by A J Wright
Jaggery nodded, turned his attention to the mass brawl developing before his eyes and lunged forward, grabbing the first figure he could see and dragging him forcibly from the scrimmage by the neck.
‘Now meladdo!’ he yelled in the man’s ear. ‘How about some fist?’
‘You brute!’ came the unexpected reply from, as Jaggery could now see, a quite elderly man. ‘You have torn my collar! My clerical! You fat oaf!’
‘Jesus!’ said Jaggery, realising his error at once. He let the man go and waded further into the brawling mob. Several of the women protesters had rushed to the pavement, partly to get out of harm’s way but also out of a desire to observe the proceedings from a better vantage point. As if by some miracle of prestidigitation, dozens of men appeared from nowhere – or rather from the vaults of the nearby public houses, having watched the scene unfold – and joined in the general disturbance, swinging fists in pleasurable abandon and taking particular delight in taking aim at the unfortunate constables, who suddenly saw themselves as objects of violent attention. Jaggery fought like a man possessed, grabbing two at a time (taking a second to check their neckwear) and cracking skulls together before moving through the mob, tossing man after man from the mass of bodies to land with an unceremonious crunch against the nearest wall.
Of the man rushing through the crowd, there was now no sign.
Inside, the scene could hardly be more of a contrast. Brennan escorted Simeon Crosby to the front of the auditorium where the curtains on the small stage were draped in sombre colours, befitting the nature of the talk the man was about to give. By now, every seat was taken, with some at the back of the hall standing. There was the muted sound of chatter from the audience, a sense of anticipation at what promised to be a gruesome insight into the dark world of prisons, last-minute confessions and the ultimate price paid by those who rob some poor soul of his or her life.
‘I think I can manage from here, Sergeant Brennan.’ Crosby’s eyes glimmered in the gas lighting as he gave various members of his audience a cheery wave. He leaned closer to Brennan and whispered, ‘They’re always amazed to see me smile, you know. It’s as if they think I go round with a permanent scowl on my face!’
‘They only think of you in a certain situation, Mr Crosby.’
‘The imagination’s a powerful thing, is it not?’
‘Indeed it is.’ Brennan thought for a moment then asked, ‘I was expecting your wife to accompany you.’
Crosby gave a slight cough. ‘Under the circumstances don’t you think it was for the best? Her not witnessing that rabble outside?’
‘Of course.’
‘Besides, she was complaining of a very painful headache. She reads to excess, Sergeant. Many’s the time I’ve threatened to apply leeches to her temples!’
With that, the hangman shook Brennan’s hand and made his way to the wings, where the manager of the Public Hall was waiting for him and pulling at his shirt collar, indicating both anxiety and relief.
Brennan checked that two of his constables were standing by the exit doors. He gave them a curt nod and made his way back to the foyer of the hall, where the sound of scuffling and intermittent grunts, punctuated by the occasional obscenity, told him the affray beyond the closed doors was far from over. Time to join in, he told himself and barked the order to the constable standing on the inside to, ‘Open ’em, lad. Quick as you can!’
The doors swung open, and Brennan launched himself forward, adding to the forces of law and order.
10.
By the time Simeon Crosby’s talk had come to its conclusion (to a standing ovation), the disturbance outside the Public Hall had ended. Several arrests had been made, either for assaulting a police officer or disturbing the peace or, in some of the more violent cases, under both charges. Detective Sergeant Brennan stood in the foyer, nursing a set of bruised knuckles, having watched the animated audience make their way out into the cold night air. Their eyes were sparkling, and he heard snatches of their conversations:
Can tell a tale all right.
Just think on what he’s not told us!
I never knew they give ’em a drink afore they drop.
Bloody scandalous!
Aye, an’ a bloody waste an’ all!
That were t’best, yon mon singin’ wi’ t’rope round his neck!
Aye. Happen he liked a drop!
General laughter.
