The Butchered Man

by Harriet Smart

  “Monday last was when he left?” Felix asked.

  “He said goodbye to Mrs Parker, his landlady, at nine that morning. He was intending to catch the train, she said, and went off with two small travelling bags, and on foot. If he was heading to Lincolnshire that would have been on the ten o’clock – the down train towards London – presumably he was going on from Retford by coach. Sergeant Hope and Constable Lawton have questioned the station staff, and they don’t remember a man of Rhodes’ description getting on the train that morning.”

  “So you’re not sure he even left town?”

  “No. And given where we found the body, the presumption has to be he didn’t. So, can you help me with a time of death?”

  “Never easy,” said Felix. “All I can go on is the state of decomposition and the rigor. The rigor had already passed yesterday when I got him on the table, so that’s at least seventy-two hours gone by which takes us back to Friday, but I’d say we should look earlier. Certainly given the decomposition we could say at least Wednesday, even supposing he’s not full of arsenic which slows it down. But I don’t think this is arsenic.”

  “We can hypothesize, then, that he died on the day he was last seen in Northminster? On the Monday?”

  “Yes, it’s very probable. More than probable.”

  “Excellent,” said Vernon. “Now, let’s eat, shall we?”

  When they had finished their boiled mutton and potatoes, Vernon got up from the table and walked over to the fireside where Snow was hauling herself up from sleeping. She stretched picturesquely, her two front legs pushed out, and Vernon caressed her yawning head.

  “About the horse,” he said after a moment. “You will need a horse.”

  “I’m not sure I need that horse,” Felix said. “And I don’t think I can afford that horse.”

  “I calculated an allowance for stabling when I set your salary. Bennett is an excellent head stableman. She will be well looked after and it won’t cost you a great deal. Far less if you put her out to livery in the town.”

  “That horse will have been used to silk sheets and perfume on her hay. She will not want to live with your police horses. She will despise me and throw me at the first opportunity. And I will break my neck and die of it, and you will have to write to my mother and tell her I was killed riding a horse Lord Rothborough gave me. I cannot accept that horse!”

  “It’s too late for that. I accepted her for you,” said Vernon with a slight cough. “As I said, you need a horse.”

  “You did wha–?” Felix was lost for words.

  “I know, I know,” said Vernon. “It was presumptuous of me, but I am going to pull rank over you on this, and you will have to bear it I’m afraid.”

  “Why?” said Felix.

  “Because if you wish to carry on here and do your research, and hack up your cadavers as Lord Rothborough would put it, you must indulge him a little. Let him feel he has had his way with you. Let him feel he has done you favours and you are grateful. A little humility costs nothing and saves a great deal of trouble.”

  “I thought you were a man of principle, Major.”

  “I hope I am.”

  “This is a matter of principle with me. I cannot let that man buy me, or claim me, when I know it will break my parents’ hearts. If you knew them you would understand. They gave me everything, sir, everything, and to give quarter to Rothborough is to spit in their faces.”

  “But you have. Before this. Many times it seems.”

  “I know, I know!” exclaimed Felix, furious that Vernon had so quickly diagnosed his weakness. “I should never have done it. And I should swear this minute never to see him again nor write to him, let alone accept a horse from him!”

  “You are twenty-four – naturally pragmatism is not an easy thing for you to practice. But you must be pragmatic about this. It is the only way. You have already opened the gate to Lord Rothborough. Once the enemy is in your camp you can do two things – you can fight or you can surrender.”

  “And you advocate surrender? I would have thought you’d be ashamed to say it.”

  “Can you fight him?” Major Vernon said. “Are you sufficiently armed? Are you his equal? What weapons have you that he has not? Do you think you can win against him?”

  “I can resist him from now on.”

