The Advocate's Wife

by Norman Russell

  Jane Peplow, spinster, aged thirty. Well, she’d turned up alive and well. She’d had a difference of opinion with her father over a young man, and had been staying with another young lady near her home just outside Maldon. Bickerstaffe picked up a stub of pencil and crossed Jane Peplow off the list.

  Laura Beckford, schoolteacher, aged twenty. She was still missing, apparently. She lived with her mother and father at Chelmsford. They said that she’d left home properly dressed in coat and hat. So she couldn’t have been the lady in the canal. Anyway, she was too young. The dead lady had been older than that.

  Amelia Garbutt, lady’s maid, age not established. She’d gone missing from Mrs Courtney’s house, but there’d been no coat left behind in her room, according to Mrs Courtney, so presumably she’d been wearing it when she left the house. So she wasn’t the dead lady, either. In any case, this Amelia Garbutt was a lady’s maid, whereas the dead woman had been a lady of quality. It was a fine mess! They’d waited near on a fortnight, thinking that someone would raise a hue and cry about their missing relative. But nobody had …

  The sergeant rekindled his pipe, and leaned back into his chair at the little desk. He puffed away thoughtfully, from time to time glancing out of the window at his nephew, who was still whitewashing the wall. It had been a funny business altogether …

  He recalled the twelve slow strokes that had sounded from the clock in Bardley Church tower as they’d arrived in the bright moonlight on the night of the sixth – himself, young Joe, and Dr Oake. The witching hour of midnight, some called it, and there had certainly been a ghostly feeling in the air that night. Bardley was little more than a tiny huddle of cottages, each in its own neat moonlit garden, near the old Roman road.

  They had scrambled up the steep bank of the aqueduct to the west of Bardley village, where Roman’s Way, as the ancient road was called, ran dark and straight between banks of fern, then dipped below the twenty-foot high bridge of rustic brick that carried the canal over the road. Poor, daft John Doake had been waiting for them, standing guard over what he had found on his nightly wandering. The four of them had waded into the water and with great difficulty had freed the body of a woman from the reeds and debris clogging the disused waterway. Poor soul! She had been in her early forties, from the look of her. They had laid her down on the narrow footpath at the side of the water channel, and Dr Oake had stooped down to examine her in the bright moonlight.

  At first, Bickerstaffe had assumed that she’d been strangled. Her contorted features and bulging eyes certainly suggested that. But Dr Oake had soon found out otherwise. He had straightened up at last, his face grim and forbidding. For a few moments the four men had stood motionless, outlined against the full moon, as though in tribute to the dead woman. They had bowed their heads, and the sergeant had fancied for a moment that they must have looked like the mourning figures of soldiers, arms reversed, that you found sculpted upon a cenotaph. Then Dr Oake had broken the silence.

  ‘Garrotted, Sergeant. Probably with a scarf. Not strangled, as you might have thought. Anyway, it’s murder, as I don’t need to tell you. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for me to give you a full report. I can’t see much up here, and I certainly can’t do anything.’

  The sergeant had turned then to the giggling man standing beside him, and had put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Go home, now, John Doake. You did well. Go home, now.’

  ‘I did well, didn’t I, master?’

  ‘You did. Go home now, John Doake.’

  The simpleton had slithered down the bank to the road, and run off. Then Dr Oake had manoeuvred his considerable bulk gingerly down through the grass and nettles to the road, where his carriage was waiting. Sergeant Bickerstaffe had watched him, noting his aquiline profile, etched against the bank by the bright moonlight. Oake had retrieved a wide-brimmed slouch hat from the seat, and had waved it in a kind of comradely farewell before cramming it firmly over his shock of white hair. The carriage had moved off along the Danesford road. A nice man, was Dr Oake, and a shrewd one, too …

  He had looked across the landscape, where the curving track of the old Essex Union Canal formed a ribbon of silver before being lost to view behind some distant woods. Then his attention had returned to his nephew.

  ‘Well, Joe,’ he had said, ‘this is a bad business. I don’t fancy the look of this at all. She was a lady, to judge from that expensive dress. Garrotted – strangled from behind with a scarf … I wonder who she is? Have you ever noticed her?’

