‘Since, as you say, there is nothing criminal in it, I don’t see how it can do any harm,’ she said boldly. ‘And if someone had the means to introduce poison into the bottle without disturbing the seals, I might be able to recognise it.’
He paused and she saw his eyes flicker to the desk. His fingers drummed the edge. ‘It would be highly irregular. Even if you were to agree that in return you would go home and not trouble me again, which, would, I admit be a tempting thought; even then, I doubt that I could allow it.’
‘Inspector, please —,’ she begged.
‘No, no, don’t entreat me; I am immune to all persuasion. There are female persons who come into this station – I will not call them ladies – more adept at persuasion than you will ever be, and I have hardened myself against all blandishments of that nature. I am sorry if my decision distresses you, but so be it.’ He frowned, and looked at her keenly. ‘I hope you are not feeling unwell, Miss Doughty.’
‘I am perfectly well, thank you,’ she said, coldly.
‘Only, it seemed to me that you might be in need of a glass of water, in which case I would go and fetch one for you.’
‘I —’ she stared at him.
‘Glass of water, Miss?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Last chance to refuse.’
She understood. ‘Yes please.’
‘Wait there. I might be a minute or two.’ He rose and left.
Hardly believing what had just happened, Frances hurried to the desk and quickly sifted through the papers, fortunately finding what she wanted near the top. She took her notebook from her pocket and quickly began to write. When she had done she replaced the paper on the desk in what she hoped was its original position, and sat down. Only a moment later Sharrock appeared with a glass of water.
‘There you are, Miss Doughty, and it is not every lady who receives refreshment here without the preliminary of being locked up, something I hope you never come to.’
‘You are very kind,’ she said, sipping the water.
‘I trust that you can now promise me that you will in future confine your energies to pursuits more, shall we say, appropriate to a young lady.’
‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she said coolly, ‘but I regret that I am forced by circumstances to be my own judge of what is appropriate.’
He shook his head. ‘I am sorry to hear it. You are, may I say it, very young and very inexperienced to be without a guide in life. I see many an individual go astray for that very reason.’
She put the glass down. ‘One thing I will promise you. I will not trouble you again until I have in my hands proof positive of the identity of the murderer of Mr Garton.’ She rose. ‘And now I wish you good-day.’
He showed her to the door, and she sensed that her dignity and determination had at the very least earned his respect.
When she returned home, Sarah, in accordance with Frances’ instructions, was preparing a frugal meal of grilled herrings and rice pudding with tea. Frances cared little what she ate as long as it was wholesome and nourishing, but Herbert looked at the arrangements with alarm, though he clearly felt unable to complain. Frances was able to find a little private time to study her notebook and wonder what, if anything, it told her. The servants’ rooms naturally contained their own small personal effects such as clothing, toilet articles, family letters and a few gewgaws of cheap jewellery. None of the other items listed suggested that any one of them had received a bribe, though she could see why some might have been considered dubious.
In Mr Garton’s house, an article of gentleman’s underlinen, thought to belong to Mr Beale the coachman, had been found in the room of Mrs Grange the cook, while Mr Beale, a single person, with, Frances recalled, a fondness for ladies who knew their way about a kitchen, was the owner of a pamphlet entitled ‘Sanitary Practices for the Married Man.’ Flora, the nervous kitchen maid, had concealed under her mattress a collection of newspaper cuttings on the subject of burglaries in the neighbourhood, while Susan, the ladies’ maid whom Ada had said was able to sleep through any amount of noise, had hidden away a small medicine bottle, empty but thought to have once contained laudanum. Ada’s one secret possession was a photograph of a small boy – the police note had added ‘(very ugly)’ – with ‘Harold’ written on the back. Mr Edwards, Mr Garton’s manservant, would have been mortified to find that others now knew he possessed an elastic apparatus for the control of protruding ears.
