The Poisonous Seed: A Frances Doughty Mystery (The Frances Doughty Mysteries)

by Stratmann, Linda

‘Then Mrs Garton and her – gentleman friend – came to London and thought they were safe,’ said Sharrock, ‘and they were safe, for more than nine years. So who killed Cotter and how?’

  ‘Two of Mr Truin’s ten children were bent on revenge’, said Frances. ‘Ellen was only eight when she and her mother and brothers and sisters were sent to the workhouse, and she saw most of her family die there. I expect that when she was older, her brother, the one who had declined a career as a cheesemonger for one on the stage, told her the whole story. Somehow, and it may have taken them many years to do so, they discovered who Lewis Cotter really was, and where. Then I think it was just a matter of positioning themselves to commit murder. Ellen managed to find a place in Keane’s household, and her brother, calling himself Berenger and posing as an artist, worked at the gallery. They were very patient, and very careful. They wanted to get away with it.’

  ‘But why not just tell the police their suspicions?’ asked Sharrock.

  ‘Would they have been believed?’ said Frances. ‘A servant and an actor claiming that a respected citizen of Bayswater was an impostor and a murderer? I hardly think that probable. In any case, I suspect that they might have thought death by hanging to be far too merciful an end for the man who had destroyed their family.’

  ‘And where did they get the strychnine?’ asked Wilfred.

  ‘Do you think it was stolen from your shop?’ asked Sharrock.

  ‘We have accounted for the missing strychnia,’ said Frances, with a touch of embarrassment. ‘It was inadvertently destroyed some time ago. But I agree, that is a difficulty. The pure article is a hard thing to obtain in such quantity without attracting attention. I suggest you make enquiries at all the chemists in the district to see if one of them has sold any. But of course, the supply could have been obtained elsewhere and over a long period of time. I hope you do eventually catch up with them because I would like to ask about that myself.’

  ‘What about Mr Meadows?’ asked Sharrock, ’Where does he fit in? Or was Guy Berenger Meadows?’

  ‘I think that Lewis Cotter was actually Meadows. It was he who produced the forgeries and his brother’s only involvement was to amend the bank records. After his death, Keane was afraid of discovery and destroyed as many of his brother’s drawings as he could in case anyone made the connection.’

  ‘And then Berenger killed James Keane,’ said Sharrock. ‘Why? Because of his association with Cotter? But he had nothing to do with Mr Truin’s death!’

  ‘No,’ said Frances despondently, ‘and I have a horrid feeling as to why they killed him. I think it may be something to do with me.’

  Sharrock opened his mouth in surprise and Wilfred looked alarmed.

  ‘You see,’ explained Frances, ’Ellen knew I suspected that James Keane had killed Mr Garton. She came to visit me, apparently to give me information that might help, but of course what she really wanted was to find out how near I was to discovering her. She thought that the fact that Mr Keane had been arrested would stop my enquiries, but I told her it would not, that I would never stop until it was proved that Mr Keane was a murderer. She must have decided that one way she could stop me was to dispose of Mr Keane.’

  ‘But,’ said Wilfred, clearly appalled, ‘she might also have asked her brother to kill you. You were in very great danger!’

  Touched by his concern, Frances felt a fluttering at her breast, like the filmy beating of an insect’s wings. ‘Yes,’ she said, ’I see it now. Maybe they did consider killing me, but they chose to kill Mr Keane instead. And I think I can see why. First of all as we know Mr Keane was a very great villain, and to a pair of people bent on retribution for crimes, he was therefore a more satisfying target. Also I believe that Ellen felt some sympathy for me. Her father had been maligned and disgraced, as was mine.’

  Wilfred was shaking his head. ‘You must promise us that you will never do such a thing again,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I do think it most unlikely that I shall ever need to enquire into another murder,’ said Frances with a smile.

