McKinley owned a house in Chislehurst in Kent, where he sometimes spent the weekends. He also had a small flat above his consulting rooms. Ada gave them his bank account details—he banked at Coutts in the Strand.
“Does he, by God!” exclaimed Beech, knowing full well that Coutts only accepted customers who had very substantial amounts of money. Ada said she sometimes put money in the night safe of the bank, when asked to do so.
They discovered that Dodds/Sumpter obtained large quantities of drugs via his criminal connections that he then sold to the doctor. McKinley then required Ada to adulterate the heroin with other substances and to package them up into single doses. These were given to patients for a variety of ailments and they were charged ten times the actual cost of the drugs. Ada could not verify how much Dodds/Sumpter was involved in the day-to-day operation of the brothels but she suspected that he had, on occasion supplied new girls. She said he was “a slippery customer.” She knew he had a record for petty crimes and she said that it was McKinley that recommended him for the job as Lord Murcheson’s butler. How the doctor and the petty criminal originally formed a relationship was a mystery to her. Beech asked her if she knew of any particular places that Dodds/Sumpter frequented—he was wondering if she might slip up and mention the pub in Piccadilly—but she said no. “I have never associated with him outside of the doctor’s surgery or Lord Murcheson’s house. Nor do I wish to.” Again, to Beech it was plain that she did not know that the man was dead.
It took at least an hour for Ada to write down the names of all of McKinley’s patients that she could remember. With dismay, Beech noted that the list contained a great number of eminent politicians and their wives and families.
This will never get to trial, he thought despairingly.
Finally, Ada could give no more information and, as it was nearly five o’clock and Beech had warrants to obtain, they wrapped everything up and Ada was sent back to her cell.
“We will arrest the good doctor first thing in the morning, Tollman,” ordered Beech, “Meanwhile, I know you have this business in Piccadilly to wrap up tonight so you’d better go and get something to eat.”
“Yes sir,” said Billy with feeling. “I’m looking forward to nabbing old Bay Rum.”
Beech looked quizzical. “Who?”
“Sorry, sir,” replied Billy, “Just my little nickname for the bloke, on account of one of the lads we interviewed said the man smelt strongly of the Bay Rum he put on his hair.”
“Ah.” Beech smiled faintly. “Well, good luck then and keep me informed.”
CHAPTER 21
At around six thirty, Billy and Tollman arrived at the Piccadilly house, to find Michael sitting in the fading light in, what had been, George’s room. Michael informed them that he and the others would be leaving the place tonight, but that he would stay, just to identify George’s patron.
“You said to carry on as normal,” he said, “so those of us with patrons will conduct business as usual. The rest, except me, have already gone. They won’t be coming back.”
“That’s a pity,” Tollman replied. “We were hoping for some statements.”
Michael shook his head. “They don’t want to be involved and I told them you had promised to leave them alone.” Then he had said an odd thing to Tollman. “Look in our rooms afterward. We’ll leave you some useful information.” Then Michael asked about George.
“He’s alright,” Billy said. “He’s going to stay with a kind elderly gentleman, a cabinet-maker. George is going to look after him and the old man is going to teach George a trade.”
Michael gave Billy a sad smile and said he was glad. Then he instructed Tollman to pay no attention to sounds on the stairs. To wait until the door handle was turned by George’s patron before they sprang into action.
Tollman assured him that they would wait until the man stepped into the room before they arrested him and Michael left to return to his own room.
Tollman turned to Billy and enquired whether the information about the lad, George, was the truth or a lie.
“God’s honest truth, Mr Tollman,” Billy replied. “Sorry, I haven’t really had time to tell you.”
Tollman expressed his admiration but Billy shrugged and said, “Nah! It wasn’t my doing. It was my busybody mum and her sister who sorted it all out.” But Tollman knew that it had been at Billy’s instigation and he patted his shoulder in appreciation.
So, there they were, sitting and waiting for the sadist who nearly killed George. It was almost dark now and they began to hear the front door open and close beneath their feet. Men were arriving. First, one, who went past the room in which they were sitting and up the stairs above their head. Then, about twenty minutes later, another arrived, but he too went past their room and on to the end of the corridor. Tollman and Billy sat in the gloom with mounting frustration. “Come on! Come on!” Billy muttered under his breath. Tollman put his hand out to silence him. Soon … very soon … they hoped to make their arrest.
* * *
Beech arrived back at the Mayfair house to find Victoria, Lady Maud, and Caroline eating dinner and he quickly joined them. He was feeling enthusiastic about the day’s events because, at last, he could tell the Chief Commissioner that they had solved the murder of Lord Murcheson.
The ladies looked at him expectantly for news of the day and he waited until Mary had served him and left the room before he launched into a detailed explanation of Ada Yardley’s confession and the revelations about Dr McKinley.
“I knew he was a terrible man!” cried Caroline, feeling vindicated.
“Of course, you were absolutely right, Caro,” replied Beech, “and also about the nurse passing a venereal disease on to Lord Murcheson. Once Ada Yardley is on remand at the women’s prison at Holloway, I shall need you to examine her thoroughly and produce a report for the court, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“My pleasure …” Caroline responded and was about to continue the conversation when Lady Maud interrupted.
