The Good Wife

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Distraction, I would hope,’ Mickey said.

  The next appointment was with Miss Georgia Styles. She was indeed a very elderly lady, but spry and bright and with very clear grey eyes. Mickey took to her immediately.

  ‘I usually take tea at four,’ she told them, ‘but I’m quite content to take tea twice in an afternoon. Company is always welcome.’

  A grey-haired woman opened the door and wheeled in a chrome and glass trolley on which was set tea, cakes and small sandwiches. The rather modern piece seemed at odds with the heavy Victorian furniture in the small salon.

  ‘Thank you, Ellie, dear,’ Miss Styles said. She leaned confidentially towards Mickey as the elderly retainer departed. ‘Ellie and I usually take tea together in the afternoon. I know it’s a little unconventional, but the truth is she has become more of a companion over the years than a housekeeper. We read to one another of an evening and listen to the radio.’ She clasped her hands delightedly at the thought. ‘Oh, I do enjoy my radio.’

  ‘So do I,’ Mickey agreed.

  ‘You told the constable that Mrs Mason came to visit you last week and she seemed about ready to tell you something, but then never did.’

  ‘Oh dear, that poor girl.’ Miss Styles dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her napkin. ‘Chief Inspector, may I ask you to pour the tea? Arthritis in my hands makes it painful. Now, Martha. No doubt you have discovered by now that she was having a relationship with a man that she should really have ignored and avoided.’

  Mickey and Henry exchanged a glance.

  ‘I may be old, my dear, but I still have all my faculties, and I have the experience to know when a marriage is not all it seems. Now, Martha and her doctor, they were very much in love but there was something not quite right about that relationship, and sometime in the middle of last year I became aware that she was restless. Eventually she did confess this to me and the consequences of it. Like many young women, I don’t think she was prepared for the strictures of marriage, or for the realities of marrying a country doctor still so early in his years of practice. They were not well off, you know, but Clive Mason really is a lovely man. He won’t turn anyone from his door if they are in need of help and he encourages them just to pay what they can afford. It’s very admirable but of no help when you’re trying to run a household. I knew there were some months when Martha struggled to pay the rent on time. So when this rich man comes along and pays attention to her, well it’s enough to turn anybody’s head and we’ve all been young and foolish.’

  ‘You’re talking about Mr Harry Benson,’ Mickey asked. He would not usually have revealed how much he knew, but he felt that this elderly lady deserved to have him be straight with her.

  Miss Styles stared at him in horror and then laughed out loud. ‘Oh, goodness, is that what you think? She didn’t succumb to Harry’s blandishments, did she? Oh dear Lord. I suppose the man can be charming and fun when the fit takes him. I did warn her about him and she told me not to worry. That her involvement was with someone else entirely.’

  Mickey and Henry exchanged another glance. ‘So who are you talking about?’ Mickey asked.

  Henry placed the tea on a little table. She thanked him and then leaned forward to add small sandwiches and tiny cakes to a china plate decorated with blue forget-me-nots. ‘Please help yourself, gentlemen. No, you surprised me about Benson. So the minx was encouraging more than one gentleman. That was unwise, don’t you think? I did like her, though, she had such spirit, and she worked so hard.’

  ‘You can’t have approved …’ Mickey commented.

  ‘My dear, when you have reached such a great age as I have, approval and disapproval seem such insignificant emotions. Whether I approve or disapprove of anything in the world will make no difference whatsoever. Whereas the pleasure of good conversation and a lively mind, such as Martha Mason had, will make a great difference to the quality of one’s life. I hoped she could confide in me and she often did, although it seems not about everything.’ She pursed her lips somewhat sadly and then sipped her tea, deep in thought.

  ‘And you have no idea what it was she wanted to’ – Mickey consulted his notebook – ‘explain to you, was I think the phrase used.’

