The Advocate's Wife

by Norman Russell

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Box, ‘that Ted knew who the men were?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t know the first man, the man with the watch, but the other man was very well known. It was the gentleman who was blown up in his carriage – Sir William Porteous.’

  Mellow afternoon sun lit up one side of Moravia Court, presenting Inspector Box with a riot of glowing red brick. The general impression of Petty Allmain was of inward-turning seclusion, a huddle of neat eighteenth-century streets, conspiring together to conserve each other’s secrets.

  Box stood on the sunny pavement, and looked into a many-paned shop window. A host of things looked back at him – paper-wrapped blocks of household soap arranged in a pyramid on a stand, brown glazed earthernware teapots, boxes of Price’s Patent Candles, and night-lights in little glass jars. He suddenly recalled moments in his childhood, when he would stare wistfully into pie-shop windows at the unaffordable, and therefore unattainable.

  Box opened the door of 8 Moravia Court, and entered Mrs Jessie Warlock’s chandler’s shop. How normal, how ordinary, it felt in this little London backwater! The shop groaned beneath the weight of its stock. There were ranks of mops, iron mop buckets, clothes-horses, shelves of brightly-labelled packets and boxes, and a floor covered in sacks of seed, and scrubbing-sand, and coils of clothes-line. The air held the mingled scents of lamp oil, paraffin, and soap. The atmosphere was somehow more real and reassuring than the sophistication of Grosvenor Square and Queen Adelaide Gate.

  ‘And what may you be wanting?’

  A woman’s voice, deep and peremptory, came to Box from behind a sort of counter at the rear of the shop. Like every other part of the premises, it was piled high with goods for sale, and it was only by looking past the piled-up boxes of flypapers and firelighters that Box was able to see the still, stout woman sitting on a high-backed chair, engaged in counting a heap of copper coins piled up on the counter.

  This woman’s stock in trade, Box mused, seemed to have been arranged around her like a palisade, in order to keep enquirers at a safe distance. Behind her, a beaded curtain showed that there were other rooms beyond the shop.

  ‘You are Mrs Jessie Warlock? I am Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘I see. And are you going to show me your warrant, to prove it?’

  Box silently handed over his card. Jessie Warlock held a pair of still folded glasses some way in front of her eyes, and read it carefully. Then she handed it back again, put the glasses down on the counter, and sighed.

  ‘You’d better sit down, Inspector Box. Yes, I’m Jessie Warlock. You’ll have come to ask questions about poor Amelia Garbutt, I expect. It’s been in all the papers, so I know what happened to her.’

  ‘What I’d like to know, Mrs Warlock—’

  The shopkeeper held up a hand as though to fend off Box’s words.

  ‘I think it would be best, Inspector Box,’ she said, ‘if you were to sit there quietly for a while, and listen to what I have to say. You look a chirpy kind of young man, much given, I expect, to asking questions. Well, there’s a lot to be said for listening, as well.’

  Mrs Warlock joined her hands together, and leaned her elbows on the counter. Box noted the number of gold rings that she wore. She had a round, pale face, and the suspicion of a second chin in prospect. She wore a voluminous bombazine dress.

  ‘Amelia Garbutt and I, Inspector, were brought up in Speed Street, Spitalfields. Our families were neighbours, and we went to the same church school. Both families were very poor. Our fathers got work in Spitalfields Market when they could. Other times, they’d do labouring, or haul barrows – are you beginning to see the picture?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He knew the picture well enough: ever-present poverty warring with increasingly desperate respectability.

  ‘Well, Amelia was a very clever girl, and her teachers at the church school worked hard with her, so that she won a bursary to St Margaret’s School for Girls, in Bloomsbury. Amelia never looked back from that moment. She learnt mathematics, and French, and music, and when she left that school, at sixteen, she immediately began to work in high-class service with people of quality. She became a lady’s-maid, and eventually a lady companion in her own right. You’ll know all that, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Warlock. I’m just wondering where your story is leading.’

