“I appreciate your confidence, Mr Cotgrave. Do you have any more detail for me?”
“Well, Mr – sorry, I didn’t catch your name, sir?”
“Peters,” said Major Vernon. “And this is my colleague, Mr Frazer,” he added indicating Felix. “And any information would be very much to my advantage, Mr Cotgrave, and yours, if matters go ahead as I am intending they should. I would be only too happy to mention your name in the right circumstances. It would be a fine thing, certainly, to see Cotgrave, above the door.”
“Let’s go into my office,” said Cotgrave and took them into a cubby-hole of a room in the back.
“I don’t like to be a teller of tales,” he said, when he had closed the door. “But I have to think of my future. I have put my blood and my soul into building this place up – and with half the town sneering at me for it, as if I am the devil himself, and the other half queuing up for another, as if I am their saviour. So I reckon I’m onto a good thing and I want to stay in harness. He pays me nicely enough and there is a little extra to be made on top of that. So I am well placed and wish to remain so. And if Hickman is in trouble, that is trouble for me.”
“Of course,” said Major Vernon, “when he solicited me, he painted a very rosy picture of it all.”
“It is, in places; well, at least this is rosy enough. You may look at my books, if you have a mind to, sir. But it’s my opinion he’s doing too much and too fast, what with the Pier Hotel and the bars in Northminster as well as here, and he is losing money hand over fist. His creditors are making a nuisance of themselves. He even brought one in here the other day, and took most of the week’s takings out just to appease him. Caused me no end of trouble that did, but it’s his money in the end. But why he should be so eager paying off a fellow like that, I don’t know. Mostyn his name was. No idea what his line is, but it was serious business, that’s for certain.”
“Mostyn – are you sure of that?” said Major Vernon.
“Yes.”
“Could you describe him to me?” said Major Vernon.
“A swarthy, dirty-looking fellow, with a manner about him. As if he were pretending to be a gentleman.”
“And when he had been given his money, then what happened?”
“He went off and Mr Hickman went off to see – well, his lady of the moment, up on the hill.”
“Mrs Parham?” said Major Vernon.
“Somebody or other’s wife, that’s all I know. It always is with him, and the higher the flower, the higher he likes to reach.” Cotgrave shook his head.
“Mr Hickman is beginning to sound like a risky proposition,” said Major Vernon.
“Not if you were to take him over entirely,” said Cotgrave. “I’m sure you could, if you had a mind to, Mr Peters. You have that air about you, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. You might save him from himself, and save us all in the act!”
“I will bear that in mind, Mr Cotgrave,” said Major Vernon.
Chapter Fifteen
“I never thought I could pass for a financier,” said Major Vernon as they walked the long pier that led to the steamer dock. They had just submitted a description of Mostyn to the local police office.
“I suspect, though, that Mostyn will be long gone from Swalecliffe,” Major Vernon went on. “It is too easy a place to get away from, with the steamer service to Newcastle and the railway to Northminster. Why on earth would he stay here? He has got his pay.”
“Still, we have Hickman within our sights,” pointed out Felix. “And he has every reason to stay here.”
The Pier Hotel behind them was covered in scaffolding.
“But the curious thing remains,” said Major Vernon. “Yes, pay a man to kill your husband, but to hang him? You need several men to do it. It could not just have been Mostyn alone. Hickman must have got some others on the job – yet why not just have Mostyn dispatch him neatly? He could have poisoned him, just as he perhaps poisoned us. Why the hanging?”
“A show of power – that was your theory,” Felix reminded him.
“And the Colonel was Bickley’s pet,” said Major Vernon. “We are back to Bickley again. Could that be it: Bickley versus Hickman?” He put up one clenched fist and then knocked it against the other. “Is this tit-for-tat? You murdered my man so I will murder yours.”
“Lord, I hope not,” said Felix.
“So do I,” said Major Vernon. “For such people never stop at one murder apiece.”
He stopped and glanced at his watch, then turned on the spot.
“As I thought,” he said.
Coming along the pier behind them was a pony and trap; alongside the driver sat a well-dressed lady with her luggage.
“Is that not –?” said Felix.
“The widow Parham, yes. Catching the three-thirty to Antwerp,” remarked Major Vernon. “Clearly, she has lost her nerve. I thought she might,” and he strode down to halt the driver.
-o-
The Police House at Swalecliffe was formed of two ancient cottages adjoining an equally decrepit lock-up near the old harbour. Mrs Parham was thoroughly disgusted at being brought there, bristling with the sort of indignation that might betray a guilty conscience.
“Perhaps you would like to tell me the reason you are travelling to Holland, Mrs Parham?” Major Vernon asked, having taken her into the station sergeant’s office.
“I was going to stay with friends in Brussels. Your news – it made me wish to be with my friends. And now I have missed the steamer – because of you!”
“Would not the usual thing be to write to them and ask if you might come to them? A day or two would have made no difference. But on the first boat to the continent, ma’am?”
“There is no law against impetuosity,” she said. “And my friends would have understood.”
