The Advocate's Wife

by Norman Russell

  Inspector Box declined a second cup of tea. He asked permission to examine Garbutt’s room, and Mrs Courtney rang for Ellen to show him the way.

  Amelia Garbutt had not been able to impress her personality on the room that had been allotted to her. She had not lived there long enough to do so. The wardrobe held two sober dresses, but no topcoat. Box recalled Miss Whittaker’s assertion that Miss Garbutt would not have gone out of the house without a coat. There were few personal effects. A silver-backed, rather battered hair brush, a framed mirror, a string of jet beads, a Cairngorm brooch and a small tapestry purse seemed to comprise the totality of Amelia Garbutt’s possessions.

  In the purse Box found a small key, which he recognized as the type used to lock and unlock one of those japanned tin deed boxes you bought for l/6d in ironmongers. The purse also contained a piece of folded-up paper, on which had been written, Mrs Jessie Warlock, 8 Moravia Court, Petty Allmain, EC.

  Box sat for a while, cradling the tapestry purse in his hands. Jessie Warlock, perhaps, was Amelia Garbutt’s friend, someone she wouldn’t have mentioned to Mrs Stockmayer. Perhaps she dated from the time of Garbutt’s early years of struggle. What exactly had Mrs Stockmayer meant by that? ‘I don’t mean that she was necessarily poor…’ If not poor, then what?

  There was no japanned tin box in the room. Inspector Box scribbled a receipt to give to Mrs Courtney, and put the tapestry purse into his pocket.

  It was a warm, quiet day, with no wind. Box skirted the gardens of Bardley Lodge, and emerged on to a grass track running beside the embankment of the canal. To his right he could just see the houses of Bishop’s Longhurst through the trees. Behind him, but out of sight, lay the hamlet of Bardley, and the aqueduct. It was time to explore the tract of land across which Amelia Garbutt had probably walked to keep some kind of appointment or tryst.

  After a while, he found himself walking across flat, uncultivated heath land. There was a gleam of water in the distance. To his left he saw the village of Sleadon, on the other side of the canal. Box left the track at this point and ventured across the stunted grass of the heath. In a minute or so he found himself on the edge of a dark, deep mere.

  He stood still and surveyed the prospect. Not more than a hundred yards away he could see the well-maintained boundary walls of an estate, enclosing a large plantation of young trees. A vast white mansion sat in the midst, a house, Box judged, put up in the early 1800s, and adorned with stucco. It was very much bigger than Mrs Courtney’s residence. This, he had been told, was Heath House, the home of Lady Hardington. Further to the north, beyond the house, he could see the roofs and chimneys of the village of High Barrow, and the lock gates.

  It was here at Sleadon, in the vicinity of this house, that the body of Amelia Garbutt had, in all likelihood, been lowered into the canal, where it had floated down to Bardley. Box walked along the edge of the mere, where reeds gathered thickly into clumps. He recalled Miss Whittaker’s surmise that Amelia Garbutt’s outer clothing may have been concealed. It had been not only a means of creating a mystery, but a prudent move to conceal the woman’s identity.

  For nearly half an hour, Box explored the reed-beds along the edge of the mere, probing the dense clumps of vegetation with a length of wood that he had wrenched from the rotting remains of an old fence. Heath House, and the huddled dwellings of High Barrow, had almost receded to the horizon when his labours were rewarded. Hidden in the centre of a particularly tall bed of reeds he found a sodden bundle of clothing. With some difficulty Box untied the sleeves of a long green topcoat to reveal a small feathered hat and an evening handbag, its rhinestones glittering in the weak autumn sun.

  Box re-tied the bundle, returned to the main track, and carefully hid his find beneath a heap of stones. He would collect it on the way back to Danesford. He had called there earlier in the day, and had talked with Sergeant Bickerstaffe, and his nephew, Joe.