  Two days later the police caught up with Ellen and her brother. A sharp-eyed lodging house keeper who was well aware that many of her customers might be criminals in hiding and therefore have a price on their heads, alerted the police to the couple posing as husband and wife, and a suitable force was sent to the address. Ellen was secured quickly but Guy was able to get away and made the mistake of trying to dodge his way across the Strand in full flood of traffic. Misjudging his path in his desperation, he fell under the wheels of an omnibus and was frightfully mangled. When the police picked him up he was dead.

  The next day Wilfred called upon Frances. ‘We’ve been trying to question Miss Truin,’ he said, ‘but she won’t speak a word unless you are there. She says that you are the only person who would understand.’

  Frances was shown into Inspector Sharrock’s office where Ellen was seated looking unnaturally calm, although her eyes were red with weeping. She was gazing at the artist’s drawing of her brother. Frances wondered why she had not noticed the family resemblance before, but realised that Berenger’s heavy-lidded eyes, so like those of his sister, had simply given the impression he had intended, that of a man steeped in alcohol. Sharrock and Wilfred stood by as Frances sat opposite the girl.

  ‘I am glad you are here, Miss Doughty,’ said Ellen. ‘You will know why I did it, you will understand. I was only eight when my father died but I remember him like it was yesterday. No matter what cares he suffered from, he always had time for us. He was a loving father who would have done anything to see that we were comfortable and safe. How it would have grieved him to see what we came to! Mother was always ill, and all the memories I have of tenderness and affection are of my father’s love. I am sure you will know what I mean.’

  But Frances knew she did not. Her father, though dutifully providing for his family, had never been a warm presence in the household, and had never treated her with affection. All his love and pride had been directed towards Frederick.

  ‘My mother died very soon after we went to the workhouse and of my little sisters and brothers all but two died also. Only my sister Jane and brother Stephen lived; they were very little older than me. Jane went into service when she was thirteen, as did Stephen. They are still in Liverpool and are doing well, I understand. My oldest sister Mary went into service soon after my father’s death. She gave birth to a child a year later and was turned out of the house. Both she and the child died not long afterwards. George – that is my older brother – he called himself Guy,’ she paused, and a tear ran down her face. They gave her a moment of respectful silence in which to compose herself. ‘George had run away to go on the stage, and later when I went into service he came back and told me everything that had happened. He didn’t think we could do anything about it, but I said we could and we should. He said he would help. Of course the first thing to do was to find Mr Cotter.’

  ‘How did you do that when the police had failed?’ asked Sharrock.

  ‘The police thought he had gone to America; I don’t think they were even looking for him. But remember I was in service. People say things in front of servants in the same way as they would give away their secrets in front of furniture. The first thing I did was to find a place near to where Mrs Cotter lived. I made friends with the servant of the house. In time the servant left and I was recommended for the place. I worked there – actually worked for the Cotters – and I watched and listened. At last I found that Mrs Cotter wrote letters to a man in London called James Keane who lived in Bayswater. I wondered if Mr Keane was really her son. So I came to London and found a place in Bayswater. In time, I learned where Mr Keane lived, and I got a new place somewhere very near to Mr Keane’s house, and made friends with the servants. It was a very unhappy house and the servants didn’t stay long, so I was soon able to get a place there. I wrote to George and told him what I had done and he came to London. I knew about the gallery and he went there pretending to be an artist. He wa
sn’t able to sell any work, but he did get a position as manager.’

  ‘How did you find that Mr Garton was Lewis Cotter?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I had worked for Mr Keane about a year. I wasn’t certain he was my quarry but thought it very like. He was visited by Mr Garton very often and there seemed to be a brotherly affection between them. Once I overheard Mr Garton berating Mr Keane for choosing to call himself Keane, after a friend. He said he had always been careless even as a child. He said he would have been better choosing a commonplace name as he had done. I was surprised about that as I did not think Garton to be such a commonplace name.’

  Frances smiled, knowing that this was a reference to the name John Wright.

  ‘But that did tell me that neither man was living under the name he had been born with. So I suspected them both,’ added Ellen.

  ‘You thought that they were brothers?’ said Frances.

