The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5)

by Granger, Ann

  ‘A scavenger on the mud,’ I told him.

  ‘Ah, yes, I have seen those young ragamuffins at their work. Such a boy’s account is open to question. He might have come by it elsewhere and in compromising circumstances. He would be hopeful of some reward if he told the police he found it at the scene of an investigation.’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘So, you see, I do not need to deny I lost the link. It was some time ago and I was very put out. I hunted for it everywhere. I still have its partner, of course, so it was in my mind to ask for a replacement to be made. I didn’t get round to it. I have no idea how the lost one found its way into the pocket of a young ruffian. He, naturally, will claim to have found it.’

  I returned the cufflink to my pocket.

  He watched me as I did, then said, ‘It does not mean I killed the woman. Why should I?’

  ‘She was a blackmailer. She had witnessed a crime committed by the lady who would become your wife. That crime was murder and it enabled Amelia Sheldon to inherit everything from her uncle, Isaiah Sheldon, and to marry you. You had no money. I suspect you have always been short of money. You are known to be a gambler. Again, it is not difficult to learn what kind of reputation as a gambler you have.’

  ‘You have a fertile imagination, Inspector Ross. My wife’s uncle died sixteen years ago. The doctor at the time, Dr Croft, was well acquainted with the late Mr Sheldon and had no qualms about signing the death certificate.’

  ‘Rachel Sawyer was a witness to your wife’s actions,’ I said. ‘Only a housemaid at the time, she obliged your wife to make her the housekeeper and, in short, look after her for the rest of her life.’

  ‘So, you deduce, I suddenly decided to kill the woman now? You suggest I allowed my wife to be blackmailed for so long and did nothing about it before?’ Lamont gave a scornful snort.

  ‘There had been a recent development for which you were unprepared. You and your wife had discovered that – after so many years – questions were being asked about Mr Sheldon’s death. Soon the only remaining servant from Isaiah Sheldon’s household might well be interviewed, too. You did not trust Rachel Sawyer. Under police questioning she might confess. You panicked, I think.’

  ‘You still cannot charge my wife with the death of her uncle,’ Lamont said very patiently as if I were a slow pupil. ‘There is no witness who can come forward and testify to that. However Rachel Sawyer died, why and at whose hand, does not change that. She cannot testify now to anything.’

  ‘There was another witness,’ I said.

  That shook him. The confident, almost casual, manner dropped from him for a moment.

  ‘Who?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘There was a gentleman returning from Putney to London at the time. While attempting to seek shelter from the storm at Fox House, he witnessed what happened through the parlour window.’

  Lamont had recovered his composure. ‘Then the gentleman in question should have raised the alarm at the time – if he did see what you claim.’

  ‘He had his reasons for not doing so. But he has made a statement about it now.’

  ‘It will not stand up under questioning.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who is he?’

  This was not something I was willing to divulge at the moment. But Mr Pelham would find out soon enough, examining the evidence against his client. My heart sank. Lamont was right to be so confident. Rachel could not be questioned and neither could Mills. Pelham would realise at once that Mills’s statement to me, made in such desperate circumstances, could easily have doubt cast on it by an able barrister.

  But one thing Lamont could not deny.

  ‘You panicked again,’ I said, ‘after I met you on Putney Bridge and you realised I had the cufflink. It was made worse when you found out I had been talking to Harriet, the kitchenmaid. I was concentrating on you – and you fled. In so doing, you demonstrated your guilt. Perhaps you hoped that by your flight you would distract our attention from your wife.’

  Lamont held up his hand as if to silence me. I waited. ‘That is something I must know, Ross,’ he said. ‘How the devil did you come to be waiting for me at Southampton? No one knew I planned to take that ferry. I did not know it myself until the previous night. My wife could not have told you. I had not confided in her.’

  ‘Sometimes Fate favours Justice,’ I told him. ‘I was in Southampton on an entirely different matter – a police matter, but nothing to do with the murder. I chanced to see you, bag in hand, making for the Victoria Pier and the ferry.’

