***
Beech and Tollman entered the discreet doorway of the private hospital in Fitzroy Square where Sir Michael Patrick had been admitted under the care of his personal physician. They found him sitting up in bed, his arm in a sling, recovering from the removal of a bullet from his shoulder. Fortunately, it was from a small-calibre gun, apparently carried by his wife in her bag, and had created little damage other than a minor painful wound and a bruised ego.
“Thank you for coming, Beech,” said Sir Michael, in his usual commanding voice. Their paths had crossed before, when Beech had been asked to give evidence in some notorious bank fraud cases, perpetrated by gentlemen in the City of London. Sir Michael, of course, had represented the defendants and managed to get them acquitted. As usual, the relationship between the police and the legal profession was delicate. They did not always see eye to eye – particularly with defending barristers who managed to help criminals evade justice. Beech braced himself for a round of bargaining.
Tollman opened his notebook and Sir Michael said sharply, “I don’t think that is necessary!”
Beech said smoothly, “Sir Michael… as I’m sure you know by now, we are investigating a case of blackmail involving several people, and what you do not know is that this case is attached to one of murder. Therefore, it is essential that we make notes of anything that may be of relevance to our current case.”
Sir Michael looked frustrated. “I understand,” he said cautiously, “but in light of the fact that I will not be pressing charges, I do not wish the details of my private life to be written down anywhere.”
Beech considered this for a moment and then said, “DS Tollman will write down anything that I deem of value to the case that we are investigating, but nothing else.” Sir Michael appeared satisfied with this arrangement.
“Now,” Beech continued, “please be so kind, sir, as to tell us the full story of how your wife came to see me, in fear of her life, and how you ended up in this hospital today.”
Sir Michael began his story. He had had his suspicions that all was not quite right with his wife for some time. She had been behaving oddly, spending several hours out and about in London seemingly to no purpose. He had feared the worst – that she was having an affair. So, he had engaged Albert Wood to investigate and, specifically, to follow her. Wood had discovered that Lady Patrick had made many trips to the jewellers but did not buy any new pieces. She had also paid several visits to an hotel in Kensington, where she had stayed several hours each time. Wood had ascertained that she was visiting a gentleman in room twenty-seven who was registered as a Mr Cyrus of San Francisco in the United States. This information had convinced Sir Michael that his wife was having an affair and he had confronted her about it.
“The whole sorry tale came out,” he said, avoiding looking at either of the policemen in front of him. “My wife turned out to be not a respectable widow called Ann Miller, but the mistress of a California property speculator and her name was Ann Elliot. What is more, she had been in contact by letter with said Californian throughout our entire five-year marriage. Apparently, he was in financial trouble and had come to, basically, I suppose, blackmail her into supporting him. So, my wife was being blackmailed by two people – her former lover and the Treborne woman – hence the copying of jewellery that I had given her. In my wife’s defence, the pressure that she was under must have been tremendous. When she told me of all this, I lost my temper, I’m ashamed to say, and she, thinking I was about to attack her, produced a small pistol and shot me. Our butler telephoned the police, as I am afraid that I blacked out, otherwise my wife would not be at Marylebone Police Station at this moment.”
“Excuse me, sir,” asked Tollman, trying to be as respectful as possible while inwardly enjoying the downturn in fortunes of a prominent QC, “but when did you hire Albert Wood? Was it before or after your wife started being blackmailed by Adeline Treborne?”
Sir Michael looked confused. “Um… I’m not sure. I hired Wood about six months ago. I think that, during our argument, my wife said she had been the subject of blackmail for four months. Payments to this property speculator started first.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What will you do, now, Sir Michael?” Beech asked.
“Divorce is out of the question, of course. I’ve already paid large sums of money to this Californian man, I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay with my career and reputation as well. I shall probably give my wife some money with the proviso that she returns to America, with her lover, and never, ever returns. I will have her British passport taken away and I shall forbid her from using my name ever again. If you could, please, just get her out of Marylebone Police Station before the press get wind of it, I would be most grateful.”
“Of course,” Beech replied. “We will go there straight away. Thank you for your assistance and we will be in touch if there is anything further.”
“I shall be at home after lunch,” Sir Michael added. “My wound can heal just as well there as here. And I need to supervise my wife’s departure. I don’t want her stealing all the valuables in the house in my absence.” He gave a small mirthless smile.
As they stepped out again into the street, Tollman said, “Something has been worrying me, Mr Beech, and I think that Sir Michael may have provided the answer…”
“What’s that, Tollman?” Beech hailed a taxicab and Tollman waited until they were inside the cab and the partition was closed before he continued.
“Well, some of the blackmail cases could be put down to straightforward servants’ gossip but some of the others can’t. Like the Major, for instance. How would a blackmailer find out about the Major’s fraudulent activities?”
“I suppose it could be information from a servant of one of his victims?” offered Beech.
