‘No, I must deal with Mr Fleet man to man.’
‘Don’t give way too easily.’
‘I won’t, my dear. He’ll have to beg me.’
They walked to the front door together and she opened it for him before she accepted a kiss on the cheek. Something had clearly touched her.
‘I was too harsh on Miss Granville,’ she admitted. ‘When I heard that she was cohabiting with a man, I was very scathing. I still condemn it strongly, of course. It’s sinful behaviour. Yet somehow I found myself warming to Mr Skillen when he leapt so promptly to her defence.’
‘It’s no more than I would have done had you been in trouble, my dear.’
‘That’s my argument. He acted like a loving husband.’
‘She’s his paramour.’
‘I’m not denying that, Abel.’
‘That should tell you the sort of woman she is.’
‘All that I wish to say is that Miss Granville is fortunate to have such a man at her side. Not that I’m condoning what they do,’ she added, quickly. ‘It’s wrong before the eyes of God and anathema to both of us. But we mustn’t sit in judgement on her private life. It behoves us to remember that she is the key to the future of your play.’
Peter felt that Jem’s nocturnal antics had provided an intriguing clue to the crime. If a property owned by Stephen Hamer was specifically chosen as the murder scene, then he was either involved or someone was trying to put him in an awkward position. Should the Runners learn what Jem Huckvale had found out, they’d use it as another excuse to arrest Hamer. Because he was convinced that Hamer had not committed the crime, Peter would never inform Yeomans of their discovery in the agent’s ledger. Paul agreed with his brother that the former soldier must have an enemy trying to wreak some sort of revenge. They could only guess what prompted it.
Having made a valuable contribution to the investigation, Peter felt able to take time off in order to render some assistance to the bank. He therefore rode in the direction of Epping Forest in search of Jacob Picton. A valued customer of the bank, the man would be aghast at the news that his name had been used to defraud the institution. Peter was hoping that he might be able to explain how a young woman was able to forge both a letter and a bond in his name. Like his brother, he set out alone on his horse. When he saw a coach going in the same direction, however, he was quick to ride behind it for safety.
Leonard Impey had told him that Picton was a prosperous man but Peter was unprepared for the size of his residence. Set in an estate of untold acres, it was imposing. Simply to maintain the extensive formal gardens, a large staff would have been needed. To run a house that large with its classical portico and its arresting symmetry, an even larger number of servants would be engaged. Picton shared his abode with a wife, four married sons and a confusing litter of grandchildren. Family friends were also staying there. Generous to a fault, Picton spread his bounty freely.
When Peter arrived, the butler did not immediately let him into the house. Stray callers were discouraged. Only when the name of the bank was mentioned was Peter allowed in. He was escorted along a wide corridor decorated with marble statuary and shown into the library. It was immense. A quick inventory of the shelves told him that Picton was a man of Catholic tastes. There were books on every subject under the sun with a special place reserved for tomes about architecture. He was just about to examine one of them when Jacob Picton came in.
‘Mr Skillen?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir – I’m very pleased to meet you.’
‘I’m told that you’re an employee of the bank.’
‘I don’t actually work there,’ said Peter, ‘but I’ve been retained by Mr Impey a number of times when there’s been suspicious activity.’
‘Is that what’s brought you here – criminal behaviour?’
‘Unhappily, it is.’
Picton was an old man bent almost double by age. Propped up by a walking stick, he shuffled across the room and lowered himself into a chair. Peter noticed the blue veins on the back of the man’s skeletal hands. His long, snow-white beard was supplemented by wispy hair and by the tufts that grew in his ears. While his body was in decay, however, his faculties were undiminished.
‘Why have you come to me, Mr Skillen?’
‘First, let me show you this, sir,’ said Peter, handing him the bond. ‘We believe it to be a forgery and need you to endorse that view.’
Spectacles dangled on a ribbon around Picton’s neck. He had some difficulty fitting them onto his nose. When he’d done so, he examined the document and emitted a growl of displeasure.
‘Where did this come from?’