The servants’ rooms in the Keane household also revealed an interesting, though not incriminating, assortment of possessions. Ettie’s secret vice was a small collection of dolls made from clothespegs and scraps of knitting wool. Mrs Grinham, whose lumbago must have been worse than anyone had suspected, owned a large bottle of horse liniment, and a box of blue pills. At least Frances could now guess how Mr Harvey had gained such intimate details of the financial affairs of the Gartons. Hidden amongst his socks were some pictures of classical Greek statues and two postcards from Italy signed ‘Affectionately, Cedric’. Mr Shilling the coachman had a collection of recipes for horse medicines, and Frances wondered if Mrs Grinham had been consulting him as more appropriate to her condition and a great deal cheaper than Dr Collin. Ellen had a neat little box of pretty seashells and a spectacle lens, and Adam had concealed under his pillow a dried corsage of flowers and a scrap of ribbon. Frances did not have to guess which lady had once discarded those items.
Tom arrived with a note from the Keane house. ‘I got a message from Mr Knight and Mr Taylor as well,’ he said. ‘They say as how they’re very sorry to hear about Mr Doughty and can they call on you to condole – or was it console?’
‘I am happy for them to call, of course,’ said Frances. She took the note. The writing was a looped elegant sweep, the letters ‘i’ not dotted, but ornamented with decorative whorls. ‘Tom, I don’t know if Sarah has told you about the new position, but there may be a difficulty with your wages.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, Miss,’ he said, puffing out his chest with a grin. ‘I’m a businessman, now. I c’n wait.’
When Tom had gone she opened the letter. It took a few moments for her to take in what it said. Against every expectation, Mrs Keane had said she could call at 4 o’clock that afternoon.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As Frances approached the Keanes’ house again, she could not help but consider the difference between the outward show of respectability it presented and the dreadful reality within. She could feel only sympathy for Mrs Keane, the victim of a cruel husband who cared nothing for her, and indeed seemed rather to think of his wife with contempt more than anything else. To the residents of Bayswater it must have appeared that Mary Keane had an enviable existence. A fashionable journal might have held her up as an example of something to which every young woman might aspire, yet her situation was no less unhappy than that of Frances. A father on the brink of bankruptcy, a husband disgraced, she must even now be consumed with a dread of her own imminent ruin, and had probably agreed to see Frances more for some sympathetic female company than any other reason. It might even be, thought Frances, that no lady of quality would now wish to call upon her.
Clutching the note in her gloved hand, Frances rang the doorbell. It had already occurred to her that she could well be confronted with a servant who would know her under another name, but she would just have to make the best of that. When the door opened, she did not at first recognise the figure standing before her. Adam had the good sense, beneath his air of rigid dignity, to appear embarrassed. Whoever had chosen his costume had raided the worst excesses of the previous century’s bad taste, and supplied him with an embroidered coat and braided waistcoat in burgundy and gold, burgundy knee britches and silver grey stockings, with shiny buckled shoes. If the object of the transformation had been to reveal to the world his exceedingly muscular calves then the exercise had succeeded admirably.
‘Yes Miss?’ he said, staring straight ahead.
‘I am Frances Doughty. I have an appointment to see Mrs Keane.
’ She tendered the note.
‘Please come in, you are expected.’
He ushered her in. The air was scented with best-quality beeswax polish. So this was the hallway where Percival and Henrietta Garton had entered the house for their last meal together. Frances noted the elegant paper decorated with tasteful designs of tiny beribboned flowers, the gilded glass lamps, a small table covered in trinkets which seemed to have no purpose other than to demonstrate to the world that the owner could afford such things. There was an oil painting on the wall, framed in ornately carved and gilded wood, of a young couple in a classical garden. They wore almost Grecian garments consisting of filmy draperies so voluminous as to be entirely decent. The man looked like a stalwart warrior, tall and handsome with generous whiskers, but seemed to be paying more attention to some imaginary mirror than he was to the bovine lady who stood by his side, gazing at him in adoration, her flowing robes failing to disguise a figure of ample proportions. Beside them were two impossibly cherubic children. Frances had no difficulty in recognising Mr and Mrs Keane portrayed in a less unhappy time. She noticed in passing a slight alteration in the colouring of a rectangle of wallpaper, as if another picture had once hung in the hallway and been too recently removed to be replaced.