  ‘No, Uncle Isaac. But I agree she must have been a lady. I’m no great judge of such things, but I’d say that’s a very expensive dress that she’s wearing. Green, it looks like, though it’s hard to tell properly in this light.’

  Joe had stooped down, and gently touched the dead woman’s neck. He was a good lad, not easily frightened. His sharp eye had caught something brilliant flashing for a moment in the moonlight.

  ‘She’s wearing a necklace, Uncle. See, how it sparkles! Very valuable, by the look of it. Dr Oake didn’t notice it, because it was caught up in a fold of the dress. Diamonds, I’d say.’

  And that had been that. A lady in a costly green silk dress, but with no outer coat or cloak. She was still adorned with her diamond necklace, so robbery had not been the motive. Garrotted … They’d dragged the canal later that week, but had found nothing of significance. No coat, no hat, no handbag or reticule. Poor soul …

  Sergeant Bickerstaffe recalled again the quiet, moonlit countryside, and the shining water of the canal snaking away into the distance. She couldn’t have floated far. There was the lock barring the water-course five miles on at High Barrow, so she’d have been put into the water at Sleadon, perhaps, or on the other side at Bishop’s Longhurst. They’d made their enquiries, and scouted around, but nothing had come of it. After a week and a half had elapsed, Mr Parker at Maldon had decided to call in Scotland Yard.

  Sergeant Bickerstaffe watched the smoky train as it rumbled to a halt further along the single platform of Bishop’s Longhurst station. Several people alighted. It was obvious which ones were locals. You could tell from their working clothes, and from the certainty with which they hurried towards the ticket barrier. These two, coming along now – the dapper man in the fawn overcoat and curly-brimmed bowler, and the hulking great young fellow with the scar – these would be their visitors from Scotland Yard.

  ‘What do you think, Joe?’ he asked, as Box and Knollys approached them.

  ‘I don’t know, Uncle. The little cocky one’s the inspector, I suppose. Very alert, he looks. Very pleased with himself! I don’t know what to make of the other one – the sergeant, he’ll be. I wouldn’t like to fall foul of him, though! A couple of know-alls, I expect. They’ll just have a look round, and then we’ll be shut of them.’

  Isaac Bickerstaffe conducted his visitors to the cab-yard, where they all clambered up into a pony and trap. The young constable, Joe Bickerstaffe, took the reins. They travelled at a fair pace along stone roads crossing the flat, marshy countryside. It was a damp sort of place, thought Box, and more than that. It had its own quality of remoteness, a feeling of detachment from the greater world beyond its boundaries.

  After twenty minutes or so, they came in sight of an embankment towering above them to the left of the road. It curved sharply away towards a clump of trees. At a word from the sergeant, Joe brought the trap to a halt.

  ‘That’s part of the old canal, Mr Box,’ said Bickerstaffe, ‘the canal where the poor lady was found. We’re just passing near Bardley village now, though you can’t see it from this side. This road is called Roman’s Way. That’s the old lime works on the right.’

  ‘Very interesting, Sergeant. Maybe we can come out here later today. This deceased lady – the lady in the green silk dress – I believe some photographs were taken of her?’

  ‘They were, Inspector. I’ve got them ready for you to see. Terrible, those photographs! Garrotted, she’d been, that lady, so th
at her face was unfit for normal view. Not suitable, I mean, for showing around to members of the public!’

  At a nod from the sergeant, Joe urged the pony on, and they continued their journey.

  ‘What about your missing persons, Sergeant Bickerstaffe? Superintendent Parker at Maldon telegraphed a short list for this area. Have any of them turned up?’

  Sergeant Bickerstaffe looked pleased. He knew all about the missing persons.

  ‘Well, sir, there were only three folk missing in all. Jane Peplow, spinster, aged thirty – she’s turned up. Laura Beckford, schoolteacher, aged twenty, is still missing, but she’s too young to be the dead lady. Amelia Garbutt, lady’s maid, age not established … I’ll tell you a bit about her, sir, if I may— Joe, mind how you go round this corner!

