The Advocate's Wife

by Norman Russell

  ‘Sir William Porteous! Then it must have been stolen, Sergeant. Somebody … I wonder…’

  Box’s eyes gleamed. He was standing, he realized, at a point where two roads met. The world of Gideon Raikes and Sir William Porteous had in a moment been linked with the world of Amelia Garbutt. He was at the confluence of two seemingly unconnected cases.

  ‘There’s another interesting thing, sir. I was told at Asprey’s that Garrard’s, the Crown Jewellers, had received an order for a virtually identical necklace some days later. That order was also from Sir William Porteous. Odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very odd. I need to ask Sir William about those two necklaces. But now’s hardly the time… Incidentally, PC Kenwright told me that you moved your sticks down to Syria Wharf yesterday. You don’t let the grass grow under your feet, do you? I just hope that you and Mr Berg can agree together. He’s a bit – well, “arty”, you know. Whereas you, Sergeant, are more of a … well, a more physically gifted kind of a man.’

  ‘A thug.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that, Sergeant. Not in so many words. Physically gifted. But never mind all that. What else have you been doing? You can’t have been in Stepney all night.’

  ‘I’ve been round to University College Hospital, sir. They wouldn’t tell me anything at first. “A statement would be made in a few hours’ time”, etc. I threatened to make a scene. No result. Then I saw a doctor who I once played rugby against, and he told me what I wanted to know. Sir William Porteous, he said, had escaped death by a miracle. He was gravely injured, and they were not yet prepared to say whether he’ll live or die. Apparently, he’s clinging on desperately to life. I asked whether I could see him. This doctor said no. So I came away.’

  ‘I’m more relieved than I can say to hear that Sir William is still alive, Sergeant. I thought I’d lost my major ally in the fight against Gideon Raikes. He’d already led me well and truly up the garden path, and with Sir William gone, I think I’d have thrown in the sponge.’

  ‘But not now, sir?’ The faintly mocking gleam in Knollys’ eyes seemed to spur Box on.

  ‘Not now, Sergeant. I rather think I’m coming to life again! Are you game to sally out again into the night air? I put the fear of God into Sam Palin, the informer, down at the police station in Edgware Road. I had the whole gang carted out there, to keep each other company. I told Sam I’d come back. I just want to hear him say the name of the man who was behind Percy the Pug’s little charade this morning

  Sergeant Knollys gulped down his tea, and watched as Box’s eyes suddenly kindled with what looked like the fire of battle. Evidently the guvnor’s courage had been restored. Chivvying was what he needed. He had a dangerous inclination to brood about things.

  ‘You know, Sergeant, after listening to what you’ve just told me, I’m minded to go to Edgware Road by way of Gower Street! We’ll take a cab, and on the way I’ll tell you what Mr Mack found out. I’m going to face these obstreperous medical people at the University College Hospital, and have a brief word with Sir William Porteous.’

  ‘Sir, it’ll be after eleven when we get to Gower Street! They’ll turn nasty—’

  ‘Nasty? They’re not the only ones who can turn nasty, Sergeant Knollys! If they won’t let me see him, I’ll have the law on them! We’ll keep the cab, and after we’ve seen Sir William, we’ll cut through Bedford Square to Oxford Street. We’ll be at Edgware Road Police Station by twelve. I’ll be very interested to hear what answer Sam Palin’s prepared for me.’

  The massively starched figure of Matron regarded Box with calm determination. Her bright, steely blue eyes flashed defiance at the unwelcome intruder. The inspector had adopted a peremptory attitude towards three doctors, insisting on his rights under law to see the injured man. Each encounter had brought him a little nearer to his goal. But now, Matron had appeared to block his progress.

  ‘You must understand, Inspector Box, that Sir William Porteous is gravely ill, and that it is very late. I have been on duty for more than ten hours. I have no intention of explaining Sir William’s medical condition to someone who will fail to understand a single word. He is gravely ill. Even his wife may not visit him yet. What do you have to say to that?’

  Matron was not much more than five feet tall, and had acquired the habit of looking up at people whenever she spoke to them. The habit lent her expression a useful pugnaciousness. Box, however, was in no mood for compromise.

