Waxwork

by Peter Lovesey

  Cribb listened, remembering Howard Cromer had given the impression Miriam had not entered his life before he came to Kew.

  ‘You would think Judith had been eclipsed,’ Lottie went on, ‘but not yet. I saw her one Thursday morning in Hampstead High Street. Feeling for the poor girl, I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her, but she crossed the road and, to my amazement, her face was pink with excitement. She took me into a teashop and told me she was engaged to be married to Julian! It took my breath away. The whole thing, she said, was secret until they had bought the ring. I was the first to know, because she was bursting to tell someone how happy she was. She had not told her father yet, but she was sure he would not object. Yes, they intended to break the news to Miriam that evening. Judith was certain she would share in their joy. I told her frankly not to be so sanguine about that. Miriam would be incensed. I warned her not to make it a long engagement because I was sure Miriam was too single-minded to give up. She laughed and said she had no fear of losing Julian.’

  It was the girlish talk you could hear any day of the week on buses and trains, except that this was life and death.

  ‘She said a strange thing. Had I never noticed the way Julian looked at Miriam? It was not the way a man looked at a girl he really cared for. Julian didn’t see Miriam as a person at all, but a face. A face to be photographed, not kissed. She was meant to be looked at through a camera. I said perhaps he saw all women with a photographer’s eye. Judith laughed again and said she was sure he did not. She was carrying the proof.’

  ‘His child?’

  Lottie nodded.

  Cribb stared at her a moment. ‘You didn’t tell the coroner this.’

  She lowered her eyes. ‘I know. It seemed kinder to say nothing. By that time, Judith was dead. I couldn’t alter that. Julian was up to his ears in trouble, with the suicide in his studio and the poison not being kept in a cupboard and everything. In his evidence he said nothing about the engagement, or Judith being pregnant, and nor did I. I didn’t say anything untrue, just kept silent about what she had told me. If I had spoken up, it would not have changed the verdict, but it would have ruined Julian’s reputation for ever.’

  ‘Tell me this,’ said Cribb, and there was an edge to his voice. ‘How did you account to yourself for Judith’s death?’

  Her eyes reacted with tiny darting movements. ‘Sergeant, I couldn’t account for it. What I told the coroner was true. The day before she died, she had been so jubilant, not worried in the least about being pregnant. The next thing I heard was that she was dead. All I could suppose was that Julian had changed his mind, and when he told her, she took poison. A woman in that condition may be subject to erratic behaviour if she gets a sudden shock.’

  ‘Do you still believe that?’

  Lottie Piper slowly shook her head. ‘Since I read in the newspapers what happened in Kew, I do not. I believe Judith was murdered.’

  ‘By Miriam?’

  ‘She confessed to the murder in Kew, didn’t she?’ Lottie searched Cribb’s features for some sign that he shared her conclusion. ‘Her name was not mentioned once at the inquest, but she could easily have done it. She was used to visiting the studio two or three times a week. If Julian had broken the news of the engagement to Miriam that Thursday evening, she could have gone to the house on Friday knowing he was going to be out and Judith would be alone. It would be natural for them to make tea if, as I suspect, Miriam came giving the impression she wanted to congratulate Judith. She could have created an opportunity of adding the poison to Judith’s cup, and then watched her die. Yes, it’s a hateful thing to say about someone you have known since you were ten years old, but what other explanation is there?’

  If Cribb had one, he was not revealing it. He thanked Lottie Piper for seeing him. When he got downstairs, he called in at the box office and bought two upper circle tickets for The Mascotte. For the Monday performance.

  Chief Inspector Jowett’s thin fingers drummed the edge of his desk. His eyes roved round the walls of his office, taking in the portrait of Sir Robert Peel, the stag’s head, the volumes of Archbold, Stone and the rest, anything but Sergeant Cribb, seated opposite him.

  ‘To have come here, in broad daylight,’ he said for the third time.

  ‘Not possessing a telephone-set,’ said Cribb, eyeing the instrument on the desk, ‘I had no option but to come in person, sir.’

