Death Waits for No Lady

by James Andrew

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Kate was packing, not that she had much to pack. She owned enough to put in one suitcase. Was this all her hours of work every day had earned her? A few changes of clothes? Yet she had liked it here. It had been the only home she had known apart from the orphanage, and it had seemed exciting after that. There had been so many wonders in this house to admire. But she was frightened now. And where was she going to go? As she folded her dresses and placed them in her suitcase, she pondered that. She had decided to leave, but what was there to go to? The streets that the orphanage had trained her to avoid? The orphanage? No. It would not have her back at her age. Maybe she could go and stay with Mary till she found somewhere, though she did not know what Mary’s mother would say. She might understand, Katy supposed. She had thought Elmwood Hall too dangerous for Mary and, if it was, it was too dangerous for her too. In fact, it was particularly dangerous for her.

  She thought back to the night of Miss Wright’s murder. She had finished her tasks and gone upstairs which was where she should have stayed as she was tired enough, but she was restless and made the excuse to herself she wanted a glass of water from the kitchen. Had Janet seen her when she was returning from doing that? She had been walking back up the servants’ stairs when she heard the door open and glanced down to see Janet coming in. Janet had been absorbed in her thoughts. That was obvious. Something was bothering her, something that made her mutter and stare as she advanced in from the door and took the downward stair to the basement. Katy had never seen Janet looking like that before. And, apart from her ghastly mood, what Katy noticed about her was the dirt on her shoes and on the long sweep of dress above her ankles.

  How had she got her clothes that dirty? It was so unlike the immaculate Janet, but Katy had seen her clearly in the light from the gas mantle at the bottom of the stairs and there had been no mistake. She could only think of one explanation for this and that had only occurred to her when Mary had told her about the poker. Janet must have been getting rid of the first poker. Katy continued packing. It was surprising how absorbed you could become in that, particularly at such a moment. It was a fold she was concentrating on when there was a footstep behind her, and she didn’t hear it.

  She did hear the noise that Blades made as he rushed towards Janet, and was surprised, on turning around, to see him lunging for yet another poker in Janet’s hand. Surprised, Janet whirled and aimed it at him but then his right hand was on hers and it was stronger so that the poker was wrenched away and thrown to the corner. Then Blades had her in an armlock and there was no escape.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘I’m glad you stopped me,’ Janet was saying. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I liked Katy.’ There was a simper on her face that Blades hadn’t seen before. He was just glad she’d calmed down. She’d been beside herself for hours.

  Blades was looking across at her now in the interview room. Peacock sat beside him, and a police constable stood on guard at the door. Blades reflected on the ways his attitude to Janet had changed. He had thought of her as an ageing, mild-mannered housekeeper, and he’d always respected those because it was a position his mother had held, so he’d treated Janet in a manner that was almost deference. Now he knew her as a double murderer and, as he prepared to ask his questions, he studied her with no sympathy.

  ‘You’re the sharp Inspector Blades,’ Janet said with a hint of a sneer but one which did not stay on her face. ‘Which is my problem. You are. You’ll have it all worked out, won’t you?’

  Blades did not reply to this but gave her space to say whatever it was she was going to.

  ‘I knew you would when I heard Mary and Katy say you knew about the poker. Once you’d got that, you were going to get everything else. I didn’t know what to do after that. I regret attacking Katy,’ she said.

  Blades noticed that the emotions on Janet’s face were real and he was glad at least she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ she said. Then her hands pulled mindlessly at the hem of her sleeve as she seemed to forget about Blades and Peacock and her eyes became vacant. She was there somewhere inside herself, Blades supposed, working something out.

  ‘And Charlie Falconer?’

  ‘You’ll know about that too,’ she said as she attempted to repress a sob and failed. Then her body shook as her emotions overwhelmed her again and a moan rasped out of her. After a moment, she said, ‘Poor Charlie. No. He didn’t deserve that. He was a good man who looked after his wife well, even if he was unfaithful to her – with me. That was something you didn’t know.’ There was a gleam in her eye for a moment as she looked at Blades. ‘I still have some life in me. That surprised you, didn’t it?’ She cackled – briefly. ‘It surprised me after the downtrodden life I’ve led. And I was fond of him, but he couldn’t be trusted after he found out what I’d done. You do see that, don’t you? I had no choice.’