  ‘There are ramifications to this case, Matron,’ he said, ‘which are technically complex, and highly confidential. I have been on duty for fifteen hours. I can’t waste time explaining them to someone who is not well versed in the law—’

  ‘You impudent man!’ Matron suddenly smiled, and Box glimpsed the essential humanity beneath her official exterior.

  ‘Very well. I take your point. We never close, and neither do you! You may speak to Sir William for five minutes only, Mr Box. Your sergeant must remain here, in the visitors’ room. Five minutes. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Matron.’

  Box followed the matron along a highly polished corridor, and thence through a long ward containing a dozen beds, in which patients were sleeping fitfully. A dim oil-lamp burned on a centre table, and there was a strong smell of antiseptic in the close air. Matron opened the door of a small side room. A young nurse in a blue uniform dress and white, nun-like headdress, rose and curtsied.

  ‘Nurse will remain in the room during the visit, Mr Box. Five minutes.’

  The door was closed silently, and Inspector Box looked at the figure in the bed. The legs were set in plaster and held in iron frames. The body seemed sunk into the bed and strangely twisted to one side as though constrained by hidden dressings. The face was pale and gashed with scars.

  Sir William’s eyes slowly opened.

  ‘Box!’ he whispered. ‘How kind of you to come… Can’t you get me out of here?’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve only got five minutes. You’ll know, of course, that an attempt was made to blow you to bits. We’ll have the man who planted the bomb in the next few days. He left too many signatures, if I may put it that way. The man behind the man is – well, you know that, too.’

  There was not much of value that Box could say in five minutes. But there was one question now that he could ask.

  ‘I’ve just one thing I want to ask you, sir, and you may wonder what it has to do with the matter in hand. Did you recently purchase a diamond necklace from Asprey’s of Bond Street?’

  There was a momentary silence before Sir William replied.

  ‘Yes. I bought it as a present for my wife – a present for our Silver Wedding. And then I lost it. Lost four hundred pounds’ worth of diamond necklace! So, coward that I am, I went to Garrard’s, and ordered another! I wasn’t brave enough to go back to Asprey’s! Would it be imprudent,. Inspector, to ask you why you want to know?’

  ‘That very necklace, sir, was found around the neck of a woman who had. been murdered, out in the Essex countryside. So it must have been stolen from you, sir. We’ll take the matter from there.’

  Sir William stared fixedly at Box for a moment, and then his eyes seemed to glaze over. He shuddered, and a wheezing sound came from his chest. The young nurse bent over him and wiped a thin stream of blood from his chin. She turned to Box.

  ‘You must leave now, if you please, sir.’

  Box tiptoed from the room.

  Arnold Box rubbed the glass of the cab window with his sleeve, and tried to glimpse his father’s cigar divan as they rattled along the wide expanse of Oxford Street. It was still raining, and the windows were beaded with flying raindrops. He fancied that he saw the big gilt letters high on the building for a moment, before they were lost to view.

  The great thoroughfare was curiously empty, its endless lines of shops closed and shuttered. Box’s mind wandered away from the business in hand. He thought of Mr Howard Paul, the surgeon, who wanted to take off his father’s leg. He recalled that he had been invited to tea out at
Finchley with Miss Whittaker, attended by her giggling little maid, Ethel. What was it she’d said? ‘Solve your crimes, and keep us safe!’ It was difficult to believe that Miss Whittaker and her world actually existed…

  ‘Sir! Wake up!’

  Box opened his eyes with a jerk of momentary panic. He must have dozed off. The lights of Edgware Road Police Station threw bright, starred patterns on the cab windows. The rain poured down relentlessly. Box and Knollys stepped out of the cab, and hurried up the steps of the police station.

  ‘Is everything all right here, Sergeant?’ asked Box. The desk sergeant looked mildly surprised. Why shouldn’t everything be all right?

  ‘Yes, sir. All’s well. They’re very quiet, I must say. There’s been no shouting, or cursing. They had their meal at nine o’clock.

  They’ve settled down long since.’