  ‘You could have left a message downstairs.’

  ‘Requesting you to come and see me? I doubt if you would have liked that, sir, so soon after yesterday. The matter requires a decision this evening, sir.’

  Jowett was too upset even to light his pipe. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and peered through it at Peel. ‘By Heaven, you had better be right, Sergeant. Nothing you have told me so far has altered my opinion of the case. Miss Charlotte Piper’s tittle-tattle is what I would expect from a low comedy actress.’

  ‘The daughter of a member of the Stock Exchange, sir.’

  ‘He has my sympathy. What is this decision, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I want permission to question Miriam Cromer, sir.’

  Jowett swung round in his chair, eyes blazing. ‘Damn you, Sergeant, we went into this before! It can’t be done. Do you understand plain English?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I asked you for a written report on your investigations. That was all I asked for, not a rambling account of your adventures at the Haymarket. Where is that report, eh? You haven’t got it, have you? Yet you have the neck to come to Scotland Yard—’

  ‘There’s something else I should tell you, sir,’ said Cribb in an even tone. ‘There has been a development.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Howard Cromer, alias Julian Ducane, has disappeared from his home. I have reason to believe he is making for one of the Channel ports.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ A glazed look spread over Jowett’s eyes. ‘Why on earth should he do that?’

  ‘No fault of mine, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘After my interview with Miss Piper, I took a train to Kew with the intention of putting certain questions to Cromer. I felt I had enough information to get the truth from him this time. I wanted to find out why he had concealed from me the fact that he was on close terms with Miriam Cromer before he ever came to Kew, why he had withheld vital information at the inquest on the late Judith Honeycutt and what he was doing on the morning of the day Josiah Perceval was murdered. When I got to Park Lodge I was informed by a servant that Mr Cromer was not available. I put some further questions to the maid and then effected an entry into the house. From the appearance of Mr Cromer’s bedroom it was clear that he had packed a number of his clothes and personal possessions and taken them with him. This the servant confirmed under questioning. It appears that Mr Cromer left the house at about one o’clock. This morning he had visited his wife in Newgate. He returned, packed a small portmanteau and left within a few minutes without taking lunch or speaking to the servants. I obtained a description, which I have telegraphed to Dover, Newhaven, Folkestone, Holyhead, Harwich and Southampton, with instructions to detain him. There was a copy of Bradshaw on his bed, sir.’

  Jowett had gripped his mouth and chin in his right hand and was twisting the flesh without regard to appearance.

  Cribb continued, ‘After that I returned to London and went to Mr Simon Allingham’s chambers in Bell Yard. There was a possibility that Mr Cromer had contacted his solicitor.’

  Jowett managed to nod.

  ‘I don’t know if you have met Allingham, sir. He is a forthright young man. Arrogant would not be too strong a word. I asked him whether he had seen Mr Cromer in the last twenty-four hours. He tried to evade the question by asking what right I had to inquire into Cromer’s movements. He wanted to know whether a warrant had been issued. I told him there were certain questions I wished to put to Mr Cromer—’

  ‘Yes, yes, Sergeant, I’m sure you acted properly,’ broke in Jowett with a sudden shift of emphasis. ‘Did he tell you anythin
g of significance?’

  ‘He eventually admitted he spoke to Cromer at about noon, sir.’

  ‘And … ?’

  ‘He was not prepared to disclose the subject of their conversation.’

  ‘Deuced impertinence! We could have him on an obstruction charge.’

  ‘I think he knows his rights, sir.’

  Jowett spluttered contempt.

  ‘When I told him Cromer had skedaddled he said he wasn’t in the least surprised considering the way he had been treated by the police.’

  ‘What?’ Jowett turned from crimson to white. ‘What’s this—intimidation? Cribb, you haven’t used violence on the man?’

  Cribb gave Jowett a withering look.

  ‘I should like to know what the devil has been going on,’ said Jowett, the colour rising again.