  Box made his way along the boundary wall of Heath House. The embankment carrying the canal rose very high at this point, and the grass was flattened in a track where people apparently climbed up. Box followed suit, and found himself looking at a little iron bridge spanning the canal, with steps leading down on the far side into Sleadon. The vast white bulk of Heath House was so near him at this point that he fancied he could have stretched out his arm and touched it. He could see through some of the upper windows, and could smell the smoke lazily ascending from its chimneys. It was up this grassy slope that someone had probably carried the body. There must be an exit somewhere …

  Yes! Box glanced back along the boundary wall, and saw a green-painted door leading into the plantation of Heath House. That, then, was how it had been done. An assignation in the grounds. The killing. Out through the garden door. Up the grassy slope, and gently ease the body into the water-channel. Then back to the house. He remembered something that Mrs Courtney had told him. ‘On the very night that poor Garbutt disappeared, Corinna held an evening reception for various notables. A grand affair it was, too, I believe.’ A grand affair … No one, perhaps, would have noticed particularly a lady in a green silk dress, wandering among the other guests.

  Box stood listening to the gentle humming of the freshening breeze. How quiet it was up there! Slowly a picture was building up in his mind. It was not a pleasant picture. It carried all the pathetic and squalid hallmarks of a failed attempt at blackmail.

  8

  Half Past Eleven

  Sergeant Boyd put down his half-empty glass of stout on the bar counter, and listened to the crescendo of noise in the saloon of the Gloucester Arms at Sugar Hall Walk. It was, he mused, a rotten place in more ways than one, a nest of Judases and informers, its bulging sides shorn up with big timbers. One push, and the Gloucester Arms and its clients would slither and slide into the Thames mud.

  Somebody had begun to play a concertina, and within minutes everyone was singing. There was a lot of laughter, and the tinkle of glasses. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. A slightly built, weasel-faced man slid on to the stool next to George Boyd’s. It was raining outside, and the man’s thin clothes were soaked. He looks as though he’s just crawled up through a sewer grating, thought Boyd. Well, that was where he belonged, him, and his kind.

  ‘What have you got for me, Sam Palin?’

  The weasel man could just make out Sergeant Boyd’s words in the rising volume of singing and shrieking. Boyd blew cigar ash off a half-eaten mutton pasty, and took a bite out of it. He lifted his glass a little, so that the man called Sam Palin could see the glint of gold.

  ‘It’s to be this Saturday, Mr Boyd, the first of the month. They’ll start going through the wall at half past eleven. The bank’ll be empty, it being a Saturday.’

  George Boyd lifted his glass of stout, and took a long drink. Sam Patin’s nimble fingers spirited away the two gold sovereigns that the sergeant had placed there. Palin glanced furtively around the crowded bar, and slipped unobtrusively away into the wet night.

  Superintendent Mackharness leaned forward across the big, lamp-lit desk in his mildewed office in King James’s Rents, and addressed the three men – Box, Knollys, and George Boyd – whom he had summoned for a brief conference. It was just after eight o’clock on Friday night, the last day of September. Sergeant Boyd’s blueprints lay open on the table.

  ‘Now, Officers,’ said Mackharness, ‘I want tomorrow’s operation to be conducted cleanly and neatly. No fuss. No mistakes. They’ll put up a desperate fight, no doubt, considering what’s at stake, but I’ll have forty uniformed police positioned in the vicinity of Prince Frederick Street and the adjoining mews. All exits from the area will be effectively sealed. Are there any questions?’

  ‘Is the money actually there, sir?’ asked Sergeant Knollys. ‘The bullion, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. One hundred thousand pounds in gold bars. It was moved there secretly on Wednesday. Quite irregular, in my view. They should have alerted us. I’ve taken up the matter in higher circles. Sergeant Boyd, can y
ou please remind me about the crates?’

  ‘Yes, sir. There were two of them – stout wooden crates, secured with rope. They were lodged for a while in Callaghan’s Warehouse in Back Sayer Lane. Then they were moved to a yard in Beecham Street, half a mile away from the bank. I sent a man over the wall, sir, and he made chalk marks on the crates. He told me that he could smell dynamite on the wood. It has its own peculiar smell, he says.’

  ‘But the crates are in the shop, now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They were delivered there yesterday. We saw the chalk marks on them, so they’re the same crates. Once they’ve breached the party wall, they’ll be able to take the dynamite through into the bank vault. Then they’ll use it to blast open the bullion room.’

