A Death Overseas

by Caroline Dunford

  ‘The gardens are open at strange times, so people can observe the wonders of the lights,’ admitted Mary. ‘I see how you might think she would not want to walk any great distance with them tied around her. Did she carry a reticule, and if so, of what size?’

  ‘Yes, and it was admittedly large,’ I said. ‘But would she not have had to bring the twine, or whatever she used, from England? She had no other languages that I know of and it would not be easy to purchase such items without them.’

  ‘I agree it would not be easy – but not impossible,’ said Mary.

  ‘Besides, would I not have seen some sign of her intention during the time we travelled from England. Her mood, as Bertram could testify, was sometimes excited, sometimes overly garrulous, but not morose.’

  ‘I believe,’ said Mary, ‘that sometimes, when a person has decided on a course of self-destruction, they may seem more positive – may even take joy in those last moments of life until they confront the final moment. In some ways it removes their worries and doubts.’ Her voice faltered slightly. ‘I confess to not fully understanding this, but a dear friend of mine at the university is engaged in studying such behaviour and we have had detailed discussions.’

  ‘But she was a vicar’s wife!’

  ‘Ah, the issue of sin. Perhaps she had lost her faith and desired the peace of nothingness?’

  I shuddered at the thought. ‘I know I cannot know what is in another’s head, but I promise you I had no idea that she might have intended self-destruction. I cannot accept it.’

  Mary nodded. ‘I can see that would be difficult for you. I am afraid I have known someone who did take their own life. Someone close to me, and to my lasting regret I saw no sign of their intention.’

  She paused. I waited to see if she would tell me more, but she did not. ‘Is there anything more, Euphemia? Anything more that does not make sense to you?’

  ‘Her letter.’ My hand formed into a fist and I hit at my thigh. ‘I wish I could show it to you, but the police have kept it. It was the strangest letter.’

  ‘Presumably it was written in a most distressed state of mind.’

  ‘But it was wrong. They only let me read it once – although it was written to me – but I know it was wrong.’ I sighed. ‘But I cannot tell you how. I cannot remember it. I was shocked and confused at the time. I had only learnt moments before that the dead woman was Eugenie – and of course, we had witnessed Monsieur Toussaint’s death. Did you know she believe she had caused it? That was why she killed herself?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mary.

  I explained about the leaflets, Eugenie’s sudden access to the machinery and her subsequent regret. ‘What is worse, Monsieur Toussaint’s assistant assured us he checked the machinery before the demonstration – after Eugenie had touched it – and it was all in order. If she did indeed kill herself she did it for nothing.’

  For a long time Mary said nothing. The candle flame was flickering low and grey fingers of dawn were probing the shutters. We had talked long into the night.

  Suddenly she said, ‘My conclusion is that you are quite correct. The story you have been told relies far too greatly on coincidence and good fortune, and is lacking in logic. I do not know if Mrs Brown killed herself, but I quite understand when you say that matters are left unexplained. You are right.’

  I gasped. This was the last response I had been expecting. ‘What shall we do?’ I asked. ‘Bertram and Rory refuse to take matters further.’

  ‘And that matters how, exactly?’ said Mary. ‘We are two capable and intelligent women. The first thing we shall do is go to the police station and demand your letter. I doubt they will give it to us, but as it is your property as well as evidence, and they appear to have closed the case, the very least we can expect it that they will let us read it once more.’

  ‘And if they do not?’

  ‘I shall threaten them with the British Embassy,’ said Mary. ‘What is the use of being part of the greatest Empire on Earth if one does not take advantage of the situation?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Mary. This means a great deal to me.’

  ‘I like things to be tidy as they are in mathematics,’ said Mary. ‘Inconsistencies have no place in the modern world. Besides, I was getting quite bored looking at flowers.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Detective Hill

  Mary and I breakfasted early before the gentlemen came down. She fearlessly hailed a cab and we were on our way to the police station before I knew it.

  ‘Do you speak any of the language?’ I asked.

  ‘Enough, I hope, to get us sight of the letter,’ said Mary. ‘I shall put myself in the state of mind I have when I am addressing junior female students who have not completed the required preparation for my lectures and have no appreciation of the privilege of education they are gaining. I am told I can be quite formidable.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ I said as I noticed Mary’s elegant gloved hand tighten around the handle of her umbrella. I could only hope she would not assault anyone.

  At the police station it was not quite as bad as I had feared. Mary was indeed formidable. She was strong, but kept her calm in such a way that no one could dismiss her as an hysterical female. Finally the police officer disappeared from the desk. He came back with the senior officer we had seen earlier and the argument began afresh. They spoke so fast I could not understand a single word of what was being said, but I began to harbour a desire to see my mother and Mary go up against one other. I was not at all certain who would win. I never debated with my mother, but merely went my own way. Mary, I felt sure, would feel the need to convert others to the belief of her actions before she embarked upon them.

  ‘Stop wool-gathering, Euphemia,’ said Mary suddenly. ‘It is as I expected. They will not give us the letter, but we are to be allowed to read it once more. They are also issuing you a receipt. If it is to be used as evidence this should have been done already. I rather think it was this error that tipped the balance in our favour.’