  ‘So should I, sir,’ said Cribb with no attempt to conceal his anger. ‘Things have been happening that I know nothing about. I think I have a right to be informed when another officer is sent to interrogate a witness.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Allingham told me a man arrived yesterday afternoon at Park Lodge and gained admission on the pretext of wanting his portrait taken. From his manner and the interest he took in the details of the crime it was damned clear to Cromer that the man was a detective. Now Cromer has taken fright and cleared off.’ Cribb planted his hands on the edge of Jowett’s desk and leaned over it. ‘I spend a week patiently building up my case, foot-slogging round London, talking to God knows how many insignificant witnesses, all to prepare the ground for a face-to-face with Cromer, and what happens? This nincompoop’—Cribb pulled a photograph from his pocket and tossed it in front of Jowett—‘goes out to Kew and puts the fear of God in him.’

  The Chief Inspector picked up the picture. ‘Who gave you this?’

  ‘Allingham. It’s a print from the plate Cromer made.’

  Jowett studied the portrait of James Berry. ‘Sergeant, this man’s face is vaguely familiar, but I cannot place him. I know nothing of this.’

  Cribb knew when Jowett was speaking the truth. ‘Someone must have sent him. If it wasn’t you, it must have been the Commissioner.’

  Jowett’s hands rose like grouse from cover. ‘Wait, Sergeant. We cannot leap to conclusions. Terribly unwise. I feel quite certain that Sir Charles would not … ’ He covered his eyes and released a huge sigh. ‘Well, if he did, it is not for us to question his decisions. He may be privy to knowledge that we are, er … It will be justified in the fullness of time, I am confident.’

  The fullness of time? Cribb shook his head and drew back from Jowett’s desk. Was the man totally insensitive?

  ‘The question to be decided is how to proceed,’ said Jowett, piling words on his evasion. ‘If Cromer proposes to leave the country we must obtain a warrant. We shall need a charge—something to detain him.’

  ‘What do you suggest, sir?’ Cribb quietly asked.

  Jowett rubbed the back of his head. ‘It’s not so simple when you put it like that. Sergeant, the more I look at this, the more conscious I am that we are dealing with a very resourceful criminal.’

  ‘He could be across the Channel already.’

  ‘Then we shall extradite.’

  ‘On what charge, sir?’ Cribb knew as well as Jowett that an extradition order was obtainable only for serious crimes.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘We can’t charge the man with murder when his wife is already convicted of the crime,’ said Jowett. ‘Not unless we can prove they were jointly responsible. No, by Jove, we can’t charge Cromer unless his wife is pardoned. Once the fellow gets to the Continent, he’ll be clean away. What is to be done, Sergeant?’

  ‘Is the Commissioner in his office?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I want permission to question Miriam Cromer,’ said Cribb for the third time.

  SATURDAY, 23rd JUNE

  ‘THAT SOLICITOR IS HERE. Him that goes red to the tips of his ears when you call him Simon.’

  The prisoner stopped. For twenty minutes she had been circling the exercise yard with her bed-blanket round her shoulders. It was cool in the small quadrangle bounded by cell-blocks. The sun penetrated there for four hours a day, between eleven and three. This Saturday morning it had just begun its slow descent down the granite wall.

  ‘He is waiting in the cell,’ Bell told her.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Miss, if you please.’

  ‘Miss,’ the prisoner tonelessly repeated.

  ‘Who else did you expect—the blooming Home Secretary? Yes, he’s on his own.’

  Without hurrying, she crossed the cobbles to the arched doorway leading up to the condemned cells, Bell and Hawkins following.

  The young solicitor jerked to his feet as if it was the Queen. Today he was in green tweeds. Each day it was different. When he smiled, boyish creases formed at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Miriam.’

  ‘No touching,’ Bell cautioned.

  The prisoner gave him a faint smile and guided her skirts round the table to her stool.

  He remained standing while the wardresses found seats. He was a charmer, this one.

  ‘My dear, how are you this morning?’

  ‘Impatient for news, as usual,’ she answered.

