by M. J. Trow
‘Now you’re here,’ Batchelor said, ‘you can speak freely. We guarantee confidentiality at Batchelor and Grand.’
‘At Grand and Batchelor,’ Grand affirmed, ‘we promise not to share any information. Except,’ and he paused, ‘where we discover that a crime has been committed. In that case, we must report it to the police.’
Wellington-Smith leapt up with a strange cry. ‘The police!’ He turned pale. ‘The police? I can’t involve the police! She’s as good as dead if I involve the police!’
Grand and Batchelor looked at each other with wide eyes. This was clearly not a case of a missing poodle, an unreliable business partner or a neighbour whose horse had been eating the hedge.
Grand was first to speak. ‘Dead? Who is as good as dead?’
Wellington-Smith grabbed his hat and made for the door. ‘I had no idea you worked with the police,’ he muttered. ‘I was led to believe you were confidential enquiry agents.’
Grand was more familiar with Mrs Rackstraw’s rather profligate placing of occasional tables and got to the door first and stood in front of it. ‘Totally confidential,’ he assured the man. ‘We have to say the bit about the police because … well, it has happened from time to time that a crime has been discovered as a side issue, one might say, of our enquiries.’
‘Like the dog thing, that time,’ Batchelor chipped in.
‘Indeed. Indeed, the dog thing. So, you can see,’ Grand said, though Wellington-Smith was still trying to dodge round him to the door, ‘it is sometimes our duty to inform the police, but only if there is a crime tangential to our enquires.’
Wellington-Smith, looking mutinous, went back to his seat and stowed his hat on the floor. ‘I really can’t tell the police,’ he said. ‘They said they would kill her if I went to the police.’
‘Kidnapping,’ Batchelor said, nodding.
Wellington-Smith bridled. ‘Who said anything about kidnapping?’ he said, his voice shrill with nervous tension.
‘No one,’ Batchelor said. ‘But as a rule, the only people who threaten to kill anyone if you go to the police are kidnappers.’ He looked across at Grand. ‘You’ll correct me if I’m wrong …’
‘No,’ Grand said. ‘Kidnappers. The only choice, really.’
Wellington-Smith was mollified but still sat looking down at his hands in an agony of indecision.
‘If you tell us your problem,’ Grand prompted, ‘and you don’t want our help, we promise we won’t do anything with the information.’
‘Including going to the police?’
‘Including that.’ Grand wanted to move this conversation along; the afternoon was going to be tedious enough without this drawing information out as if it was an impacted tooth.
Wellington-Smith relaxed a little into his chair and began his story with little preamble. ‘My name, as you may have guessed, is not Wellington-Smith.’
Batchelor, who had already written the name on the outside of his new client notepad crossed it out and tried not to look too annoyed.
‘My name is Byng. Selwyn Byng. You may have heard of me?’
Grand and Batchelor tried to look both intelligent and noncommittal – they had never heard the name before in any context.
‘My family are timber importers, with warehouses down the Thames. Sillitoe, Byng and Son, Finest Siberian Timber.’ He looked from one to the other but saw no sign of recognition. ‘Never mind. I am “Son” you might say, also Selwyn, after my grandfather, who started the business. My father runs it now and I work for …’ he swallowed the word, ‘alongside him. And of course, all of it will be mine one day.’
‘And your son’s,’ Batchelor said, pleasantly.
Byng gave vent to a bloodcurdling howl that made Grand almost lose his stew. ‘Ah, the pain that gives me, Mr Batchelor. If only I will one day be the proud father of a boy to bear the proud name of Byng.’
There seemed little to be said by way of small talk following this outburst and so the enquiry agents waited for him to gather himself together and continue his tale.
‘I married less than two years ago, Emilia, the daughter of old Josiah Westmoreland.’ He paused but decided that these two knew nothing of the great importers of London and explained without waiting to be asked. ‘Westmoreland tea importers are one of the primary companies in the field; one day, their name will ring alongside such greats as Tetley, but for now, they do well enough. They wholesale tea to workhouses, hospitals and lunatic asylums, a sadly growing market, though not for Westmoreland of course.’ He forced a laugh. ‘Emilia and I were scarcely married before Josiah passed away.’ He lowered his eyes and seemed to take a pause to recover himself. ‘Tragic,’ he muttered. ‘Tragic.’
