Murders Most Foul

by Alanna Knight

  Marriage …

  CHAPTER SIX

  At that moment Lizzie was dealing with some of those problems and would have welcomed his advice. Ida Watt’s mother had arrived at the tradesman’s entrance of Lumbleigh Green in a frightful state.

  By chance, the door was answered by Lizzie who was in the kitchen alone. She had never met the girl’s mother and was taken aback by the angry demand:

  ‘Where is our Ida? I want to see her – right now.’

  Concerned by the tearful woman obviously in great distress, and as Mrs Brown was busy in another part of the house, Lizzie asked her in and seated her down at the table where she looked around as if hoping to see her daughter walk in.

  ‘Where’s Lizzie? I want to talk to her.’

  Lizzie smiled. ‘That’s me.’

  Mrs Watts sighed and took her hand. ‘Thank God. I came looking for you, ’cos you’re her friend and you’ll be able to tell me’ – her voice trembled – ‘where’s she gone.’

  Lizzie was uncomfortably aware of Ida’s secret, confided in her. She shook her head. What could she say, by way of evading the truth, with some sort of comfort and reassurance?

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. Thick as thieves she said you are. Well, it was her birthday – you knew that, of course.’

  Lizzie didn’t. Mrs Watts sat there wringing her hands. ‘I made a cake and everything. She never came. Let me down and her cousins and everyone. It’s not like her, she’s never caused any of us a minute’s worry before. Maybe it’s different now, doesn’t care about us any more if she’s away off with this rich lad she’s so daft about.’ Sighing, she went on pathetically: ‘Ashamed of her family, us being poor farming folk. But poor or no, her da will take a stick to her backside, that’s for sure.’

  Lizzie, bewildered, shook her head. She could think of no reply. Obviously the story Ida had told her mother was a somewhat idealised version of the fact that they were far from ‘thick as thieves’. In truth, they were nothing more than working colleagues and now, for the first time, Lizzie was infected with Mrs Watts’ feelings of panic.

  All she could say was, ‘I’ll tell Ida you came and you’re worried about her.’

  ‘And you’ll let us know. Here’s where we live.’ She scribbled down an address in Bonnyrigg.

  Lizzie promised to do so and watched the girl’s mother depart, feeling she had offered little in the way of reassurance as she went upstairs with Clara’s morning chocolate and had to apologise for the delay.

  Where was Ida? Had something happened to her? She had to tell her mistress, who wasn’t particularly upset, worried or even interested in the table maid’s fate. She could think only of Ida’s continued absence as merely an inconvenience.

  Pursing her lips, Clara said sternly: ‘Please don’t worry yourself, Laurie. Doubtless she will turn up, and when she does decide to put in an appearance again, I’m afraid it will only be to be dismissed by the master. He has already decided she was unreliable on many accounts and this, I fear, will be the final tax on his patience.’

  Lizzie did not sleep much that night, troubled by scaring dreams about the missing girl and how Ida had sworn her to secrecy about this wealthy, handsome young fellow she said was going to marry her.

  ‘We’re going to elope, we’ve got to, now I’m pregnant,’ she had crowed. So if she had gone off with this lad she was so daft about, as her mother described him, who was he, anyway? And Lizzie kept wondering where she had found the opportunity to meet him, seeing that she had little leisure life away from work and her visits home to her parents. It was all very mysterious, and not sending them a note saying she had eloped, well, that was a bit scary and sinister too.

  Surely, as such a devoted daughter she would have tried not to let them worry, especially as it was her birthday, a family celebration – something else she had never told Lizzie.

  When dawn broke next morning she had made up her mind. If Ida was missing, perhaps some accident had befallen her on her way to meet her secret lover. Well, there was only one person who could help find her. And that was Detective Constable Jeremy Faro.

  And telling him couldn’t wait until their next meeting. How to get an urgent message to him? Leave a note at his lodgings? But she wasn’t absolutely sure about that, afraid of facing Mrs Biggs, the formidable landlady she had heard about. With a despairing sigh, she realised the only correct thing to do in the present circumstances was to go to the police, so she decided to venture through the sacred portals of the Central Office and report a missing person. Hopefully she might even see Jeremy when she was there.