  ‘Amelia Garbutt was a lady’s maid, sir, employed by Mrs Courtney of Bardley Lodge, which is a house standing in its own garden, very near to the aqueduct. When Mrs Courtney reported her missing, we wondered whether she could have been the murdered lady.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Well, sir, she was not a local woman, and we’d not even heard her name before. She’d not been at Bardley Lodge for long. She went missing on the evening of the sixth – slipped out of the house for some reason of her own, and just disappeared. It’s an odd business altogether, sir. She’d settled in well at Bardley Lodge.’

  ‘Just disappeared, did she?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Stepped out into the garden, and was gone. But the details were wrong. The dead lady was a lady of quality, not a maid. The expensive dress and the necklace showed that. And for another thing, Mrs Courtney was quite certain that the maid had no green silk dress, and that she certainly didn’t possess a diamond necklace! Quite firm and positive, she was. Worth hundreds of pounds, that necklace. But here we are, sir, at Danesford now.’

  Before making their way to the police station, the party paid a brief visit to the village churchyard, a walled enclosure across a narrow road from the parish church. The four men stood bareheaded for a moment, looking down at a fresh grave, with its mournful wooden cross, and its laconic inscription:

  Drowned Woman. Known to God. 8.9.92.

  ‘Drowned?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Box,’ said Bickerstaffe. ‘It’s the usual form employed in these parts for folk who’ve been fished out of the river, or washed up in the estuary. In this case, we thought it the decorous thing to write on the cross. “Garrotted” isn’t – well, it wouldn’t be right. Not on a cross.’

  ‘Come in, sir,’ said Bickerstaffe, ‘and you, Sergeant. It’s a bit untidy, but I know where everything is! That’s my business desk in the window, Mr Box. That swivel chair’s very comfortable, so perhaps you’d like to sit there.’

  Arnold Box removed his hat, folded his gloves into it, and sat down in the swivel chair. The cheerful muddle of the cottage living-room struck an instant and familiar chord. This was the home of a man who had been a bachelor all his life. Its owner had left a veneer of untidiness and incipient dustiness, evidently waiting for someone to deal with it. The untidiness had not descended into domestic chaos. ‘It’s a bit untidy at the moment, sir,’ observed Sergeant Bickerstaffe, evidently reading Box’s mind. ‘The lady who tidies up for me won’t be along until this afternoon.’

  ‘It’s very nice, Sergeant,’ said Box. ‘Now, the first thing I want you to do, is to show me those photographs. Sergeant Knollys, come and sit down here, at the desk.’

  Bickerstaffe produced a bunch of keys, and stooped down beside a green-painted iron safe near the fireplace. He returned in a moment with a large manilla envelope. Box slid out a number of photographic prints on to the desk.

  ‘Now! Let us see what these pictures show us!’

  Sergeant Bickerstaffe had quietly settled himself on a bench in a dim corner. His nephew had removed his helmet, and stood stiffly and uneasily near the door.

  It would be impossible to put a name to that contorted face, impossible to match it to anyone’s description of the living woman she had once been. True, it was not fit for public view. Box looked fixedly at each picture for what seemed like minutes. The others watched him, wondering what he was thinking.

  I will find out who you are, Box was saying to the contorted face, and then I will hunt down your killer.

  ‘Excellent!’ he said aloud. ‘These are excellent mortuary images. I know quite a lot about photography. It’s by way of being a hobby of mine.’

  The words rang oddly in the quiet room. Knollys looked at him with a sudden understanding. The inspector was hiding some strong emotion behind a jaunty boast. Evidently the guvnor was one of those men who hid his feelings under a veneer of humour.

  Box took a small brass instrument from his pocket, placed it flat on one of the more gruesome of the photographs, and applied his eye to a small optical viewer. He turned a knurled screw, and a silver arc of bright metal presented itself to his eye. To the left, he could see a smaller arc, which he recognized as one of the claws holding a diamond in place. Behind the silver arc of metal he could see a dark shadow. He turned the knurled screw again, and discerned two or three thin filaments or fibres rising from the dark shadow. That shadow represented a space, or gap, between the necklace and the dead woman’s neck. The filaments were threads of silk, left behind when the garrotter had removed the silken handkerchief …

  Box handed the magnifying instrument to Knollys, and pointed silently with his little finger to the tell-tale shadow.