  We were taken through to the same little room. A policeman stood outside the door, but we were permitted to read the letter alone.

  ‘I don’t suppose we could take it?’ I asked Mary.

  She shook her head. ‘I am your witness. If there is anything amiss in this I will testify for you. We must do all things correctly if we wish to expose malpractice.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that,’ I said. With shaking hands, I picked up the letter.

  ‘A moment,’ said Mary. ‘Let us consider the envelope. My first surprise is that she wrote to you and not to her family, so I am expecting to find wishes as to how her remains are disposed of?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘My other surprise is that this is stationery from your hotel. You said she tampered with the equipment on a whim. So, after killing this man, she walks back to the hotel, writes a letter on their stationery, and then walks back to the Fair? Or would she have taken a cab?’

  ‘She was not well-endowed financially – although if she was planning to end her life, she would know she would no longer need it – but I never heard her speak a word of French, German, or Flemish.’

  ‘Odd again,’ said Mary, ‘but surmountable. Open it and spread it upon the table.’

  I did so. ‘Why, this is very long,’ said Mary in surprise. The paragraphs in the middle show the greatest length.’

  ‘She is writing –’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Mary. ‘I am not yet thinking about what she wrote, but about her state of mind. The first few paragraphs are of a length suitable to a normal letter. Then she becomes extremely verbose and finally she writes in short paragraphs. In fact, the final words are practically a scrawl. This suggests to me that she went through several stages of mental state as she wrote.’

  ‘Mental state?’

  ‘That her mood and emotions were altering rapidly. Not what I would expect of someone who was set on suicide in such a careful
ly planned manner. Now, if she had been about to swallow a glass of poison or had already swallowed one ... but this is the letter of a woman who is intending to drown herself, quite methodically, in a small and publically prominent lake. Which also makes no sense. Surely, she would seek to keep her family from the shame?’

  ‘Yes, I believe she would.’

  ‘There are far easier ways to kill one’s self,’ said Mary. ‘Walking in front of a carriage, for example, if one is brave enough, means almost certain death. And why leave the letter by her body where anyone could have found it. Would not the hotel have given her a stamp? She could have died neatly and tidily, with only you made aware it was suicide.’

  ‘Penance?’ I suggested.

  ‘Hardly a penance she would experience, being dead,’ said Mary. ‘I am curious why she should write to you. It is the first part that makes no sense to me. She writes that she sees you as young and gentle. Hardly the first choice of someone to carry out one’s last wishes, I would think! This Society of Natural Oneness – do we know if it exists?’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ I said. ‘However, she told me she and her husband were fond of gathering people of varying mindsets to dinner, to discuss matters of the day. I could see how such a society would attract her, even if it was just through correspondence by mail, as she would no longer be able to entertain.’

  Mary snorted. ‘Being a woman.’

  ‘Yes, but also being someone without a home. Her husband’s manse would have been returned to the church.’

  ‘Would he not have left her money for her upkeep?’

  ‘If he could,’ I replied. ‘The church does not pay well.’

  ‘How ridiculous,’ said Mary. ‘If we are supposedly a Christian state living by Christian values we should value our clergy higher, as leaders of moral spirituality.’

  ‘You are devout?’ I asked.

  Mary gave me a cool, level look. ‘I was remarking on the hypocrisy of our society – the ability to say one thing and do quite another. But I understand what you mean about her wishing to engage with worthy minds, if that she what she had been used to. The absence of such company would have been as great a loss to her as her spouse.’

  Mary bent her head over the letter again. ‘She said Mr Muller – your employer I presume – invited her to be your chaperone. Did he know her? Was there a personal connection?’

  ‘As far as I know he merely advertised in The Lady. I think it is a turn of phrase. But...’ I hesitated.

  ‘What?’ said Mary ominously.

  ‘Her husband knew, or rather worked for, the man my mother is about to marry. The Bishop of –’[23]

  ‘Did she know this?’

  ‘I do not know. I never mentioned it to her, nor she to me.’

  Mary made a most unladylike noise. ‘Messy! But she does say her husband’s old college roommate introduced her to the society. I wonder if we should write to him? It should not be too difficult to trace him through the colleges as we have her husband’s name. And you can always find out his Christian name from your mother.’

  I paled at the thought.

  ‘Thoroughness is what we need,’ said Mary. ‘That is how one investigates a murder properly.

  ‘You think it is murder then?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mary. ‘That is quite clear. Though I do believe her when she writes she had every intention of spreading pamphlets around the Fair. In fact, I am wondering if that is all she ever intended.’

  ‘But the letter says...’

  ‘Has it not occurred to you that someone may have forced her to write the letter?’

  ‘But why would one do so, if one thought murder would be the outcome?’

  ‘Fear, hope, wanting to live longer, because they were threatened with something worse than their own death – or perhaps when she began writing it she thought they were going to let her get away. Just leave a confessional note? I doubt we will ever know.’

  ‘But why do you think it is murder?’ I pressed.

  ‘She was clearly very religious and suicide is a mortal sin. She stresses repeatedly how she loves her children, so why would she want to be separated from them after death? That is what happens to suicides, isn’t it?’