  Only it didn’t work out like that. She lost her nerve, surrounded by the imposing and intimidating atmosphere. The constable at the desk studied her with interest. A look she was used to men giving her these days, which she failed to interpret as a man’s natural interest aroused by the appearance of an exceptionally attractive young woman.

  He smiled. ‘Well, miss, and what can I do for you?’

  She explained about Ida, and producing a notebook and pencil, the constable asked if she was her next of kin.

  ‘No, we are friends. We work together.’ As the constable frowned, Lizzie said: ‘Her mother would have come but she was too poorly to make the journey from Bonnyrigg.’ That was a lie, but she decided it was a forgivable one in such anxious circumstances.

  The young constable considered her thoughtfully. Was this a case for serious investigation? A couple of days. Sounded as if it might be a panic and she’d walk in tomorrow. But mothers were like that, always harping on about nothing. So the lass had run away – lots of them did and very few left notes saying where they had gone. If it wasn’t a fellow the parents didn’t approve of, it was likely to find another situation, because maids soon got fed up with the present one and were eager to better themselves with the lure of a bit of extra money. Often they headed for factories where the hours were long and references weren’t demanded.

  While the constable hesitated, Lizzie said, ‘I thought the police should be told.’

  At the sound of footsteps approaching, she looked around hopefully, but this was a strange policeman, not the one she wanted to see.

  The constable saluted the newcomer gravely and indicated Lizzie. ‘Missing persons enquiry, sir.’

  McIvor looked at Lizzie and shrugged. He was in a hurry. ‘Get her to sign an official statement, then.’

  Watching her write, a neat hand too, the constable wondered why her appearance seemed oddly familiar. Thanking her, he smiled at her anxious expression, and promised to hand it to the proper authorities immediately. As she walked away he remembered where he had seen that pretty face, the bright eyes and yellow curls before. Out walking with DC Faro in Princes Street Gardens. A stunner, he whistled, even if she was a widow with a young lad in tow.

  Lizzie had missed Jeremy by a mere ten minutes. When he approached the desk, Constable Ryan whispered slyly: ‘Your young lady has just called.’

  ‘What did she want?’ And the constable made a mental note that Faro looked startled and embarrassed. What on earth could have made Lizzie come to the Central Office? Only some dire emergency would have led her to try to contact him at work, he thought nervously.

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Worried about one of her friends who has gone missing. Apparently the lass’s ma is demented about it, but wasn’t well enough to come herself …’

  Faro was only half-listening, looking towards the door. Gosse would be arriving any moment and he had no desire for the sergeant to know that his detective constable’s ‘young lady’, as he called her, had been tracking him down at work in the Central Office.

  Ryan said: ‘I had her sign an official statement …’

  Faro held out a hand, and the constable grinned and shook his head, looking wary, as Faro said impatiently, ‘I will see it gets to the right department.’

  He took it into the office he shared with Gosse and began reading Lizzie’s neat handwriting. All this fuss about an unreliable ma
id, he thought. He hadn’t realised that Ida was such a friend either. Perhaps that was just to help the girl’s frantic mother, typical of Lizzie too, always willing to carry other folks’ burdens as if her own weren’t enough.

  The bit about the birthday party did seem strange. Such a devoted daughter, according to her mother – surely she would have let her parents know, spared their anxiety.

  Gosse had come in. ‘Any progress on Liberton Brae?’

  Faro told him about the visit, the search for Jock Webb. Gosse sighed, clearly disappointed, reluctant to have to admit that it now seemed unlikely that the ex-boxer was the killer they were looking for.

  ‘There is still the business of that playing card in his pocket, like the one under the woman’s body in Fleshers Close, sir,’ Faro reminded him.

  Gosse gave a snort of disbelief. ‘You’re making too much of that, Faro. Letting it throw you off the scent. A coincidence, that’s all – disregard it …’

  Faro’s silence indicated acceptance. However, he would continue to keep it well in mind until some explanations of how the cards came to be there were forthcoming.