  ‘Which of you first saw the necklace when the body was discovered?’ Box’s voice came so suddenly that everyone jumped in alarm.

  ‘I did, sir,’ said Joe Bickerstaffe. ‘I saw it shining in the moonlight, and stooped down to look at it.’

  ‘And what did you think about it, Joe? When you saw it, I mean?’

  As he spoke, Box gently drew the index finger of his right hand round the inside of his starched shirt collar.

  ‘Why, sir, that was it! The space! The necklace was quite loose on the neck, as a necklace should be. You’d have thought it’d have been crushed into the flesh…’

  Box looked quietly pleased. There was no harm in showing off your skills. People like young Joe there could learn a lot from watching him. So could Knollys, for that matter.

  ‘May I see the necklace, Sergeant?’

  Bickerstaffe went once more to the safe, and returned with a small parcel made up in tissue, which he unwrapped in front of Box on the desk.

  ‘We had it valued by a jeweller who came out from Chelmsford,’ said Bickerstaffe. ‘He told us that it’s worth at least two hundred pounds.’

  ‘At the very least, I should say. The hallmarks there show that the necklace was attested at Goldsmiths’ Hall this year. The maker’s mark is that of Asprey’s, the London jeweller. And now, Sergeant, I’d like to see the green silk dress.’

  In a room at the rear of the cottage, Sergeant Bickerstaffe had arranged the unknown woman’s clothing on a table, ready for Box’s visit. The green silk dress had been folded neatly, and beside it stood a pair of white court shoes. Box lifted a table napkin, and found that it had been used as a discreet cover for a pair of long cotton stockings, and some items of underwear.

  Box gingerly lifted one corner of the green silk material. ‘Peking Tissue?’ he muttered. Sergeant Knollys suppressed a smile.

  The dress, Box noticed, had not been cleaned, and there were traces of mud and grime, which a desultory brushing had failed to remove.

  ‘These stains, Sergeant – would you say they’d been picked up from the various sediments in the canal?’

  Bickerstaffe peered over Box’s shoulder. He slowly shook his head

  ‘No, sir. They’re old stains, by the looks of them. They’re splashes from a road, I’d say. They’re not from the canal. It’s stagnant, you see. Disused. She just floated down, though I expect the wind up there helped a bit.’

  They watched as Box picked up the court shoes, and examined them. He seemed for a while to lose contact
with them, as though his mind was far away.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this at all, Sergeant Bickerstaffe,’ he said at last. ‘There’s something very wrong about all this. That necklace, for a start … And now, this dress. There are things there, Sergeant, that need an expert eye cast over them. So what I’d like to do is to take that necklace, and these clothes, back with me to London, and pursue the matter from there.’

  ‘Do you still want to go back to Bardley Aqueduct, sir? Joe there will get the trap ready, if so.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, I very much want to go out there. But just you and me. And I’d be obliged if you’d get hold of a pair of field-glasses. Sergeant Knollys and your Joe can stay here, and pack up these things in a decent parcel. No, Sergeant, I don’t like the look of this at all.’

  High up on the aqueduct, Box listened to the soft humming and drumming of wind, a sound which served only to emphasize the stillness and quiet of the scene. It was bright and sunny, with a few clouds near the horizon. The canal unrolled its silver ribbon of water into the far distance.

  They had climbed up to the spot where Bickerstaffe and the others had stood on the night of the sixth, with their backs to the hamlet of Bardley. The main road passed beneath them under the arch, and ran across country to Bishop’s Longhurst.

  Inspector Box sat down on the low retaining wall of the channel, and produced a cigar case. He opened it, and offered it to Sergeant Bickerstaffe.

  ‘Well, thank you kindly, sir.’

  The sergeant extracted one of Box’s slim cigars, and lit it with his own matches, sheltering his hands behind his turned-up collar. They were roughened hands, Box noted, with broken nails. This was a man who spent a good deal of his time toiling in the fields to supplement his police wages.

  ‘Is Joe a relative of yours?’ asked Box. ‘He seems a dependable young fellow.’

  ‘He is, sir. Joe’s my nephew. My brother Tom’s lad. He helps me with the potatoes and root vegetables I grow for the London markets. It’s what most of us do round here.’