  “And make a great enemy? And he will be a great enemy to you. If you hurt him, which you will if you do not accommodate him in these small things, it will fester, and he will grow bitter. He has a great regard for you now, he feels all that a parent will feel for his child, however irregular the situation, and that force – which you cannot understand until you have had a child yourself – is a powerful thing. It would be dangerous for you to attempt to thwart him. Forgive me for being so plain, but I think you should consider this. That is why I accepted the horse.”

  Felix pushed his hands through his hair and stared pointedly away.

  “Why can he not just leave me be?” he said. “It would be simpler – and that horse will kill me.”

  “I’m sure you’re not such a bad horseman as all that.”

  “You have no idea how bad I am,” Felix said. “You really don’t. And I suppose I must write and thank him for it,” he added with somewhat bad grace.

  “You will not regret it. You will find it very useful to have a good mount. In fact, where we are going now, you will need a flash horse to brag about.”

  “Why, where are we going?”

  “The Three Crowns,” said Major Vernon. “I want to search John Rhodes’ rooms.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Well, if it ain’t you, Major. To what do I owe this considerable pleasure?” Frederick Trevor, the landlord of the The Three Crowns, was sitting in front of a well-laid table in his private room. “And what can I do for you? A glass of ale, maybe, or something a little more to your taste? I’ve a decanter of claret that you’ll like extremely. I know you have a taste for the good stuff, and I’ll bet you anything you like, this is more your style than the vinegar they give you at The Blue Boar. Get the gentleman a chair, Lou, and more to the point a glass.”

  “That’s very civil of you – but after the last time we met, Mr Trevor, I must decline,” Giles said.

  “Business is business, Major Vernon, and you were only doing yours and I mine. And as a point of fact the better sort of my customers liked the fact that you cleared out the undesirables. It hasn’t been so bad for trade after all. Gentility, that’s the way to go, so says my Missus and she usually has it right. Give it six months and we’ll be respectable!”

  “God forbid,” said Giles. “I’d have nothing to do then.”

  Trevor laughed and carved himself a slice of cold mutton from the joint on the table.

  “You won’t eat, sir?”

  “No,” said Giles. “How is the Missus?”

  “Oh, doing well. We had another boy.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “We should ask you to stand sponsor for him, Major,” said Trevor. “That’d make them all talk, wouldn’t it?” He wheezed with laughter and then added soberly, “but it ain’t such a cracked notion. I could trust a man like you if I were dead to see it all went well with the boy.”

  “You do me too much credit,” said Giles. “And as for making people talk, I think they will soon be very distracted by another matter entirely. The fact is, I need some information. About one of your guests – a Mr John Rhodes.”

  “Oh yes,” said Trevor, with his mouth full. “What about him?”

  “He’s with you still?”

  “Yes, yes. Till the end of the week he’s paid. Very liberal gentleman he is, in all senses.”

  “By which you mean?”

  “He doesn’t do anything by halves,” said Trevor getting up from the table, and going to the wall where there was a deck of pigeon-holes. He reached out and took out a little stack of paper chits. “Took one of the best rooms in the house for three weeks, and paid for it right up – in cash. Came
straight from the City, I’d say, the money. You can get from Fenchurch Street to Northminster so quick with the railway you can still smell the City in the money – that’s what I said to him. Made me feel almost homesick. He didn’t take it amiss, not like some gentry who can’t bring themselves to look you in the eye when they hand over their wad.” Trevor sat down and began to look over the chits. “And since then, well, I’m doing nicely out of him, thank you. No complaints. I’ve plenty of strong men to help get him up to bed, so...” he shrugged.

  “So he’s been drinking a lot?”

  “Like an Irishman, and then some,” said Trevor, pushing over the chits. “You can see for yourself.”

  Giles glanced through the chits, which recorded copious amounts of champagne, claret and superior French brandy.

  “And when he is not drinking, what has he been doing with himself?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,”

  “I would make it your business to know,” said Giles, “for the sake of your licence.”

  “His cash ain’t dodgy, is it?” said Trevor with a frown. “It did cross my mind it was a payoff or something in that line. Where better to lie low than up here? But then he is a perfect gent, even in his cups. He seems straight up to me, and I know these things. What’s the story, Major?”