  ‘The Roman church is harsher,’ I said, trying to remember. ‘I think she would go to Limbo until her penance is paid? I’m afraid I did not pay that much attention to what happened after one sinned, but rather to not sinning in the first place!’

  ‘How quaint,’ said Mary with a half-smile. ‘Now, don’t be angry with me, but if I recall correctly you were a vicar’s daughter. Eugenie Brown was a vicar’s widow and eager to rekindle connections, in a seemly way, with his old college friends. I think we can hypothesise that she shared his religious beliefs.’

  ‘Grief can overset the mind.’ I said.

  ‘Did she seem overset?’

  ‘No, she seemed quite sane to me.’

  ‘An intelligent woman would also know that any equipment used in a scientific experiment would be checked and checked again – especially if her husband kept up with the movements of the day as you said. She would know that changing settings at random would be most unlikely to cause harm. Why the machinery was not even in the hall, but conveniently outside with no-one attending it? Do you believe that? That something so shrouded in secrecy and potentially so able to make the fortunes of investors would be left unguarded? I suggest not only did she not touch the settings, but the machine was never left outside.’

  ‘But Bertr – Mr Stapleford interviewed Monsieur Toussaint’s assistant, Pierre.’

  ‘But did he ask the right questions?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He didn’t tell me. He was too busy playing chess with you. Rory told me.’

  ‘No need for jealousy on my account, my dear. Bertram has a fine mind, but it is almost wholly untrained, and I have enough lazy students at college without taking one on in my leisure time!’

  I blushed furiously. ‘You mistake me. There is no understanding between me and Mr Stapleford.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mary, ‘and it puzzles me. You are obviously well suited.’

  I stifled a gasp and felt myself redden further. I attempted to focus on the issue at hand. ‘Is there anything else you find odd about the letter?’

  ‘Apart from most of it being a complete lie? I do believe she came to spread leaflets and was thwarted. What we need to know is what happened after that. She must have seen something, or someone acting wrongly, but was apprehended before she could raise the alarm. Have another look. Is there nothing else that strikes you as wrong?’

  I read the letter closely one more time. I felt sick doing so. ‘I agree her train of thought is most erratic,’ I said.

  And then I saw it.

  ‘Good Lord, how could I have missed it?’ I cried. ‘She says she wants me to stop her daughter learning medicine, but only hours earlier she had been explaining to me her dislike of electricity – because it would make the rich think they could work the poor longer – but that medicine was very different. It was treasuring God’s gift of life. Why, we even spoke of there one day being women doctors who would treat women!’

  ‘That,’ said Mary with emphasis, ‘was her message to you that she was writing this letter against her will.’

  I looked at her blankly.

  ‘She knew you would realise she would never willingly give such an instruction about her daughter!’

  ‘I have been so blind,’ I said. My eyes brimmed with tears. ‘We must tell the police at once.’

  ‘No,’ said Mary. ‘We know, but we have proved nothing. We must investigate further. We must return to the scene of the crime!’

  Chapter Twenty

  Devil women

  ‘But first we should return to the hotel for luncheon,’ said Mary, sounding very much like Bertram, ‘it will not do to raise suspicions among the gentlemen. We shall tell them we have been looking for a new hat for you. The one you are wearing is ghastly.’


  ‘But are we not going to enlist their support?’ I asked.

  Mary shook her head. ‘We have nothing that a pig-headed man could not dismiss as feminine silliness – or worse, hysteria. I am not saying they would, but you have been very distressed and they have been very forceful in not allowing you to delve into Eugenie’s affairs any further.’

  ‘I believe you were invited as much to keep me in line as for propriety,’ I said.

  Mary threw back her head and laughed. ‘How very little they know me. Now come, we must catch a cab. I hate walking through the dust.’

  Mary talked throughout luncheon with more detail and attention to millinery than I could ever have managed. When at the end she informed Bertram and Rory that she and I were to return to shopping that afternoon and conclude with a walk around the gardens at the World Fair, both gentlemen were only too happy to let us go our own way.

  ‘You will take cabs when outside the Fair, won’t you?’ was all Rory asked.

  ‘I shall take the opportunity to visit the Fine Art Pavilion,’ said Bertram. ‘I can meet you ladies in the gardens afterwards and we can take tea.’

  ‘I would not have thought you to be a gentleman interested in paintings,’ said Mary.

  ‘I have heard they have some very interesting ones on show,’ said Bertram. ‘I feel it is my cultural duty as an Englishman to see them.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard about them as well,’ said Mary. At which Bertram turned bright red, muttered something unintelligible, and left the table.

  ‘That was a little unkind,’ said Rory with a wry smile. Then he too bowed and left.

  ‘That valet is getting to be quite the gentleman,’ said Mary. ‘It will not help him make his way in life.’

  ‘What troubles Bertram? Is he ill?’ I asked.

  ‘You have not heard? Apparently some of the paintings have been described as a “little too warm”. In fact, members of the clergy, ladies, and schoolmasters have been advised not to visit! I am intending to go after this little business of ours is sorted. Now let us find a cab and corner a Frenchman.’