Under the Dragon's Tail

by Maureen Jennings

  He walked over to the fireplace, which dominated the far wall. An oil painting in a massive gilt-edged oak frame was hung above the mantel. Murdoch recognized the portrait of Judge Pedlow in his robe of office. It must have been painted fairly recently, because his honour looked older than Murdoch remembered. However, the artist, either through inadequate skills or fundamental honesty, had not softened the harsh line of the jaw or the tightness of the mouth. Pedlow looked just as mean-spirited and severe as he remembered.

  Murdoch fingered the calling card he’d put in his pocket. You never knew, maybe a little dirt from this case would rub off on his lordship.

  There was a large mechanical piece on a marble stand next to the hearth, and curious, he turned to have a look at it. He’d heard about these things but had never actually seen one before. Inside a glass cover, two monkeys dressed in blue and red satin were seated at a table in a saloon surrounded by mirrors. One held a cigar, the other an ornate box. Presumably when the piece was wound up the monkeys moved and music played.

  He was saved from temptation by the entrance of Mrs. Pedlow.

  “Mr. Murdoch, I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.”

  The woman greeting him was younger than he expected, slight of build, with light brown hair curled around her forehead and cheeks in the latest style. The startling thing about her, however, was the lumpy wine-coloured birthmark that covered her right cheek. Her voice was rather haughty, an impression heightened by the slight upward turn of the corner of her lip.

  She indicated one of the chairs.

  “Do sit down.”

  She took a chair across from him and at an angle. He could see she was adept at seating herself in such a way the disfigurement of her right cheek was partly obscured. She was handsomely dressed in a cream-coloured satin gown trimmed at the bodice and skirt with narrow bands of purple. The sleeves were full and puffed at the top, which also masked the naevus. There was as much lace at the neck and cuffs of the sleeves as his bishop wore on holy days. If this was how she dressed when she wasn’t receiving, he wondered what her gown was like when she was “at home.”

  “May I offer some refreshment?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  Hands clasped tightly in her lap, she waited for him to begin.

  “I’m conducting a police investigation, ma’am, and I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you happen to know, or have you ever heard of, a woman named Dolly Shaw? She lived at River Street at the corner of Wilton.”

  Maud Pedlow managed to indicate slightly offended surprise.

  “Not at all, Mr. Murdoch. I cannot imagine why I should.”

  He took the calling card from his pocket.

  “This is yours, I presume, Mrs. Pedlow?”

  She took it from him as gingerly as if it would crumble at the touch. “Yes, it is mine. Why do you have it?”

  “I found it in Mrs. Shaw’s desk.”

  “How strange. I assure you it is not because I paid her a call.”

  Mrs. Pedlow spoke as if the notion was utterly absurd, knowing Dolly Shaw to be riff-raff. However, he couldn’t make too much of that. Most people of Maud’s standing would make the same assumption. The better class of people wouldn’t be involved with the police in life or death.

  “Is something the matter that you are enquiring? Does it have anything to do with Mr. Pedlow’s being a judge?”

  “I don’t know about that, ma’am. But yes, I’d say there is something very much the matter. The woman was murdered.”

  Maud jumped at his emphatic tone and her hand flew to her damaged cheek. He waited for questions but none came, and once again he was at a loss to know if this was typical behaviour in polite society or because she already knew the answers.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Murdoch. What you’ve told me is shocking but I don’t see I can be of any help. One of my cards must have come into her possession by chance.”

  “The dead woman’s daughter takes in laundry to wash. Could there be a connection that way? Her name is Lily.”

  “I don’t know her either but it sounds likely she could have picked up my card from somebody’s house. One of her customers. Perhaps she was intending to approach me for work.”

  Maybe, but he wasn’t prepared to give up yet. He hesitated, searching for the appropriate words. “I have been told that Mrs. Shaw was once a midwife and that she served women in all aspects of their pregnancy.”

  She stared at him. “I see. Are you suggesting one of my servants might be, er, involved?”