Tollman shook his head. “No, sir, because they don’t know that they are victims. He tells them about the poor horses, they give him some money, end of story. And then there is the Ruth Baker case. No servants there, either. Then, yesterday, Kitty Bellamy and her husband. Not only no servants, but isolated way out in Kent. How would anyone find out about these people, in order to blackmail them? The MP, the QC, the shop manager, I can understand that could be servants or shop employees being persuaded to spill the beans… but not the others. Then it came to me, when Sir Michael said that he employed Wood two months before his wife said that the blackmail started. Some of the blackmail information has to be through a police connection and Albert Wood is right there in the frame, as far as I can see.”
When Beech and Tollman finally reached Scotland Yard, there was a message from Victoria regarding Lady Maud’s blackmail letter and Sir Anthony Jarvis’s son was waiting outside Beech’s office, displaying very little patience.
“My father can’t be here, for obvious reasons,” he said testily when Beech invited him to take a seat. He passed a letter over the desk and continued, “We assumed, after your visit, that because the Treborne woman had died, this business was at an end. It would appear not, judging by this extremely offensive letter. What do you intend to do?”
Beech scanned the letter.
“Sir Anthony Jarvis, it has come to my attention that you have a secret family. Your wife is Chinese, and your son is a mongrel. What would the Houses of Parliament say? If you do not want this information to appear in print in the London Herald, you will need to pay for the privilege of secrecy. Bring £30 cash to the bench opposite the Duke of Bedford statue in Russell Square tomorrow at 11.30 a.m. Someone will meet you. Come alone, if you value your secrets. Do not inform the police or your details will be published immediately in the newspaper.”
Beech exhaled loudly. “Mr Jarvis…”
“My name is Chen. My father prefers that I do not use his name and since I have reached my majority I do not care to do so, anyway.”
Beech bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Mr Chen. We have
only just become aware, this morning, that someone has, shall we say, ‘taken over’ Adeline Treborne’s blackmailing business. We think it may be the person who murdered her and took her book of contacts. This morning, we have heard of one other letter…”
There was a knock at Beech’s door. A constable opened it and Beech could see, in the background, the sweaty and anxious face of Samuel Robinson, the manager of Marchesi jewellers, who was clutching in his hand a white envelope, presumably containing the same sort of letter as the one on his desk. He said, “Wait a minute, please!” and the constable closed the door again. Beech turned back to the young Mr Chen and said, “I beg your pardon, we have now become aware of three blackmail letters, including your father’s, and we must formulate a strategy to deal with them. Could I possibly ask you to be patient until later today, when I will call you on the telephone and we can discuss procedures?”
Mr Chen nodded. Beech continued, “I presume, Mr Chen, that if we were to suggest that your father met with this blackmailer, his safety assured by a strong police presence…”
Chen interrupted. “He would not agree to co-operate, I can tell you that now. My father has kept our existence a secret for many, many years. He is a prominent public figure and cannot be seen on a park bench handing money over to a stranger. However, I would be willing to do so, in his place. The writer of this letter obviously knows that I am part Chinese – a mongrel, as they so delicately phrase it. The blackmailer would surely accept money from me?”
“Probably.” However, what concerned Beech was the young man’s ability to keep calm in a stressful situation or whether he would relish causing the blackmailer some physical harm.
After Chen had left, it was Mr Robinson’s turn to see Beech. He was in a state of great anxiety when he presented his letter. Beech read once more the instructions:
“Mr Samuel Robinson, it has come to my attention that you are in the habit of assisting your wealthy customers to replicate their jewellery – possibly to assist them in defrauding their insurance companies. If you do not want this information to appear in print in the London Herald, you will need to pay for the privilege of secrecy. Bring £20 cash to the bench opposite the Duke of Bedford statue in Russell Square tomorrow at 10.30 a.m. Someone will meet you. Come alone, if you value your secrets. Do not inform the police or your details will be published immediately in the newspaper.”
“Yes, Mr Robinson, someone appears to have taken over Adeline Treborne’s business,” he explained yet again. “We do not, at this stage, know who that person is, and we are hoping that you will assist us in capturing this blackmailer…”
“Me?” asked Robinson with a note of hysteria in his voice. Beech had not forgotten that Robinson had fainted during their last encounter. He did seem to be rather highly strung.
“You will be surrounded by plain-clothes policemen, I assure you, Mr Robinson,” Beech stated. “We will do our very best to protect you.”
It was clear that Mr Robinson did not find the thought comforting at all. There was a knock on the door again and Beech was bracing himself to reprimand the constable who had interrupted him before when he saw that this time it was Tollman, who said quietly, “Sorry to interrupt, but could I have a word outside, sir?”
When Beech stepped outside he could see that Tollman had, in his hand, a sheaf of notes on pink paper. “I’ve just had a visit from the editor of the London Herald, sir,” he said ominously. “It appears that our blackmailer has not only taken over Adeline Treborne’s list of victims but has also taken over writing the gossip column. The editor received these notes and a letter demanding that payment be made today to a Post Office box number at the General Post Office by Trafalgar Square.”
“I would say, Tollman, judging by the notepaper and handwriting, that our blackmailer has always written the gossip column, wouldn’t you?”
