Dead Letters

by Joan Lock

  Grimes was the name which Littlechild had dragged out of his memory as his rhyming prisoner. ‘They’ were the prison authorities. The photographs had been taken in gaol just before the prisoners’ release on licence.

  In fact, things were beginning to improve as the result of pressure from Howard Vincent, the director of the CID. But the changes had obviously not yet been significant enough to affect the photographs before them.

  All these showed men wearing prison uniform rather than their own clothes, which would at least have given them some resemblance of individuality. They were not allowed to shave in prison, so all the men wore feature-concealing beards. For some reason, the opposite rule applied to head hair. This had to be close cropped. So, again, all heads looked similar. To add insult, the prints were of poor quality and fuzzy.

  At least the hands, which were held up and crossed in front of their chests, tended to be altered little by prison life – apart from becoming coarser.

  Hands were reckoned to be of great significance in identification. In reality, Best had found descriptions and pictures of them of little use unless they were badly scarred or minus a finger or two. Grimes, they noticed, had the full complement of digits and the backs of his slender hands were unmarked.

  Cheadle, Best and Littlechild were gathered around a lectern in the Convict Office in Scotland Yard. All about them clerks and policemen strode back and forth, pulling down heavy albums from high shelves before poring over the pages of photographs of criminals under police supervision.

  On the other side of a counter flap, released prisoners waited to report to police as their licences demanded.

  ‘Be a waste of time circulating this,’ complained Cheadle.

  ‘Maybe together with this one,’ suggested Best, pointing at the photograph of Grimes just after his arrest.

  ‘The man won’t be wearing ’is ’air and moustaches like that no more,’ insisted Cheadle crossly. ‘Would you, if you were ’im?’

  Best had to admit that no, he wouldn’t. In any case, the Grimes staring out from the final prison picture was so much thinner and hollow-eyed than in the post-arrest photograph.

  ‘Be more confusing than an ’elp, letting that out.’

  Best disagreed, but said nothing.

  True, Grimes had been out for six months. Time enough, as Cheadle suggested, to grow a full set of whatever combination of facial hair he fancied, long hair with short hard whiskers and moustaches, or short head hair with exaggeratedly long and bushy side whiskers sweeping halfway around the chin. He might even be clean-shaven apart from a handlebar moustache and long sideburns. The choice was endless these days.

  But surely those who knew Grimes well would still recognize him? Also Littlechild? The lisp, which had been duly noted, should also help him stand out.

  ‘Look at that! Mother at Wood Green!’

  ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ said Littlechild excitedly. ‘Right on the doorstep of the Ally Pally. Seems you might be right, Ernest.’

  ‘Gotta be,’ said Cheadle. ‘Living nearby, has a lisp – and all that rhyming stuff.’

  Best and Littlechild exchanged sidelong glances. ‘All that rhyming stuff’ would certainly amount to a flogging offence to the Chief Inspector.

  ‘It’s just,’ murmured Littlechild doubtfully, ‘it’s just that he didn’t seem the sort of fellow who would make bombs and leave them about to kill people.’

  ‘Gracious me,’ murmured Cheadle, with mock gentility. ‘Yesterday we couldn’t remember anything about the man, now he’s being given a testimonial.’

  Littlechild tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘No, but he’s starting to come back now.’

  ‘He certainly is!’ Cheadle glanced from one to the other, the corners of his mouth lifting a little.

  Oh, a joke.

  Jokes were a recent departure for the Chief Inspector. Smith’s mother at work again, they suspected. Cheadle was a lifelong bachelor when he met the widowed Mrs Smith, who had been asked to advise about the clothing on a body in the Regent’s Park Explosion case. After they married, she had set to work chipping away at his crusty armour, sometimes with odd results – such as the jokes. The younger men laughed obligingly.

  They went back to the Chief Superintendent’s office, taking advantage of the added privacy and comfort while Williamson was on leave. Since Vincent’s advent he had been moved alongside his men in this curious, two-storey block at the centre of Great Scotland Yard.

