by Jack Murray
‘What about Natalie?’ asked Esther.
‘They found her. Kit rang me an hour ago. She’s safe,’ replied Mary quickly before knocking on the door of the elderly butler and walking straight in.
Agatha and Betty were both sitting on his bed. Fish lay motionless. Asleep. Agatha was holding his hand. There were tears in her eyes. Esther put her hand to her mouth and gasped. Bright immediately went over and searched for a pulse. There was none. He seemed at peace.
Agatha looked up at the new arrivals. Her voice cracking with sadness.
‘He didn’t tell me he was ill until last week. His heart, apparently. If only he’d said something.’
‘Poor Fish,’ said Esther, putting her arms around Mary.
Esther and Bright looked around the room at the visible mementoes. There were photographs, books, a telescope, the new gramophone player with a handful of 78’s and, if Bright wasn’t mistaken, what looked like a knuckleduster. He raised his eyebrows as Esther picked it up and held it in her hand. She looked questioningly at Bright who, in turn, raised his eyebrows to Aunt Agatha.
Then Esther spotted a photograph of a young Judson Fish with his master, Lord Eustace ‘Useless’ Frost and an attractive young woman.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Esther.
‘Gabrielle,’ replied Betty. Her eyes were moist, but the sadness was as much for her friend as for Fish. She could feel the pain in Agatha, the guilt, too. And something else. As one aged, one became more aware that life is as much about endings as the next new beginning. Esther looked at the photograph of the woman again. Fish had his hand on her arm.
‘Fish was married?’ asked Esther, genuinely shocked, although she wouldn’t have been able to explain why.
Agatha nodded slowly. A tear dropped onto Fish’s hand.
‘What happened?’ asked Esther, unable to resist the urge to know.
‘She was murdered. Thirty years ago,’ replied Agatha slowly. ‘It was my last case.’
40
Early the next morning a rather dishevelled looking Kit and Chief Inspector Jellicoe arrived at Grosvenor Square. It was clear that neither had slept the previous night. Mary broke the sad news about Fish to Kit as she led him and the Chief Inspector into the drawing room. Then she went to fetch Aunt Agatha and Esther.
Kit couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged his aunt. Before she could object, he did so as soon as she entered. He looked at her. The sadness on her face was plain as was the lack of spark behind her eyes. He held her hand as they sat down.
‘How is Natalie?’
‘She’s very unwell,’ replied Kit. ‘They gave her a powerful drug to knock her out. She’s still feeling the effects of that and will have to stay in hospital today but should be released tomorrow. She was worried about you, Aunt Agatha, and Fish. I understand why now.’
Agatha nodded absently. She felt Mary take her other hand and did not, for once, object to the attention being paid to her.
‘The news, I’m afraid is mixed on last night,’ admitted Kit. ‘We rounded up everyone except their leader. He escaped and we have no idea who he is. We’re hoping that ‘Haymaker’ will be able to help us when he comes around. He got a frightful whack.’
‘Do we know who these people are?’
Kit looked at Mary and there was a ghost of a smile.
‘Yes, we do.’
‘Bobby Andrews?’ asked Mary.
‘No. He wasn’t there. I have to admit I was wondering about him. No, it was his friend Xander Williams.’
Mary and Esther’s eyes widened. They looked at one another, each with the same thought. Kit spoke again giving voice to what they were thinking. There was a hint of anger in his voice. And relief.
‘Yes Xander Lewis, the buffoon. Not such a fool now. It might have been one of you last night.’
Mary and Esther could say nothing in their defence and remained silent. Chief Inspector gave the names of the other people in custody. All were from wealthy families and in a few cases, titled. But Esther and Mary were still in shock about the news regarding Xander Lewis.
‘It was staring at us in our face all this time,’ said Mary. ‘The flowers.’
‘I know,’ said Kit. ‘I must speak to Peter Wolf. Xander Lewis is the son of his business partner.’
‘Why would they do these horrible things?’ asked Esther.