  “I want to search his room. He’s not here at present. I have him down at The Unicorn for card sharping. I caught him at it this morning – in your coffee room.”

  “Now, are you quite sure about that, sir?”

  “Quite sure. So if I might have the key to his room? And I want to speak to the servants that have been waiting on him as well. Particularly the woman who sees to the linen.”

  “All that, for a spot of card-sharping?” said Trevor. “Surely, Major, you’re over-reacting.”

  “The key, Mr Trevor if you please? This isn’t about card sharping. I’m investigating a murder.”

  ***

  Major Vernon left Felix idling in the spacious lobby of The Three Crowns.

  He sat down on the large padded bench in the centre but it was not at all the sort of place he felt comfortable in, so to distract himself he got out his notebook and started to make some notes, still feeling somewhat conspicuous.

  “Mind if I sit here?” A woman with a twanging northern accent addressed him. Her voice was edged by a rasp that made her sound as if she subsisted on cheroots and gin. It was not so much a request as a statement because she sat down before he could answer, spreading her black and crimson figured silk skirts all over the pulsing vermillion of the sofa-plush.

  “Actually, there’s someone sitting there,” he said.

  “Don’t look like anyone to me. Is it a ghost?”

  “No, what I meant was –”

  “I know what you meant. You meant you don’t want company.”

  “Quite – so do you mind?”

  “Ain’t you a funny one,” she said, not moving. “Sitting here, looking all lonely and sad. Just in need of a spot of company I thought.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Let me change your mind,” she said.

  “I’m sure there are plenty of other fellows in there who’d be happy to make small-talk,” he said, pointing towards the glass doors to the tap room.

  “Yes, but they’re such a load of boobies. I know them all and they’re so dull. I like a learned man,” she said, tapping her lace-mitted finger on his notebook. “And they don’t come in here often, I can tell you. So what’s your line?”

  Felix, half amused by her persistence, said, “Poor, very poor. Not worth your time.”

  “I’m only proposing conversation, you cheeky monkey.”

  “You mean you want me to buy you a drink.”

  “I don’t have to pay for my drinks. Mr Trevor the landlord is very liberal about that. He makes me very welcome and expects me to make any new gentlemen welcome.”

  “Like Mr John Rhodes?”

  “Acquaintance of yours, is he?” she said.

  “Did you make him welcome?”

  “He’s a very obliging gentleman. Very charming. He gave me and a young friend of mine a very nice supper in his rooms. In fact he’s very taken with my friend.”

  “What night was that?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “He broke an engagement with me,” Felix improvised.

  “To do what?”

  “Play cards.”

  She frowned. “No offence, but I can’t quite see that.” She looked at him, her head cocked on one side. “You’re uncommon pretty for a young man, and I’d say Mr Rhodes went to one of those great schools where the gentlemen get a taste for that sort of thing. Oh, yes, I know all about that. Well, I’m afraid my friend has kept him squarely to the mark. Were you hoping to see him now? Is that who you were saving the place for?”

  Felix remained resolutely silent and she, equally resolute, misinterpreted that silence.

  “You can tell me everything dearie, there’s nothing that will shock me.” She moved a little closer in anticipation and went as far as to lay her hand on Felix’s arm. “Oh, dear, oh dear,” she said, now thrilled by her wild imaginings. “I knew there was something fishy going on – and here you are! Is that why he came here, to see you? My goodness me. I’ve been wondering why and he was speaking to Maria-Jane about some cousin or other. Cousin my eye!” This time she poked Felix in the forearm and gave him a dirty wink. “Am I right?”

  Felix, aware that he lacked theatrical talent, wondered how he ought to compose his features. He aimed for a mixture of embarrassment and affronted pride and hoped that would spur her into further indiscretion.

  “Your friend,” he said. “What exactly did she say about this?”