  A yawning constable appeared from the charge room with a bunch of keys, and preceded Box and Knollys down the stone steps to the cells. There was no sign of the turnkey-constable whom Box had met earlier.

  The constable slid back the covers of the observation holes. Liam Doyle. Kevin Doyle. Paul Egan. James Nolan, alias Jimmy the Docker. They were all sleeping like angels under their regulation blanket. Sam Palin—

  ‘Get this door open, Constable! Quick, man!’

  Sam Palin lay stretched out on his back. His face, suffused with blood, showed all the signs of asphyxiation. The straw-filled pillow from his bunk lay beside him on the cell floor. A gold sovereign, glittering in the light of the gas burner, had been placed on each of the dead man’s closed eyelids.

  10

  ‘Let His Enemies Beware!’

  Lady Porteous looked at her wedding-ring, a simple band of Welsh gold. Above it were the flashing diamonds of her betrothal-ring. He had placed that gold ring upon her wedding finger at St Peter’s, Eaton Square, on 19 September, 1867. It had been a Thursday, she recalled. How he had fussed and blundered about at the reception! And poor Father! He had dressed beautifully for the day, and that had somehow emphasized the gauntness and pallor of his inebriate’s face.

  Her domestic staff, she knew, had marvelled at her calm and controlled response to the attempt on her husband’s life. On the Saturday evening she had sat up late, with her friend Lady Kennedy for company, until Dr Trevor had arrived with news from the hospital. She had instructed Lardner to telegraph to Mary Jane and Rupert at Cannes, telling them what had happened, and insisting on their remaining where they were. A similar message had been sent to John Bruce and Lydia at Northampton.

  She had attended church as usual on Sunday, taken lunch with Lardner, and spent the afternoon writing letters. At four o’clock a telegraph boy had called at the house with two telegrams. One was from Rupert and Mary Jane. Her daughter would respect her wishes, and remain at their villa in Cannes. Lord Avoncourt, though, had already left for England. The second was from John Bruce: Will return to London with Lydia immediately, it had run. Will stay at Brown’s Hotel.

  It was a matter of some thankfulness that Baby had proved to be so unexpectedly resilient, and wise beyond her seventeen years. She had sensed immediately that her mother would want to be alone to cope with her crisis, and had accepted an invitation to stay for a few days with a friend from her schooldays at Ascot.

  That evening, Lady Porteous had dined alone, wearing a dress of black velvet, the better to display the brilliance of the necklace that her husband had bought for her at Garrard’s, the Crown Jewellers. The footmen had served the usual four courses, and she had eaten what was placed before her with no outward sign that anything untoward had happened.

  Alone at last in her drawing-room, where the dark crimson curtains had been drawn, and the soft oil-lamps glowed, she allowed her face to reflect her pent-up and implacable fury. She did not see the gilt grandeur of her surroundings, the silken luxury of the elegant furnishings; she recalled only the concerned, almost embarrassed, face of the family’s physician, Dr Trevor, when he had called late on the Saturday night to acquaint her with the extent of her husband’s injuries.

  They had allowed Trevor access to Sir William Porteous, because he was a doctor, one of their number, and he had come straight from Gower Street to Queen Adelaide Gate to see her. Why had she been barred from seeing her husband? Did they think her presence would contaminate him?

  ‘There are many surface injuries,’ Trevor had told her. ‘Multiple fractures … Concussion. Thankfully, no vital organ is affected …’ And so it had gone on, and she had retained her calm dignity while the physician groped for milder words than ‘battered and bleeding’ to describe her husband’s desperate condition.

  It was while she was listening to the physician’s measured tones that she suddenly realized how much she had really loved her husband. After years of supposedly cynical acceptance of his devotion to the law, she had been startled to discover the true depth of her feelings.

  She was surprised how cold her anger was. It was supposed to burn. Not hers. It was cold, implacable. Her dark eyes flashed even as the tears broke unbidden from the lids. She rang a small handbell, which she knew would summon Lardner. When he came quietly into the room, in his familiar self-effacing fashion, she pointed imperiously to a chair, but said nothing. Lardner sat down and waited for her to speak.