Jellicoe thought for a moment but could think of nothing to say. After decades of investigating murder, he’d never dealt with something like this. It went to the very nature of man. The proximity to such barbarism was something that appalled him. Kit, too, felt shame. Each shook their heads, but no words came.
Finally, with all the news communicated, the two men rose.
‘I need a bath and a nap,’ said Kit. He looked at Jellicoe.
‘I shall have to go back in, but I’ll return to Mrs Jellicoe and let her know all is well.’
As they walked through the entrance hallway, the telephone rang. Mary answered it.
‘Hello, Isabelle. Yes I’m well.’
A minute later, she nodded and then replaced the handset. She turned to Kit.
‘Could you ask Richard if he can come to the refuge today? Apparently, Dr French didn’t come in today.’
Kit looked at the Chief Inspector. Jellicoe looked non plussed by this. However, he saw Kit was disturbed by this news.
‘Didn’t you say the artist chap, Watts, came to you yesterday about a missing drawing? One that turned out to resemble French?’
‘He did, but he thought it was funny. I don’t think for one moment he was accusing French of anything,’ pointed out Jellicoe. ‘He told me that he gave the drawings to the Commissioner, anyway, not French.’
‘But I’m right in thinking that French’s office and the mortuary are both located in the basement, just down the corridor from the photographer?’
Jellicoe shook his head, unable or unwilling to follow Kit’s train of thought.
‘Commissioner Horwood could have been going to see Dr French,’ acknowledged Jellicoe. ‘But this is extraordinary. Dr French has been a Medical Examiner with the police as long as I can remember. He could have been Crown Coroner if he’d so chosen. You can’t seriously be saying that he’s the perpetrator of these vile acts.’
Kit had a look in his eyes that Mary knew all too well. His mind had already moved on.
‘Do we have anyone guarding ‘Haymaker’ and Natalie? They can identify him. Chief Inspector I think we need to go to the hospital. Immediately. If it is him, then he’ll have no problem gaining access to their rooms.’
-
St Thomas’ Hospital is situated across the river from the Houses of Parliament in Lambeth. It was here that ‘Haymaker’ Harris, not for the first time in his life, lay out for the count. A combination of the youthful vigour of Xander Lewis and the fact that the book with which he’d been struck was embossed with a metal pentacle meant he’d received quite a blow to the head. He’d come to during the middle of the night but soon fell into a deep sleep.
Kit had organised for him to have his own room in the hospital. A few rooms down lay Natalie. She, too, slept. Between the two rooms was a sole policeman, Constable Ron Wardell. He’d been in the police force for nigh on thirty seven years. Retirement could not come soon enough. Thirty seven years of public service. He was tired of it all. Policing was a young man’s game.
As he slept, nurses, doctors and hospital visitors passed by quietly, making sure not to wake him. Even the sound of his own, very loud snores, was not enough to penetrate the deep slumber that Wardell was enjoying.
The corridor was quiet when a man appeared and stood over the resting rozzer. He glanced, first, into the room of Natalie. A nurse and a doctor were there taking her blood pressure. He moved down towards the room with ‘Haymaker’. A woman was in there with her back to the door.
The man looked one way down the corridor and then the other. It was empty save for the prone policeman. He reached inside his pocket
and took out a handkerchief. He poured some liquid onto it. Heart beating fast, he moved towards the door of ‘Haymaker’s’ room. His movements felt strained. Almost certainly the big lug had inflicted a broken rib on him. The pain, however, acted to distract him from the nervousness that he felt.
The door was ajar. He pushed it open quietly but not quietly enough. The seated woman turned around. He was expecting her to scream. But why should she? She was a common sort of woman. Reddish hair. Small. Very small, in fact. She would see a distinguished middle-aged man enter. A doctor perhaps. She could have no suspicions.
The man smiled and walked forward. His left hand concealed the handkerchief, his right hand, a surgeon’s scalpel. One or other would be necessary. At this point he no longer cared which.
‘Hello Miss?’
‘Hill,’ replied the woman, ‘Maggie Hill.’