  ‘Did you, indeed?’ he murmured. ‘Well, a coincidence is not evidence. It is not a crime to leave the country. I had not been charged with anything at the time, or even brought in for questioning. You had called to see us with news of an employee’s death and asked me to identify the body. I had done so. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of my usefulness to you and I was free to do as I wished.’ He shrugged. ‘If you mean to tell me that my poor wife labours under the delusion I killed Sawyer, then let me tell you that she is mistaken.’

  ‘The charge does not depend on what your wife says!’ I snapped.

  Lamont leaned towards me and smiled. ‘Come now, Ross, you are an officer of some experience. If you wish to claim I killed Sawyer, you must ascribe to me a motive.’

  ‘But I have already spoken of your motive,’ I reminded him, ‘your wife’s crime, witnessed by Rachel Sawyer. You both believed the circumstances of his death were to be reinvestigated. It threw the pair of you into a considerable confusion. Would Miss Sawyer remain steadfast or would she also panic and admit what she’d seen, all those years ago? You had to make sure of her and there was only one way, in your view, to do that.’

  ‘Ah!’ Lamont leaned towards me and jabbed a finger at me triumphantly. ‘But that is only your theory, Inspector Ross. How do you propose to show that Sawyer saw anything at all at the time you say she did? You cannot. The wretched woman is dead. In the absence of this eyewitness you say saw a crime happen, you cannot charge, let alone convict, my poor wife.

  ‘But neither can you charge me, because my motive – as you believe it – does not exist unless my wife is first convicted of the murder of her uncle.’ The smile with which he accompanied this statement was almost beatific.

  Now he even chuckled. ‘You are an experienced officer and you mean to tell me you would place such a case before a British jury? Sixteen years after the alleged event and with the doctor still alive who signed off the death certificate? Surely Croft cannot now change his mind about something that raised no doubts in him at the time. Sawyer, the witness on whom you would rely, cannot speak. Oh, yes, you say there is another witness, but you are curiously silent about him. I suspect that is because you do not think his testimony will impress a jury. No, no, Ross. You have built a house of cards and a British jury will bring it tumbling down. A court will never convict my wife. Therefore, you will have no case against me.’

  I had underestimated my opponent. The wretch was almost laughing aloud at me now.

  ‘Mrs Lamont has confessed!’ I managed to say through gritted teeth.

  ‘Has she, indeed? Let us consider the wild statements you say my unfortunate Amelia was unwise enough to make. My departure was decided upon at the last minute. My intention was to go to Guernsey and look into the matter of some family property on the island. I was tired of having the police around the place and the whole of Putney gossiping about my affairs, so decided on impulse to go. I did not tell my wife before leaving because she would have begged me not to. She was nervous of being alone in the house, but for the servants, after Sawyer’s sordid death. I intended to send her a telegraph message when I reached Guernsey.

  ‘Amelia was naturally thrown into complete disarray when you brought the news that I was under arrest. She did not know what she was saying when you interviewed her. She was in a state of shock. When she is calmer, she will retract the whole thing.’

  He paused and added, ‘Oh, I understand your own wife was present when Amel
ia made this alleged confession. A jury might find that extremely convenient for you and place little weight on your wife’s corroboration. I think you will never see my wife convicted, Inspector Ross! Nor should she be, of course,’ he added, a little too quickly. ‘She did not kill her uncle. I did not kill Sawyer.’

  He leaned back, pursed his mouth beneath that luxuriant moustache, and added, ‘I did not like having Sawyer around. She was over-familiar in manner; and almost offensively plain. But she was an excellent housekeeper.’

  ‘I have a feeling that both Lamonts will walk free,’ I told Lizzie that evening. ‘Dashed if they don’t!’ I had been plunged in deepest gloom since my encounter with Lamont that day.