  ‘Unfortunately she chose an afternoon when we were interrupted twice. Once was a trivial matter, some travelling salesmen or other trying to sell me stockings. Then the unexpected arrival of Anne Finch, that’s the vicar’s wife, who when she saw that Martha was here, settled herself in for a long and meaningful talk about the flower rota or some such. There is a stupid woman. So no, Martha didn’t tell me what it was she had come to explain. And I only wish she had because it seems to me that it was important to her and may have had some bearing on this dreadful mess. I had the feeling, at the time, that she wanted to tell me about her … affair of the heart but she didn’t get the chance. Who would want to kill Martha? This is what I cannot understand.’

  ‘And you didn’t see her at the racecourse?’

  ‘Oh no, my dear, I have a nice little spot, high up in the stands. Ellie and I made our way up there with our picnic and we watched the proceedings from that eyrie. We’re both of us too infirm to go traipsing around the place, but we do enjoy watching the horses and the liveliness of the atmosphere and friends know they can come and visit us in our little spot, and we had the most wonderful day. I’m just so sorry about Martha. No, I am beyond sorry that Martha is gone. I will miss her deeply.’

  They talked for a little longer and Miss Styles promised that if she had any further thoughts she would not hesitate to contact them. Mickey then collected the murder bag, with all of his forensic equipment, and returned to the home of Mr Harry Benson to collect whatever fingerprints were available. Henry set off to consult with Emory and then to return to the hotel. There was, he thought, much to think about now and much of it was totally unexpected. This murder case was becoming more complex by the hour.

  EIGHT

  Henry arrived at the Saracen’s Head to find a telegram had been sent from London. Enquiries had been made at the place Dr Mason had told them his wife had worked as a typist in Brighton before they had married.

  Henry read the telegram twice and them borrowed the telephone at the reception desk and made a trunk call to Scotland Yard, eventually being put through to the sergeant who had sent him the telegram.

  ‘I spoke to their personnel department and to two of their managers,’ Henry was assured. ‘They checked their records twice for me, and then spoke to an ex member of staff who’d run the department when your woman would have been there and also looked at all their records, just in case she’d not been a typist but worked in some other department. No one called Martha Edgerton ever worked for them, not in any department. They only have a couple of general office girls at any time and part of their job is as typists. Most of their staff is male and most are in the accounts departments or in dealing directly with the imports and exports licences and they share private secretaries, but she’s not among them either. Crick & Son specialize in managing all the administration for smaller companies that want to import goods or export them. They even telephoned companies they had dealings with eight to ten years ago to see if this Miss Edgerton worked for them, but no joy.’

  Henry spotted Mickey just entering the small reception area. He asked a few further questions and then thanked his colleague. He hung up and beckoned his sergeant over.

  ‘More mystery,’ he said. ‘Martha Edgerton did not work as a typist for Crick & Sons in Brighton. No one there knows of her. So either Mason is lying to us or she contrived a major lie to him.’

  ‘Another one,’ Mickey said.

  Nora Phillips was not pleased to see them. She glared at Henry but held her tongue and, dismissing the maid, took them through to her husband’s study where Dr Mason was catching up with his correspondence.

  ‘Everyone has been very kind,’ he said, indicating the pile of letters that he was endeavouring to answer. ‘But I have to admit, it’s a bit o
f a struggle finding something to say in return.’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Mickey nodded.

  Henry was not interested in conciliation. ‘Why did you lie to us, Dr Mason?’

  ‘Lie to you? I can’t think what you mean.’

  ‘Your wife did not work for Crick & Son before you married. Nor did she work for any of their associates. There is no trace even of a Martha Edgerton on the electoral register and certainly not at the address you informed us she lived at with friends. The address in question is a florist shop with a flat above, occupied for the past ten years by the florist’s parents.’

  Dr Mason stared at Henry but there was nothing in his face of the honest, grief-stricken reaction that Henry had observed the last time he had come with news. Mason had known all this. ‘You think we wouldn’t check, Dr Mason?’

  ‘Truthfully, I never thought of it at all,’ he said slowly.

  ‘You’d better explain yourself.’