  ‘Well done, Sergeant Boyd! Things are progressing very nicely. Inspector Box? Would you care to say anything?’

  ‘Well, sir, I’d just like to say that this operation is going to bag some very ugly customers. The Doyle brothers, to start with, who’ve had the nerve to put their name up over the shop. It was occupied by a print seller until a couple of weeks ago. I expect he was offered a very good inducement to move his stock elsewhere. Then, there’s Paul Egan, Jimmy the Docker, and Sam Palin. We’ll have to go carefully with him, of course. But the big boys won’t be there. They’ll have established alibis for themselves. Gideon Raikes—’

  Superintendent Mackharness made a movement of impatience. He fixed Box with a rather baleful stare for a moment before getting to his feet.

  ‘Yes, yes, Box, I know what you’re going to say. Raikes and Liversedge will certainly account successfully for their whereabouts tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do about that. But I want no mistakes at Prince Frederick Mews tomorrow morning, so let us all keep our minds fixed on that event, and that alone. Let us have a smooth, successful operation. Clean and neat. No fuss. No mistakes. Dismiss.’

  As Box followed the others out of the room, Mackharness called him back.

  ‘Inspector Box,’ he said, ‘I’m going to give you a little piece of advice. I hope you will take it in the spirit in which it’s meant. Don’t let the crimes and enormities of Gideon Raikes become an obsession. We all know what he is, and what he does, but for the moment he seems to bear a charmed life. Keep a sense of proportion about Raikes. Obsession can damage a detective officer’s perception.’

  Box paused for a moment on the threshold.

  ‘I’ll bear what you say in mind, sir,’ he said, and hurried out after the others.

  Superintendent Mackharness sat for a while looking at the closed door.

  ‘No you won’t, you obstinate man,’ he said to himself. ‘You’ll bear nothing I say in mind! You’ll go your own sweet way. Well, we’ll see who’s right one of these fine days!’

  Inspector Box turned left out of Fleet Street into the hidden haven of Cardinal’s Court. It was close on eleven o’clock, and there was a sharpness in the night air that he found exhilarating. The gas lamp in the centre of the cobbled court had been lit, and a welcome glow of yellow light gleamed from the half-moon of glass above the door of Number 14.

  There seemed to be light everywhere, that night – light, and the magical aura that often came with success. For he had succeeded. Tomorrow morning he would prevent a daring and outrageous bank robbery, and sweep some of London’s most desperate villains into the cells. Of course, George Boyd had done his part, and even old Mackharness had come up trumps in the end. But it would be Arnold Box’s personal triumph, a lasting tribute to his skill, inventiveness, and tenacity.

  Box used his latch key to open the front door, then climbed the stairs to his rooms. Mrs Peach had kept the fire going, and when he had divested himself of hat and greatcoat, he lit the lamp, and put a small cast-iron pan of milk on the trivet over the fire. In a moment, he would make himself a cup of Epp’s Cocoa, fortified with a dash of navy rum. He sat down in his leather armchair beside the fire.

  ‘To this I was born, and to this have I come.’

  That was what Albert John Davidson had said in the dock. It was a code, a sign used by members of Liversedge’s gang when they wanted to show their mates that they wouldn’t blab, but it was a true saying, for all that. Box’s whole career seemed to have been moving irrevocably towards the morning yet to come, the morning of Saturday, 1 October, 1892. He had long ago promised himself that he would secure the arrest and conviction of Gideon Raikes. The foiling of the bank raid the following morning would be the first great body-blow that he would deal against the lawyer gone wrong.

  ‘To this I was born, and to this have I come …’ The Amelia Garbutt business was a nuisance, a side-issue that claimed part of his attention. He had sworn to bring that poor woman’s killer to justice – but he rather wished that the case had been assigned to someone else!

  The milk boiled, and he poured it on to the little pile of cocoa powder at the bottom of a large earthernware breakfast cup. He enlivened the steaming drink with a teaspoonful of rum.

  Sergeant Knollys was proving to be a valuable ally in the fight against Raikes. He’d asked intelligent questions back there in Mackharness’s room. He had a dry, cynical way with him. You didn’t always know quite what to make of his remarks. Was he really an aristocrat? And did it matter if he was? He was quick off the mark, and as strong as an ox.