  ‘There was a resemblance, though of course it was hard to be sure, as both gentlemen had very ample whiskers and wore them differently. Then one day I walked in as they were sitting together over a glass of wine and found them raising a toast to their father. I pretended not to have understood them.’

  ‘What made you realise that it was Mr Garton and not Mr Keane who was Lewis Cotter?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I had read everything about the case I could. George had been collecting newspaper articles and we studied them together. One thing we knew was that Lewis Cotter was older than his brother Samuel. I was serving dinner one evening and there was a conversation where Mr Garton made some joking allusion to being older and wiser than Mr Keane, and Mr Keane laughed and said that Garton was only two years older and he didn’t think it signified. That was when I knew. I told George and he said that he ought to be able to kill Mr Garton when he next visited the gallery, but Mr Garton was hardly there and when he was he was always in the company of Mr Keane and sometimes others, too. I pleaded with George not to take any risks. We wanted revenge for what Cotter had done but not at a cost to ourselves. I told him he had only to kill Cotter when he could escape free and not be suspected.’

  ‘I met your brother once,’ said Frances. ‘I went to the gallery. I pretended to be unwell so as to be conducted into the office where I could sit down. He was very kind.’ Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sharrock shaking his head in disapproval.

  ‘Yes, he was kind,’ said Ellen appreciatively. ‘And talented, also. He appeared to the world to be no more than a failed artist with a fondness for drink. He once played such a part on stage, and, I am told, did it to perfection. He even carried a little flask which was supposed to contain alcohol. In fact it was water. He used to rinse his mouth with a little whisky from time to time so as to give people the impression of alcohol on his breath. Mr Keane and Mr Garton were doing something very criminal at the gallery and George was able to run the business for them and make them think that he was too fuddled to spot that anything was amiss. That suited them very well.’

  ‘And the murder of Mr Garton?’ said Frances. ‘How was that done?’

  ‘When I took his cloak I felt that there was a bottle in the pocket. He had carried such bottles many times before but they had always been tightly sealed. If the bottle had been sealed I would not have done anything, as he would have at once known that someone had opened it. But this bottle had already been opened and some of the contents taken and there was quite a bit spilt. It was only about half full.’

  Frances could not resist a smile of triumph towards Sharrock, who threw up his hands in capitulation. ‘All right, Miss Doughty, you win!’

  ‘So,’ said Frances to Ellen, ’what did you do?’

  ‘The hall was empty most of the time,’ said Ellen, ‘I ran up to my room and got the strychnine, then came back and put it in.’

  Frances realised that since the bottle had not been full, the amount of poison required was far less than had been supposed. ‘Why did you choose strychnine?’ she asked, ‘and where did you get it?’

  ‘George suggested Prussic acid but that has a strong smell – anyone would have noticed it – then there was arsenic; but I did recall hearing once that strychnine was a very painful death. You see, I wanted him to suffer great agonies. He deserved it. We have had ruination and pain for many a year and he was not to die easily. But getting the poison was hard. I couldn’t just go into a chemist’s shop and buy it. I asked George to pretend to be a doctor, but, when he tried, the chemist asked all sorts of questions he didn’t know the answer to, and was very suspicious, so we gave up that idea. Of course there was no difficulty about getting vermin killers; there were some at the Cotters’ house in Bootle, but they were mixed with dyes. George tried to get the strychnine from the powder but he never could. Then one day he got a vermin killer without dye, it was mixed with soot. I had an old spectacle glass of my father’s. He used to amuse us by looking at things through it – pebbles and shells and the like. It was very thick and made them look larger, and you used to see all the pretty patterns. When I looked at the powder with the soot I could just see the little crystals of pure strychnine. If I was very patient, I could pick them out. So that was how we did it. It took a long time, but then we had time, and gradually I collected together what I needed.’ She smiled. ‘You understand, don’t you? I know you do. The thing is, Miss Doughty, I think that really we are very alike.’