“Oh, I am sure they would. But I find it very strange, all the same, this haste of yours to leave. Do you not want to go to Northminster and see your husband’s remains? A proper leave-taking can be very beneficial to the curing of grief –”
“Am I to take advice from you on how I deal with my grief, sir?” she said. “How dare you! You have already misrepresented yourself to me and inconvenienced me grossly, and now this!”
“I apologise, but the circumstances of your husband’s death require that you are inconvenienced. I cannot let you go flitting off to the continent –” Major Vernon said.
“Flitting!”
“Yes, flitting. Your actions raise serious questions –”
“Only in your mind, sir. I am quite at liberty to do as I please.”
“Your husband has been murdered. That puts a very different cast on matters.”
“Murder? You said he had committed suicide.”
“I have had new information.”
She sat in silence for a moment. He could sense the calculation in it.
“But that is –” she began and broke off again.
“Do you know anyone who might have wished him dead?” Major Vernon said.
“No, no of course not. It cannot be murder, surely not?” she said again.
“It is certainly is. He was found hanged – and the evidence is very clear it was not by his own hand.”
She glanced away for a moment and then looked straight at him again, and said, “You must be mistaken.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because – because he had, unfortunately, threatened to take his life on several occasions previously. He was troubled. I have always feared that one day... but murder, no, that is impossible. You are mistaken, I am sure of it.”
“The evidence is quite clear,” said Felix. “The neck bones were broken in such a way –”
“Sir, I beg you!” she exclaimed, putting out her hand to silence him. “Have some pity!”
“I think we will leave it at that for now, ma’am,” Major Vernon said. “Sergeant Barnes will escort you home now. Again, do not attempt to leave Swalecliffe, ma’am, if you please!”
�
�So it was murder that was supposed to look like suicide?” said Felix after she had gone.
“I think that was what she intended, yes, but it may not have happened that way. She perhaps chose the wrong man to organise the job.”
“Hickman?”
“I think he may have promised her one thing and delivered another. He may have had his own reasons for disposing of the Colonel in such a way. Let’s go and find him, before he leaves town.”
It was a matter of five minutes walk to the Pier Hotel, and there Major Vernon’s fears were confirmed. Mr Hickman and his servant had left a little after noon, for the station. That they were seen boarding the one o’clock Northminster train was some comfort, but only a little.
“At least we can enquire at Merriam’s for him,” said Felix, as they boarded their own train back to Northminster.
“Yes, that is something, and his business interests may keep him in the city for a little while, with luck. But if I were him I would jump on the next train to London. We can only hope he has not done so already.”
Chapter Sixteen
They returned to Northminster to find the city awash in a spring rainstorm that filled the streets with mud and sent the temperature plummeting. Giles ate a late hasty dinner at The Black Bull, leaving Carswell at the table.
He made his way to the little house in Parker’s Lane and was glad he had wasted so little time on dinner, for there he found Constable Hale sitting with a bleeding head and cursing.
“She just went at me, sir. I didn’t stand a chance. She was like a fury, and before I knew it I was on the floor and she was out the door. Foley went after her, but I don’t know if he has had any luck. She went off like the devil himself, I can tell you!”
Giles reined in his annoyance that two competent men had been overwhelmed by a woman, and restrained himself from bombarding Hale with questions about how such a situation had arisen in the first place. That could wait, and it had to be borne in mind that Kate was no ordinary woman. She would have used some trick or other to get them to let her downstairs. She had used tricks on him, after all.
He therefore confined himself to asking when this had happened.
“About three quarters of an hour ago, at most.”
He wasted no more time and set off to try and find her for himself, no matter how futile that attempt might be.
There was the advantage, although only a small one, that she was not a local. Her knowledge of Northminster would be limited to those places where she had been allowed beyond the confines of the gambling house. Given that she was mortally afraid of Bickley’s retribution, she would, he supposed, steer clear of that district, unless she was very bold and determined to recover her stash. Perhaps she might even have concocted a story to cover her absence and intended to inveigle her way back into his favour. If she had discovered the locked empty house, then what would she do? It was a good place to shelter on a filthy night.
But that was merely a hypothesis. She may have thought that too dangerous. She would most likely have reverted to her former trade, and it was these areas of the city where Giles began his search.
He soon found that the weather had driven the bright feathered creatures inside from all their usual haunts.
He passed by one of the new gin palaces, not Merriams, but one of the others that Giles was certain was owned by Bickley. This seemed an unlikely place for her to take shelter, despite the crowds. Yet it was the establishment which she had mentioned in relation to her tattoo, so he stopped and went in, making sure first that the few valuables he carried on him were securely placed in a pocket inside his waistcoat, entirely inaccessible to the most skilled criminal fingers.
There was a reason for the crowd, other than the rain. As he made his way past the great bar, with the wall of barrels behind him, he saw that the back room had been opened up to create an auditorium, with a platform at the far end, lit by glowing limelights that were better and brighter than anything the old Theatre Royal in Bridge Street could offer. On stage, three girls and and a man, dressed in bright spangled costumes, were dancing and singing energetically accompanied by a small band. They were singing one of those inane but curiously unforgettable modern songs, with words that could be taken to be obscene or nonsensical according to preference. On hearing it once, Giles knew the tune would be spinning in his head for some time hence, whether he wanted it there or not.