‘I think I remember that,’ Grand said. ‘Wasn’t he crushed by a falling bale of tea?’ Batchelor looked at him aghast. This was where the gulf of the Atlantic sometimes showed itself – ‘crushed’ was perhaps not the best word to use when speaking of a man’s father-in-law’s sad demise. Although even he could see that ‘passed away’ was not perhaps the most appropriate way of describing a death by crushing. There was such a thing as being a tad too genteel.
‘Indeed, Mr Grand,’ Byng said at last. ‘Crushed is the word. He was unrecognizable, save for his half-hunter, which was still going.’ He foraged in his waistcoat pocket and fished out a watch. ‘This very one.’
Batchelor felt a little better – it was a touch ghoulish to carry around a watch prised from the crushed solar plexus of a loved one, so perhaps he hadn’t minded the word after all.
‘Emilia was of course devastated and so, although the patter of tiny feet had been her overwhelming wish, she felt that, as she was in mourning, it would be inappropriate. So we …’ he looked up and seemed to change his mind. ‘So we decided to wait a while.’ His smile grew forced. ‘Abstinence does no one any harm, gentlemen, no harm at all. However, to make things easier, Emilia has been staying with her aunt, Jane Moriarty, in Eastbourne for the last two months. This week, it will be a year since the accident and so, to our mutual delight, she was due to get home on Monday. Imagine my joy as I went to meet her at the station.’
It was a tricky pause in the conversation, but it seemed time for a small interjection. Batchelor leapt into the breach. ‘It must have been a wonderful moment.’ His brain was whirling. Had she arrived looking rather more with child than a year’s abstinence could explain? Had she arrived with an actual child? Not arrived at all? Arrived on the arm of … the possibilities seemed practically endless.
‘Her train came and went and so did the next three but, alas, no Emilia.’
Batchelor tried not to look smug, but it didn’t seem much of a puzzle, particularly one which was especially sensitive.
‘What did arrive, eventually, was an urchin carrying a note. This note.’ Byng delved into his pocket and brought out an envelope, folded in two. He handed it to Grand, who spread it out on the table at his elbow and read it through. It didn’t take long; the note had been made up of letters cut from a newspaper and was a mixture of whole words and individual letters. Batchelor, looking over his partner’s shoulder, thought he recognized the typeface of the Telegraph.
There was no salutation. The note began, ‘We’ve got yur wif. If you wunt to see her again, you must pay fiv thousand pund. We’ll let you know were to leve it. Wait for our next leter. You’ll get it at your house. No plice or she dies.’
The two enquiry agents read it through several times and then sat down again, facing their client. ‘Have you had another letter yet?’ Grand asked.
Byng shook his head.
Batchelor held out his hand for the letter. He wanted to give it another look through – though not an expert in ransom notes, there was something about this one that seemed a little strange to him and he needed to work out what.
‘Could it be a prank?’ Grand asked.
‘A prank?’ Byng was horrified. ‘Who would do such a thing?’
‘Mrs Byng, perhaps?’ Grand was treading o
n very sensitive ground.
Selwyn Byng drew himself up and looked down his nose at Grand. He was American, so he could perhaps be excused. ‘My wife,’ he announced coldly, ‘does not have a sense of humour. Of any kind. Really; she would be most distressed.’
Grand, rather more of a man of the world than Batchelor, suddenly felt deeply sorry for Selwyn Byng. He appeared to be married to a nightmare in human form; a woman who would rather stay with an aunt in Eastbourne than sleep with her husband and who also had no sense of humour. What would be the point of being married to her at all?
‘She has her position to consider. She is, after all, heiress to a considerable tea fortune.’
Ah.
‘Although of course, not until she is thirty-five. Her father had very strong views on the capacity of the fair sex to manage money and business and so, rather than put such a terrible burden on his only child, he set up a trust for her, until she should be of sufficient maturity to cope.’
‘How old is your wife now, Mr Byng, if I might ask?’ Batchelor had stopped re-reading the ransom note and looked up.
‘Twenty-two.’
