by Kerry Tombs
‘Yes, if you insist?’
‘I do, Mrs Jacobson. I do.’
‘Then I will fetch it for you.’
Crabb closed the door as the woman left the room. ‘You let her off lightly, sir.’
‘There was little to be gained by continuing to question her further at this stage.’
‘I don’t believe all that story about mixing up the arsenic and plastering it all over her face,’ continued Crabb.
‘Oh Tom, women will do all sorts of peculiar things to improve their looks,’ smiled Ravenscroft.
‘Not that old Jacobson would know.’
‘That is so, but there may be someone else who appreciates her efforts. You may recall that when we were making our way here earlier today we observed Mrs Jacobson busily walking down the road, as if she were hurrying to meet someone.’
‘You think she has a secret admirer?’
‘Who knows, Tom?’
The door opened and Mrs Jacobson entered the room once more.
‘There you are, inspector. Here is the arsenic.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Jacobson,’ said Ravenscroft taking possession of the substance.
‘I would appreciate it, inspector, if you were not to mention this matter to my husband.’
‘I am afraid I cannot give you that guarantee. If we find as our investigations proceed that we need to inform your husband of our concerns, then so be it.’
Mrs Jacobson said nothing as she left the room.
‘It would appear that a quantity of the arsenic has been used, but of course we don’t know how much of it she has used for her beauty preparation, or if any was used to poison Jones and Miss Martin. She may be telling us the truth. One thing that has been concerning me about this case — were both victims poisoned with arsenic, or was some other poison used?’
‘Oh, why do you ask that, sir?’ asked Crabb.
‘I have always believed that death from arsenic poisoning could take a long time. Those who have died so usually complain of feeling unwell over a number of days, or even weeks, before they receive the last, final fatal dose that kills them. If we assume that both Jones and Miss Martin do not fall into that category, then they would have had to consume quite a large dose on the nights they were killed. Also if arsenic were used, the murderer could not have been sure that his victims had drunk enough of it to have brought about their ends.’
‘Yes, sir, but perhaps someone might have been putting smaller doses of the arsenic in Jones’s port each night, leading up to the larger, fatal dose?’ suggested Crabb.
‘Yes, but somehow I don’t think so. If that had been the case, Jones would have been ill for some days before his death, and yet no one has remarked that that was the case. No, I think that some other poison was used, a poison that would be sure to kill its victim after drinking only one small, but lethal, dose.’
‘That rather lets Mrs Jacobson off our lists of suspects.’
‘Perhaps. We must keep an open mind. Whether it was arsenic, or some other poison, our murderer may well have purchased the poison in some other town, many miles from here, even using a false name so that they would never be traced. If that is the case, then it is going to make our task even more difficult.’
‘What do we do next, sir?’ asked Crabb.
‘I believe that we should certainly keep Mrs Jacobson under close observation. I would be interested to know whether she is in the habit of leaving the house on her own, and if so, how often she does so. If that is the case then I would like to know where she goes to, and whom she meets.’
‘The maid should be able to answer your first question, sir.’
‘Good thinking, Tom. Let us go into the kitchen. We may find her there.’
* * *
‘Yes sir, Mrs Jacobson often leaves the house on her own,’ said Maisie drying her hands on a towel at the side of the sink.
‘How often does she do this?’ asked Ravenscroft.
‘Two or three times a week, sir, I would say.’
‘And how long is she away?’
‘An hour or so, I would think, sir. Always in the early afternoon.’
‘That is interesting. I don’t suppose you would happen to know where she goes to, would you?’
‘No sir. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
‘On the contrary, Maisie, you have been most informative. There is something you could do for us, however.’
‘Yes sir, anything, of course,’ said the maid eagerly.
‘Next time you observe that Mrs Jacobson has left the house, I would be obliged that you would inform us as soon as she has left the building, providing of course that either Constable Crabb or myself are here at the time. Do you understand?’
‘Yes sir — and if you are not here?’
