by M. J. Trow
‘Write?’ Grand was sometimes exasperated by the English. ‘Write? She might well be the writer of this note. Her niece might be tied up in her basement. Why should we write?’
Batchelor shrugged. ‘It just seems polite.’
‘We’re not writing, James.’ Grand was adamant. ‘If you don’t want to call on her late, I understand that. But we can’t warn her we’re arriving. If she is in cahoots with the letter writer, she would have time to hide things, hide Emilia, if she has her stashed somewhere. No; we’ll compromise. We’ll set off today but visit her tomorrow. Mid-morning. Around eleven; is that when maiden aunts are ready to receive visitors?’
‘I still think …’
‘Is it?’ Grand didn’t often put his foot down, but Batchelor had learned to recognize those rare occasions.
‘Yes. Eleven would be perfectly in order.’
‘Wonderful. We won’t need much – just an overnight bag.’ Grand went over to the fireplace and tugged on the bell-pull. ‘I’d better tell …’
With a crash, the door was flung back and Mrs Rackstraw stood there. Either she had a turn of speed that neither man had suspected or she had been listening outside the door. ‘Yes?’ she said, with ill-concealed irritation.
‘Mrs Rackstraw,’ Grand said, in his most ingratiating tones. ‘We’re off to …’
‘Eastbourne. Yes. Very treacherous, the coast, at this time of year. I’ve put some woollen vests out on your beds. You’ll have time to change before the cab gets here.’ She folded her arms and leaned back, looking at them over the formidable prow of her nose. ‘Is this to do with the lunatic?’
‘He isn’t a lunatic, Mrs Ra …’
‘Are you suggesting I don’t know a lunatic when I see one?’ she demanded. ‘With at least two on the loose, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t one.’
‘Two?’ Grand blinked.
‘Bloke called Bisgrove – I was reading about it only the other day. Walked out of Broadmoor cool as you please.’ A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘You don’t think he’s the one hanging around outside, is he?’ She looked towards the window as if she thought he might be lurking behind the curtain.
‘No, Mrs Rackstraw.’ Batchelor felt it was important to make that clear. ‘And lunacy isn’t catching, you know.’
‘Tchah!’ Mrs Rackstraw was staggered by the man’s naivety. Really, he shouldn’t be out on his own. ‘Believe that if you want, Mr Batchelor, but I have reasons to know you’re wrong. Anyhow, I can’t stay here talking all afternoon. I have things to do even if you don’t.’ And she spun on her heel and was gone. ‘Don’t forget the wool,’ she called over her shoulder as she went to the front door to summon a cab.
‘Tell me something, James,’ Grand asked as they made for the stairs. ‘We employ her, is that right?’
‘When I know for sure, Matthew,’ Batchelor said, ‘you’ll be the first to know, I promise.’
The wool next to their skin was itchy, but they were glad of it as the wind from the sea cut straight through their clothes. They had found a very poorly drawn street map at the W H Smith’s at Eastbourne Station and after much turning it round and round and finding that it had been printed upside down, they succeeded in finding Maple Avenue. Part of the reason for the difficulty they had was that there were no maples and a street less like an avenue it would have been hard to find. It wound, narrow and sunless, behind the promenade and the houses seemed to be a mixture of stately semi-mansions gone to seed and small villas, built on a shoestring and already showing signs of the inevitable depredations of the sea air.
Number Twelve was one of the latter sort, but with a neat garden flanking the path to the front door and fresh paint on the woodwork. The windows sparkled and the net curtains behind the glass were crisp and white. Emilia Byng’s aunt might not be rich, but she was clearly a lady who liked things nice. Grand rapped on the door with the bright brass knocker shaped like the Lincoln Imp. He had hardly let go of it when the door was swung open and a little old lady stood there, looking as though she had just stepped out of a bandbox. Her multitude of frills, which she wore from the top of her head to the edge of her petticoat just showing beneath her skirt, were starched so stiffly they almost crackled. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips were parted in a smile, which faded when she saw her visitors.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, recovering quickly. ‘I was expecting someone else.’
‘Emilia?’ Grand asked.