He was waiting for Crosby and the journalist, Batsford, who had arrived half an hour late and who was recognised at once by Constable Jaggery. With commendable devotion to duty, Jaggery had relaxed his stranglehold on one unfortunate marcher and made it his business to ensure a safe passage for the reporter.
Now the two men appeared through the door that led into the auditorium, Crosby’s face flushed with the success of the evening. Batsford seemed preoccupied, merely nodding when the hangman spoke.
‘I hope the show went well, Mr Crosby?’ Brennan asked.
‘Indeed it did, Sergeant. I gather it was quite a show outside as well, eh?’ He gave a little chortle.
Brennan nodded. ‘Perhaps as well your wife didn’t come. Mob anger like that isn’t very pleasant.’
Crosby shrugged. ‘Her loss,’ he said.
It took Brennan a second to realise the man was referring to his talk and not the violence outside.
As they left the building, Brennan had the same carriage waiting to take Crosby and Batsford back to the hotel. He opened the carriage door and waited for them to enter.
‘Is this necessary?’ Crosby said with a wave of the hand to show that King Street was now devoid of protesters.
‘It’s a necessary precaution, Mr Crosby. I’ll accompany you to the Royal. The chief constable would expect it. Besides, I can’t see all of them going straight off home. Not when they’ve had a taste of the rough stuff.’
With a resigned shrug, Crosby clambered inside, Batsford following, while Brennan climbed up and sat beside the driver.
Within minutes, they were pulling up before the steps of the Royal Hotel, where Brennan was surprised to see a small group of people standing outside the building. At first he thought it was the protesters waiting to give the hangman another indication of their abolitionist views until he saw one of the constables also standing there, speaking calmly and nodding in response to what someone was saying. Nevertheless, Brennan took no chances and climbed down, ordering the occupants of the carriage to remain inside until he found out what was going on.
When the constable saw Brennan, he gave a wave and beckoned him over.
‘Constable?’
‘It is nowt, Sergeant. Bit o’ bother, that’s all.’
‘Bit of bother?’ someone said. ‘Bit of bother? You call a smashed window a bit of bother? I call it rampant hooliganism!’
Brennan now recognised the speaker. It was the hotel manager, James Eastoe, whose hair, which earlier had been elegantly combed and kept in place by macassar oil, was now elevated in several unkempt directions at once.
‘What’s happened?’ Brennan asked.
‘Look!’ said Eastoe, pointing at a large window that belonged to the Eagle and Child, the public bar side of the hotel. ‘Even a detective from Wigan can work that one out!’
Ignoring the insult, Brennan examined the damage. Shards of glass stuck out around a large hole, with shining slivers of glass spread across the wooden floor inside. A large brick lay on the table nearest the window. A workman was carefully removing the fragments of glass, placing them in a metal container. Propped against the wall lay a large square of wood and a toolbox containing a hammer and nails of varying sizes.
‘Did you see who did it?’
‘I don’t spend my time standing on the steps of the hotel, watching the world and his uncle go by. I have a hundred things to attend to inside the hotel. More than a hundred, truth be known.’
At this point, Crosby called out from the carriage window, ‘Can we get out now, Sergeant?’
Brennan turned
to the constable and told him to escort the two gentlemen inside.
Once he saw Crosby emerge from the carriage, the manager raised an accusatory finger. ‘There! He’s the one!’
Brennan turned. ‘You’re saying Mr Simeon Crosby smashed your window?’
‘As good as! If he weren’t staying here, we wouldn’t have become a target.’
Crosby seemed about to respond as he stepped from the carriage, but Batsford placed a restraining hand on his shoulder and, accompanied by the constable, walked the hangman inside the hotel.
‘The protesters, you mean?’ Brennan asked. ‘I thought we’d dispersed them. Those we hadn’t arrested anyway.’
Mr Eastoe tried to smooth his hair into position. ‘It’s stretching the imagination to suggest anyone else but a protester, Sergeant. I have been manager here for years and never, in all that time, have I had a brick come sailing through the window. And the talk in the hotel bar has been of the disturbance in King Street. Two and two make four, Sergeant. Or they did when I was at school.’