‘Then make a note of the time the lady leaves, and when she returns.’
‘Yes, sir. Oh, you don’t think that Mrs Jacobson poisoned Mr Jones and poor Miss Martin? How awful,’ said the maid becoming agitated.
‘No, we don’t know that at all, Maisie. We would just like to be aware of everyone’s whereabouts.’
‘Yes, sir. I will do my best.’
‘I’m sure you will. There is one other thing that you can help us with.’
‘Yes, sir, anything.’
‘I don’t suppose Mr. Claybourne has returned yet?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you know when he is likely to return?’
‘No, sir. He just comes and goes when he wants to.’
‘Then I would like to see his room. Have you got a key?’
‘Mr. Claybourne has one, and we have a set of duplicate keys to all the rooms,’ replied the maid.
‘And where are these keys kept?’ asked Ravenscroft.
‘They are all on a ring, which we hang up there by the door.’
‘I see. Then anyone can have access to another person’s room if they take those keys?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘I wonder if you could possibly unlock Mr Claybourne’s room for us,’ smiled Ravenscroft.
‘I’m not sure that is allowed, sir.’
‘I admire your caution and vigilance, Maisie, but two people have died already in this house, and if we are to apprehend the culprit, it is important that we follow all lines of enquiry.’
‘Mrs Talbot won’t like it, sir, if she finds out.’
‘Then we shall not tell her. Where is Mrs Talbot at present?’
‘Visiting some friends, sir. She won’t be back until six.’
‘Then there is no time like the present.’
The maid took down the set of keys and led the way up the steps to the first landing.
‘This is Mr Claybourne’s room, sir,’ she said taking one of the keys and turning it in the lock.
‘Thank you, Maisie. I think we can manage now, thank you,’ said Ravenscroft opening the door.
‘Yes sir,’ replied the maid turning away and beginning her descent down the stairs.
Ravenscroft and Crabb stepped into the room.
‘It looks as though there is just one room here. Claybourne obviously sleeps over there. Otherwise just a table, chair, small wardrobe and washstand. Not much in the way of creature comforts, but if he is seldom here so I presume he does not require much. Have a look in the wardrobe, while I go through these papers on the table,’ said Ravenscroft picking up the collection of documents.
‘Nothing in the wardrobe, sir, only a shirt, spare pair of trousers and a few other garments,’ said Crabb presently.
‘This is interesting, Tom. I think I have discovered what our mysterious Mr Claybourne does for a living. He is an insurance agent with The London, Liverpool and Globe Insurance Company. I suppose that would explain why he is only here for a day or so at a time. He must spend the rest of his time either visiting other parts of the country, or taking his policies to the head office in London,’ said Ravenscroft continuing to thumb through the pile of papers.
‘Interesting,’ rem
arked Crabb. ‘Perhaps he insured Jones and Miss Martin?’
‘I don’t think so. As both of them appear to have led solitary single lives there would have been no beneficiaries, so I don’t think we can say Claybourne, or anyone else, murdered them for the insurance money. Ah, this is interesting. Take a look at this, Tom.’
Ravenscroft passed over one of the documents to his assistant.
‘Professor Jacobson’s name is at the top,’ said Crabb.
‘Yes a life policy for three hundred pounds taken out on the life of Professor Jacobson, the main beneficiary to be his wife Mrs Rosana Jacobson.’
‘I am surprised he got cover given his age,’ remarked Crabb.
‘Yes, that is surprising. Perhaps Claybourne was so anxious to sign him up that he was not too fussy about the details. See when the policy was taken out Tom.’
‘Three months ago,’ said Crabb after studying the paper.
‘Three months ago,’ repeated Ravenscroft. ‘And Mrs. Jacobson has just purchased some arsenic!’
‘You don’t think she bought the arsenic with the intention of poisoning her husband, so that she could claim the insurance money?’