‘So she has a while to wait until she needs to take up the reins of the business,’ Grand observed.
‘Thirteen years, yes,’ Byng agreed. ‘But she takes it very seriously already, believe me, gentlemen. A tea empire is not something that you can wear lightly.’
The ex-journalist in James Batchelor winced at the grim metaphor but he moved on. ‘I don’t think that this note is a prank anyway. For one thing, it isn’t even slightly funny. For another, it has been made by someone who is trying just a little too hard to be convincing. A joker wouldn’t take the effort.’
‘What do you mean?’ Byng asked.
‘Well, the spelling is a little random,’ Batchelor said. ‘Simple words, such as “wife” are misspelled. But more difficult ones, such as “thousand” are correct. Besides that, the grammar is right; I’ve seen worse grammar than this turned in as copy on a very reputable paper.’ Batchelor’s Telegraph days were never far away.
‘So, what does that mean?’ Byng was confused.
‘I think,’ Grand said, looking his colleague in the eye, ‘I think it means, Mr Byng, that you should go home and wait for the next letter. And we’ll be right behind you.’
THREE
‘I don’t see any pickles, Brandon.’ Daddy Bliss was examining the plate in front of him.
‘Sorry, Inspector.’ Constable Brandon bobbed next to the man. ‘I didn’t have a chance to get to the market today.’
Bliss looked up at the lad. As spotty and stupid as any other rookie he had encountered in the River Police, Brandon couldn’t even find a decent pickle when a man’s life might well depend upon it. ‘Do you intend to make a career in the constabulary service, lad?’ he asked.
‘Yessir!’ Brandon stood as near to attention as he could under the cramped deck of the Royalist, the River Police’s floating station on the Thames.
Bliss slid back his chair, letting his girth fill the open space. He was suddenly looking at Brandon in a new light. ‘Can you actually row?’ He squinted at him, taking in the soft fingers, the scrawny arms under the blue serge.
‘Twenty laps on the Serpentine, Inspector.’ Brandon was proud of that.
‘Serpentine, my arse,’ Bliss grunted. ‘This is the River, boy. Its fogs’ll give you consumption and its currents’ll pull your arms out of their sockets if you let ’em. We’ll have to toughen you up if you intend to make a go of things around here.’
There was shouting on the deck and the clatter of galoshed boots on the stairs that came down into the mess quarters.
‘Don’t you knock, Constable?’ Bliss was tearing apart a hunk of bread while Brandon, anxious to stay in the service, was busy brewing the tea.
‘Sorry, sir.’ George Crossland stood there, river weed trailing from his boots. ‘Something’s come up.’
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Bliss grunted, ‘how things always come up when I’m having my lunch – Mother of God; what’s that?’
Crossland held the white thing in both hands, as though he was offering the inspector dessert. ‘It’s a body, sir. Or part of one. Left side, I’d say. No distinguishing features.’
‘Take it up top, man. God knows what it’ll do to my Stilton. Double up, damn you.’
Crossland clattered back up the stairs again, onto the Royalist’s deck. It took a lot to rattle Daddy Bliss, yet he was clearly rattled and Crossland was secretly glad of that. He was glad that it wasn’t just him who had been nauseated by carrying a piece of a person with him. The river threw up all manner of things, from dead dogs rolling in the currents to suicides, unable to stand the mortal world any longer and flinging themselves into the dark and deadly water. But somehow, a section of a cadaver was worse than anything. For a start, it had to be the result of a murder. Even the most determined suicide couldn’t carve themselves up into convenient sections.
‘Murder, then.’ Daddy Bliss had broken off from his lunch, sans pickles as it was, and was looking down at the part torso now. Bliss’s kneeling days were over – if a man of his weight had ever had them – and he left that sort of work to his underlings, the six Water Babies who patrolled the river above and below Westminster Bridge.
‘Looks that way, sir.’ George Crossland was a careful copper. He had worked under Daddy Bliss for five years now. Appear too smart and he’d assume you wanted his job so you’d find yourself in L Division checking the horse troughs come morning. Appear too dim and you’d find yourself looking for Mary Annes along their murky half mile around the arches of the Adelphi. There was a happy balance whereby you stayed in the Abode of Bliss and George Crossland knew exactly how to achieve that.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Battersea, Inspector,’ Crossland said, steeling himself to turn the battered thing this way, then that. ‘Centre stream but veering to the south bank.’