  ‘It’s leading to a particular piece of information, Mr Box, which is this: people like Amelia live surrounded by elegance and comfort, but they have no homes of their own. When I was young, before ever I married my late husband, I carried my property around with me in the form of the gold rings that you see on my fingers. When money was short, then I’d pawn a ring – oh, you know all this kind of thing, or at least, you ought to know it. I married Mr Warlock, who owned this shop. When he died, the shop, and the house in which it is, passed to me. But I still keep the rings where you see them now. Habit, you see.’

  ‘But Miss Amelia Garbutt had no home of her own?’

  ‘No. So I let her regard this place as a home. She had a room upstairs, overlooking the street. None of her ladies knew about this place. It was her secret. And this is where you’ll find whatever secrets she may have kept from others.’

  Inspector Box drew Amelia Garbutt’s tapestry purse from his pocket, opened it, and placed the small bright key on the counter.

  ‘That, Mrs Warlock, is the key of a deed box.’

  ‘So it is! Well, Amelia had such a box, and it is still here, in her room upstairs.’

  Jessie Warlock slid off her stool, and parted the bead curtain behind her.

  ‘You’d better come up,’ she said.

  The inspector fitted the key into a japanned tin box that he had found at the bottom of a chest of drawers, and turned it. He lifted the lid. Inside, he found a savings bank book, which told him that Amelia Garbutt had amassed the sum of £38 over a period of six years. There was a certificate from a burial club, a sealed envelope, and a death certificate for Joseph Garbutt, aged 74, dated 14 March, 1892.

  ‘Would you know who Joseph Garbutt was, Mrs Warlock?’

  ‘He was her uncle. Her father’s brother. He was always a bit of a scapegrace, Mr Box. A mean-minded man, too fearful to break the law, but quite happy to abet others in doing so, if it put a few shillings his way. He’s dead now, so I can say that without fear of doing harm. He lived in a couple of rooms high over a shop in Garlick Hill. That family – the Garbutts – they just managed to hold their heads up, you know. They always lived on the edge of respectability. That’s why I was so proud of Amelia. She’d broken away from temptation.’

  Inspector Box looked out of the single window in the upstairs room where Amelia Garbutt had stored her few secrets. The room was a small attic, and contained an iron bedstead with a mattress, a chest of drawers, and an empty wardrobe.

  ‘Moravia Court … Did you ever know a young man called Henry Colbourne, Mrs Warlock? I recall that he, too, lived in Moravia Court. Mr Shulbrede, the watchmaker, told me.’

  ‘Yes, I remember him well enough. He was murdered by robbers not far from here, in Garlickhythe. But it was twenty-five years ago that I knew him, and I had my hands full here in those days with the shop, and my new husband to see to. The Colbournes were nice, quiet people. I remember poor Henry well enough, but I didn’t really know him.’

  Box turned his attention once again to the deed box. He opened the sealed envelope. It contained a letter, written on high quality paper. Jessie Warlock watched Box silently as he read it to himself

  Dear Miss Garbutt (it ran),

  I am quite content to do what you ask, and present you with a valuable reward for the information mentioned in your letter. I note that you will be resident at no great distance from my sister’s house. She is giving a reception on the night of Tuesday, 6 September, so if you could come across with the document written by your late uncle, we can effect a discreet exchange. That, I trust, will be the end of the matter.

  Faithfully yours,


  William Porteous

  A valuable reward … Box glanced at the stolid Jessie Warlock, who sat on a chair near the bed, still watching him. The light through the square window reflected off the many rings that she wore. Amelia Garbutt may have risen to being a lady’s-maid, but she had not forgotten the days when a young woman carried her wealth around on her person as something tangible. So when an opportunity for a little ladylike blackmail came her way, she had thought of a diamond necklace.

  Jessie Warlock’s sonorous voice broke the silence.

  ‘Have you found what you were looking for?’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for this piece of paper in particular,’ Box replied ‘but I’m not in the least surprised to have found it here.’

  Amelia Garbutt, lady’s-maid, had not, after all, broken away from temptation, as Jessie Warlock had asserted. The Garbutts had once lived perilously near the criminal fringes of society, and, when greed came to tempt her, Miss Garbutt had succumbed. And so she had died.