  He shrugged.

  “It is highly unlikely,” she continued quickly. “None of them have given any, er, sign. His lordship has very high standards of behaviour, thinking that any immorality in his own household would reflect adversely on his position and example.”

  “And rightly so, ma’am.”

  He had to admit she’d shifted the focus most adroitly but whether that was from cunning or the arrogance of her class, he couldn’t tell. He was aware this woman was uncomfortable and nervous and did not want to appear so.

  “Would anybody have received a letter from Mrs. Shaw?”

  “No.”

  “You are speaking for yourself, I assume, ma’am?”

  “Yes, of course, but the servants do not receive mail. Burns would tell me if they did.”

  “Do you know a Miss Brogan, ma’am? Miss Annie Brogan. She is an entertainer. An internationally acclaimed chanteuse.”

  “No, I don’t.” She paused and her eyes met his. “Is she implicated?”

  “I’ve not come to any conclusions yet, ma’am. I’m just following up every possibility.”

  There was a silence and he waited until her attention returned to him.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. Now if you will excuse me…we will be serving tea shortly. My husband likes us to be punctual.”

  “I would like to speak with your servants, if you please, ma’am.”

  “Is that necessary? How could they know any more than I?”

  “As you have implied, ma’am, a woman like Dolly Shaw would be more likely to associate with your servants than with yourself.”

  “I do think you are carrying your zeal too far, Mr. Murdoch. I don’t want the servants disturbed. I have two young maids. Who knows if this will throw them into hysterics.”

  “I shall be most tactful and I must remind you I am investigating the most serious of crimes. A woman murdered in her own home. Come now, Mrs. Pedlow. You are married to a judge. You must value the law, surely? Besides I doubt your maids will take a conniption over some poor old woman they’ve never heard of. And if they are as pure as you say, the other thing will not trouble them. I’m afraid I have to insist, ma’am.”

  Before she could answer, there was a soft tap at the door and the butler entered.

  “Shall I prepare tea soon, madam?”

  “Thank you, Burns.”

  Murdoch got to his feet. “Your permission, ma’am?”

  Not looking at him, she said, “I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter.” She turned to the butler. “Burns, will you take Mr. Murdoch to the kitchen and fetch in the servants. He is a detective. He would like to talk to everybody.”

  The butler’s eyes flickered over to Murdoch. He tried to act as impassively as if she’d been talking about introducing the new rector but he didn’t quite succeed.

  “What does it have to do with us here, if I may be so bold as to ask, madam?”

  “I’ll explain all that,” said Murdoch.

  “You’d better start with Susan,” said Mrs. Pedlow. “Where is she?”

  “She’s turning out the upper bedrooms, madam.”

  “Go and get her will you? I’ll direct Mr. Murdoch to the kitchen.”

  Burns left, his curiosity hovering on the air like a smell. Maud turned back to Murdoch.

  “Did you say that there is a young woman involved? A singer?”

&nb
sp; “I don’t yet know how involved she is, but we have a witness who claims Miss Brogan entered Mrs. Shaw’s house late on the night of the murder.”

  “A witness?”

  “A neighbour. He suffers from insomnia and he was at his window.”

  Mrs. Pedlow stood up and walked over to the mechanical piece. Her back was to Murdoch. “I forgot. That is, I didn’t realize until this moment, but there was a young woman who came here. Now that I recall she said her name was Brogan. That was the name you mentioned, was it not?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Annie Brogan.”

  “My footman has apparently seduced her sister and got her with child, so she came here to confront him.”

  Murdoch hadn’t expected this.

  “What day was this, ma’am?”

  “The Friday last.”

  “Did you talk with her yourself?”

  “Very briefly. My ward and I were on our way out when we encountered her and her sister on the doorstep.”

  “And you hadn’t seen her before?”

  “She was a total stranger to me.”

  “Have you seen her since?”