-
Riding in a police car going full pelt with the bells ringing was certainly one way to negotiate the growing congestion in the capital. And yet for all the haste they were making, it was not fast enough for Kit. His senses were tingling. Something was going to happen if it had not already done so. Both ‘Haymaker’ and Natalie had been well-guarded for most of the night but with St Thomas’ returning to normality in the early morning, Kit was less sure this would be the case now. Visitors, of course, would not be allowed. But a doctor?
Even Jellicoe seemed on edge, sitting with Kit in the back. Or perhaps it was the lack of sleep. His finger kept drumming against the window. They pulled up outside the hospital less than ten minutes later.
‘Come with us,’ ordered Jellicoe to the police driver. The more men the better. It was impossible to know if Dr French, if it was him, would be acting alone or if there were others.
They burst onto the corridor a minute or two later and Kit’s heart sank. Outside ‘Haymaker’s’ room there were a number of doctors and nurses. Jellicoe took out his badge and they made their way through to the room.
It was quite a sight.
‘Haymaker’ lay in bed blissfully unaware of the commotion around him. Maggie Hill was sitting on the bed, holding his hand. Dr French, meanwhile, was being attended to by a nurse. There were a number of nasty cuts on his face and, if his foetal position and whimpering were any indication, probably serious damage in the vicinity of his groin.
‘Well, I see you’ve matters in hand, Miss Hill,’ said Kit when he’d regained his composure.
Maggie Hill nodded and said simply, ‘He had a knife’
Much good it did him, thought Kit then he looked at Jellicoe. The Chief Inspector raised one eyebrow then the two men turned to Maggie Hill. There was a glint in her eye that might have been fear, relief or something else.
‘Well, Miss Hill,’ said Kit, finally. ‘You seem to have caught our killer.’
Epilogue
Dixie Harris looked on with a mixture of pride and no little shock as three young women of quite exceptional beauty walked into the hospital room of her son. ‘Haymaker’ was awake and none the worse for the injury sustained in the rescue.
By now Mrs Harris was aware of the exceptional bravery exhibited by her son. But this was not news to her. This was the boy she’d brought up. These were the values he’d learned. Notwithstanding a mother’s certainty on such matters, she could not prevent a tear trickling down her cheek as each of these ladies took it in turns to give her son a delicate kiss on the cheek.
‘Haymaker’ of course, cried like a baby.
Then the tall gentleman she remembered calling the other day came over to her. He started speaking to her and she could barely take in what was being said. She recognised it was English, but it was spoken in a way she’d not heard before. Kit kissed her on the cheek and thanked her for having such a wonderfully brave son.
A few minutes later, Wag McDonald walked in accompanied by his brother Wal, Alice Diamond and Maggie Hill. She’d never been too sure of the Hill girl before, but her reaction was instinctive. Dixie Harris was over and embracing her before Maggie Hill could execute the right cross she would normally perform in such circumstances.
-
A few days later…
Mansfield Smith-Cumming walked in the park past a group of mothers and their children, a park keeper and a man clearing leaves into a large pile. He stopped to look at the man and then walked towards him.
‘I say, what are you planning to do with those leaves?’
The man seemed surprised to be addressed by Smith-Cumming. He looked at the retired naval officer and, unbeknownst to him, the head of British Intelligence.
‘Burn them, sir,’ replied the man after a few moments.
Smith-Cumming nodded and went on his way. Up ahead he saw Vernon Kell arriving from a different park entrance. Neither waved to the other. Their greeting was business-like but cool. Kell glanced down at the large file being held by Smith-Cumming. He showed Smith-Cumming a similar file he was carrying.
‘You’ve come prepared, I see,’ said the head of MI5.
Smith-Cumming smiled and replied ‘Indeed.’
‘When are we expecting Aston?’
‘He should be here in half an hour. In the meantime, I rather thought we would avail ourselves of that gentleman’s help, over there.’
Smith-Cumming pointed to the man he’d spoken to earlier. Kell looked at the man with no little confusion. Then he saw the man crouch over the leaves. Moments later he lifted them up and deposited them in a large metal fire basket. Flames were already licking the side.