  Blades said nothing. She would make her excuses, though she did not look as if she were convincing herself, and they wouldn’t help her avoid her punishment, but Blades didn’t mind listening if it helped confirm what he knew.

  ‘He said he would keep my secret to the grave, so I took him at his word, not that he meant it in that way. He saw me on the night of the murder and I couldn’t let that go. He could have told anyone at any time, couldn’t he? And how could I have been expected to know that Charlie would see anything? Everyone knows he goes back to his cottage every night. I didn’t know he spent any time looking out of the window.’

  Then she pulled at the hem of her sleeve again as her eyes glazed for a few moments. ‘I had to bury that poker because I couldn’t let it be found in the house.’ There was a strange plead in her face as she said that. ‘Not that it was the best of hiding places. I was going to get rid of it properly when there was the chance, but Charlie saw me burying it and dug it up again, and then he knew what I’d done. But I didn’t want to kill him. Why would I? He was a comfort to me.’ Then she paused before adding, ‘It’s too easy the second time.’

  ‘Why did you decide to do away with Katy?’

  ‘I knew she’d got something worked out. And she did see me coming back in from burying the poker. I had hoped it didn’t mean anything to her. But something did. And it had to be that.’

  ‘Do you regret killing Evelyn Wright?’ Blades asked.

  Janet glared at him as she gathered her thoughts to answer. Her eyes were dark and she scowled as she spat out, ‘She was nothing but a self-centred, heartless scrubber.’

  ‘That’s why you killed her?’ Blades asked.

  Janet looked daggers at him as he waited for her answer. She was struggling with strong emotions.

  ‘I saw her in the garden with that Peter Renshaw,’ she said. ‘Him so much younger than her, and her with her hands all over him, shameless hussy that she was. And everybody thought she was such a virtuous person. Evelyn Wright was supposed to be such a grand lady and look at the way she behaved. And she had that Digby Russell all over her too. I couldn’t take any more of that.’

  Then Janet wrung her hands as she gave vent to a sob, which was followed by a few more. When she had calmed down, she continued. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How could you? I lost my Dai over her. You don’t know about that, do you? That was in the Boer War. Her mother was organizing a series of soirées for her, so she could meet a young man, and her mother said I could easily manage to wait till Dai was next back on leave before our wedding. It wouldn’t make any difference to me. Then Dai was killed out there, wasn’t he? I never knew any man properly till Charlie.’ That was only the second time Janet had talked about Dai and she was surprised how much it helped.

  ‘That was her mother. That wasn’t her,’ Blades said.

  ‘It might as well have been,’ Janet said. ‘It was for her. Dai would have died anyway, which was no one’s fault but the Boers, but that didn’t change the way I felt. I wouldn’t have known him for long and might ha
ve even been left with his child, but I’d have loved that child.’

  ‘Feelings do overcome the reason at times,’ Blades said, but there was no sympathy in his voice.

  ‘It’s not as if it’s the only way they made me suffer.’

  Blades watched the emotions at work on Janet’s face, self-pity and anger most prominent, but he could see no remorse there.

  ‘It wasn’t Mr Wright who stopped me going to see my sister when she was dying. It was Miss Wright, selfish besom that she was. I had good reason to hate Evelyn Wright and not just her mother. But you didn’t know that,’ she said, and Blades could see the triumph on her face. ‘I hid that from you. I wasn’t giving the police a motive gift-wrapped.’