‘Why, however did you know?’ the old lady gasped, stepping back. Her hand flew to her throat. ‘Don’t tell me there’s bad news?’ She looked closely at Grand. ‘Are you foreign?’ She raised her voice slightly, as all nicely brought up maiden ladies do when speaking to foreigners, dogs, children and the indigent.
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Batchelor reassured her. ‘But we would like to ask you some questions about your niece, if we may? Could we come in?’
It suddenly seemed to dawn on the woman that the neighbours could well be watching and of course, that would never do. She stepped aside and ushered them in, closing the door swiftly behind them, against prying eyes.
The room into which they were taken was as frilly as its owner. Every shelf, every table – and Mrs Rackstraw would have been struck dumb with envy at the profusion – had its own edging; crocheted, tatted, goffered and crimped, there was not a sharp corner in the place. It was like being invited to sit down in the crib of an extraordinarily pampered baby.
Their hostess sat across from them on a low chair, designed originally for nursing or possibly spinning. Her neat little feet were together on the hearth rug and just peeked out from beneath her petticoat edge. Her bright little eyes peered up anxiously into first Grand’s face, then Batchelor’s. She decided to concentrate on Batchelor; the other one, the foreigner, was a little shifty, in her opinion. Besides, she had never really taken to blond men, after The Incident in the Winter Gardens that time. ‘Have you really no news of Emilia?’ she asked, plaintively.
‘I’m afraid not, Miss Moriarty,’ Batchelor said. The foreigner had felt the chill coming from the little woman and decided to leave it to his partner. Batchelor had handed the woman their calling card but she had only the vaguest notion as to what ‘enquiry agent’ meant. ‘Mr Byng has approached us to look into her disappearance.’ It was best at this stage to keep things general. He didn’t know how much the woman knew.
‘Mr Byng?’
The enquiry agents flashed a look between them. Could it be that the whole thing was a put-up job, or was this old dear as mad as a cake?
‘Her husband.’
‘Oh, I see. I always think of his father as Mr Byng and Selwyn as … well,’ she tinkled a laugh, ‘Selwyn.’
‘Do you know Mr Byng senior?’ Grand risked a question.
‘Yes,’ she sniffed. ‘I am afraid that I do. Not at all a …’ she gave it serious thought. ‘Not at all a generous gentleman. He pays Selwyn, of course, but refuses to hand over the business to him. He can’t bear to hand over the reins, you see. Selwyn, to my mind, is perfectly ready to take over. Emilia is full of his praises and I must say that, love her though I do as though she was my own daughter, Emilia can be a very difficult girl to please. She has been the same since the cradle and I don’t see her changing now.’
‘So,’ Batchelor tried to get the conversation back to somewhere he could recognize, ‘we have been asked by her husband to look into Mrs Byng’s disappearance.’
‘Mrs Byng?’ The bright eyes looked from one man to the other, the mouth set in a position that made it clear that she was trying her best to understand. ‘Surely, Selwyn’s mother hasn’t disappeared. She has after all been dead these … oh. Silly me. You mean Emilia.’ They nodded and Grand tried his level best to prevent a quizzical eyebrow from rising up his forehead. ‘She is still a little girl to me, you see.’
‘We’re looking into her disappearance.’ Batchelor really couldn’t go through all that again.
Miss Moriarty took a shudderi
ng breath. ‘You must excuse me, gentlemen, if I seem a little distrait, but I haven’t had a wink of sleep since the telegram came to tell me that poor, dear Emilia did not return to London. I cannot imagine where she might have gone.’
This seemed to clarify the situation somewhat; the woman clearly knew nothing about the ransom demand. She seemed to have regained the flow of the narrative, though, so they let her carry on.
A light blush swept over her maidenly cheek. ‘Are you aware of the … circumstances … of her visit here?’ She looked down and twisted a ring around her finger.
‘Yes,’ Batchelor told her. How to put it so that she didn’t get even more embarrassed and clam up altogether?
