Sick of Shadows

by Beaton, M. C.

‘Going to be alone at Christmas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me, too. Look, it’s dashed cold this evening. Why don’t you join me for a drink in that pub over there?’

  Ailsa surveyed him from under the brim of her black felt hat ornamented with a pheasant’s feather. She had not had much to drink that day. Although Harry paid her a good salary, a large part of it went to an orphans’ charity, some on food and rent and the rest on gin.

  A pub was a public place. Nothing could happen to her there. Also, she was curious to find out why this man had waylaid her.

  ‘Very well, sir,’ she said. ‘But just one. I have a weak head and I am not accustomed to strong liquor.’

  Guy Delancey felt relieved. Berrow had said to charm her, get her drunk and either get the office keys out of her reticule or make her so besotted with him that she would turn over the negative.

  He took her arm and guided her across the road through the traffic, which had ground to a halt as usual. The newspapers were complaining that the whole of London was seized up with too much traffic.

  He found a corner table in the pub. A waiter came bustling up. ‘What will you have, miss? Champagne?’

  ‘No, I might try some gin. My mother used to like gin.’

  ‘Gin it is. Make it a large one, and I’ll have a large whisky.’

  When the drinks arrived, Guy introduced himself Ailsa thought of using a different name but then gave him her real one.

  ‘Drink up,’ said Guy.

  ‘My father always used to say, “Bottoms up”, and drain his glass. I’ve never tried that.’

  ‘Let’s try it now.’

  ‘Bottoms up,’ said Ailsa and knocked back her glass in one gulp. Guy followed suit.

  He called the waiter and ordered another round. ‘That poor waiter, running to and fro,’ said Ailsa. ‘Why does he not just bring the bottles?’

  ‘Good idea!’ Gosh, thought Guy, she’ll be putty. A few more glasses and she’ll do anything I want. He surveyed Ailsa with her flat chest, thin pale face and hooded eyes. Probably had nothing stronger than a glass of sweet sherry in all her life.

  The waiter, as ordered, brought a bottle of whisky and a bottle of gin to the table.

  ‘I’ll be Mother,’ said Ailsa, just as if she were pouring tea instead of liquor. ‘Bottoms up!’

  Guy soon began to feel his senses reeling. ‘I shay,’ he said, ‘where d’you work?’

  ‘I work for an orphans’ fund,’ said Ailsa. ‘This is fun. Bottoms up!’

  ‘You mean you don’t work for Captain Cashcart?’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ said Ailsa. ‘Bottoms up!’

  Guy lurched to his feet. He had made a dreadful mistake. He had followed her from the office in Buckingham Palace Road. But there were other offices there.

  ‘Gotto go,’ he said thickly.

  Ailsa watched as he staggered from the pub.

  Lady Glensheil was late for a dinner party. She opened the trap on the roof of her carriage with her stick. ‘The traffic has cleared, John,’ she shouted to her coachman. ‘Go faster. Spring those horses.’

  ‘Very good, my lady.’

  Guy, lurching out of the pub onto the road, never saw the carriage hurtling towards him until it was too late.

  At the sound of the scream and the crash, everyone ran out of the pub.

  Ailsa gathered up her scarf, gloves and reticule and walked out. A carriage was lying on its side and an aristocratic lady was being helped out. Guy was lying on the road, blood pouring from his head.

  ‘Are the horses all right, John?’ called Lady Glensheil. ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. I would not like to think good horseflesh had been ruined by some drunk.’

  The conspirators did not hear the bad news until they read the following day’s Evening News. ‘Young man-about-town, Mr Guy Delancey, was killed when he walked in front of Lady Glensheil’s carriage. Witnesses say he had been drinking heavily in the Fox and Ferret with a lady. Police are urging his companion to come forward.’

  ‘And are you coming forward?’ Harry asked Ailsa, who had told him the whole story.

  ‘No, sir. Better just to leave it as it is.’

  ‘Quite right. Berrow and Banks probably hired someone to get you drunk. You say you were drinking water in a gin glass and he didn’t even notice?’

