The Insanity of Murder

by Felicity Young

  Hensman gave Pike a nod as he passed. After smoothing his luxuriant moustache he said to Shepherd, ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ Shepherd said, ‘good of you to drop by, Bert. Take a seat. No, not there, bring the chair alongside mine out of the glare, that’s the way. Must organise some blinds for that damned window. Pike, you may be excused now. Start looking into those asylums, or whatever it is you have to do. Bert and I will discuss the bombing matter.’

  Bert?

  Pike failed to move. ‘The bombing is still officially my investigation,’ he said.

  ‘Not any more. I am relieving you and taking over myself, effective immediately.’

  Hensman smiled as if he had known this was coming.

  Pike’s heart dropped. Innocent or guilty, with those men on the case, Florence wouldn’t stand a chance. ‘Sir …’

  ‘You have enough to do. Besides,’ Shepherd glanced at Hensman. ‘I’ve heard tell that …’

  ‘What?’ Pike snapped, unable to control his anger any longer.

  ‘That you are,’ Shepherd coughed, ‘possibly too close to the suspect and her family to conduct an unbiased investigation of the bombing.’

  ‘It is no secret that I occasionally work with Miss Florence McCleland’s sister.’

  ‘Work? Is that what you call it?’ Shepherd snorted and glanced at Hensman, a sly smile tugging at his thick, bluish lips. ‘If you value your job, Chief Inspector Pike, you would be advised to tread very carefully.’

  Pike felt as if he’d been dealt a body blow. He and Dody had always been so careful, so discreet. How on earth had Shepherd discovered their secret? It must be something to do with Hensman — the two were unusually close for men of such disparate rank. Had Hensman seen, heard, or sensed something — or was Shepherd just testing the water, seeing if he could provoke a reaction?

  Pike would not give him the satisfaction. He forced himself to remain outwardly calm.

  ‘And now, Bert,’ said Shepherd, ‘about your application to the Detective Branch …’

  Pike excused himself and left the office in a daze. As he made his way past the secretary’s desk to the stairs, a short middle-aged woman wearing a cartwheel of a hat entered the secretary’s enclave and nodded to Pike in recognition.

  Pike bowed. ‘Mrs Shepherd.’

  ‘Is my husband in, Hoskins?’ she asked the secretary.

  ‘He’s in a meeting with Sergeant Hensman, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, what luck,’ Mrs Shepherd said as she sailed past the desk towards her husband’s door. ‘I’ve been meaning for ages to ask Cousin Bert for dinner. I shall do it right now.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Annie helped Florence from her bed and saw her comfortably settled in the window seat with a view of the street below. The front door of the townhouse banged shut. A few seconds later Florence saw Dody’s neat form pause at the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic. It was a change to see Dody out of her usual suit and boater. This morning she wore a cotton tulle one-piece dress, high-waisted to suit her corset-less figure, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Her glossy mahogany hair appeared constrained and well-coiffed for once, with none of the usual recalcitrant strands straggling beneath the hat.

  Dody stepped back from the road as a bus gusted past, its top deck crowded with passengers sporting boaters and straw hats, some of the women twirling parasols.

  ‘Looks like the weather is finally improving,’ Florence said, while Annie stripped the sheets from her bed. ‘But where is Miss Dody going at this hour?’

  ‘It’s gone ten, miss, not that early, really. She’s out to get some flowers for the house. Your mother arrives late this afternoon, remember.’

  Oh, yes, poor mother, Florence thought. She’ll be mortified at seeing me laid up and in such a state. The mere picture of her mother’s worried face almost caused the tears to flow again — God, what was wrong with her these days! She felt as if she had fallen into a deep black hole, constantly fighting back unbidden tears. Whatever it took, she had to be strong in front of her mother — the woman who’d brought her up to have the courage of her convictions — even if it meant dying for them. Wait, had Mother really said that or had she imagined it? Florence’s mind seemed so cloudy, almost as weak as her body. Surely Mother would never have suggested such a thing. She must be getting her confused with someone else.

  ‘Did you manage to see your young man on your afternoon off, Annie?’ Florence asked, desperate for something to distract her from her own misery.