Unwilling to let Mr Robinson go until they had finally thrashed out plans for the money exchange, Beech told the constable to get the shop manager a cup of tea and to tell him that Mr Beech would be right back. Then he and Tollman adjourned to a nearby empty office.
Beech got no further than the first item of gossip. “God help us!” he said loudly in shock. It read:
The Duke of Penhere should take himself round to the churchyard in Clerkenwell and say a prayer for the body of his illegitimate son, that he sired with a housemaid sixteen years ago.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Empty Mousetrap
The Duke of Penhere was devastated.
He has the look of a man who cannot fathom out why life keeps delivering blow after blow, thought Beech. He reflected that he had, in his time, known many young men like the Duke, who had lived a youth of privilege and excess, barely giving a thought to the structure of the society that assisted them in their lofty position. The war has changed that, Beech decided. Living in trenches, watching men from all levels of society dying, has changed the sense of privilege the upper classes enjoyed.
Finally, the Duke spoke. “It is true,” he said simply, “that I did, stupidly, take advantage of my mother’s personal maid and she… became… pregnant. My mother never knew. Neither did my father. He was too busy at the time, desperately trying to shore up the family fortune, which had dwindled away because of his poor and reckless investments. It was my sister who said she would sort things out in my absence. I gave her a substantial amount of money for the maid and I went back to Oxford. I was twenty-one at the time. It was the stupidity of youth. When I came back, Adeline said that it had all been solved. The maid had left and had the child and it was immediately taken for adoption through the Catholic Church. I am ashamed to say that I thought no more of it.”
Beech nodded. “If this piece, intended for the newspaper, is correct, then I’m afraid that the child ended up in the clutches of a baby farmer who murdered all her charges.”
The Duke put his head in his hands in despair. “I admit that I was cavalier and thoughtless when I was young. That’s how men of our status are allowed to be, aren’t we?”
Beech noted that the Duke considered them equals – something that would not have happened before the war – but he didn’t feel that the observation warranted a comment.
The Duke continued, “We are encouraged to be reckless, embrace our privileged position and dismiss the needs of the lower orders. Sow our wild oats before we settle down to family responsibility and guarding the Treborne name.” He uttered a brief, bitter laugh. “What family name do I have to protect? Aside from my mother, we have all disgraced the dukedom and the family name – and this war will deliver the final blow to the aristocracy, I am sure of that. I must make amends. I’m not sure how, but I shall find a way.”
“What was the name of the maid who bore the child?” asked Beech, as he rose to depart.
The Duke looked blank. “I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember. Not at all. I can’t remember how she looked or spoke, or anything. What a despicable person that makes me.”
***
Tollman and Billy, once more in plain clothes, were in the cool, vaulted interior of the General Post Office just off Trafalgar Square. The editor of the Herald had sent the payment over by hand, addressed to the appropriate box number. They had spoken to the manager and had arranged that the woman on the counter that dealt with Post Office box numbers would give them a signal, by blowing her nose loudly with a white handkerchief, when someone appeared asking for any correspondence for Box 1978.
As with the bank that they had staked out earlier in the week, most of the counter staff were women. Older men were seen in the background, fetching items from the storerooms, lifting parcels and carrying sacks of mail.
The post office was filled with foreigners and servicemen, whether visiting or resident it was impossible to tell, but the poste restante facility, whereby customers could have their mail directed to the post office on a temporary basis, seemed to be
extremely busy. In fact, so busy that two women were working it, ensuring that no time was wasted in trying to whittle down the long queue that snaked from the counter to the door.
It seemed as though servicemen from all over the Empire were represented in the queue. There were young black men in sailor blue and brown-skinned soldiers in khaki wearing turbans. Billy pointed out to Tollman soldiers whose uniforms signalled that they were from New Zealand, Canada and Australia.
Poste restante was the best way for some foreign soldiers to get letters from and to their families before they shipped out to France and Belgium or even further afield. Also, once in the field, rather than risk letters going astray through the Royal Engineers (Postal Section), they would just pick up a batch from the post office while on leave, reply to them and post the replies before they went back to the Front. Sailors also found the poste restante convenient, as all their mail had to go through two different Navy post offices in Scotland, then be delivered to the relevant flagship to be dispensed among the fleet while in convoy. It could be weeks before letters arrived at either end. The volume of mail to and from the men in action was enormous. Tollman had read in the newspaper that two thousand bags of letters a day were coming into Mount Pleasant Depot. This was equalled, apparently, by the number of parcels going out of Britain. To deal with those, the Post Office had actually built a new wooden structure in Regent’s Park, which covered five acres and employed hundreds of men and women.
What a palaver, thought Tollman, all for a blessed letter! He doubted that poste restante would be available for much longer. He had heard that the Armed Forces were clamping down on all avenues of mail, except that which went through the Army and Navy, due to the need for them to censor everything.
He looked at all the different posters and notices up on the wall alongside the poste restante counter. One said:
WARNING. Defence of the Realm Act. Discussion in Public of Naval and Military matters may convey information to the enemy. BE ON YOUR GUARD.
A Death in Chelsea Page 19