‘They were presented to the manager by a Mrs Hester Mallory.’
‘I know nobody of that name.’
‘Is it a forgery?’
‘It’s a very clever forgery,’ said Picton, squinting at it through his spectacles once again. ‘I might almost have written this myself. The woman has copied my hand perfectly. What betrays her is a grammatical solecism of which I’d never be guilty. That’s why I can say categorically that this is a fake bond.’
‘Thank you for confirming it, sir.’
‘Though I’m known for my generosity, I’d never advance an amount of that size to a total stranger.’
‘I’m not sure that that’s how she could be described, Mr Picton.’
‘You think it was somebody I know?’
‘It’s certainly someone who knew you,’ said Peter. ‘At the very least, Mrs Mallory had access to correspondence of yours and an awareness of your dealings with the bank. Both letter and bond were sufficiently convincing to take in Mr Impey and he is not a gullible person.’
‘How much money did he advance?’
‘It was all of one thousand pounds.’
Picton clicked his tongue. ‘That was uncharacteristically rash of him.’
‘The lady seems to have been extremely plausible.’
‘Feminine wiles are at play here, Mr Skillen. Had a man presented this bond to him, the manager would have needed more proof of his veracity before he handed over so much. I’m disappointed in him.’
‘Mr Impey is very disappointed in himself, sir.’
‘When you return to the bank, you can bear a letter to him from me. This time it will be genuine and not very pleasant to read.’ He let the spectacles fall from his nose. ‘I know what you’re going to ask me. You want me to identify this lady posing under the name of Mrs Mallory. Describe her for me.’
Peter repeated what he’d been told by Impey, recalling the impression she made on first acquaintance. He also pointed out that she’d arrived just before the bank was about to close.
‘That was deliberate,’ he concluded. ‘Mrs Mallory gave the manager very little time to question her. Having used your name as an endorsement, she promised to return on the following day.’
‘Why didn’t Mr Impey subject this bond to closer scrutiny?’
‘He saw no reason to do so.’
‘Impey should have done that as a matter of course.’
‘Luckily, his chief clerk had doubts.’
‘I’m glad that someone did. I find it very unsettling that my name was used.’
‘That’s why I wanted you to know what had happened.’
‘What action have you taken on the bank’s behalf?’
Peter told him of his visit to the hotel where Mrs Mallory claimed to be staying and how he’d learnt that, even though she was not a guest at the time, she had been in the past. On that occasion, she’d employed a different name. When he told Picton what that name was, the old man’s eyes kindled.
‘Miss Kenyon, was it?’ he said. ‘I knew her as Edith Loveridge …’
When he heard the carriage draw up outside the house, he went to the window and saw her getting out and paying the driver. Moving quickly into the hall, he opened the front door and gave her a welcoming embrace before whisking her into the drawing room. He was eager to learn her news.
‘How
much did you get this time?’
‘This manager is rather more careful than Mr Impey,’ she said, ‘and requires time to consider the transaction. No matter, I had him dangling like a fish on a line. In due course, I vow, we’ll get every penny requested.’
Chevy Ruddock was unhappy. He hated surveillance work. When he’d had a similar assignment, he thought it would be a feather in his cap but that hope soon perished. Given the task of watching a brothel in Covent Garden, he’d spent interminable hours at his post and suffered all kinds of humiliation. It was the same on this occasion. On duty for the whole night, he’d been pestered by stray dogs, harassed by drunken oafs and soaked by the rain. The one consolation was that Yeomans had given him the use of a horse but it was never needed. Instead of passing the night with his wife in the comfort of their bed, he and the animal had stood together in mutual misery in the darkness. Ruddock was tired, bored and very wet.
Nothing of consequence had happened. Earlier that morning, Rawdon Carr had visited his friend then left. Though he made a note of the times of arrival and departure, Ruddock doubted that they would be of any significance. Hours rolled by. He was just about to drop off to sleep when there was some action at last. Stephen Hamer left the house and mounted the horse his servant brought out for him. He set off at a canter. Ruddock hauled himself into the saddle and went after him. His fear that he’d be noticed soon faded away. Hamer was riding with such urgency that he only had eyes for what lay ahead of him.