Frances suddenly saw herself as a player acting a part. Just as a play is performed many times, so she was now assuming the role of Henrietta Garton arriving with her husband to dine with the Keanes. She tried to imagine the circumstances of that evening. It would not have been Adam in the hallway to greet them that day, but most probably Mr Harvey, and the missing picture, almost certainly the drawing by Meadows that had been ordered for destruction, would have been there.
Adam did not offer to take her coat, and she understood by this that she was not expected to stay longer than the few minutes appropriate to a call. On the night of Percival Garton’s death, however, it would have been different, and she saw a tall cupboard further down the hallway where the cloaks would have been put away for the evening.
‘Mrs Keane will see you in the drawing room, Miss,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
The drawing room, thought Frances, the place where the Keanes and the Gartons had retired on the fatal night to take small digestive drinks and treats after dinner. The room was, as she expected, a model of every kind of comfort. There was a well-tended fire, piled with as much coal as she might have expected to burn in a week, deep carpets, hangings of oriental silk, handsome furniture, and brightly polished lamps. Frances had supposed she might find Mrs Keane seated in the semi-darkness appropriate to her grief, but the room blazed with light, as if the most elegant guests were any minute expected, and the mistress of the house was arranged on a deeply upholstered sofa, her expression giving every appearance of satisfaction. A small table by her side bore a silver tray with a plate of small cakes, dishes of sweetmeats, and a decanter of sherry. As Frances entered, Mary Keane indicated an armchair with a languid sweep of her hand. ‘My dear Miss Doughty, it is a very great pleasure to meet you,’ she said, in that superbly rich voice, no less dramatic for being softly expressed. ‘Will you take some refreshment?’
Frances, still aware of her role, asked for some aerated water, the same item Percival Garton had consumed in that very room on the night of his death. It was not a beverage she normally favoured, but Adam brought her a glass of sparkling liquid with an aroma of lemons, and she was pleasantly surprised by its flavour.
‘Do not leave us, Adam,’ commanded Mrs Keane. ‘Stay by my side in case I require anything.’
‘Yes Ma’am.’ He took up his post by the side of the sofa, his face without any trace of expression.
‘Adam has not been with the household long, at least, not in his present capacity, but I think you will agree that he is an ornament to any room he inhabits,’ said Mrs Keane, admiringly.
‘Indeed,’ said Frances, politely.
Mrs Keane sipped a glass of sherry, and let her fingers hover greedily over the dishes of sweet delicacies, sighing in an agony of indecision. Frances felt sure that the entire contents of the tray would have been consumed by the end of the day. The fingers plunged, and plucked a morsel, which was popped whole into the lady’s mouth. ‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘And now, Miss Doughty, what can I do for you?’
‘I hope you don’t think it impertinent,’ said Frances, ‘but I have come here to make an appeal to you.’
‘Oh?’
‘We are both in a similar position, and therefore I think we understand each other.’
Mrs Keane gave a faint frown of perplexity. ‘Similar? I am not sure to what you can be referring.’
This, thought Frances, was going to be even more difficult than she had supposed. At the risk of giving pain to her hostess she would have to speak more plainly. ‘We have both suffered tragic occurrences in our families. We are both – I am sorry to have to say it in this blunt way – looked upon by society not as we were before.’
‘That is certainly true,’ Mrs Keane conceded, a touch unwillingly. ‘And I was very sorry indeed to hear of your father’s sad demise. Take comfort, my dear Miss Doughty. At least the breath of suspicion cannot touch him now.’
‘He is past all care in this world, but those who remain still suffer,’ said Frances earnestly. ‘It is being rumoured that he – I can hardly say the words – that he took his own life. It is still widely believed that he made a mistake which poisoned Mr Garton!’
Mrs Keane sipped her sherry. The glass was empty and Adam stepped forward and poured another. ‘I still do not see in what way I may assist you,’ she said, calmly.