  Dr Mason set his letters aside, took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘I told you what Martha told me when we first met,’ he said. ‘I never questioned it. Then one day I had an unexpected reason to be in Brighton. The colleague I had covered for previously had once again fallen ill and had called upon me. I had taken an early train and was not expected at the surgery until that evening and it occurred to me that I’d have time to meet Martha beforehand. Perhaps meet her from work. So I went to Cricks and I asked for her. No one had heard of her or recognized the description I gave.

  ‘So I went to what she’d told me was her home address. The address I sent letters to and which she claimed to have sent her letters from. As you say, it is simply a flower shop. I was quite angry by then and the woman who owned the shop was, I think, somewhat alarmed. She told me that Martha had her mail sent there and collected it once or twice a week. This was a business arrangement and one this flower seller had with several people, mostly travelling and commercial salesmen who called in to collect instructions from their companies. But also a few private individuals who for one reason or another could not or didn’t wish to have letters sent to their homes. She was paid a small fee for acting as an effective post restante and so I don’t think she asked too many questions. She had a family to support, frail parents and a brother who had come back from the war suffering from shell-shock and was not much use for anything after. He helped out in the shop and did deliveries for her but was in this way also dependent.’

  ‘And did you confront your fiancée?’

  ‘Well, there was nothing I could do. I had no means of finding her. I have to say, Inspector, that I was terribly hurt and determined to break it off, and so I wrote this to her in a letter. She wrote back to me, very contrite and anxious that I should think so badly of her.’

  ‘And did she have an explanation?’

  Dr Mason nodded. ‘She was working for a firm of solicitors and she gave me a telephone number so that I could confirm this. She was working as a general office assistant and had a small room, a bed-sitting room, which was in the same building. She believed that I would have judged the job not quite respectable.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘Because the firm specialized almost exclusively in divorce cases. You can imagine … Well, I called them and they confirmed that Martha was in their employ but you see my dilemma.’

  ‘When you married the lady, Crick & Son was a more respectable cover than a sleazy company that helped procure divorces,’ Mickey said. ‘With all the dirt that entails.’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘Which does not explain why you lied to us,’ Henry said coldly.

  Dr Mason stared down at his hands. ‘My wife is dead,’ he said finally. ‘If anything you have discovered comes out then her name and mine will be dragged through the mud. Every tabloid newspaper in the country will delight in this horror, this whole sordid enterprise. I may only be a country doctor, but you know how scandal feeds, gorges itself, when the person involved should be judged above all reproach. Doctors have the trust of their community and it is just the kind of story that the worst elements of the press would relish.

  ‘My friends will abandon me, and Martha’s name will be trampled beneath their feet. I will most likely be struck off. Truthfully, Inspector, I had lived with this fiction we created for so long that I’d almost forgotten that was what it was. And with the shock of all this … But you are right. I should have been more honest with you.’

  ‘Is there anything else you’ve lied about?’ Henry asked.

  Mason shook his head. ‘I’ve told the truth about everything that seemed important,’ he said. ‘I did love my wife. I would do anything to have her back here with me now. Even knowing that she had been unfaithful – I don’t feel that I can fully blame her for that.’

  ‘So, he lied about that … d’you think he did lie about anything else? That his grief was less believable?’ Mickey asked.

  Henry thought about it and then shook his head. ‘Mickey, I know I’m not always as acute as you in reading raw emotion but there was a world of difference between his reaction to this and his reaction to my telling him that his wife was pregnant and also to the way he reacted on the day she was found, according to what the witnesses to that have told us. We’ll have more information tomorrow, I hope, about the firm of M. Giles, Esq. And at least we know why she had the business card for that company in her possession. Considering the usual methods employed by such divorce agencies, I think we can guess how the card belonging to Mr Conway the private investigator came into her possession. The question on my mind now is was Martha Edgerton merely an office girl or was she more deeply embroiled in this sordid world?’

  Over supper they discussed what Mickey had found when he returned to Benson’s house.