  ‘No, sir. He did not. I think he had a very weak head.’ Ailsa had no intention of betraying her capacity for gin to anyone.

  Berrow and Cyril stared at each other in horror in The Club over their copies of the Evening News.

  ‘You know what?’ said Cyril.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Cathcart fellow’s going to kill both of us. He’s engaged to Lady Rose again. I’m telling you, he’s vicious.’

  Berrow folded his newspaper. ‘Tell you what, I’m going north to my place in Yorkshire for Christmas. Come along. We’ll leave as soon as possible. If that maniac turns up anywhere near us, I’ll get the keepers to shoot him!’

  Rose, once again serving in the soup kitchen, found the cheerful religious man she had met before standing in front of her.

  ‘The Lord be with you,’ he said, holding out his bowl.

  ‘And with you, sir,’ said Rose.

  ‘The Lord is good,’ he said, looking at her with shining eyes. ‘His angel come to me in prison.’

  ‘And you will sin no more?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Bet your life I won’t, missus,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Can I have an extra helping?’

  When she and Miss Friendly had finished, they returned to the town house where the maids were beginning to pack their trunks preparatory to the move to Stacey Court.

  Before she went upstairs, Miss Friendly said, ‘Please tell Miss Levine I have her frock ready.’

  ‘I hope everyone is not taking advantage of you.’

  ‘No, not at all. I enjoy the work.’

  Daisy looked in awe at the dark blue taffeta gown Miss Friendly had designed and made for her. It was cut low on the bodice and trimmed with little pearls at the edge of the neckline.

  ‘Did you do this without a pattern, Florence?’ asked Daisy, who was the only one to call Miss Friendly by her first name.

  ‘I studied such a gown when we were visiting Madame Laurent’s salon and suddenly realized I could create something like it.’

  ‘You should speak to Lady Rose about opening your own salon.’

  ‘That would take a great deal of money and my lady has been generous enough.’

  Daisy thanked her and went off lost in thought. What if she, Becket and Miss Friendly got together to open a salon? She and Becket could handle the business side. Rose could be persuaded to wear Miss Friendly’s creations as a form of advertisement. She and Becket could then marry.

  Daisy wore the new gown that evening. Lady Polly kept flashing angry little glances at her. Harry had joined them for dinner.

  Rose was feeling depressed. Harry was certainly playing his part of being the faithful fiancé, but there was something aloof and guarded about him when he spoke to her.

  When Lady Polly led the ladies to the drawing-room after dinner, she glared again at Daisy’s gown and said to her daughter, ‘You must not pass on your finest clothes to your companion. That gown is quite unsuitable.’

  ‘Miss Friendly designed and made it for her.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘She could have her own salon and make a fortune,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Miss Friendly has enough to do here,’ snapped the countess, looking enviously at the companion’s gown. ‘I think she should start making clothes for me.’

  Two days later, the earl’s household set out for the country. London was still in the grip of a great frost. As the line of carriages and fourgons moved out into the countryside, white trees and bushes lined the road. Everything seemed still and frozen. Smoke from cottage chimneys rose straight up into the darkening sky.

 
Rose huddled into her furs. She thought of Dolly now lying under the cold earth in her father’s churchyard. Poor Dolly. If only she could find out who had murdered the girl, she felt that Dolly could rest in peace. The letters from Mrs Tremaine had abruptly ceased, but Rose supposed that it was because she had stopped answering any of them.

  Harry had promised to arrive on the following day. It had been very difficult to find a Christmas present for him. Rose had finally settled on buying him a copy of The New Motoring Handbook. Now she wished she had bought something more expensive, like a pair of gold cuff-links. The bottle of French scent she had bought for Daisy had cost a great deal more than the book.

  She found she was missing her work at the soup kitchen. It had given some purpose to her days. She had persuaded her father to let her send six geese to the soup kitchen for Christmas dinners and felt she should have been there in person to serve them.