  ‘Yes, I did, miss.’

  ‘Oh, and where did you go?’

  ‘Went to the flickers and saw ever such a funny show at the Plaza. It was about these coppers who chased the villains all about the place in their police wagon. They were terrible bunglers and caused calamity wherever they went.’

  Florence offered the maid an indulgent smile and nodded her head. She didn’t understand how anything involving the police could ever be considered funny. ‘And what does your young man do?’

  ‘He’s a teacher, ever so clever.’ Annie turned down the freshly made bed. ‘There you are, Miss Florence. Would you like to hop back in or stay by the window a bit longer?’

  ‘Back to bed, please.’ As Florence rose with Annie’s help, she noticed a female bicycle rider pull up outside the house and pause, as if reading the number. The woman wore a plain grey, ankle-length skirt, a white blouse and no hat. Florence pointed at her. ‘Hullo, Annie, it looks like we’ve got a visitor.’

  Mistress and maid peered out of the window as the dowdy woman dismounted and pushed her bicycle up the garden path, disappearing from view beneath the porch. Florence felt her spirits lift. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said with a hand on her heart. ‘I know who that is. It’s Miss Emily Davison!’

  ‘That’s nice, miss. She’s obviously popping in to see how you are. Not much to look at, is she?’

  ‘How thrilling! Quick, Annie, go downstairs and let her in. I can get back into bed myself.’

  Florence checked her hair in her dressing-table mirror and made her way back to bed on wobbling legs. Within a minute or two, Emily was shown upstairs and perched on the edge of the mattress. She declined the offer of tea and Florence sent the ever-lurking Annie on her way.

  Once they were alone, Emily took both of Florence’s hands in her own large, ungainly ones. ‘And how are you, you poor dear girl?’

  Her sympathetic tone made Florence’s eyes mist up again. ‘All the better for seeing you,’ she said, hating the weakness she heard in her own voice. Emily was second only to Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter, Christabel, in Florence’s estimation. She was a woman of derring-do and the very embodiment of the suffragette motto: Action not Words. One of her recent antics had been to sneak into the Houses of Parliament and stay there all night, hidden in a heating cupboard where she nearly died of thirst. It was a bold deed that not only drew the public’s attention to the cause, but highlighted the lack of security in Parliament at a time when security was of paramount concern. On the downside, the Pankhursts had not sanctioned Emily’s action as it occurred during a so-called truce with police. Rumour had it that Mrs Pankhurst had been displeased enough to confide in an associate that she worried Miss Davison might be on the way to becoming a rogue operator.

  ‘Christabel asked me to reassure you that you have not been forgotten,’ Emily said. ‘She considers you mature enough and committed enough to understand that this temporary — and I stress that word, temporary — distancing is necessary. Our mistake at the Necropolis Station has left everyone baying for blood I’m afraid. Even Daphne has been ordered to stay overseas for the remainder of the year.’

  Florence nodded in understanding. A postcard from Daphne would still have been nice.

  ‘Everyone sends their love, Florence – everyone except Mrs Pankhurst, though I’m sure she would have if she was not behind bars herself.’

  ‘Oh no! What for?’

  ‘The attack on the Chancellor’
s house.’

  ‘But I thought the firebomb was thrown by Jenny and Martha Bridges.’

  Emily agreed that it was. ‘But for reasons known only to herself, Mrs Pankhurst has claimed responsibility. She’s been charged with incitement to cause a felony and been given three years penal servitude.’

  Florence covered her mouth with her hand. ‘No! Is she hunger striking?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Then she will be sent home, like I was. And if she becomes so ill that she dies, the government can blame her for it and not take any responsibility themselves. It’s just so jolly unfair!’

  ‘It’s all right, my dear, calm down. This policy can’t go on for long — the government is already being strongly criticised for this Cat and Mouse Act, as people are calling it. As for the matter about being sent back to prison after recovery, I’m sure that can be easily avoided. One just has to disappear for a while and go somewhere where the authorities can’t find one. We have already formed networks of suffragettes to help with this.’