  Maud started to wind up the mechanical apparatus. “Now that you ask, she did in fact return on Saturday. I almost forgot. She wanted me to help her. See that Meredith did the right thing. Of course I will do my best. But perhaps this isn’t the woman you are seeking.”

  “Did she mention where she worked? Where she did her singing?”

  “No, she didn’t. As I said it was the briefest of visits. We merely discussed what to do about her sister’s situation.”

  Murdoch nodded. “I’ll talk to the servants now then, ma’am. If you’ll be so good as to show me the way.”

  The monkeys started to move. The cigar smoker raised the cigar to his lips, the other monkey opened his box and took out dice. A lively piece of music accompanied this action. Murdoch was glad he’d seen the thing in operation, and he looked forward to telling Arthur and Beatrice all about it.

  The kitchen was filled with the necessities for maintaining a rich household. There were three tall pine cupboards along the far wall, and an enormous gleaming Sunshine range squatted opposite. Iron pots and pans hung from a grid suspended from the ceiling. There was even an icebox tucked in the corner. A short, grey-haired woman was chopping vegetables at a table by the stove. At first Murdoch thought she was bald, but closer he saw that she had pulled back her grey hair so tightly from her pinched face, that the shape of her skull was prominent. Burns introduced her as his wife, Hannah.

  “Detective Murdoch is here to investigate a murder, my dear.” The woman looked up at Murdoch, her eyes streaming with tears. For a split second he didn’t know what on earth was the matter, then the corresponding sting in his own eyes made him realize she was chopping onions. She sniffed hard and wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. Burns went on to summarize what Murdoch had told him. Hannah was unimpressed. No, she had never heard of Dolly Shaw or Annie Brogan. She kept to herself, thank you, like any Christian woman should. They did their own washing, even had an electric tumbler, she said with as much pride as if it were her own. As to the story about Meredith and Annie Brogan’s visit, it didn’t surprise her at all. Actresses were no better than women of the night as far as she was concerned. Murdoch didn’t bother to correct her that it was Annie’s sister who was in the family way. Mrs. Burns had hardly got all this off her chest, which was as tight as her hair, when there was a high-pitched whistling sound from the direction of the door. Burns went over immediately and Murdoch saw a row of small bells, each with a label above them. To one side was a curved tube. The butler pulled off a little lid and put his ear against the end of the tube. He listened for a few moments then he shouted into the opening.

  “Yes, madam, right away.”

  His wife looked up at him questioningly.

  “She wants the carriage brought out. Says she has to go on an errand.”

  “That’s awkward. Taylor’s mending the tack and he’s got to get his lordship from the courthouse by four. She specifically said she wouldn’t want the carriage today.”

  Burns shrugged. “No use telling me that. She’s changed her mind and she’s in a hurry.” He pushed a button that presumably connected with the stable. “I thought I’d set Mr. Murdoch up for his investigations in my pantry. Out of everybody’s way.” He meant out of her way and Murdoch was grateful. He wouldn’t have liked to be making his enquiries under the cold stare of Mrs. Burns. The butler had ranked Murdoch to own satisfaction and was much friendlier. He ushered Murdoch over to a small room off the kitchen. It was just big enough to hold a desk and two chairs, one behind and one in front. There was a glass-fronted lawyer’s cabinet along the wall stocked with bound registers. Burns seemed to be a tidy man. While he went to fetch the first of the servants, Murdoch took out his notebook and placed it in the middle of the desk. All ready for business.

  The questioning took almost two hours, and the most interesting interviews were the ones with John Meredith and Maud’s personal maid, Louise Kenny.

  Initially, the young footman obviously thought he was going to be charged with seduction but when Murdoch made it clear he wasn’t interested in Meredith’s love life, he relaxed. No, he didn’t know any Dolly Shaw but he did admit to knowing Annie Brogan, in a manner of speaking. With more bravado than shame he narrated to Murdoch his encounter with the two sisters on Friday.