  The work in the East End had made her look too closely at her own life for comfort. When they finally arrived at Stacey Court, all she had to do was go to her rooms and rest while an army of servants unloaded the fourgons, footmen carried up the trunks and maids unpacked the clothes.

  She had suggested to her mother that such great divisions between rich and poor were worrying, but Lady Polly had merely pointed out that God put one in one’s appointed station. If Rose wanted to continue with good works at Stacey Court, said the countess, then there were plenty of people in the village who would be glad of her services.

  The next day she confided to Matthew Jarvis that sometimes she envied her parents’ indifference to the poor. ‘Your father is not as indifferent as he seems. None of his tenants are allowed to starve or fall sick without treatment,’ said Matthew. ‘I have instructions to tell the factor not to collect any rent from the poorest.’

  Rose wrapped up her Christmas presents and put them on a table under the tree. The servants’ hall had its own tree and presents would be given from the earl and countess at the servants’ dance, traditionally held in the afternoon of Christmas day.

  Harry arrived, polite, attentive and as closed as a shut door. Christmas came and went. Harry gave her a splendid diamond-and-sapphire necklace and she blushed when she handed him that book.

  And then, after Boxing Day, one of the maids fell ill with typhoid and part of the drive fell into the cesspool below.

  A doctor was summoned to treat the maid. A nurse was hired for her. The factor was instructed to deal with the cesspool and the earl thought it safer to remove everyone back to London.

  As they arrived at the town house, it began to snow, small swirling flakes that seemed to rise upwards in the lamplight.

  Fires were hurriedly lit. The house was freezing. Rose went to bed that night with two stone hot-water bottles in her bed, or ‘pigs’, as they were called.

  She was just drifting off to sleep, watching the flames dancing in the fireplace through half-closed lids, when suddenly she was wide awake.

  At last she knew what it was that had been nagging at the back of her brain. She must tell Harry.

  She was sure she now knew who had murdered Dolly.

  In Yorkshire, Berrow and Cyril were feeling more like their horrible selves. They had shot every animal and bird on the estate that they could, had gone wenching in the brothels of York, and were beginning to regret having been so scared of Harry Cathcart.

  It was only when the gamekeeper caught a poacher and dragged the man in to see Lord Berrow at gunpoint that Berrow began to have the germ of an idea. ‘I’ll take him to the police,’ said the gamekeeper.

  Berrow eyed the poacher thoughtfully. Most poachers were people who risked prison in order to feed their families during the hard winter, but this one was an unsavoury character with one wall eye, a long nose and thin greasy hair. He dismissed the gamekeeper.

  ‘Name,’ barked Berrow.

  ‘John Finch, me lord.’

  ‘Prison for you, me lad. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Been there. Leastways get fed.’

  ‘What were you in prison for?’

  ‘Beating the wife.’

  ‘Nonsense, man. Most men beat their wives, as is their right.’

  ‘Was living ower near place called Drifton. My Ruby cheeked me, so I took a plank to her. Local copper comes rushing in. Charges me with assault and battery. Thought they’d throw it out o’ court but damned if they did. When I got out, Ruby was gone.’

  ‘You’ll get life this time. Second offence.’

  Finch looked frightened but tried to cover it up with a pathetic attempt to swagger. ‘Well, go on. Get it over with.’ Berrow studied him for a long moment.’

  ‘There could be another way.’

  Rose fretted. Harry had gone out of town on a case. London was buried under great drifts and there were reports that the Thames had frozen.

  All she could do was wait impatiently for his return.

  Ailsa Bridge lifted her skirt and extracted the flat flask she kept secured by her garter. She took a hearty swig and then began to type again. Harry had assured her that Berrow and Banks were in Yorkshire and that she would be safe from any other attempts.

  Her life with her missionary parents in Burma had been full of danger and she had taken many great risks to supply the War Office in London with intelligence. She did not feel as confident as Harry and did not want to worry him. She had bought an old breastplate in an antique shop and was wearing it under her gown. She also had primed Harry’s pistol and put it in her own desk.