  He nodded. ‘And you shall have some. There has been a development. If it had not kept me so busy I should have come to tell you last night.’ He paused, measuring his words. ‘My dear, Howard is missing. The police want to question him.’

  Bell caught her breath at the news and looked at the prisoner. She had widened her eyes a fraction, but she passed no comment.

  ‘I reminded the officer who informed me, of course, that Howard is under no obligation to notify the police of his movements,’ Allingham went on. ‘From the way I was questioned, you would think he was wanted on some criminal charge. Oh, they had learned from the servants at Park Lodge that he took a portmanteau with him. Scotland Yard seems to interpret that as tantamount to fleeing from justice.’

  ‘Are they pursuing him?’

  ‘I understand there are men looking for him at all the ports.’

  ‘And if they find him?’

  Allingham shrugged. ‘If they propose to detain him, they must charge him with something.’

  Bell exchanged a glance with Hawkins. From the prisoner’s composure, you would think she was indifferent to her husband’s predicament.

  She said a curious thing. ‘Then it’s nearly over, Simon.’

  His face lit with encouragement. ‘You have been marvellous. So brave! Yes, nearly over. No doubt they will come to pester you with more questions while they have you in this place, but you must refuse to say one word unless I am present. That is your right.’

  She let out a small breath, as if his words had fortified her. A tinge of colour had come back to her cheeks. Exactly why Howard Cromer’s disappearance had lifted her spirit, the wardresses did not understand. They drew conclusions from what they saw. There had been opportunity enough in two weeks locked in a cell with the prisoner eight hours a day to read signals in her voice and expression. She might be sitting upright on her stool with her hands held together, but she was elated by what the solicitor had told her. If she had got the chance she would have hugged him. Between these two there were things going on.

  ‘Simon, which of the detectives questioned you about Howard? Was it the sharp-faced man with side-whiskers or the second one, with the beard, who pretended not to be a detective at all?’

  ‘The first.’ Allingham frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, because I believe I have seen the second. I was not supposed to, but while I was in the exercise yard this morning I happened to look up and saw a face at a window two floors up, staring down at me. He was the man Howard photographed, I am certain—the broad, scarred face, black beard and prominent eyes. Even the butterfly collar. As soon as I caught those codfish eyes he disappeared from view
. I had to smile.’

  Bell darted a warning glance at Hawkins. A word out of turn now, and either of them could be up before the governor. There were things it was forbidden under any circumstances to discuss with a condemned prisoner.

  Allingham had an explanation. ‘Probably he was put on to the case after your trial. He would have had no opportunity of seeing you, except in photographs. He would be better employed meeting the trains at Dover than peering out of prison windows. This entire experience has done nothing to alter my low opinion of our detective force.’

  She seemed not to be listening. She was looking at her fingernails, chipped and stained by prison fatigues. ‘Simon.’

  He reddened. She had spoken his name with a kind of ardour.

  ‘In here, my thoughts have been much on the past,’ she said, speaking in a low, earnest tone she had not used before. It seemed to Bell that it was calculated to make the wardresses feel they should not be listening. ‘I think a lot about Hampstead, and the Society. Those interminable lectures that we endured for the conversation afterwards. The picnics and the outings. That trip up the river when you wore your striped blazer. I was never so happy as then.’

  The young man began to look uncomfortable. ‘Nor me—capital memories,’ he said tamely.

  ‘Something we share,’ she said, and paused, watching him. ‘In the night, when it is difficult to sleep, I find my thoughts often turn to what might have happened in my life if things had happened differently. Those were happy times and I thought I understood why, but really I did not. Simon, I was blinkered. I knew nothing of the world. Oh, I basked in its pleasures, the joys of laughter, sunshine, pretty things. Like a child. Such thoughts as I possessed were shaped by impulse. If there were things I desired, chocolates, flowers, anything, I directed all the power at my disposal to obtaining them. And because I was pretty and surrounded by people who adored me I was never thwarted. A selfish, spoilt child.’