  “You could have tipped my arse with a goose feather when they appeared like that. I mean I didn’t know Millie had got one on the go. Terrible shock it was and the three of us dithering on the doorstep like tarts at the church door. Then out comes the mistress.” He paused and eyed Murdoch shrewdly. “That was very odd, I tell you. You’d think Annie and her knew each other but weren’t having on they did. But God knows where they would have met, given who she is.”

  “I take it Annie Brogan is who you are referring to?”

  “’Course. Anyways, she is a bold one, that doxie. Before you could wink, she’d asked mistress if she could take Miss Sarah down to the opera house. Show her around! And the missus said yes, sweet as you please. Come for tea and we’ll discuss it, like she was a proper person.”

  Murdoch frowned. That wasn’t what Mrs. Pedlow had told him at all.

  “Did you see Miss Brogan when she came on Saturday?”

  “Not really. She and missus met in the gazebo out in the garden.” He leaned forward and placed his forefinger on his nose. “I was polishing the brasses at the time but I tell you man to man, I considered it in my best interests to keep an eye on the proceedings so I peeked out the window. I tell you they were thick as flies on offal.”

  “How long did she stay?”

  “Quite a long time.”

  “How long? Twenty minutes? An hour?”

  “A good forty minutes, I’d say.”

  So much for Maud’s “briefest of visits,” or maybe she had a different concept of time from most people.

  He changed tack. “Who fetches the mail?”

  “I do.”

  Murdoch took out the letter he’d found in Dolly’s desk. He folded the bottom so Meredith could see only the first line of writing. No sense in getting rumours started.

  “Ever see a letter with this handwriting?”

  Meredith shook his head. “Never. Most of what comes is legal sort of things for his honour.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Sure as houses. I’d remember.”

  Like most servants, Meredith took a lively interest in his employer’s affairs.

  “Has anything been hand-delivered?”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know,” Murdoch replied irritably. “Anytime. Recently. Last year.”

  “Not that I recall. I’ve been here for five years. I see everybody that comes to the door. If they’re trades and they brought anything, Mrs. Burns would let me know. I take it in to madam or his honour. I’d remember. I’ve got a good memory.”

 
“Too bad you didn’t remember you already had a fiancée when you seduced Mildred Brogan.”

  The footman was unabashed. Murdoch could read his mind. He thought the detective was speaking out of jealousy. “She was willing. Eager, if you want to know.”

  “I don’t. So what are you going to do? The decent thing?”

  Meredith looked sullen. “Can’t, can I? Ellen’s father has a nice dry goods store on King Street, and the idea is that he’ll take me into the business when we’re married. How can I pass that up?”

  “How indeed? Maybe you should have thought of that before you put one in the oven.”

  That deflated Meredith sufficiently to give Murdoch some satisfaction and he dismissed him.

  The scullery maid and the general servant were sisters, Mary and Susan Davis. Murdoch interviewed them together to guard against hysterics. However, they were two sturdy young women, both with the fresh colour and firm flesh of country girls. The older one, Susan, expressed sympathy for the dead woman which nobody else had done. They knew nothing, had not met her or Lily or seen the Brogans when they arrived. Monday was washing day but it had rained so they’d had to do the laundry on Friday, and both of them had spent the entire day in the downstairs scullery. The only nervousness they exhibited was that they might be blamed for something, they knew not what. Mr. Burns was swift with his deductions, said Susan, and they were trying to support a large tribe of brothers and sisters up in Bradford. They couldn’t afford to be docked any wages. Murdoch then told them bluntly about Dolly’s illegal services but they weren’t too shocked about that either. Susan laughed.

  “You don’t have to worry about none of the servants getting into trouble in this household. His lordship probably knows when we use the privy let alone anything else. Nobody is allowed a follower or you get sacked. We should have been nuns. Have a better time.”

  Murdoch didn’t like her last comment but he knew she didn’t mean real harm. He showed them the letter but they said they never saw the mail. The trades that came to the back door were handled by Mrs. Burns. Murdoch thanked them and they went off to turn out another bedroom.