“Peter! Caroline!” she said abruptly. “I am as broad-minded as the next person, my dears, but I draw the line on discussions about venereal diseases at the dining table!”
Suitably chastened, Peter and Caroline mumbled apologies while Victoria grinned. “So,” she said brightly, “the Murcheson case is all but wrapped up and we can tell Lady Harriet that she and Polly are in the clear.”
“Yes, absolutely,” Peter agreed.
“Caroline! You and I shall take Polly to see her mistress tomorrow, and break the good news,” Victoria decided.
“Where are Mr Tollman and PC Rigsby?” enquired Lady Maud, going off at a tangent.
“Er … they are making an arrest in the house in Piccadilly tonight. Hopefully they will be apprehending the terrible man who abused the eighteen-year-old youth.” He laughed as he recalled Billy’s nickname for the perpetrator. “Or rather, they will be arresting Old Bay Rum, as Rigsby calls him.”
“What?” The ladies all looked amused and quizzical.
“Apparently, one of the witnesses said that the man in question smelt of the inordinate amount of Bay Rum he put on his hair. Hence Rigsby’s nickname.”
Suddenly Caroline dropped her knife and fork on her plate with a resounding clatter. “Oh my God!” She looked stricken.
“Caroline?” asked Lady Maud anxiously.
“Peter!” Caroline was visibly agitated now. “That’s what I smelt!”
“What?”
“When we went to McKinley’s surgery. It wasn’t cologne; it was Bay Rum … McKinley must be the man they’re going to arrest!”
“Good Lord! I’d better get over there!” And Beech rushed out of the room, leaving the three ladies looking flustered and concerned.
* * *
There had been one other man come up the stairs in the molly shop and then everything had gone silent.
“Perhaps he’s not coming tonight,” whispered Billy in frustration.
“Patience, lad. Patience,
” murmured Tollman under his breath.
Finally, they were rewarded by the sound of more footsteps and, yet, there had been no sound of the front door opening and closing. They both realized that the man must have come in the back door. The only customer that night to do so.
The footsteps ascended the stairs, almost to the top, when the door opposite opened, and they heard Michael say quietly, “I have a message from George.”
“No!” said Billy urgently, knowing what was about to happen … but before they could move, they heard a man scream, a thud and footsteps running down the stairs.
They rushed out into the corridor to find a man slumped on the stairs with a knife through the base of his neck. Blood was everywhere. Michael had delivered his message with devastating efficiency and they saw the back door swing shut as he left.
“Shall I run after him?” Billy asked.
Tollman shook his head grimly. “Natural justice, we said, didn’t we? Besides, he’ll be long gone now.”
Suddenly, the front door opened and Beech appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Good God!” he said as the blood trickled down toward him. “What happened?”
“We were tricked by one of the lads,” said Tollman. “He said he would stay to identify the suspect but, instead, he was lying in wait to kill him, in revenge for his friend being abused by this man. The lad was too quick for us, sir. He did the deed and ran out before we could apprehend him, I’m sorry. We’ll have to get an artist at the Yard to do a drawing and see if we can do a manhunt.”
Beech digested all this information and then said, “Right, I see. Unfortunate business all round. Could you turn the dead man over, Rigsby? I want to see his face.”
Billy duly obliged, even though the body was slippery with blood and he found it hard to get a grip.
Beech clasped his hands together on top of his head and stared at the body with an expression of total frustration. “Gentlemen, meet the eminent Doctor McKinley,” he said simply and with an air of finality.
All, however, was not lost. Tollman remembered that Michael had said that once the arrest was over, they would find some information in the rooms. They moved the body, after making some notes and noting the time of death, and began to search the rooms.
“Well!” exclaimed Tollman, when they opened the first door on the second floor and found a man in his underwear, gagged and bound to a chair. “It appears they’ve left us plenty of information!”
Upon continuing to search, they found two more men—one had been drugged into a comatose state and the other had been plied with drink until he was insensible. All the other rooms were empty. Cleared out and clean as a whistle. Except for Michael’s room. There was a simple note on the bed, which said, “I DID IT FOR GEORGE”—and that was it.
“Right!” said Beech, cheering up a little. “Let’s phone the Yard and get a body wagon and a Black Maria down here and clear this place out. We’d better formally arrest them first—well, the one who is compos mentis—and the porter downstairs.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tollman. “Er … what shall we charge them with, sir? Offences Against the Person or Sodomy?”
Beech felt reckless. “Why not both? And possibly a few more charges, depending upon what we discover when we get down to the Yard? Let’s see if we can get the most out of this situation.” Privately, he had the distinct impression that the three clients, gifted to them by the prostitutes, looked like “men of substance” and would never see a trial. But he was going to enjoy making them squirm.
* * *
The next day, Caroline, who was off-duty, and Victoria took Polly to see Lady Harriet who was, by now, sitting up in bed and improving daily. When they opened the door, both Victoria and Caroline watched in silence as the mistress and her maid clung to each other in a tearful embrace, which displayed their obvious devotion to each other.