  ‘Surely,’ Lizzie argued, ‘Lamont won’t be able to explain away his attempt to leave the country by some taradiddle about a property in Guernsey? I was present, remember, when you told Amelia Lamont that you had him in a cell. That was bad news enough. But even before you told her of his arrest, when she turned round and saw us both standing there in her parlour, her first words were, “He has left me.” Her anguish was genuine, I would swear to it, and it was not due to his leaving against her wishes, as he would now have you believe. It was because he’d slipped out of the house and away for ever leaving her to face the police alone. She was destroyed by his desertion. Even the sight of me with you was of little interest to her, because the man for the love of whom she’d committed such a dreadful crime all those years ago had abandoned her. “Charles has gone and there is nothing left!” Don’t you remember?’

  Lizzie paused. ‘I can’t help but feel sorry for her,’ she added very quietly. ‘It was all for love of Charles Lamont.’

  I bent to grasp her hands. ‘Lizzie, listen to me! Never be tempted to feel sorry for a murderer. It is the most terrible of crimes. A life taken cannot be restored. Anyone can feel wretched, miserable, be exploited or misled. It does not justify turning to violence. Perhaps a person can act rashly if they find themselves threatened or they seek to protect a child . . . In the heat of the moment, in desperate straits, any one of us might seize a weapon and strike out. But not everyone can kill in cold blood. That woman stood over a sleeping man of eighty, who had rescued her from penury, and pressed a cushion on to his face.

  ‘I do not mean to let her get away with it – nor for Lamont to evade justice.’ I paused to think it over. ‘The ridiculous excuse he gave me today – that he suddenly felt the need to look into family business in the Channel Islands – is nonsense, as you rightly said. I don’t think any jury would believe it. A jury would see it for what it was: a sudden dash to escape arrest. He is by nature rash and given to panic. That is why he murdered Rachel Sawyer.’

  Lizzie frowned. ‘I wonder if he left his wife a note? He hadn’t seen her to tell her his intention to leave. So, in the morning when she found he was gone, she might have run to the police to declare him missing and raise the alarm. But she didn’t. He knew he’d gone for good. He must have written a letter of some kind for her to find, some sort of excuse for his desertion.’

  ‘Then she will have destroyed it,’ I said automatically.

  But Lizzie was shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so, Ben. It was the last communication she had from him and – if he’d got away successfully – it would remain his last few words to her, just as if he’d died. I think she will have kept it. If it wasn’t in her possession when she was arrested, then it is still in that house. If it were up to me, I should organise a search of her room – perhaps she has an escritoire, one with a secret drawer or two. They are very common pieces of furniture. No lady wants her maid reading her most personal correspondence. That’s where I’d put such a note and that’s where she’d put it for safety – where no other person could happen on it and read it.’

  It was a fair point. I needed any and every piece of evidence.

  I tried not to give in to a dawning optimism. I still thought that Amelia would have destroyed any note of farewell; cast it into the fire . . . except that there was no fire lit that day! Optimism popped its head up again. Hadn’t I taken Lizzie with me to Putney because I wanted her to judge Amelia’s mood?

  ‘I’ll send Morris over there first thing in the morning,’ I told her. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him he is to break open any cupboard or drawer he finds locked and if he finds any letter – or anything suspicious – to bring it to the Yard. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes! From the start of this business I have managed to upset just about everyone I’ve encountered and put my foot wrong so often, one more time can’t make it worse.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE FOLLOWING morning early Morris went off on his mission to Fox House. I could imagine with what rage Johnson would watch the place being ransacked; as the butler would no doubt describe the police search in the inevitable complaint.

  Amelia Lamont was now my priority. I intended to interview her as soon as I’d discussed the state of the investigation with Dunn. But before that, Mr Pelham arrived in my office.

  He stood before me, in his black clothes, like some long thin bird of ill omen. ‘Mrs Lamont is ill!’ he announced.

  ‘How ill?’ I asked disbelievingly.

  ‘She has quite collapsed. Her nerves have given way under the stress of her husband’s predicament.’

  ‘And her own, perhaps?’ I suggested.