Eventually, he reached a fine house not far from Piccadilly and reined in his horse. A servant came out to take care of it and Hamer was admitted to the building. Ruddock dismounted, tethered his horse to a railing and studied the building. When someone emerged from a neighbouring house, he went quickly across to the man.
‘Can you tell me who lives next door?’ he asked, politely.
‘Yes,’ said the man, obligingly. ‘It’s a Miss Somerville.’
‘Would that be Miss Laetitia Somerville?’
‘Yes – do you know the lady?’
But Ruddock was already running back to his horse.
Paul called at the gallery at an ideal time. Gully Ackford and Jem Huckvale had just finished teaching their respective pupils and were having a rest. They were interested to hear Paul’s latest theory. Having met both Sir Geoffrey Melrose and Rollo Winters, he had a clearer idea of what must have happened at the dinner party given by the former. It had not been an evening of intellectual debate. Sir Geoffrey and his friend were men of the world who took their pleasures where they found them or, in this case, where they set them up. Unencumbered by their wives, they wanted an evening of merriment that ended in the bedroom and they’d invited their guests accordingly. With the exception of Mark Bowerman, the men were of one accord; with the exception of Laetitia Somerville, the women were chosen because of their known readiness to acquiesce. Inevitably, Bowerman and Laetitia had been thrown together as the outsiders. That led Paul to one conclusion.
‘Sir Geoffrey betrayed his friend,’ he decided.
‘Is that what he admitted?’ asked Ackford.
‘Oh, no, it was quite the reverse, Gully. He claimed to be acting in the spirit of true comradeship, rescuing Bowerman from his hermetic existence and introducing him to real life again. I fancy there was rather more to it than that.’
‘I see what you mean, Paul.’
‘He was invited for the sole purpose of meeting Miss Somerville.’
‘Did the lady know it?’ said Huckvale.
‘I think she arranged it, Jem.’
‘But she wanted to marry Mr Bowerman, didn’t she?’
‘She gave him reason to believe that she did,’ said Paul, developing his theory as he went along, ‘and she seemed genuinely distressed by his death when I first met her. Then we had the information that Bowerman’s will had been changed recently in her favour. In one sense, therefore, his murder was actually good news for her.’
‘Do you think she was involved in it?’ asked Ackford.
‘No, I don’t. Miss Somerville was really shocked by it.’
‘Then what exactly is going on?’
‘I was going to ask the same question,’ said Huckvale. ‘It’s all a bit confusing to me. From what you’ve told us, Mr Bowerman was a good man.’
‘He was a person of great integrity,’ said Paul. ‘His one weakness was that he was somewhat unworldly and I certainly wouldn’t have said that of Sir Geoffrey or Winters. What I’m coming to believe is this: Miss Somerville was looking for a wealthy man she could entrap and lead by the nose. I don’t believe she ever intended to marry him. When he’d done what she really wanted and changed his will out of love for her, she was ready to dispose of him.’
‘The duel,’ said Ackford, smacking the table for effect. ‘Another suitor turns up and lays claim to her, more or less forcing Bowerman into challenging him. Hamer didn’t arrive out of the blue at all. He was waiting until he was called.’
‘That’s the way my mind is working, Gully. There could be a conspiracy here. Once he’d served his purpose, Mr Bowerman was in the way. Hamer was summoned to kill him in a duel. It’s so cruel,’ said Paul. ‘In trying to make Miss Somerville his wife, Mr Bowerman was unwittingly setting a date for his own execution. Instead of using a noose, however, Hamer was planning to shoot him dead with a duelling pistol.’
‘That’s not only cruel,’ said Huckvale, ‘it’s wicked.’
‘Hamer and Miss Somerville have been working hand in glove all along.’
‘Yet you said earlier that she was shocked by Mr Bowerman’s murder.’