  “That the thought of his ‘cousin’ was making him very tense. That they’d had a great quarrel.”

  “Did she tell you what it was about?”

  “No, she didn’t, so be grateful for that. Your dirty little secret is safe with us. We know the meaning of discretion.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Felix said.

  “Don’t you trust my word?”

  “I need to speak to her,” he said more firmly.

  “She’s probably busy just now with Mr Rhodes, so you’d be better getting off your high horse, ordering yourself a nice drink and telling old Katy all about it. I’m good on misadventures in love.”

  “She won’t be with Mr Rhodes, I know that for a fact,” said Felix. “So where will I find her?”

  “She’ll be hereabouts, as she always is. Now, you calm yourself down. I’m not having you going to her and abusing her, because she’s just an ordinary working girl and whatever’s gone amiss with you and Mr Rhodes, it’s no fault of hers, you molly.”

  “I am not a molly!” Felix said through gritted teeth.

  “Could have fooled me,” she said. “You know what I think? You’ve been pressing Mr Rhodes for the tin, making him pay for his indiscretions. That’s what made him so tense.”

  Felix, riled now by this extraordinary insolence, struggled to find some control.

  “Where will I find her?” he said.

  “You’d better be civil, molly,” she said, wagging her finger at him.

  “I will be!” said Felix in despair.

  “You’re in luck, then,” she said. “She just came in.”

  Felix swivelled in his seat and saw a girl, far younger and prettier than old Katy, but dressed in the same showy style.

  “Have you seen Mr Rhodes?” she said coming over to Katy.

  “No, but here’s that famous cousin,” Katy said.

  “That’s never his cousin,” said Maria-Jane. “He’d never come here. It’d be more than his life was worth for the likes of him to be seen here, being a parson and all that. You’re never his cousin, are you?”

  “No, no, there ain’t no cousin,” said old Katy. “That’s his molly. Doesn’t that explain it all?”

  “Not at all,” said Maria-Jane. “Mr Rhodes i
sn’t that way inclined. No, his cousin is his cousin and no mistake about it. They’re fighting over some will or other. Mr Rhodes reckons he’s been cheated by his cousin, cheated out of a fortune and he came here to sort it all out. And when it’s settled he’s taking me back to London with him, and I’m going to have a carriage and pair and a house!”

  “He said that!” exclaimed Katy. “He didn’t!”

  “Honest to God. But I’m worried, Katy, I haven’t seen him since this afternoon. There was this policeman here and he went off with him. Have you seen him?”

  At this moment Major Vernon came out of the manager’s office.

  “That was the fellow,” said Maria-Jane.

  Katy glanced at Vernon who was coming towards them. She obviously recognized him.

  “Let’s go and take the air, Maria,” she said, taking Maria’s arm. They swooshed away and out into the street.

  “I see you were kept busy,” said Vernon. “One of those girls was with Rhodes earlier.”

  “Yes, I know – and the quarrel,” said Felix, breathlessly. “I know why they quarrelled. Rhodes believed his cousin had cheated him out of a fortune. That’s what the fight was about.”

  “No wonder he won’t talk!” said Vernon. “Excellent, Carswell – but how did you come by it?”

  As they climbed the gilded staircase up to Rhodes’ room, Felix explained the whole saga and found himself blushing to the roots as he did so.

  “The woman’s probably addled her mind with gin,” said Vernon. “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Interesting, though, that you say Trevor gives the women free drinks and asks them to entertain the punters. That’s pretty much procurement. This place is treading a narrow line. I shall have to have another word with Trevor. Ah, here we are – number five.”

  He unlocked a glossy mahogany door.

  “Gas lighting even in the bedrooms,” said Vernon. “Very flash indeed. And all paid up front in cash. So how does that fit with squabbling over a will?”

  “The more you have, the more you want?” suggested Felix, looking about the luxurious room.

  “Keeping up the style, yes.”

  “He’s promised that girl he will take her back with him and set her up as his mistress.”