‘If that was her intention, then it is a good thing we have taken the arsenic away from her. Of course, she wouldn’t be the first wife to kill her husband for insurance money. Alternatively, she may have been telling us the truth when she said that she only required the arsenic for her beauty preparation. I suppose there is no way of telling.’
‘Shouldn’t we warn Jacobson?’ suggested Crabb.
‘Not just yet. I think she would only deny any accusations. We would need to secure further evidence against her before we could proceed in that direction. All the more important to know where she goes when she leaves the house. She could be meeting an admirer, and the two of them could have been planning the old man’s demise, but all this is pure speculation.’
‘Perhaps her admirer is Claybourne?’
‘That’s an idea. Another possibility, but only a speculative one at present, is that Claybourne persuaded the old man to insure his life, leaving the money to Mrs Jacobson on his death. In the meantime Claybourne does not appear to have insured anyone else here at Talbots’, and as far as I can ascertain these remaining policies appear to be in order. We will just have to wait for Claybourne’s return then we can question him further, and confront him and Mrs Jacobson together,’ said Ravenscroft returning the papers to the table.
‘What shall we do next, sir?’ asked Crabb.
‘It is late today, Tom, and we have not eaten. Time we returned home to partake of some refreshment and gather our thoughts in preparation for tomorrow.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEDBURY
Ravenscroft retired late, and after changing his position a number of times from one side to the bed to the other, much to his wife’s annoyance, fell into a fitful sleep, where the events of the previous few days each sought prominence against each other. The faces of the Talbots, the professor and his wife, the Fanshaw sisters, Turco and Cherrington, each came into view seeking to eclipse one another.
Then again Ravenscroft found himself in the dead woman’s bedroom staring down at the corpse, before the scene was replaced by a greasy Talbot waving a pistol round above his head in the kitchen of the lodging house, and then to the chemist’s shop where the large coloured bottles tumbled down, one after another, onto the top of his head. Then he saw himself running up and down the creaking flights of stairs, in pursuit of a dark, mysterious, laughing figure, whom he could never quite reach, and who gradually receded into the distance — and all the time there was the wild music of Turco’s violin in the background, coupled with the laughter of a grinning Cherrington.
‘It’s Cherrington!’ exclaimed Ravenscroft suddenly waking up in a cold sweat and sitting bolt upright in bed.
‘Whatever is the matter, Samuel?’ groaned a half-conscious Lucy.
‘It’s Cherrington. He is the Pimlico poisoner!’
‘I thought you were investigating a crime in Pershore, not Pimlico?’
‘Yes, but Cherrington was the Pimlico poisoner. I knew I had seen him somewhere before!’
‘Can’t this wait until the morning, Samuel,’ said Lucy turning over on her side.
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry. How silly of me not to have recognized him, after all these years. It’s Quinton again.’
‘Samuel!’ sighed Lucy drawing the bedclothes over her head.
‘Yes, sorry my dear,’ said Ravenscroft lying down once more.
* * *
‘So you think it was Mr Cherrington who poisoned Jones and Miss Martin?’ asked Lucy pouring out the tea at the breakfast table. ‘I thought you said yesterday that it was probably Mrs Jacobson who had killed them?’
‘Well yes, I still believe that the Jew’s wife is our most likely suspect, but this morning I am not quite so sure,’ replied Ravenscroft vigorously buttering a slice of toast.
‘You were talking about Pimlico. What has that to do with the murders in Pershore?’
‘Ah well — perhaps I had better start at the beginning.’
‘I think that would be a good idea.’
‘Well, many years ago, when I first joined the police force in London, I was sent to the local police station in Pimlico, just north of the river, where my superior officer was an inspector in late middle-age by the name of Robertson. I remember he was always coughing and sneezing as though he had some dreadful cold, which he could never throw off, but that is by the by. Robertson was one of the old band of policemen, not quite old enough to have been one of the original Runners or Peelers, but not far off. He was very strict with us young constables and came down hard on any criminals who came his way, and he often boasted that he always caught his man. Anyway after I had been there for a few months, one afternoon Robertson and I were called to a house in Pimlico where the wife of a certain Captain Quinton had just suddenly died. She had apparently been ill with stomach ailments for two or three weeks, and the couple had only been married for a month or so.’