“Lady Harriet,” said Caroline after a while, “the police have caught the woman who killed your husband. Neither you nor Polly had anything to do with it. This woman has confessed and you will both be absolved of all charges.”
Lady Harriet expressed her gratitude and gently asked Polly to leave the room for a moment. Once the girl was outside, she motioned Victoria and Caroline to be seated.
“Tell me truthfully,” she asked, “was this woman a prostitute? Was she, as I suspected, visiting my husband regularly?”
“Yes,” answered Victoria quietly. “She worked for your husband’s doctor—Doctor McKinley.”
Lady Harriet’s eyes widened in surprise and then her face assumed an expression of distaste.
“So … McKinley was giving my husband copious drugs and supplying him with a woman as well. How despicable! Have you arrested Doctor McKinley?”
Victoria and Caroline then took it in turns to explain the labyrinthine twists and turns of the case, sparing no detail, even though Victoria kept profusely apologizing for the sordidness of the world they had been investigating.
“It is almost certain,” Victoria finished the account, “that Doctor McKinley murdered your butler, Dodds, although the police have no way of proving it, now that McKinley is dead.”
Her recent experiences had given Lady Harriet a hardness that she had not known before and she did not demur at any of the tale that unfolded.
She sighed. “How sad that two men, my husband and McKinley, who had such high positions in life, chose to take a path of unbelievable degeneracy. Such a waste! As for Dodds … well, he obviously chose his path in life some time ago and I’ve no doubt, if he was involved in all the things you say, he would have died brutally in some way or another.”
Caroline took a deep breath and said, “Lady Harriet, forgive me, there is something of a medical nature I have to tell you.”
“Go ahead, doctor.”
“I’m afraid that your injuries were so severe that you will never again be able to have children.”
Lady Harriet nodded and was silent for a moment. Then she said, with a small smile, “Thank you, doctor, I half suspected as much but, you see, it doesn’t really matter … as I have Polly. I have decided that I am unsuited for marriage anyway. I will adopt Polly and educate her—not as a titled lady—which is a useless function in life but, hopefully, as a well-educated woman, rather like you, doctor, who will find her own place in the world. I shall retire to my hus …” she stopped herself and then continued “… to my country estate, where I shall recuperate and Polly will take care of me. I cannot bring myself to set foot in the London house again but I shall not sell it. Polly may find it useful when she is older.” She sighed. “I suppose I must tell the staff in Belgravia that they are no longer needed.”
“Um … no, Lady Harriet,” volunteered Victoria and she proceeded to tell her about the staff resignations and Constable Rigsby’s female relatives taking refuge from the Zeppelin bombing.
“What a splendid solution.” Lady Harriet seemed rather pleased. “I shall send the two ladies a monthly stipend so that they may continue to look after the place!”
All matters being settled, Polly was retrieved from the corridor and, as they left, Caroline looked back to see Lady Harriet animatedly talking to the girl and holding her hand.
EPILOGUE
Beech was proved right. The Attorney General intervened, once the facts of Dr McKinley’s “businesses” were presented to him. The fact that a senior Civil Servant, a minor politician and an eminent bank manager suddenly “retired” and disappeared from public life, went unnoticed by almost everyone.
Ada Yardley was swiftly brought to trial in a closed court and was acquitted of murder but found guilty of the lesser charge of “manslaughter with mitigating circumstances” and a secondary charge of prostitution. Lady Harriet had not been required to appear in person to give evidence—the court accepted her written evidence—but Polly was brought, trembling, into the courtroom and relayed the details of the night of the murder. Beech gave evidence of Ada’s co-operation and the final sentence was ten years. Ada wa
s grateful for that.
The porter of the molly shop was similarly sentenced to ten years for “knowingly aiding and abetting the operation of an illegal establishment under the Offences Against the Person Act” and while he grumbled at Tollman throughout his court hearing, he also knew that he had got off lightly.
None of the prostitutes from the molly shop could be found and Beech graciously omitted to mention in his report the fact that George Harris was now rehomed in Lambeth and was happily learning the trade of cabinet-making.
Dr McKinley was mourned by all his grieving patients who were told that he had died from a sudden heart attack. As he died intestate and had no family, his considerable wealth was drained from his bank account by the Government, as was its right, and added to the public purse. His house in Chislehurst and his premises in Harley Street were searched and provided accounts books and other evidence that showed just how extensive an empire he had operated. Maisie Perkins was visited by Detective Sergeant Tollman and “advised” to retire, as her premises would be closed down, as were the two brothels in Paddington and the house in Piccadilly.
Beech’s final report was submitted to the Chief Commissioner, who pronounced it “fascinating reading,” and then it was locked away until it could be used at a suitable time, when the “powers-that-be” decided to consider the merits of women police officers in London.
Caroline busied herself with lobbying various charitable ladies, who in turn would persuade their husbands in the Government and Industry, that it would be a good idea to allow regular weekly medical inspections of women who worked in the munitions industry.
Murder in Belgravia Page 27