‘She and her husband needed to stay apart,’ Grand offered. He preferred to call a spade a shovel. ‘Newlyweds and all, not wanting to have relations while she was in mourning. Sounds a little cockamamie to me, but I know you do things differently here.’
Miss Moriarty closed her eyes and clamped her lips together until the shock receded. Foreigners; whatever were they for? Eventually, in a pained voice, she continued, speaking to Batchelor only. ‘My niece has been very beautifully brought up,’ she said. ‘My sister, her late mother, was of even finer sensibilities than myself and I think I won’t need to assure you that I am a very sensitive woman.’ She waited for Batchelor’s understanding nod before going on. ‘She married quite young. She and Selwyn became engaged to be married when she was just eighteen, and she had never and will never look at another man.’ Her eyes flashed and, if looks could kill, Grand would have been so much carrion on the hand-pegged hearth rug. ‘So, if your minds, your filthy minds are thinking that she has gone off with another man, you can think again!’
She seemed to be in a bit of a tizzy, so Batchelor was quick to deny any such belief.
‘That’s all right then. She didn’t confide in me, of course. As an unmarried lady, it would have been inappropriate in the extreme. Not that I didn’t have offers, dearie me, no. But I could never find a man to live up to my requirements. There was a curate once but … well, let’s say he began to have doubts and I could not continue with a man like that. Where was I?’ She looked desperately at Batchelor; she had completely lost the thread and hoped he might have the end of it.
‘Confide. Unmarried. Inappropriate.’
‘Thank you.’ She let a dazzling smile creep through and for a moment, Grand and Batchelor felt sorry for the doubting curate and what he had missed. ‘She told me no details, of course, but I gathered from her suitably veiled conversation that Selwyn was very …’ she fanned herself with her hand, ‘… ardent, and she returned his ardour in a way that had surprised her. So, after some time of trying to … abstain …’ This time, she had to pause and press a perfectly laundered and frilled handkerchief to her lips. ‘Young man,’ she said to Batchelor, ‘could you just tug on the bell pull? I really must have a sip of something.’
Batchelor pulled on the cord and a maid appeared almost with the speed of Mrs Rackstraw. She was all but invisible beneath a swathe of frilled apron, but seemed bright enough and rushed to a corner cupboard when she saw her mistress, lolling pale and distressed on her chair. She poured a brandy that would fell a docker and Miss Moriarty swallowed it in one without a blink.
The maid turned to the enquiry agents who were looking at the maiden lady with some respect.
‘The mistress takes these turns,’ she said, a touch aggressively. ‘Her medicine is the only thing what will bring her round.’ She looked anxiously at Miss Moriarty, who had by now a rather better colour and was looking less limp. ‘Madam,’ she said, anxiously, taking one small, white hand and chafing it between her work-worn palms. ‘Should you not go to bed for the rest of the day? You know how your turns can tire you?’
‘No, no, Enid. I can continue. These gentlemen are here to help us find poor, dear Miss Emilia. Pass them the portrait.’
The maid bobbed a curtsey at Grand and Batchelor. ‘Oh, sirs,’ she said, ‘if only you can find them safe.’ And, with her own rather more plebeian hankie pressed to her eyes, she stuffed a miniature into Batchelor’s hand and ran from the room. The painted face was pretty, with a curved mouth, grey eyes and a mass of golden hair. But Matthew Grand and James Batchelor were not enquiry agents for nothing; something else had caught their collective attention.
‘Them?’ they said, in concert.
‘Pardon?’ Miss Moriarty had allowed herself a little swoon and had missed the last few minutes.
‘Your maid said “them”?’ Grand said.
Miss Moriarty bridled. ‘A perfectly correct word and, if I may venture, used correctly, if it was Enid speaking. Her grammar is immaculate. I taught her myself.’
‘No, no,’ Batchelor was quick to interject. ‘My colleague meant no criticism. He is merely pointing out that she said “them”. “I hope you can find them safe” was what she said.’
‘A worthy wish, surely.’ The brandy had given Miss Moriarty a slightly hectic look around the eyes.
‘Indeed. But who is “them”?’ Batchelor reran the sentence. Is them? Are them? Was them?