‘Moving downriver?’ Bliss was looking for any telltale marks on the skin.
‘I’d say so, sir, yes.’
Bliss sucked his teeth. George Crossland was a good copper, perhaps the best of the Water Babies and the inspector trusted the man’s judgement. ‘What’s your best guess, then?’ he asked, giving the thing another poke. ‘Man or woman?’
Crossland shrugged. ‘Has to be one or the other, doesn’t it?’ He was talking to himself really.
‘So they tell me,’ the inspector nodded. And to be fair, a man in his position had got out more than most.
‘Woman, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘Softness,’ Crossland said. ‘Paleness. A certain gentleness about it, one way or another.’
Bliss scowled at his constable. That was all he needed, with a woman’s part on his desk, a poet. ‘Where did she go in, d’you think?’ he asked.
‘If I had to stick my neck out, sir …’
‘You do,’ Bliss assured him.
‘The Wandle, that’d be my guess.’
Bliss leaned back on the Royalist’s rail, spreading his arms along the weathered timbers. Both men knew that the Wandle was a tributary of the Thames, a fast-flowing stream that ran, sometimes underground, from Croydon to Battersea. If Crossland was right, if somebody had dumped the partial cadaver somewhere along the Wandle banks, that was scarcely any help at all.
‘All right,’ Bliss said. ‘That’ll have to do for now. But of course, the real question – and this might take a while – is where is the rest of her?’
The two men looked down at the body part, pale and still on the deck. Crossland was thinking sadly about how she – he couldn’t help thinking of it as ‘she’ – had once lived, breathed, laughed and, he hoped, loved. He glanced at his boss who was looking thoughtful. Who would have supposed that the old man had a sensitive side?
Bliss looked up at the constable and pushed the ribcage to one side. ‘Bread and Stilton, George?’ he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
&nbs
p; Grand and Batchelor were not right behind Selwyn Byng, in any accepted sense of the phrase. He had jinked like a startled horse at the very suggestion and had given vent to another of his bizarre cries. He couldn’t put his dear Emilia in such peril as to have two well-known enquiry agents accompany him home. He couldn’t even allow them to visit under cover of darkness for now; he would much rather keep their connections to the simple expedient of him visiting them, by way of the back door. Mrs Rackstraw would be outraged but she would have to learn to accept it. Selwyn Byng was a gentleman in his own right and married to an heiress; perhaps they could encourage her to think that he was an eccentric millionaire or something similar. Eccentricity could cover a multitude of sins. Meanwhile, though, they had a list of things to do. They needed to visit the timber and the tea warehouses along the Thames and also the aunt in Eastbourne.
‘I used to have an aunt in Eastbourne,’ James Batchelor said.
‘Used to?’ Grand didn’t really want to know, but it was polite to ask.
‘Yes. She was a housekeeper to an old gentleman. He died and …’ Batchelor coughed and became incredibly interested in a thread on his cuff.
‘And …?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just a bit of unpleasantness about the will, that kind of thing.’ Having met Grand’s family, Batchelor didn’t really know why he felt embarrassed, but he did. His auntie had disappeared shortly after the whole debacle, gone to Australia, so the family said.
Grand could recognize a brick wall when he met one and obligingly changed the subject as far as he was able. ‘So … what station for Eastbourne?’
‘Victoria, as far as I remember. We only visited Auntie once.’ Batchelor didn’t see that it was necessary to say they visited her in the local gaol.
Grand consulted his pocket watch. ‘Do we have time to get there today?’
Batchelor hesitated for several reasons. Firstly, he had no idea. But secondly, and rather more importantly, he thought it would be polite to warn the lady in question that they would be visiting. Her niece had, after all, gone missing and to all intents and purposes from her care. True, she was not a child but she had clearly been sheltered all her life by her family and if the aunt was as sensitive a blossom as the niece, having them suddenly turn up on her doorstep would not be pleasant. ‘Should we write first?’ he suggested.