  15

  The Enemy and the Avenger

  Wednesday, 19 October, 1892. A bright morning in Queen Adelaide Gate. It was noticeably hot for the time of the year, and a water-cart crawled along the wide carriage-way, sprinkling water on the dust, and spraying the dry pavements. Breakfast was over and cleared, and the footman, Stevens, had carried the morning’s post into the drawing-room.

  Lady Porteous had taken extra care over her toilet that morning, so that her dark handsome features seemed even more striking, and her black hair had acquired an added gloss. She wore a morning dress of cream silk, artfully cut to suit her years without seeming too lightweight for her commanding personality.

  ‘Thank you, Stevens. Put the letters on the table in the window seat. I shall take coffee in here at ten o’clock.’

  As the drawing-room door closed behind him, Adelaide Porteous swayed a little, and steadied herself by touching the mantelpiece with her fingertips. Her eyes caught the formal photograph of her eldest daughter, taken by Eliot and Fry: Mary Jane, Countess of Avoncourt.

  Terror. This was the day.

  Come to my house in Grosvenor Square a week today at eight o’clock in the evening, bringing the document with you. In return I will give you the incriminating letter.

  The document was to be a signed statement from her husband, admitting that he had wronged Gideon Raikes, and would drop all proceedings against him. Did that man think for one moment that she would compromise Sir William Porteous’s integrity by asking for such a document? Did he think that she was so craven as to beg favours from anyone?

  Terror! Without that document Raikes would destroy her eldest daughter, and bring the whole Porteous family to obloquy and ruin. Lydia, too, would have to withdraw from Society, though dear, good John Bruce would never leave her side.

  Terror! What would become of Diana, her baby, her little fashion-plate, a beguiling flirt, just ready to look about for a husband? Ruined. She would withdraw into her shell, sharing her mother’s disgrace. Ruined. Ruined. Baby Diana.

  Brightness falls from the air;

  Queens have died young and fair.

  What was the name of that fateful dirge? Why did it ring so potently in her memory? Yes – she recalled it now. It was called In Time of Pestilence.

  Dust hath closed Helen’s eye;

  I am sick, I must die—

  She shuddered involuntarily. Objects came back into focus. The great mirror in its gilt frame, the marble statues, the ornaments on the mantelpiece, flanking the ornate French clock. Could Stevens and the others see the terror, she wondered? Could they smell it? Would Lardner—?

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and saw the terror in her own eyes. And behind the terror, reassuring and bolstering her flagging courage, she saw the dull and deadly glow of an implacable hatred. The Astleys had clung to their own definitions of virtue, and had gone their own way. Their kind of virtue embraced a relentless defence of the family’s embattled honour, compassion towards friends, and ruthlessness to enemies.

  Father had finished up penniless, a pensioner on his increasingly affluent son-in-law. He had lived on in shabby gentility at Astley Court, his debts paid, and his honour satisfied. And there he had perished, when the old house had burned down one still summer night. He had bequeathed her nothing but his stubborn will to survive. She must honour that bequest at any cost.

  Sergeant Knollys poked the somnolent office fire into life, and sat down in his chair. For the second time that morning, he glanced through a sheaf of documents that he and Inspector Box had assembled. There were letters from the curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum, from Lord Port Royal, and from the civic dignitaries of Sunderland, all confirming Gideon Raikes’s alibis for the fifth and sixth of September.

  No – that was the wrong word. They were not alibis. They were simply confirmations of long-standing engagements that Raikes had duly fulfilled. There were other documents, some in French, and one in Dutch, with translations attached. They proved beyond doubt that Gideon Raikes was abroad before Henry Colbourne’s death in 1867. Raikes had played no part in the murders of Henry Colbourne or Amelia Garbutt.

  Knollys heard the heavy, limping tread of Superintendent Mackharness crossing the floor above. The gas bracket in the ceiling shook and shivered, and for a second or two the flame burnt yellow. Knollys had reached the vestibule in time to see Mackharness appear at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Up here, Sergeant, if you please,’ he said, turned on his heel and went back into his dim, mildewed office.