But Miss Moriarty had got the general gist, grammar notwithstanding. ‘Why, Emilia and Molly, of course.’
‘Molly?’ Grand made a mental note to try and avoid choral speaking. It didn’t help and made him feel a fool.
‘Molly Edwards, Emilia’s maid. I saw them both off from the station. In fact, I have been wondering why you are speaking to me when surely, Molly would be the one to ask.’
Batchelor could foresee the end of the conversation already, but he had to say the next sentence. ‘We haven’t heard about Molly until now,’ he said.
Miss Moriarty clutched her hands together at her breast. ‘Then … has Molly disappeared also?’
The two men were at a loss to answer. Slowly, uncertainly, they nodded their heads. And, as Batchelor had predicted, Miss Moriarty slid gently to the floor, beyond the aid of brandy.
‘Shall we see ourselves out?’ Grand asked.
Batchelor nodded, giving the bell pull a quick tug as they made for the door.
FOUR
Thomas Fisher had been struggling with this scene for quite a while. As an amateur student of architecture, the Naval College at Greenwich fascinated him, its Queen Anne corners and subtleties of brick and stone. As an amateur artist, he had to contend with the light; and that, of course, changed from day to day and even during the course of each day. The early morning was hopeless. There was too much mist along the river’s curve and it played merry hell with his watercolours. This was Sunday, so the river traffic would be less and the combination of late morning and the foreshore of the south bank offered the best combination for him.
He anchored his easel carefully, wedging the feet with stones and planted his rubber waders just so, his coat tucked under him on the canvas campaign chair. Today, he would concentrate on the turrets that stood sharp and clear against the leaden sky, etching in the wrought-iron flags on the smooth surface of his canvas. He’d handle the clouds later. They were too fleeting to catch in reality and, as an artist, he was allowed some licence.
He was sitting there, sketching, the paintbrush clamped between his teeth, when something bobbed towards him in the water. If somebody had asked him then what he thought it was, he would have guessed that it was a partially decomposed sheep. Except that, as an amateur artist, he knew perfectly well that sheep didn’t have arms – at least, not in the conventional sense – and this object clearly did. On an impulse of curiosity, he laid the brush on the easel tray and clambered to his feet. The south bank’s mud, grey and oozing, was heavy going but he managed and, reaching out, was able to prod the flotsam with a stick. The prod sent the thing twisting in the water and it floated to his feet. It was a shoulder, the flesh grey and flabby and the bone at the end of the arm, just above the elbow, had been sawn neatly through. It was then that Thomas Fisher heard the church bell of St Nicholas, Deptford, toll. It was actually ringing for mornin
g service, but it seemed to him that it tolled for the dead.
Grand and Batchelor picked up their luggage at their hotel and made their way to the station.
‘That didn’t go too badly,’ Batchelor ventured.
‘Whatever are you talking about, James?’ Grand snapped. He had been treated like something the cat had dragged in by a mad old toper and was not feeling in the best of spirits. ‘It was probably one of the least helpful mornings I have ever spent and I speak as one who once interviewed an East End laundress for three hours before discovering she only spoke Cantonese.’
‘We found out about the maid,’ Batchelor pointed out.
‘Yes. And where does that get us, may I ask? Either, the maid came back on her own and Byng didn’t think it worth mentioning. Or the maid didn’t come back and he didn’t think it worth mentioning. Or he didn’t know she was supposed to be coming back and—’
‘Yes, all right, Matthew. I do know what you mean. But what I mean is that we have at least discovered she exists. We can ask Byng about her and it will change the whole picture. It might even be the maid who is behind all this. How many times have we known a crime committed by a disgruntled employee? Hmm?’
Grand looked up and counted on his fingers. Eventually, he spoke. ‘None.’
‘There was that … I concede that they might not have been disgruntled. But a lot of them have been employees.’
‘You might just as well say that they had heads. Or feet. Almost everyone is an employee in some shape or form. No, I think this maid thing will turn out to be a bit of a red herring. She probably had some days off owing or something. If they had been down in Eastbourne for months, that’s a lot of Sunday afternoons she would be owed.’