  She heard a step on the stair and stiffened. There was something furtive about that step. The nobility who usually frequented the office would come crashing in, full of bluster, demanding that some scandal or other be hushed up or some missing dog found.

  Ailsa slid open the drawer and took out the pistol, laid it on top of the desk and covered it with her scarf.

  The door opened and a man in a tweed coat, knickerbockers and a flat cap came in.

  ‘Where’s the captain?’ he demanded.

  ‘Out of town. Please leave.’

  He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her. ‘Go in there.’ He jerked his head at the inner office. ‘Open the safe.’

  Ailsa’s hand crept towards the gun.

  Finch saw the movement and shot her full in the chest. Ailsa crashed backwards in her chair and fell to the floor and lay still.

  He searched in her desk until he found the keys. He went into the inner office and opened the safe. He was just reaching into it when a shot caught him on the shoulder. He grabbed his wounded shoulder and turned round. White-faced but stern, Ailsa was holding a pistol on him. He looked wildly for the gun, which he had put on Harry’s desk, but, keeping him covered, Ailsa picked it up and threw it onto the floor.

  As he groaned and clutched his shoulder, she picked up the receiver and said in a crisp voice, ‘Police.’

  After she had made a statement to the police and they had left with Finch, Ailsa telephoned Harry. He listened in horror and said, ‘But you said he shot you!’

  ‘I was wearing a breastplate,’ said Ailsa.

  ‘You are sharper than I am. I’ll come straight back. Meanwhile, you will find a negative and a photograph in the safe. They are in an envelope. Do not look at them. I do not want the police to see them. Please call Phil Marshall and tell him to come and pick them up. The police did not find them, did they?’

  ‘No, I told them he had no time to take anything.’

  ‘Go home, Miss Bridge. I shall go directly to Scotland Yard.’

  Harry was ushered in to see Kerridge. ‘This is a bad business,’ he said. ‘The chap who tried to kill your secretary is an unsavoury character called John Finch. He says he was hired by Lord Berrow, furnished with a gun, told to kill you if necessary and to get a negative out of your safe. We sent a man back and he retrieved the negative. It was nothing but a negative and photograph of a saucy lady in the altogether. Miss Bridge said a client of yours had paid you to get the negative and photo back.
She said Berrow knew of the photograph and might use it to ruin her reputation.’

  Oh, excellent Miss Bridge, thought Harry.

  ‘That is true. I never thought Berrow would go to such extremes. Furthermore I cannot, of course, give you the name of the lady. She has done nothing criminal. What are you doing about Berrow?’

  ‘The police commissioner in York is going out to his estate to arrest him personally.’

  * * *

  Oh, the magic of a title. If Lord Berrow had been Mr Bloggs of nowhere, the police would have pounced without warning. But the police commissioner made the mistake of phoning Berrow first and saying he was coming to see him on a grave matter and bringing the chief constable with him.

  Berrow rushed to find Cyril, who was potting balls in the billiard-room. Cyril had highly approved of the plot to hire Finch.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he said. ‘The game’s up.’ He told Cyril about the impending visit of the police commissioner and the chief constable.

  ‘What’ll we do?’

  ‘Get out the bloody country, that’s what!’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

  Samuel Butler

  Berrow and Cyril fled as far as Glasgow. Scottish law was different from English law, so surely, they felt, they would feel safe for a while.

  They booked into the Central Hotel beside the railway station, sharing a suite and calling themselves the brothers Richmond.

  ‘I say,’ said Cyril moodily, looking at their great pile of luggage, ‘we are drawing attention to ourselves with all this stuff. We had to employ a squad of porters to get the few yards round from the station. And I’m sick of this disguise. It’s hot’ Like Berrow, Cyril was sporting a false beard. They had managed to work their way north by means of several branch railway lines before they arrived tired and weary in Glasgow.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Berrow. ‘You know that big motor car Cathcart has?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘We could get something like that. It would take us and all the luggage. We could then make our way by country roads to Stranraer, get over to Ireland. Great place to hide out, Ireland.’