Frances, wondering now if the lady was deliberately not seeing her meaning, realised that she must be blunter still, and pressed on. ‘Mrs Keane, I am aware of how cruelly your husband treated you, how he coerced you into saying what you did at the inquest. No one, and that includes myself, can possibly blame you for what you did. But now that he is in custody and the world knows his faults, it would surely do no harm to retract what you said.’
Mrs Keane sat back with her glass. ‘That I shall never do,’ she said.
‘You need have no fear,’ Frances reassured her. ‘You can be in no danger of prosecution. The police know you were under your husband’s control.’
Another sip of sherry. The lady pursed her lips and smiled in a way that was not entirely pleasant. ‘Supposing I was to tell you that every word of my evidence was true?’
For a moment Frances shivered with horror, then, on a thought, she recovered. ‘It was not true, you know it was not,’ she said quietly. There was silence. Frances, little used as she was to mixing with the upper echelons of Bayswater society, still realised that to come to a lady’s house by invitation and then accuse her of telling lies in court was not the most acceptable behaviour. She fully expected to be instantly, although politely, ejected.
Instead, Mrs Keane gave a little laugh. ‘Of course, you are right,’ she said. ‘My evidence was a lie from beginning to end. I was never in Westbourne Grove that day, and I have certainly never entered your shop.’
‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Frances with intense relief. ‘And it was your husband who made you say what you did?’
‘It was. There are private reasons I cannot discuss here. Suffice it to say that just as you have come to me from a wholly commendable loyalty to your father, so I acted as I did from similar feelings. My husband played upon those feelings in a most unwarranted manner. He left me with no alternative.’
‘If you explain as much to the coroner, I know he will understand,’ said Frances eagerly.
Mrs Keane took a little cake from the selection before her. ‘I have no intention of doing so.’
Frances felt her heart sink. ‘I beg you – for the sake of my father’s good name!’
‘I am sorry for you, I am indeed, but what you ask is quite impossible. Even where he now lies my husband still has power over me and my father. He has not yet appeared in court. He is innocent in law and will remain so until such time as
a jury says otherwise. Given the complexity of his crimes, that could be many months in the future. And if he employs a clever man, he may be acquitted. I cannot help you, Miss Doughty. And since you will be blunt, I must be so too. The consideration of my living father must take precedence over yours who is deceased.’
In the midst of that refusal, Frances found one word to which she could cling. ‘You speak of crimes —’
‘Oh yes, there is no doubt that my husband is a villain of the deepest hue. I married him for the good I saw in him, and at one time I believed there to be a great deal. Today, I know there to be none. The world would say that he has many grievous faults, but I disagree. He has but one – he is living. Were he to die tomorrow, he would, in my estimation, be perfect.’ To Frances’ astonishment, Mary Keane threw back her head and laughed out loud.
‘Do you know of any other crimes he has committed?’ asked Frances, as Mrs Keane partook of another sip of sherry. The awful feeling was growing that the lady of the house was more than a little intoxicated, and may have been so before the interview had commenced, the cruelty of her husband having driven her to this sad solace.
‘No, though I would not be surprised to hear that there were many before I met him. I was so young then,’ she went on, wistfully, ‘younger than you are now, I suspect, just eighteen. It was in the spring or summer of 1869. I was out walking with my cousin Lydia. He was quite the handsomest man I had ever seen. A tiny flower fell from my hat, just in his path. I say ‘fell’; it may have had a little assistance. He was gallant enough to restore it to me, and spoke to us very respectfully. I learned that it was his habit to refresh himself with a walk in that neighbourhood, and it was not hard to contrive to meet him again. I went out as often as I could in the hope that I would encounter him, and, before long, we met by appointment. Soon, a confidence arose between us. My father opposed the match since James had no fortune and was a mere clerk in a bank. Indeed, he once confessed to me that he was the son of a baker from Bootle. I remember being very glad my father did not hear of that. But I was in love, Miss Doughty; do you understand what that means?’
The Poisonous Seed: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries) Page 20