‘How sad,’ interjected Lucy.
‘Yes, she was quite young, in her mid-twenties I would say. Anyway, Robertson suspected that she had probably died as the result of arsenic poisoning, and suspicion naturally fell on her new husband, especially when we learned that she had bought a sizeable settlement with her to the marriage.’
‘You think he married her for her money?’
‘That seemed most likely, but the thing which damned Quinton was that we found a diary which the young lady had kept both before and after her marriage. In this diary she recounted how she had come to Pershore to recover from the loss of her betrothed who had been killed in India, and how she met her future husband there.’
‘Ah, I see where Pershore fits into the narrative,’ said Lucy after sipping her tea.
‘Quite. What was interesting, however was the last entry in the diary, which was scarcely legible, but which quite plainly implicated her husband, in that she claimed that he was poisoning her.’
‘The awful man! He should have hung.’
‘Yes, he deserved to, the evidence was plain for all to see, and the case came quickly to trial, but poor Robertson had not reckoned on Sefton Rawlinson.’
‘Whoever was Sefton Rawlinson?’
‘Sefton Rawlinson was, and is, the most underhand, craftiest, slippery brief in the whole of the Old Bailey.’
‘Sounds as though you don’t like him?’
‘I do not indeed. I have bought many criminals to court over the years only to find that they have escaped justice on some technicality, or fabrication, offered to the jury by Sefton Rawlinson. But to go back to the Pimlico Poisoning case as the newspapers called it, Rawlinson claimed that the last diary entries had been written by a deranged women, who was so ill and delirious at the time of writing, that she was under the mistaken impression that her husband was responsible for her illness. The jury believed this nonsense of course, and when Rawlin
son called Quinton, he presented himself as the distraught loving husband, whose life had been blighted by the sad demise of the woman he had loved. The prosecution could bring no evidence to prove that Quinton had actually murdered his wife, and as arsenic leaves neither smell nor taste, he was quickly acquitted. Poor old Robertson never got over the case. He had always firmly believed that Quinton had been guilty of the crime, and he left the force shortly afterwards, an embittered man, and somewhat under a cloud. Within a few weeks I was also sent off to Whitechapel, a far different area from peaceful, relatively genteel Pimlico.’
‘So this Captain Quinton went free?’ asked Lucy intrigued by the narrative.
‘Yes, unfortunately. There was nothing we could do about it, until now.’
‘So you believe that your Mr Cherrington is none other than this Captain Quinton?’
‘I am sure of it. As soon as I saw him I had the strong impression that I’d seen him somewhere before. Of course it has been over twenty years since the Pimlico Poisoning case, and Quinton was probably in his late twenties then, clean shaven, but still with the same haughty, over confident manner. Now he has a moustache and beard, and is much older, but I am convinced he is the same man. Strange that he has returned to the same town where he met his wife. He must be on the lookout for another young woman to marry,’ said Ravenscroft eating a piece of toast.
‘How dreadful. So if this Quinton poisoned his first wife, he most likely poisoned Jones and Miss Martin as well?’
‘That would seem most likely, but why? I don’t really understand, but yes that is it. He must have been courting Miss Martin with the intention of making her his next wife and thereby acquiring her fortune.’
‘But why would he have poisoned her before he married her — and anyway you said that this Miss Martin appeared to have lived a meagre existence.’
‘That is not to say that she did not have money elsewhere, or perhaps she was to inherit money upon her marriage, and Quinton found out about this and saw her as his next victim,’ suggested Ravenscroft.
‘But if that had been the case why would he have first felt the need to poison Jones?’
‘Perhaps Jones and Cherrington had met somewhere in the past, and Jones rather than speak out decided to blackmail him. Cherrington then decided to poison Jones to get him out of the way, and so that he could continue to woo Miss Martin.’