With a sigh, Brennan began speaking to others standing outside the bar, in case any of them had seen anything. Several of them had been drinking inside when the brick came through the window around an hour earlier. None of them had noticed anyone loitering outside, and he was about to give up and leave the manager to his cleaning-up operation when the doors at the top of the steps swung open, and the young constable came rushing out.
‘Sergeant!’
‘Yes, Constable. What’s the matter?’
‘You’d best come up.’
Brennan’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mr Crosby?’
‘In his room, beatin’ his chest an’ cursin’ fit to burst. It’s his wife, Sergeant. She’s lied there on the bed wi’ her eyes wide open. Looks like she’s dead.’
11.
When Brennan reached Crosby’s room, he found Simeon Crosby kneeling beside the bed, clasping his wife’s hand. Ralph Batsford stood beside him with a consoling hand on his shoulder. In the bed, Violet Crosby lay face upwards, the deep red mark around her neck indicative of some kind of ligature having been applied. Her eyes were wide open, and as Brennan moved closer to inspect the body, he saw spots of red on the poor woman’s eyeballs. The bed cover was thrown back, and she appeared to be fully dressed, her cream-laced blouse crumpled and partly torn to expose the neck. A length of thin rope lay on the pillow to the right of her head.
As Brennan reached for it, Batsford said, ‘It was wound tightly around her neck, Sergeant. Simeon did what he could but by that time…’
As if registering the policeman’s presence for the first time, Crosby glanced up. His eyes were brimming with tears.
‘My Violet,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘Who did this vile thing to my dear Violet?’
Brennan held the piece of rope, noted its criss-cross pattern and looked more closely at the victim’s neck, where the pattern seemed faintly impressed into the wound around her neck.
‘I think we should go to my room, Simeon,’ said Batsford, directing his gaze not at the hangman but at Brennan, who gave an appreciative nod.
But Crosby shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving her!’ He clasped her hand tightly, bringing it close to his lips.
Brennan leaned towards him. ‘Mr Crosby. You need to allow me to do my job. There are certain things I need to…’
‘I’ve seen death before, Sergeant. I’m not a bloody fool!’
Before he could launch into a tirade, Batsford placed an arm beneath Crosby’s and made an effort to raise him to his feet. Brennan did the same, and Crosby finally stood. It was as if the act of standing had deflated whatever anger he felt towards the world, for he gave a slow nod and said heavily, ‘Come on then. Let’s leave the detective sergeant to do his job.’
Batsford gave Brennan a weak smile of apology – the ironic, accusatory implications of Crosby’s words accepted as unfair – and they both left the room. Brennan saw the young constable standing in the doorway.
‘Get the manager, Mr Eastoe, Constable. I need this room locked and guarded. Go on. Hurry up!’
As the constable rushed away, plainly relieved at being given something to do that would remove him from this dreadful scene, Brennan stood by the door and examined the lock.
‘Was this door locked when you got back?’ he asked Batsford, who was in the process of escorting Crosby to his room.
The journalist thought for a second then shook his head. ‘Simeon just walked in. I was about to unlock my own door when I heard him yell…’
Brennan saw there were no marks to indicate a forced entry, nothing untoward around the lock or the door handle. The door key was in the keyhole on the inside. Quietly he closed the door and turned to the body on the bed. He noticed a leather-bound book on the bedside table, went over and picked it up. He’d never heard of the author – Ouida – nor the novel – Moths – but it somehow angered him that the poor woman had, sometime earlier, been reading and escaping from the real world, a world where her husband hung those who were guilty of the most appalling crimes… and now someone had entered her room and strangled her.
But the lock hadn’t been forced.
‘Bloody hellfire!’ he muttered to himself.
*
Mr James Eastoe looked like a man enduring all the weight of the world on his small shoulders. Worry lines were etched along his forehead, and as he sat behind his office desk and attempted to answer the detective’s questions, he continually licked his lips and clasped and unclasped his hands.