  ‘We already do know,’ Blades said. ‘Katy told me.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yes. I did come back and question her again.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d talked about that with her. I suppose that’s what started her mind working.’ Then Janet said nothing for a few moments, though Blades could see her mind was whirring and she was struggling with anger now. ‘Miss Evelyn was going to sell up this house and turn us all out, ungrateful besom that she was. It was that night she told me, after Digby had left, and she called me up to the drawing room to tidy up. I’ve worked for her for thirty-five years and she was going to turn me out on the streets. She was going to go to Leeds if you like and shack up with one of her young men no doubt. I don’t know. I just snapped. After I’d time to think about it, I walked straight into the drawing room and killed her with the poker.’

  ‘You snapped?’ Blades said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe it was that night Miss Wright told you she was selling up the house. You had a big argument with her earlier. I was told about that. That wasn’t just about a change of menu. That was about a change of house. No. You didn’t snap. There was the business of the switched pokers, remember? That extra poker had to be bought in advance. You planned this. You won’t escape a hanging with that argument.’

  ‘The business of the pokers?’ Janet laughed for a moment, then stopped as a gash of anger appeared on her face. Then that disappeared and a gleam came back into her eye. ‘That was smart, wasn’t it? After I’d killed her with one poker, I hit her with another. I only had to hold it by the shaft that time. She was already dead and it left those lovely fingerprints on the handle of the ‘murder weapon’. You were never going to track them down. And I made sure I wiped my own fingerprints off the shaft. The only problem was getting rid of the poker I’d hit her with. Poor Charlie. It was a pity. And he’d done well by me. He hid it well. You won’t find that.’

  ‘We have found it. He didn’t hide it as cleverly as all that,’ Blades said. ‘It was painted black and put in the kitchen set of fire irons, which was why there was an extra poker in that set. Though perhaps he would have done something about that if you’d given him the chance to do it.’

  ‘If you hadn’t got rid of him as evidence,’ Peacock said.

  Janet thought for a moment. ‘He might have done.’ Then Janet’s face brightened as she attempted to rally. ‘But those fingerprints threw you off,’ she said.

  ‘They puzzled us,’ Blades said, ‘but, on the other hand, they protected the other suspects. Just as the prints on the murder weapon weren’t yours, they didn’t belong to them either. Most people would have wiped their fingerprints off the murder weapon and left it at that. If you’d done that, we might have decided we had Digby dead to rights and closed the case then.’

  ‘I’ll bet you never found out whose fingerprints they were, did you?’

  ‘They belonged to Edward Thompson, the ironmonger in Birtley,’ Blades replied.

  Janet’s face fell at this. ‘All wrapped up then?’ she said. ‘Just as well. I should never have done any of it.’ Her face was grim now as she stared ahead of her. Then she seemed to rally as she said, ‘Miss Wright did deserve her end. I’ve never felt so good as I did after swinging that poker. That’ll show you, I thought. The life she was leading. And the lives her servants led to help her do it. It was unfair. All the same, I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t seen her with that young man in the garden.’

  Blades wondered at that. Why was there the need to blame someone else?

  ‘After that, I couldn’t help thinking: just how many more men has she got secreted away?’ Janet looked at Peacock who’d been scribbling away trying to keep up with what she was saying. ‘But you don’t need to worry about getting all that right, sergeant. I’ll write out my confession and sign it. I won’t avoid the hangman’s rope. You won’t allow it. But I’m not ashamed of what I did.’

  And Blades did not suppose she was, though he felt duly ashamed for her. He pondered the other things Janet had said. What was that one again? How many more men had Evelyn got secreted away? There was a thought. The mysterious car in Evelyn Wright’s drive on the night of the murder hadn’t been explained. As Renshaw described it, it could have been Jack Osgood’s car. It was distinctive enough. But Blades still had not worked out how Osgood could have faked that alibi. Perhaps it was a car belonging to another young man of Evelyn Wright’s. One thing was sure. If Evelyn Wright did have other young men in tow, it was a secret she took to her grave. Blades hoped it was a good one.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Blades was writing up his report on Janet when another report arrived. There had been a lot of reports to read on this case, some about witnesses coming forward, some about witnesses not coming forward but who could be traced, reports on fingerprints, the autopsy, the inquest, and some were even reports about reports, he supposed. They had cascaded and seemed uncountable and endless, yet he had thought he had come to the last of them. This one was from Dr Anderson, Digby’s doctor at Craiglockhart, and Blades had been anxious about that at one point, the time when they had thought Digby must be their man.