  Box sipped his cocoa, and felt an almost overwhelming sense of elation. What arrogant fools the Liversedge gang had been! He glanced towards the tin case of the magic lantern, standing on top of his oak bookcase. The marvels of modern invention had proved once again that science would ultimately conquer the forces of crime. The activities of Percy the Pug, his minions, and even of Gideon Raikes himself, had been recorded on film and glass slide as damning evidence of their conspiracy. It was as though they had obediently posed for his photographs as they plotted and planned their bank job in Newington and Walworth. Well, tomorrow would show them all that their thieving days were done.

  When Box had finished his cocoa, he left the room and climbed a further set of stairs to his bedroom on the second floor front. From his small window he could see the glow of the night sky above the buildings in Fleet Street. There were lamps glowing in the rear windows of the Daily Telegraph’s offices, where the presses were being made ready for the early morning edition of the paper.

  Once again, Box sensed the magic in the air. There were a few bright stars in the clear sky, and the suspicion of moonlight over to the right, in the vicinity of Fetter Lane. Well, that moonlight was also shining out over St John’s Wood, where Sir William Porteous was enjoying the luxuries of his great town house in Queen Adelaide Gate. It was gratifying to think that he had, as it were, recruited the great advocate into his cause – his own mission to rid London of Gideon Raikes. Sir William Porteous, Jack Knollys, George Boyd – they were all active agents in his crusade, and tomorrow, the first great blow against Raikes would be struck.

  ‘To this I was born, and to this have I come.’

  Inspector Box drew down the blind.

  Saturday morning brought a soot-laden rain to Prince Frederick Mews, but Arnold Box scarcely noticed it. From a hidden vantage point on the roof of the Royal Roumanian Bank of Credit, he watched the stealthy arrival of Percy Liversedge’s gang at the shop. One by one they came, looking furtively to right and left before hurriedly slipping through the half-open door.

  Box looked down at them through the rain. There were five of them, he knew, though there would be others lurking around the adjacent streets and alleys. But they were walking into one of Mr Mackharness’s celebrated traps. They came like victims to the sacrifice: Liam Doyle, Kevin Doyle, Paul Egan, Sam Palin, and James Nolan, alias Jimmy the Docker. Inspector Box put his whistle to his lips, and gave vent to a thunderous, triumphant blast.

  The gang of men in the shop had no chance at all of escaping the sudden orchestrated onslaught made against the premises. Box’s signal had brought what seemed to be an army of uniformed figures into the narrow mews. They had filled the shop i
n seconds, and secured its occupants before they could move a single step.

  Box left the bank by a rear door, and walked slowly across the street through the rain. He was conscious of the respectful glances from some of the uniformed constables gathered near the shop. One or two saluted him, and he raised his hat in reply.

  Inspector Box tried not to swagger too obviously as he entered the dim shop. Sergeant Knollys was already there and, at a signal from Box, he threw open the door leading to the cellar, and clattered down the stairs. The five surly handcuffed men stared mutely at Box as the phalanx of officers crowded into the shop parted to admit him.

  The two crates stood where they had been dragged, near the back wall of the shop. Inside them was the dynamite that would have been used to blast open the strong room of the bank across the road. The breach would already have been made through the old footings in the cellar, but this criminal gang had wasted their efforts. Box pushed one of the crates gingerly with the toe of his boot.

  ‘Well, well, gents,’ he said, ‘this is a surprise! So you fancied some gold, did you? You and you old pal Percy? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but you’ll have to come with me. Officers, bring them out to the vans!’

  He turned from the handcuffed figures towards the door. Again, his uniformed colleagues parted to let him through. It was a glorious moment, and he would have been less than human if he hadn’t enjoyed it. He stopped when an Irish voice called after him.

  ‘You’ve no right to do this, Mr Box. Persecuting poor reformed men trying to earn an honest penny.’

  The inspector turned round and looked at the line of men. He knew the owner of that voice: Liam Doyle, the elder of the Doyle brothers, a leering thug of a man, always in and out of prison. Box tried to catch the eye of Sam Palin, who was cowering near the door, but Palin made no attempt to meet his glance.