  Gosse was saying: ‘From the evidence so far, Webb is still our main suspect. After all, remember what that doctor said and that false address. All a pack of lies,’ he added firmly.

  ‘Not deliberately, sir,’ said Faro desperately. ‘His memory seemed to be a bit confused.’

  Gosse tapped his nose in that familiar gesture. ‘Cunning, Faro, cunning, that’s what it is.’ And he repeated once more his favourite warning. ‘Wait until you’ve been on the force as long as I have. You’ll soon learn there’s no trick they won’t get up to. Have to be sharp and on your guard, all the time – never miss a trick.’

  Faro knew there was no point in arguing and said: ‘On my way back I looked in at Fleshers Close, met the woman who appeared when we were leaving. She took the wee girl,’ he reminded him. ‘I asked her if she had heard anything that night before the body was discovered. She mentioned a carriage, some commotion outside in the early hours.’

  ‘Sounds as if the woman was murdered and dumped there afterwards. You did well, Faro,’ he added with unaccustomed praise. ‘Ryan tells me you have an official report of a missing person for me.’

  Faro pointed to the desk. ‘Went missing at the weekend. Family are worried.’

  ‘Just a couple of days ago, no cause for concern.’ Gosse sighed wearily. ‘She’ll turn up. If we tackled every case like this we’d get nothing else done, like tracking down murderers.’ And pointing to papers on the desk, he added: ‘We’ve had plenty overnight to keep us busy. Look at those. Three burglaries in the New Town, reports of poachers busy on the south side, domestic fights in Leith – that’s not news – except that the wife is in the Infirmary.’ Pausing he shook his head. ‘Four pickpockets arrested. Must be the full moon got to them.’

  ‘Maybe they are just taking advantage of the extra moonlight nature has obligingly provided, sir.’

  ‘Apart from your fanciful interpretations, Faro, the main thing that concerns us is that there has been another woman murdered. See for yourself.’ Ushering him in the direction of the mortuary, Gosse said grimly, ‘Lass that jumped off the North Bridge. She was killed first and her body thrown off the bridge, no doubt about that.’ Gosse shook his head. ‘According to Dr Grace, no evidence of pregnancy this time.’

  Faro thought with compassion how frequently that was the cause of suicides with young unmarried girls, betrayed by lovers who were mostly married men. Many unfortunate women, too poor to afford more than a few coins, died under the backstreet abortionist’s crude knife; others took their own lives, unable or unwilling to face a future with the burden of an illegitimate child. Lizzie had been one of the brave ones, an exception.

  Gosse said: ‘This was no suicide. She was strangled. Nothing on the body to identify her, clothes suggested working class, servant maybe.’

  Faro felt a chill of dread as he followed Gosse. Sheeted, on a trestle, a young girl who might well be the missing Ida.

  ‘Any identification?’

  Gosse shook his head. ‘Not as yet, I gather.’

  Dr Grace, the police surgeon, had heard them. He came over.

  ‘We have some information. Your colleagues always search the spot for possessions after removing the body. In the fall they can be scattered in a wide surrounding area. Well, they found in a clump of bushes, a reticule. It contained a note to her parents, letting them know she would be in Gretna Green getting married.’

  With sinking heart, Faro asked: ‘Was the name Watts?’

  Gosse’s eyes widened. ‘How the devil do you know that?’ In answer, Faro pointed to the missing persons report. ‘I don’t think you need to read this, Sergeant. We know who she was, poor lass.’

  Gosse took the paper to the light, read it, and picked up the list the police surgeon had brought in.

  He swore under his breath. ‘There’s something else, Faro, for your interest,’ he added grudgingly. ‘Among other things in that damned reticule, a playing card. We could say she had been a gambler and lost—’

  ‘Was it the nine of diamonds, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gosse shortly and glanced towards the sheeted figure. ‘Our killer’s third victim. And as there was no evidence of pregnancy, maybe he killed her for the wrong reason.’

  Laying the report aside he turned to the official missing persons statement, and reading the signature he said: ‘This Lizzie Laurie, describes herself as a servant. At Lumbleigh Green.’