  This doctor was not shy about divulging confidential information; he seemed proud of the detailed report he gave. He did admit to having formed a very real liking for Digby which was why he had decided to be so forthcoming. The thought of Digby being a suspect in a murder inquiry he had thought horrendous, which was why he felt he had to do as much as he could to clear him.

  When Digby had been referred to Craiglockhart, Dr Anderson had met a patient in an acute psychotic state due to his experiences in the trenches. This was not a violent man, but a man who could not cope with violence, and who abhorred it. Indeed, it was this that had led to his psychosis. He had been overwhelmed by an irrational sense of guilt at the role he had to play in the war. The fact he suffered from hallucinations confirmed the severity of the psychosis. Time and therapy, which had included, in his case, mock séances, had helped and, when he had left Craiglockhart, he had, to all intents and purposes, been cured, though a return to the Front was not recommended. The doctor understood that the Spiritualist church was prepared to help Digby find his feet again, and he considered this would be helpful. He could make no comment on actual communication with the dead, though it was not his place to say it was impossible when so many did believe in it. Digby seemed to believe the dead spoke through him, though the hallucinations had, as far as the doctor could see at the time, stopped, which would be consistent with the progress of psychoses. The doctor did not think the role of medium in the Spiritualist church would be harmful to either Digby or those who consulted him. And who was he to say it did not do a great deal of good in helping people heal after their losses in the war?

  Blades filed the sheet of paper away and sat back. The more he thought about it, the more he was pleased about those fingerprints. Digby certainly could have hanged. What was it Digby had said? When he had been in action at the Somme the bullets had mowed down the soldiers to the left and right of him but for no reason that he could fathom left him standing and unharmed. Not unlike what Digby’s experience had been in this case. His survival again seemed arbitrary.

  He thought of Jean and the loss of her
brother Tom. That had been devastating for her and for her family. And he did not think Jean had recovered from the pain of that yet. She was a church-goer even though her faith in the church had been damaged in the war. Their minister had preached from his pulpit to the young men there and encouraged them to do their duty by their country and by God and volunteer to fight at the Front. Because of this, she had lost her brother, as so many others had lost their young men. That had rocked her faith for some time. How could she go to her minister and her church for comfort over her loss when they’d connived in it? Yet she did. It was just of so little help. Blades had always been against her going to séances to try to get in touch with Tom, though he knew many of her friends resorted to this. When their own church had failed them, the Spiritualist church had helped. Her friends had told her it gave them the comfort of feeling that when they died, they would meet up with their loved ones on the other side. In the séances, their loved ones told them they were waiting for them. Now Blades wondered what right he had thought he had to deny Jean that comfort.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  As a church, it was small in size and simple in design, more in the style of a meeting hall than a cathedral, a stone building at least, but one that had been converted from some sort of works. The roof was low, the space restricted, but they had managed to run to a pulpit and proper pews. There was even stained glass in what had originally been a mundane, small-paned window. It now depicted a cross, amateurish in its construction but effective.

  Blades and his wife were here, Blades disbelieving but Jean hopeful. Blades thought back to the telegram that her family had received; it had said that Jean’s brother Tom was missing, presumed dead at the Battle of the Somme. Blades had thought this officialese unnecessarily cold, though a kind interpretation might be that the War Office thought an objective and brief use of language would make deaths easier to cope with, even if only marginally; but the bare statement was still brutal. Blades knew that Jean had found it hard to accept and that she had hoped for long enough that Tom had lost his memory, would one day recover it, and walk through the front door of the family home with a cheery grin. Because of what Blades had gleaned of life and death in the trenches, he had never thought there was hope. A lot of bodies were not identified because there was not enough left to distinguish who it might have been, and that was probably what had happened to Tom. Blades was glad when Jean eventually accepted the fact of Tom’s death.