‘What shocked her was that it didn’t take place on Putney Heath. That was the execution she’d ordered. Someone chose a different way to kill him.’
‘Who was that, Paul?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘And why was he stabbed in the garden of Captain Hamer’s house?’
‘He was only a lieutenant, Jem.’
‘Oh, yes. I was forgetting. Your brother told us about that.’
‘In answer to your question,’ said Paul, ‘I don’t know. What I suspect is that someone wanted to settle a score with Hamer and Miss Somerville. Both of them were stunned by the murder and she couldn’t suggest who might possibly have been responsible for it. Now,’ he went on, ‘I must get back to Hannah. As you’ll have heard, she’s a trifle upset at the moment.’
‘Yes,’ said Ackford, ‘Charlotte told us a stone smashed your window.’
‘I’ve got a crime right on my doorstep.’
‘It’s no worse than being attacked by two dogs in the middle of the night.’
‘Yes, that must have been a rude awakening, Gully.’
‘I was really shaken.’
‘And so was I,’ admitted Huckvale. ‘It was far worse than being arrested by the Runners. They can bark very loud but at least they don’t bite.’
Troubled by hunger pains, Yeomans and Hale repaired to The Peacock to enjoy a meat pie apiece and to wash it down with a pint of beer. It was not long before they were joined by Chevy Ruddock, still sodden and so exhausted that he couldn’t complete a single sentence without yawning dramatically. Yeomans grabbed him by the neck and shook him like a rag doll.
‘Wake up, man!’
‘I’m tired, Mr Yeomans.’
‘We’ve told you before. Runners never sleep.’
‘Well, I do,’ said Ruddock, unable to suppress the biggest yawn yet.
‘What have you found out, Chevy?’ asked Hale.
Ruddock fingered his shoulder. ‘I found out that there’s a hole in this coat where the stitching’s come undone. I’ll have to ask my wife to sew it up again. The rain kept seeping in through the hole. My shirt is wet through.’
‘Forget about your shirt. What did you learn?’
‘Captain Hamer stayed in all night – unlike me.’
‘Were there any visitors?’
‘Not until this morning, sir. Then that friend of his arrived.�
��
‘Mr Carr?’
‘That’s the one. He has a very sharp tongue. He called me all sorts of vile names when we interrupted that duel.’ He pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages. ‘He arrived at nine o’clock and left exactly thirty-five minutes later. The captain came to the door to wave him off.’
Yeomans contributed his own yawn. ‘Is that all you found out?’
‘Oh, no, I haven’t come to the best bit yet.’
‘What is it?’
‘Captain Hamer left his house at’ – he consulted his notebook – ‘it was three minutes after two o’clock and he was in a hurry.’
‘Did you follow him?’
‘Yes, Mr Yeomans.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘It was to this house in a street off Piccadilly. I’d love to live somewhere like that. Agnes, my wife, would be so happy there. But it will never happen unless we get taken on as servants. We know our place.’ Yeomans shook him again. ‘Don’t do that, sir. I have a job standing up straight. If you shake me again, I’ll finish up on the floor.’
‘Give us some useful information, man!’
‘I wondered who lived there so I asked a neighbour.’
‘And?’
‘It was Miss Somerville’s house.’
The Runners gazed at him in surprise and then, when they were confronted by another monstrous yawn from Ruddock, they turned to look at each other.
‘I thought she hated the captain,’ said Hale.
‘She did, Alfred. She didn’t even want us to mention his name.’
‘Then why did she let him go into her house?’
‘Perhaps he forced his way in.’
‘Is that what happened, Chevy?’
There was no reply to Hale’s question because Ruddock had just nodded off to sleep. Eyes closed, he stood there immobile with a seraphic smile on his face. It was removed by a kick on the shin from Yeomans. Coming awake with a start, Ruddock hopped on one foot while he rubbed his other leg.
‘That hurt!’ he complained.
‘Then tell us what we want to know,’ said Yeomans. ‘Did the captain have a struggle to get into the house?’
A Date with the Executioner Page 18