‘I must say, Sergeant, it’s unfair to expect me to know that.’
‘But Mr Crosby says he left his wife in their room feeling distinctly unwell. He said nothing to you when he left?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. If I’d known, of course I would have sent someone up to see if she needed anything. But as I was unaware of her illness… We do allow our guests their privacy, you know.’
‘Of course. Did anyone see or hear anything on that floor? A shout? Sounds of a struggle?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. I’ve spoken to Gray, who mans our reception desk, and he tells me there was nothing untoward. Nothing to cause undue concern.’
‘I shall wish to speak with Mr Gray.’
Eastoe took out his watch and checked the time. ‘He is due to finish at ten thirty, Sergeant. At which time our night receptionist takes over. It’s barely ten o’clock now. I shall make sure he’s available when he comes off duty.’
Brennan shook his head. ‘I’ll speak to him now, Mr Eastoe if you don’t mind.’
‘But he’s still on duty.’
‘And so am I. And I won’t be off duty for several hours yet. So if you please…’ Brennan gave a curt nod to the door behind him.
‘I cannot leave the desk unmanned. It’s a dereliction of duty, both his and mine.’
‘Then if you ask him to step in here and take over his duties yourself for a short time, that would provide us all with a solution to your problem.’ He smiled at the now crestfallen manager, whose sunken shoulders and tightened lips indicated his grudging acceptance of defeat. ‘And while you’re there, perhaps you can prepare a list of all your other guests staying tonight.’
Eastoe snorted. ‘I can tell you now, Sergeant. There are only two other guests, apart from the Crosby party. Both of them commercial travellers.’
‘Then I need their names and room numbers.’
The manager turned away, unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of orders.
Within a minute, the receptionist, Mr Gray, was standing in the doorway, regarding the detective with curiosity and suspicion. He was in his fifties, Brennan guessed, with hair the colour of his name, and his dour countenance, exaggerated by his pinched features, gave him an appearance more suited to a disillusioned parson than someone whose job it was to meet and greet guests of the hotel.
‘Mr Gray, please sit down,’ said Brennan with a wave of his hand towards the chair Eastoe had j
ust vacated.
Gray shook his head. ‘I’ll stand if it’s all the same. I spend most of my time sitting down.’ He suddenly thrust a hand forward. It contained a torn-off piece of paper. ‘Courtesy of Mr Eastoe,’ he said.
Brennan took the paper and looked at it quickly. Two names, along with room numbers, hastily scribbled. He could imagine the manager’s mood when he wrote them down. He placed the paper in his notebook.
‘Thank you. I just want to ask a few questions about tonight. Mr Eastoe tells me you have no knowledge of any disturbance from the second floor, where Mrs Crosby was found.’
‘I heard nothing. It’s two flights of stairs.’
‘No reports of anything from residents or employees of the hotel?’
‘Nothing came to my attention.’
Brennan sighed.
‘Apart from the woman, that is.’
Brennan frowned. ‘What woman?’
Gray shifted his stance, less formal now, more confidential. ‘Pretty young thing, Sergeant. I’d been outside after some young ruffian had hurled a brick through the bar window. When I came back in, I saw her standing by the front desk. I hadn’t seen her come in, but in all the commotion…’
‘What did she want?’
‘Asked to see Mrs Crosby.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Five past eight. Ten past. Something that way.’
‘Did she give her name?’
Gray nodded and a ghost of a smile crept onto his lips, a sign that he was privy to something the policeman would wish to know. ‘She called herself Miss Woodruff.’
‘Woodruff?’ Brennan took out his small notebook and wrote down the name. ‘What did you do?’
‘I asked her if Mrs Crosby was expecting her, and she said she was. I was a bit flustered, I admit, after all the shenanigans outside. So I told her to sit in the reception area then sent our bellboy to Mrs Crosby’s room.’
‘Did she get to see Mrs Crosby?’