  ‘Lardner,’ said Adelaide Porteous at length, ‘I want you to tell me who attempted to murder my husband. I don’t mean the name of the vile reprobate who placed the bomb. The police will find him. I want the name of the instigator. Don’t try to entangle me in legal caveats. I hear enough of those from Sir William. Just tell me the name.’

  ‘His name is Gideon Raikes – why, madam, you’ve gone quite white! Let me pour you a measure of brandy.’

  Lady Porteous sat quite still, and watched her husband’s secretary as he busied himself about the decanters. Why had she betrayed such weakness? She had known quite well who it must have been. Why had William chosen that man, of all men, to pursue? It was always dangerous to meddle with the past.

  She accepted the glass of brandy that Lardner gave her, and sipped it steadily.

  ‘Gideon Raikes, you see, madam,’ Lardner continued, ‘is the man behind Mounteagle. I warned Sir William of the danger of tangling with him. He would not heed my warning.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He said that if he desisted from pursuing Raikes, it would compromise the integrity of the whole legal system.’

  Lady Porteous smiled. Her voice still held a trace of its former cynicism.

  ‘How very noble of him! And so Gideon Raikes determined to kill him?’

  ‘Yes, madam. He knew, you see, that once Sir William had destroyed Mounteagle in court, then he – Raikes, I mean – would be next.’

  ‘But now he is safe?’

  ‘For the time being, at least. The trial of Mounteagle will have to be postponed. I am expecting Sir lain Forbes, QC, to call here in a day or so. He will assume the briefs. That delay will give Raikes time to secure his own position. Until this terrible calamity occurred, I was certain that Sir William would ultimately rid us of this man. Now, I am not so sure. Quite frankly, I think he will rapidly become unassailable.’

  Adelaide Porteous put down her glass. She felt much better for having Lardner present to sustain her with his calm wisdom.

  ‘Mercifully, Lardner, my husband will recover from this outrage, if Dr Trevor is to be believed. But there is always the possibility that this man Raikes will make a fresh attempt. He has a pleasing exterior, but was always a vengeful cur.’

  Lardner looked up in surprise.

  ‘You speak as though you knew him, Lady Porteous.’

  ‘Knew him? Of course I knew him. Did Sir William never tell you? I always assumed that he had. I was engaged to Gideon Raikes, Lardner. He – you will keep that information to yourself. Certain events occurred that are best forgotten. Suffice it to say that I broke off the engagement, and some months later I married William Porteous. They were both juniors in those d
ays at the same legal practice.’

  ‘Madam,’ said Lardner, ‘what you have told me will remain buried in my heart until you choose to resurrect it. But this Gideon Raikes – he had not attempted to harm you, I trust, since those far-off days?’

  ‘No. In all justice to Raikes, I must say that there has been no commerce between him and me for over twenty years. It would seem that his murderous quarrel is with my husband alone.’

  Lady Porteous rose from her sofa. The secretary interpreted this as a dismissal. He stood up, bowed, and turned towards the door.

  ‘But Lardner!’ Adelaide Porteous’s ringing tones halted the secretary on the threshold. ‘Any quarrel with my husband is a quarrel with me! Let his enemies beware!’

  When Lardner had gone, Lady Porteous permitted herself to glance around the richly appointed room. She enjoyed wealth, and had married for money – or so she had liked to think. But during the last week she had begun to realize dimly not only that she actually liked the theatrical performer who filled her house with noise and fuss, but that she had always liked him, and that he had liked her in return. Liked? Was that the right word to use?

  Why had she refused to acknowledge the true depths of her feeling for him? Perhaps it was to dull the shame of a marriage arranged for her by her father, the impoverished aristocrat trembling with drink, with the connivance of William Porteous’s father, a wealthy, rather prim, wine-merchant, anxious to ally his talented son to beauty and breeding. Shame of that kind could assume odd disguises.

  Lardner opened Sir William Porteous’s day-book, and inscribed the new day’s date: Wednesday, 5 October. News from the hospital had been cautiously optimistic. ‘Good healing-flesh’ had been mentioned, together with the fact that for such an independent-minded sort of man, the great barrister was proving to be an ideal patient.