  Florence sniffed away her welling tears and managed a weak smile. ‘Funny you should say that, Emily, because I was thinking of doing something similar myself. What do you think about this? Let me explain …’

  ‘Doctor McCleland,’ the big-boned woman said as Dody stepped over the threshold of her house, arms laden with hyacinths and chrysanthemums. ‘Have no fear, I was just leaving.’

  ‘You have been visiting my sister?’ Dody asked with equal coolness, placing the flowers on the hall table. They had met on several occasions, neither approving of the other’s modus operandi. Dody suspected Emily Davison regarded her as a traitor for working with the system and not, from where she stood, against it. Dody regarded Miss Davison as an unhealthy obsessive, the type of suffragette she had always worried her sister would become.

  Dody found it impossible to believe that a woman as well-educated and mature as Miss Davison could stoop to such childish and dangerous antics to draw attention to her cause. Miss Davison had a first in English Literature from Oxford — although being a woman meant that her degree was not officially acknowledged. She was also a qualified teacher.

  A woman like that should know better. She could have died in that heating cupboard. Her antics made Florence’s misdemeanours seem no more than schoolgirl pranks. When last in prison Miss Davison had jumped from the prison balcony. After she’d recovered, she justified her actions by saying that ‘one big tragedy may save many others’, by which Dody assumed she meant the force-feeding of the suffragettes. On last count, Miss Davison had been force-fed forty-eight times. Dody couldn’t help feeling that this woman was even more deserving of the attention of the nerve doctor than Florence was.

  She found her eyes drawn to a protruding lump on her visitor’s bare wrist. The rumour was true then: she had broken her wrist in the jump from the prison balcony.

  Miss Davison followed the direction of Dody’s gaze with her flickering pale eyes. ‘It’s healed nicely, thank you, Doctor.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. You must be careful in future, Miss Davison. Bones become more brittle as we age.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Annie helped Florence with her clothes. Inspired by Emily’s plain sense of dress, Florence chose a drab outfit of brown and cream — the waistband of the skirt gaping due to her weight loss — and a worn woollen shawl that she had intended to give to the poor. She wouldn’t let Annie do her hair, insisting that it hang down her back like one who didn’t give a fig about her appearance.

  Annie looked at her mistress aghast. ‘Even Miss Davison had her hair braided. Lord, Miss Florence, what will your mother say when she sees you looking like this?’

  ‘Don’t be a goose, Annie, I’ll have plenty of time to change after I’ve seen the doctor. Mother won’t be here until about six.’ She checked herself in the mirror, satisfied with the look of her body, but her face not so much. Her spirits had risen considerably since she had formulated her plan with Emily and it showed in the dabs of colour on her formerly pallid cheeks. One only had to look into her eyes and see the spark that suggested the revival of an inner fire. She needed to mope again, to look despondent and sad. She eyed a bottle of pills that had been sitting on her dressing table since she’d first come home from prison. Something to calm her down, Dody had said at the time. Well, she needed a bit of calming now, didn’t she, something to help with the impending performance?

  She tipped a couple of pills into her hand. ‘Pass me some water please, Annie,’ she said as she popped them into her mouth.

  A few minutes later she shuffled into the drawing room on Annie’s arm, already feeling the effect of the pills on her empty stomach. Dody and Doctor Lamb were waiting for her. Dody started at her appearance and tried to catch her eye, but Florence would not look at her. There would be time enough for explanations when the plan was a fait accompli.

  Doctor Lamb took her hand and led her to the chaise lounge. Florence judged him to be in his mid-thirties, perhaps just a bit older than Dody. He wore a light summer suit, a wine-coloured silk waistcoat, and a matching cravat. Combine all that with a head of tight dark curls and she assumed he was rather pleasing to the eye. She could only assume, however. Her lids had all of a sudden become so heavy she could hardly see through them.

  The room was festooned with Dody’s flowers, and for a moment Florence felt as if she was looking down at her own funeral. She pulled herself together. Must concentrate. She covered her mouth and yawned.

  ‘What is the matter, Florence?’ Dody asked, her voice laced with concern. ‘Have you had a relapse?’

  She explained to the doctor how Florence had gradually been improving since her release from prison, though she was still worried about the continuous lack of appetite, weight loss, and melancholia.