  Inspector Box scarcely glanced at Knollys as the sergeant came into Mackharness’s office. The words of a conversation that he had just had with the superintendent were still ringing in his ears.

  ‘I feel betrayed, sir – deceived … All those cosy little asides in various courtrooms, all those knowing confidences – and all the time Sir William Porteous was laughing up his sleeve! I should have detected something wrong in his manner, but I didn’t. And on the other side, Gideon Raikes led me carefully up the garden path – damn it, sir, the two of them were felons, and killers!’

  Superintendent Mackharness had held up one of his big hands to stem Box’s flow of words. Box had glimpsed the genuine concern in the old officer’s eyes.

  ‘When did you first realize the truth, Box? About Porteous, I mean.’

  ‘It was in the Cigar Divan, sir, when Sadie revealed to me that the man in Addy’s Dining-Rooms – the man who denied ever having owned that fatal watch – was Porteous. The whole thing sort of swung into place. The Colbourne affair, and then the business of Amelia Garbutt.’

  ‘Well, Box, Gideon Raikes certainly led you a merry dance, but I doubt very much whether Sir William Porteous ever deliberately betrayed your trust. In any case, you shouldn’t ever trust anyone in this business! Don’t you know that, yet? As for Porteous – well, I’ll have a few words to say to you about him, once Sergeant Knollys has come up here.’

  As soon as Knollys had drawn up a chair to the table, Superintendent Mackharness began to speak.

  ‘Now, Inspector Box, and you, Sergeant Knollys, I want you to listen carefully to what I’m going to say. First, I think you’ve proved beyond all possibility of doubt that Gideon Raikes had nothing to do with the killing of Henry Colbourne and Amelia Garbutt. I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, and I’ve scrutinized all the documents. Raikes is a bird ripe for plucking, Officers, and when the time comes, we’ll – well, we’ll send his feathers flying. But in those two instances, he was entirely innocent.’

  Mackharness cleared his throat, and unconsciously drummed on the table with his heavy, spatulate fingers.

  ‘But now, we come to the matter of Sir William Porteous, QC. You have asked me this morning, Box, to apply for a warrant of arrest. I’m going to ask you now to repeat your reasons for asking me to take that step.’

  ‘Sir, I have proof positive that Sir William Porteous lied to his sister, telling her that he had seen Gideon Raikes in
the train at Bishop’s Longhurst, which we know could not have been so. He was trying to suggest that his old enemy was in the vicinity of Heath House when Amelia Garbutt was murdered. Sir William Porteous was present at the reception, and had previously written to the victim, appointing an assignation, and quite clearly offering her a bribe to buy her silence about something to his disadvantage that had come to her knowledge. I have Sir William Porteous’s letter to Amelia Garbutt as proof. A necklace that we know he bought at Messrs Asprey’s was found around the murdered woman’s neck—’

  ‘A curious business, that, Box. But it’s a damning link, none the less. Pray continue.’

  ‘Late last night, sir, we received a telegraphic message from Sergeant Bickerstaffe, in Essex. He thinks he’s unearthed a reliable witness, an old man who saw Sir William Porteous dragging the woman’s body up to the canal. I’d need to interview this witness myself, but it seems pretty conclusive, sir. Sergeant Bickerstaffe says the man lives in a cottage near the plantation of Heath House, and knows Sir William well by sight.’

  Superintendent Mackharness folded his big hands on the table in front of him. Box and Knollys watched him as he pondered the inspector’s words. Presently, he sighed, and sat back in his chair.

  ‘Very well, Box. I can see the reasonableness of your argument, and you’re quite right, of course. There is a case. A very strong case, in the matter of Amelia Garbutt. So I’ll do as you say, and apply for a warrant of arrest. Although I’d counsel caution and discretion, I want you to pursue this matter without favour, and without fear.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Not at all. But tell me, Inspector, do you want to serve that warrant yourself? You were very friendly with Sir William Porteous for quite a number of years, and I think that when your righteous indignation has cooled a little, you may recollect some of the regard you had for him. I can send someone else down to Chelford Grange, if you like.’