  ‘I lifted some clear prints,’ he said, ‘and I photographed others on furniture that could not be removed. On brief examination they do not appear to match either Mr Benson’s or the housekeeper’s but that does not mean they could not be from another random visitor. Benson tells me that he entertains in that room from time to time and if the housekeeper’s not allowed to dust, the prints could have been there for quite some time. He does not look to me to be a man who cares about his surroundings and indeed the dust got in the way of my print taking.’

  ‘Do you think there is any significance in the missing three weapons?’ Henry asked.

  ‘I certainly hope not. I hope it is simply misdirection. And there is no absolute proof that the weapon taken, the halberd, was the weapon used to kill her. It could still be a rampaging butcher or it could have been an ice pick – that is something easy to lay hands on and easy to conceal. It occurs to me that a medieval weapon of the size suggested by the gap in the display case, would be hard to hide about your person. It would hardly fit in a suit pocket.’

  Henry had been thinking the same thing and he found it an oddly reassuring piece of logic. ‘If asked to speculate then, a heavy-duty ice pick would have been my first thought. Not the small ones to keep on a bar top, but the more robust kind kept in a butler’s pantry to break the ice before it’s brought to table.’

  ‘In which case, what’s happened to the weaponry stolen from the case? If it is random, is it unconnected? And when did it happen? Benson seems to have been totally unaware of the loss until you pointed it out to him. Had there been children around it would have occurred to me that it is the kind of theft a boy might indulge in. Something done in a moment of impulse, and then, however much repented, you have the difficulty of how to return such things.’

  ‘Let us hope it is something as innocent,’ Henry said.

  It was not long after they had finished eating, and Henry had returned to his room, when a message was brought to him and a few minutes later he and Mickey were on their way to a small side street off The Westgate. It was not fully dark but there were a few people around on this quiet street and, conscious that they had been asked to be discreet, Mickey tapped softly upon the door. It was imme
diately opened and a rotund, short and grey-haired lady ushered them inside. The door opened straight on to the front room. A young girl had been sitting in the front parlour, but she stood up as soon as Henry and Mickey came inside. Henry recognized her immediately as the servant he had questioned briefly at Nora Phillips’ house, an action which had caused her mistress a great deal of annoyance.

  ‘I’m Nellie Richardson,’ the older lady said. ‘And before you ask, my sister-in-law is the Mrs Richardson who is housekeeper to Mr Benson, and who I understand you’ve already met.’

  Henry acknowledged that they had.

  ‘This is my daughter, Grace. You’ll forgive this being a little cloak and dagger, but it won’t do a girl’s reputation any good to have the police around.’

  ‘And will it do the mother’s reputation any good?’ Mickey could not resist.

  ‘I’m a little beyond worrying about that, gentlemen. Anyone has anything to say, they can say to my face. But Grace has to mind her manners. She has a good place with the Phillipses and we neither of us want it threatened. And you did put her in a difficult position, sir. A young woman in service has no right to answer questions that her mistress does not approve of. You should know that.’

  Henry apologized and Nellie Richardson nodded as though satisfied. ‘Well, sit yourself down, the kettle is boiling and I will make some tea. And Grace will tell you what she wants to tell. This is her evening off, so she won’t be missed, and you can talk to her a while, but I don’t expect any harm to come from this. Am I making myself clear?’

  ‘Crystal,’ Mickey assured her.

  Grace sat back down in the chair that she had occupied when they arrived. It looked slightly out of place in this little front room and Henry guessed this it been a discard, either from the Phillips’ house or somewhere similar. It was upholstered in a deep blue and spoon-backed, with a low seat like a bedroom or nursing chair. The other two, a touch battered and the leather scuffed, were both wing chairs and he guessed they’d probably had a similar provenance. He took one and Mickey the other and when Nellie bustled in a few minutes later she fetched a dining chair and plonked herself down on that, folding her hands in her lap and looking inquiringly at the visitors. It was clear that she intended them to see to their business and then be gone, as quickly and as quietly as possible.