  ‘I had a bad night, Dody.’ Florence turned her bleary eyes to the doctor. ‘Terrible nightmares.’

  ‘Did you manage to eat any breakfast?’ Doctor Lamb asked in a soothing Scottish burr.

  ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t stay down,’ Florence said.

  ‘Really?’ Dody asked, arching a sceptical eyebrow. Earlier, Florence had told her sister that she had enjoyed her first good breakfast since her release.

  ‘Tell me about your nightmares, Miss McCleland,’ Doctor Lamb said.

  Florence slurred out her dream account of the force-feeding, performed by a horned devil and his demonic minions, glorious phalluses all (for this she drew on the image of Satan as depicted in Dante’s Inferno), hoping to shock him. Even Dody looked shocked — she probably didn’t realise her little sister knew the meaning of the word.

  The more Florence talked, the more concerned the doctor’s countenance became. When questioned, she told him the first things that popped into her head — sometimes the truth and sometimes pure bosh. She heard him mutter something about neurosis and hysteria. She yawned again and felt the fog of sleep unfurling around her.

  Voices broke through the waves of sleep. She heard the doctor and Dody talking about rest cures. Dody’s voice rose when the doctor mentioned committal. ‘That’s absurd, Doctor, you cannot consider my sister’s hysteria to be severe enough to warrant committal.’

  Slumped on the chaise lounge, Florence peeped through semi-closed eyes. Both Dody and the doctor were standing like creatures about to lock horns, Dody with her hands on her hips.

  ‘You asked me for my advice, Doctor McCleland, and I am giving it. Your sister needs to get away from London and everything that reminds her of the trauma she has been through. Even you are a reminder, I’m afraid. She needs new faces around her, pleasant grounds in which to stroll, and the guidance of fully trained staff who are experienced in her kind of behaviour.’

  ‘You will have a job committing her. I will not support you in this. All I wanted was advice.’

  ‘But what if I want to go, Dody?’ The pair whirled around at the sound of Florence’s feeble voice.

  Dody stared at Florence with astonishment. �
��You want to be sent to an asylum? Florence, have you any idea what those kinds of places are like?’

  ‘Yes, please, I do. I fear it is my only hope.’ Effortless tears began to spill down her cheeks. ‘You are ever the loving sister, Dody, but sometimes I need to have some say over my life.’ Florence looked at Doctor Lamb, forcing her liquid eyes to become big and round and innocent. ‘May I request my residence, Doctor?’

  ‘You may go where you like as long as I consider it to be suitable,’ the doctor replied.

  ‘Then I request to be sent to the Elysium Rest Home for Gentlewomen. It’s in Surrey,’ she added, avoiding eye contact with Dody.

  Dody turned on her sister as soon as Doctor Lamb had left the house. ‘Florence, how could you!’

  She calmly ignored Dody’s outburst and reached for the sherry decanter.

  Dody slapped her hand away. ‘Don’t you dare! Not on top of those pills you’ve taken.’

  ‘Pills, what pills?’ Florence asked innocently.

  Dody felt like strangling her. ‘Fast acting, short lasting. I left them on the dressing table — more fool me — never expecting that you would help yourself to them. I can see your demeanour improving before my very eyes.’

  ‘That reminds me, I must look a fright. May I borrow your comb please, dear?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Florence reached into Dody’s beaded bag, which was sitting on the couch, and removed her comb. She crossed to the mantelpiece mirror and began doing her hair. ‘I must change before Mother arrives. What do you think, my blue tea dress or the lavender?’

  ‘I think you have a lot of explaining to do.’

  Florence laughed. ‘Poor Dody, I have teased you long enough. Do sit down and let me explain my plan.’

  Dody reluctantly sat next to her on the couch.

  ‘Now, don’t be cross,’ Florence began. ‘I think you will be pleased when you hear my reasoning.’

  Dody pinched her mouth into a tight line.

  ‘As you know,’ Florence went on, ‘I have a pathological fear of going back to prison. Seriously, Dody, I think it will kill me.’ She took hold of Dody’s hand. ‘You do believe me, don’t you? I swear I am not making that part up.’