  Frances suppressed a shudder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was a day, if not for celebration, then for a quiet expression of pleasure. Two weeks after the arrest of Ellen Truin, Frances received a letter from the directors of the Liverpool & County Bank stating that her enquiries had enabled them to discover a hidden account in which Lewis Cotter had concealed funds, undoubtedly the bank’s, and enclosing a cheque for £200. It relieved her most pressing financial needs, and enabled her to give Sarah her £10, although it was not, alas, sufficient to prevent the sale of the business. Young Mr Jacobs’ father had already made enquiries on his son’s behalf which Frances was inclined to view favourably, since the price would be sufficient to settle her debts and leave her with a modest sum. That day, however, with the late February gloom hanging over the Grove, Frances had other matters on her mind. She was sitting at the parlour table. In front of her was a cup of tea, untasted, a large jam tart, uncut, and a manila envelope. There were footsteps on the stairs and her uncle Cornelius was admitted.

  ‘Frances, dear, you wanted to see me,’ he exclaimed. Cornelius’s emotions were always transparent if one knew what to look for and there was a trace of anxiety behind his smile. ‘I hope all is well.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘Yes, Uncle, I require only information.’ She poured tea and cut a slice of tart. He settled himself across the table with an expression of anticipation. Sarah’s powerful hands had a well-known lightness of touch when it came to pastry. He glanced at the envelope on the table, but Frances rested her fingers upon it and made no reference to its contents.

  ‘I was examining the family papers in my father’s desk,’ said Frances, calmly, ‘and I could not help but notice one item that is missing – my mother’s death certificate.’

  ‘I see,’ said Cornelius, thoughtfully, ‘well it might be amongst my papers. I did assist your father at the time of Rosetta’s death. I promise I will look for it as soon as I am home. But surely it is not something you require urgently?’

  ‘Uncle,’ said Frances, with a pained expression, ‘I know that you have always had my interests at heart, but don’t you think I am now old enough to be told the truth?’

  The slice of tart in his hand never reached his mouth. It trembled and dropped to the plate. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘When I was nine years old my father took me to place flowers on my mother’s grave,’ said Frances. ‘He found the visit so distressing I never spoke to him of it again. Until recently all I knew about her death was the date on the tombstone: 1864. So I went to Somerset House and purchased the certificate.’ She opened the e
nvelope and removed a sheet of paper.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Cornelius, terrified not only by what Frances now knew, but by the coolness of her manner.

  ‘And here it is,’ said Frances. ‘The death of Rosetta Jane Doughty, 10 March 1864, at an address in Chelsea. I have made enquiries and the place is a lodging house. Cause of death: fever and convulsions; age – two months. I see also that there is no father’s name given but the mother’s name is Rosetta Ann Doughty. I have been foolish and unobservant. My only excuse is that my mind was otherwise engaged. But I see from my parents’ marriage certificate that my mother’s middle name was indeed Ann. Uncle —,’ she leaned forward to Cornelius who was ashen-faced with shame. ‘This is not the death certificate of my mother; it is that of my mother’s daughter. So – this is what I wanted to ask you – is my mother still alive?’

  Cornelius bowed his head and ran the fingers of both hands through his greying locks. He was almost afraid to speak and yet, Frances suspected, relieved to be obliged to speak after so long.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking up at last, ‘I haven’t seen her in sixteen years.’ He groaned with regret. ‘You are right; you are old enough to know. Frances, I am so very sorry, there is no way to put it delicately – there was a man. When your mother knew that a child was due she went away in this man’s company and left your father a letter to explain her actions.’

  Frances had already guessed at what had happened, but even so, to hear the truth cut deeply at her heart. She had always thought that she would have loved her mother dearly if she had known her, but it was painful now to find that both she and Frederick had been abandoned by her. ‘Who was this man?’ she asked.

  ‘Please believe me, Frances, I don’t know – no one does,’ said Cornelius, unhappily. ‘Naturally your father was distraught and deeply ashamed. He was also most anxious to protect both yourself and Frederick from the knowledge of your mother’s disgrace. We talked and decided that it was best for you to believe that she had died.’