‘Good idea,’ acknowledged Kell. He started to walk alongside Smith-Cumming in the direction of the small fire. The keeper looked at the two men.
‘Do you mind if we use this, too?’ asked Smith-Cumming.
The keeper looked at Smith-Cumming and shrugged his shoulders. This seemed to be permission enough. The two men carefully placed their files into the fire basket. The heat intensified. From a distance it was quite pleasant in an otherwise cold October day.
‘What will you say to Aston?’
‘It’s for the best. He won’t like it but he’s a rational enough to know that we’re right. No one can know what happened. No one. It must stop with us. With him.’
‘Will he really go along?’
‘Hard to see what choice he has. The traces are being kicked over as we speak. Commissioner Horwood is ex-army. He takes orders. He’ll no more want it revealed that a police doctor was responsible for the deaths of so many women than we do. Your sergeant has hopefully mopped up any other paperwork.’
‘Trial?’
Smith-Cumming laughed at this and shook his head.
‘French was moved to an insane asylum. We won’t hear from him again.’
‘Glad to hear due process was followed.’
Smith-Cumming seemed remarkably unconcerned by this and, anyway, Kell’s tone hardly suggested a soul deeply troubled by the future prospects of Dr French. The last of the papers began to turn black with the heat. Both men, now empty-handed, stared in fascination as all details of the murders went up in smoke.
‘French was a widower apparently. No one picked up on this, which is a pity. We might have investigated him sooner. He worked under Westcott; you know. We missed this, too. It was all there had we had enough men to look. He joined the Hermetic Order and then struck out on his own as his tastes evolved.’
‘And the others?’
‘We should be able to gain convictions for kidnapping and accessory to attempted murder for the co-conspirators,’ answered Smith-Cumming.
Kell nodded and replied, as much to himself, ‘Justice.’
There was nothing in this for Smith-Cumming, so he left the comment hanging. He studied Kell for a moment, a half-smile on his lips.
‘Are you staying to see Kit?’
He watched as Kell turned his back and began to walk away, laughing. Smith-Cumming’s grin broadened, and he went over to a park seat near the warmth of the fire. In the distance, he saw a familiar figure strolling towards hi
m. A sadness fell on him. What they had done was wrong. Worse than being a lie, it was a denial to the victims. Kit would see it this way. He would be angry. He had the luxury of being right. Smith-Cumming had no such luxury. He had his duty. This would be his guide, as it always was.
‘Hello, Kit. Good to see you,’ said Smith-Cumming rising from the bench.
-
A few weeks after…
Henry Cavendish stood up in the ballroom of Cavendish Hall. It had been transformed into a dining room for the fifty guests at the wedding of Esther Cavendish to Dr Richard Bright. As Henry looked around the room at his guests. Mary studied him. She marvelled, once more, at how much he’d changed over the last year.
He seemed taller. He’d certainly filled out. And he had Jane Edmunds by his side. Beside Jane Edmunds was Henry’s mother, Aunt Emily. This was astonishing enough and augured well in the evolution of their aunt from harridan to matriarch.
‘I never thought I would be giving a father of the bride speech at the age of nineteen,’ started Henry. This brought laughter but Esther also felt a lump in her throat. She turned to Richard Bright and smiled. Kit had never seen any man look happier. With good reason. He was delighted for his two friends. At long last they were married. The laughter, meanwhile, subsided and Henry continued.
‘I immediately wish to acknowledge my unworthiness. Two finer men than I should have been here today. If I may, I would like our first toast to be to their memory. Arthur and John Cavendish.’
Henry raised his glass and the assembled guests rose and toasted the memory of Esther’s father and grandfather. Kit squeezed Mary’s hand as he saw the tears appear in her eyes.
Henry continued to speak.
‘But today is a happy occasion, to be followed by yet another celebration in February…’
Mary looked at Kit and her eyes narrowed. Only three months. It seemed a lifetime. How much had happened in the last year. What would the rest of their lives be like if this was just the first few months? She couldn’t wait.