  Pelham moved his head in a curious sideways motion, tilting it to one side. It made him even more resemble a crow inspecting a piece of carrion. ‘Mrs Lamont has withdrawn the confession you claim was made to you. It was purely verbal, the result of a state of near hysteria, made in extreme and highly irregular circumstances. The only other person you say heard it was your own wife. Mrs Lamont will not sign any written statement relating to it.’

  ‘Withdrawn it, eh? Well, that’s not so easily done. Far from hysterical, she was perfectly clear when she made it. She spoke at some length, giving all the details. There was another witness to the crime, apart from Rachel Sawyer. Mrs Lamont will be asked again today—’

  I was not allowed to finish.

  ‘There is no question of you interviewing the lady today.’

  ‘Has the police surgeon seen her?’ I asked.

  ‘He has and he agrees that she is in no fit state to be subjected to lengthy questioning. Moreover, she is a delicate female of good family and a prison cell is a most unsuitable place for her to be housed, sordid and unhealthy. I intend to make application on her behalf for her to be released pending further inquiries. There can be no reason for her not being allowed to return to her own home. If so released, there is no suggestion she would commit any crime or interfere with any witnesses, especially since . . .’ Pelham favoured me with a particularly unpleasant sneer, ‘despite your assertion that there is another witness to the crime you accuse her of, you seem singularly unwilling to name him, or produce him.’

  I knew then, from the flicker of triumph in his pale eyes, that Pelham had found out the identity of my ‘other’ witness; and the circumstances in which he’d given his account. He was confident he could persuade a judge and jury to disregard as evidence the statement dictated to me by Mills that night in Newgate. No wonder I had found Lamont so confident that neither he nor his wife would ever be tried.

  Pelham accepted my silence as having scored a point. He stood up. ‘Mrs Lamont, if freed, will remain in Putney. She will not go anywhere else.’

  ‘Unlike her husband!’ I heard myself snap.

  Pelham merely twitched an eyebrow. ‘If it is necessary for you to speak to her again, you will be able to do so at her home – or in my presence. I cannot see how the police can object.’

  With that he marched out, leather satchel under his arm.

  I sent up a silent plea that Morris was successful in his search because it seemed very likely that Pelham would succeed in getting an order for his client’s release from custody. If Mrs Lamont returned home her first action would be to destroy any evidence that might be of use to us.
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br />   The Fates must have been playing a furious game of dice that day. Pelham had not long left, and I had just returned from informing Superintendent Dunn of the latest developments, when Biddle appeared and told me two men were desirous of seeing me.

  ‘Who are they? What is it about?’ I asked testily, still put out by my encounter with Pelham.

  ‘It’s in relation to the Putney business, sir. It’s a Mr Williams and a man he says is his gardener.’

  Williams . . . Williams . . . the name was familiar but I could not put a face to it. Then I remembered. Mr Williams was the owner of the house and gardens where the potting shed was; the shed that had served us as a temporary mortuary for the body of Rachel Sawyer. My heart sank. No doubt he had returned home to the unpleasant news of the use we’d put his property to; and was here to complain.

  A clumping of feet on the wooden stairs heralded the appearance of two persons as unlike one another as was possible. One, well dressed, was small, slight, very pale in complexion, with a pointed nose and eyes that blinked short-sightedly at me. He was as like a white mouse as any human could be. The other man, in complete contrast, was burly, sunburned, dressed in working attire, and glowered at me. I recognised him at once as the gardener we’d encountered at Putney.

  I addressed the small pale gentleman. ‘Mr Williams, I think I know why you are here and I do assure you, that had there been any other available location to which the body could have been removed at such short notice – and in such urgent need—’

  Williams waved both hands at me in an agitated manner. ‘No, no, Inspector Ross, I beg of you! It was indeed very unfortunate that you had to put the body in the shed in my garden. But Mr Harrington, the magistrate, who, as I understand it, oversaw the transfer of the body from the mud to the shed, has explained it all to me. Mrs Williams was at first very upset at the news. She feared it would make our entire household notorious in the neighbourhood.’