  He had no reason to connect her with his detective constable’s ‘young lady’ but Faro’s heart sank, expecting trouble as the sergeant’s eyes brightened with sudden hope.

  ‘We’d better head there right away. I suspect that’s where we’ll find our answers – and our killer too.’

  And Faro’s scalp crawled, a familiar instinct of foreboding, as he followed Gosse out of the Central Office and headed down the High Street on their way to yet another murder investigation.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As they made towards the handsome mansions bordering Dalkeith Road, Faro and Gosse were glumly silent. Both guessed what lay in store, that their presence would be ill received by the owner, indignant because a maid in his employ, who he didn’t even know and wouldn’t recognise, had been murdered.

  Lumbleigh Green presented a scene of perfect tranquility and affluence behind its closed gates. The sun shone down benignly on Arthur’s Seat, touching impressive gardens with well-tended flowerbeds and immaculate lawns bordered by respectfully disciplined shrubs. Splendid trees provided shady corners, many already ancient in the woodland that predated the mansion’s building; they had watched as their less fortunate neighbours were cut down to make way for landscaped gardens. Those favoured enough to remain had regained their composure and even a certain dignity of age, their leafy tops moving gently in the breeze, their branches home to sweet-singing thrushes and a variety of chirruping garden birds.

  The shadows of two uniformed policemen crossing the lawn viewed from the windows also cast shadows over the occupants of this pleasant suburban tower, raising doubts and a certain amount of dread, since everyone under the handsome roof with its turrets and crow-stepped gables had reason for disquiet at the approach of these guardians of the law.

  In his study, Archie Lumbleigh sat at his wide mahogany desk, where the sight of helmeted policemen aroused unpleasant memories of a long-past interview with their Glasgow equivalents and a very unsavoury court case to be settled before he sought refuge and a new life in Edinburgh.

  An unfortunate and murky interlude in his career, his business partner had shot himself after making it public that Lumbleigh had robbed him, leaving him and his family penniless. He had lost everything, including his shares in the company, through Archie, a notorious gambler, cheating at a game of cards. His only son had had to quit university, where he had a promising future, and go to work on the canal in order to look after his widowed ailing mother, w
ho died a year later – some said of a broken heart.

  Archie meanwhile soared into a fortune. A few successful shrewd and lucky ventures and his future was made. The tragic fact that his partner’s money brought him these ill-gotten riches, he firmly put out of his mind. But that now distant court case, the police enquiries, and even the rumour that his partner’s death was not a straightforward suicide, that Archie had been present and even helped to support the gun at his head, occasionally revived memories that brought him out in a cold sweat at the sight of two grim-faced policemen walking purposefully towards him.

  He had another reason for disquiet. The business of his first wife, his stepson Paul’s mother, Alice, refused to lie quietly buried in the past. She had been a widow and he had treated her badly, marrying her for her money which was considerable. Since she already had a son, he hoped she would provide him with heirs. But it was not to be.

  The years passed and as there were to be no children, disappointment led to bitterness and blame. He despised this plain woman and sought pleasure in high-class brothels the length and breadth of Edinburgh. Mavis Rayne, the madam in York Square, had become a particular friend over the years, almost a confidante.

  Alice had known about Mavis and, loving him more than he deserved, was so unhappy that she tried to take her own life, providing her faithless, heartless husband with just such an opportunity he had never dreamt would come his way: to get rid of a wife he no longer wanted. What a piece of luck, especially as wealth had bought him a young and beautiful mistress he was eager to install in his handsome home as the second Mrs Lumbleigh. He presumed that his efforts to conceal Mavis’s existence – not out of any shame but to avoid possible disruptions in the smooth running of his personal life – had succeeded.

  Attempted suicide was a crime that played into Archie’s greedy hands. He had doctors called, Alice certified as insane and she was locked away in a private asylum. Mercifully, on all accounts, she did not long survive and he had done his best to raise her son Paul as his own. But the lad showed no gratitude for his fine education, and now grown up he solidly blamed Archie for his beloved mother’s death. Sometimes looking across the length of the dining-room table, Archie caught the boy’s eye and saw anger and hatred there which included his new and lovely young stepmother.