He scanned the crowd as best as he could, standing with his back against the wall.
It was no wonder the place was popular: the gin was cheap, the lights were bright and the entertainment was free. Who but a fool would stay in their wretched rooms when there was this as a welcome antidote to hours of wearisome labour in the mills and manufactories? He knew that in his youth, he would have relished such a scene, embraced it, along with the dubious young women who were singing and swaying at the front of the crowd.
But there was no sign of Kate in her lilac silk dress.
He was about to turn away when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned. It was inevitable he would attract notice. He was not dressed quite shabbily enough for the company.
“Yes?” he said.
“Looking for someone in particular?” The man who enquired was well turned out, with a look of the management about him – he wore a flash red silk waistcoat and a flowery cravat.
“Is this your place?” said Giles.
“What is it to you?” he said.
“I’m looking for amusement,” Giles said. “I was told by a friend to enquire here.”
“Amusement?” said the man. “What did you have in mind.”
“A hand of cards? Something of that sort. I have it on good authority that there is a game –”
“No, no, you must be mistaken, sir,” said the man. “Not here. Who did you hear that from?”
“A friend. His name need not concern you,” said Giles. “I have the means, you know, there isn’t a question about that, so answer me plainly. I really don’t care to being made to wait about in such a fashion, do you understand? If your employer is not interested in such business, I can take my money elsewhere, but if I were you, my man, I should make him aware that I am interested.”
“If you would come this way, sir,” he said, suddenly deferential.
It occurred to Giles that if he did not like games of chance as played on baize tables with cards and die, he did enjoy these sort of situations more than he ought. It was undoubtedly a reckless way to proceed, for he had no clear idea who might be waiting for him at the office at the end of the passageway. If it was Bickley himself, then it would be awkward, but perhaps the moment had come for a conversation with him.
“Your name, sir?” said the man in the red waistcoat.
“Peters,” said Giles, deciding he would continue with his earlier impersonation.
Red Waistcoat knocked at the door and waited.
A woman’s voice answered.
“Yes?”
“Gentleman for you, ma’am,” said Red Waistcoat, opening the door and revealing a plushly furnished office, with a large mahogany desk, at which sat a woman with various large ledgers in front of her. Lace-capped, grey-haired, fashionable but sober in her dress, she looked for all the world like the mistress of a large country house. She looked up from her work with a look of mild, genial enquiry.
“Mr Peters,” said Red Waistcoat.
“How do you do, Mr Peters?” she said, setting down her pen. “What may I do for you?” She had the accent of the city, but it sounded as though it had been gently sanded away by years in an expensive boarding school. “Thank you, Mr Hooper, that will be all.”
“As you like, ma’am.”
Giles studied her face with care for a moment and ventured, having seen no trace of a wedding ring, “Have I the honour of addressing Miss Bickley?”
She inclined her head.
“You know my brother?”
“I do. I could not help noticing the resemblance.”
> “Then I am very glad to know you, Mr Peters. What may I do for you?”
“I was told I might find some congenial entertainment here. A hand of cards with like-minded souls?”
She nodded, and said, “Yes, quite, but regrettably I have to disappoint you at present. That side of things has had to be given up, for various reasons too trifling to go into. But I can offer you a glass of wine, I hope, and perhaps a cigar? I am sorry not to be able to oblige you.”
She got up and went to a cupboard and took out a decanter.
“That’s a shame, and how unfortunate for you that your business should be interrupted.”
“There is bad weather from time to time,” she said. “Sherry?”
“No, thank you. I will not trouble you any more, ma’am. I can see you are deep in your books.”
“It’s no trouble,” she said. “Please, take a glass with me.” She poured out two glasses and handed one to him. “How do you know my brother?”
“We met at Doncaster Races, two years ago. We struck up a conversation about Blue Blazer, you know, that wonderful filly that Lord Hobart had running that season? From there, we found we had a lot of interests in common and he mentioned, if I should ever be in Northminster, I should look him up. I was directed here.”
He hoped this sounded plausible.
“You’re a racing man?”
“I have had some horses in the field, and I was in the training line for a while. My Lords Maunsley and St John were kind enough to employ me. But I have been putting my assets into bricks and mortar of late. It seems sensible the way things are going. The old pleasures are being taken away from us. I had hoped to talk through a few ideas in that direction with Mr Bickley, to tell the truth.”
“You are thinking wisely,” said Miss Bickley. “This is a difficult time. Hence this establishment. We are doing very nicely with it. In fact, speaking of bricks and mortar and investments,” she said, “we were only speaking the other day of rebuilding here. Our theatrical arrangements here are rather makeshift. I was thinking it would be an excellent idea to knock down the room at the back and start again. With galleries and such. Then the better acts will be happy to come and play here. And one might sell tickets as well as gin.”
The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5) Page 14
