we’ve got proof,’ said Bill Rackham over the telephone. It was eleven o’clock on Monday morning. ‘Can you call round this afternoon?’