  Chief Inspector Shore and Howard Vincent were over in Williamson’s old office at this moment, preparing to report to the Commissioner and the Home Secretary on the new bomber in their midst.

  ‘I see our strategy worked,’ Best said, pointing to a copy of The Times which sat on top of the pile of newspapers on the desk. ‘I’m amazed.’

  The press had given the usual generous coverage to the police fête, mentioning the circus, Dr Holden’s magic show, the rustic jollity, the athletics, and the West End plays and concerts.

  Indeed, The Times had declared, ‘It would be difficult to crowd within ten hours a greater variety of amusement than the programme disclosed.’

  Mr James Pain’s splendid firework display had also been noted – but only in passing. In fact, the only item which appeared to have escaped the notice of the reporters was the incredible exploding pavilion which had marked the finale.

  Had Vincent and the Commissioner used their influence on the press? Or had the journalists swallowed the story that it had merely been a spectacular addition to the usual programme? The structure had proved unsound so the authorities had seized the opportunity both to have it destroyed and to add to the entertainment.

  ‘I expect them ’acks just got tired and went ’ome before it ’appened,’ Cheadle declared. ‘After all, seen one firework display, you’ve seen ’em all, ’aven’t you?’

  Another joke. The pair smiled again. But he was probably right.

  ‘We got to put a stop to this Quicksilver business right off if we don’t want no more mayhem,’ announced Cheadle, getting back to business. He paused and smoothed his side whiskers thoughtfully. ‘Thing is, do we trust the divisionals to do the job? Or does we do it ourselves?’

  The trio exchanged grimacing glances. Some choice.

  ‘Picture one says you go out there now and arrest this man.’ He glanced from Best, who was fighting to keep his eyes open, to Littlechild, who was using the office wall as a prop to stop himself from falling over.

  ‘Picture two says we send a telegram to Wood Green and get them to send their best divisional detectives to watch the place until you get there tomorrow – an’ act only if they sees him on the move and up to anything suspicious.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Certainly, neither picture appealed to Best. He doubted whether he could keep awake for another cab, train and cab journey. He desperately needed to lie down. On the other hand – trusting it to the divisionals! Besides, he wanted to be there, bag the man who had caused him all this worry and woe.

  Best and Littlechid looked at each other.

  ‘We’ll go now,’ they said in unison.

  Perusal of Grimes’s file had stirred Littlechild’s memory some more.

  ‘He wasn’t your usual run of villain, I recall. He was quite educated. Had something about him, you know.’

  ‘But did you catch him bang to rights?’

  ‘Oh, yes. No question. He was in his shop, I remember – he was a tailor – when we raided it. Right there, in his cellar, we found all the makings hidden under the floorboards and between the joists: lead, lamp black, plaster of Paris, files, clamps, brushes, a pair of bellows – the lot.

  ‘Hidden among some coal, there was a bag of coins: half crowns, florins, five shilling pieces and a few sovereigns and five pound coins. Some of them were good – for the patterns, of course – but most were counterfeit.’

  ‘Unusual – doing such a selection.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

  Many coiners stuck to
the lower denominations because they were easier both to make and to pass. People were less likely to test ‘ring’ the smaller values and they could be slipped in among ‘good’ stuff.

  Their train had just left Hornsey Station. Best got up and stretched his arms and legs.

  ‘They were impressive specimens, too.’ Littlechild frowned. ‘One odd thing though, we couldn’t find any chemicals or plating solutions anywhere on the premises.’

  ‘He wouldn’t cough to where they were?’

  ‘No. Insisted he knew nothing about any of it but couldn’t explain what it was all doing there. He was the only one with keys.’

  Best felt wide awake in a weird, far off sort of way as they drew into Wood Green Station.

  ‘It’s only five minutes away,’ said Archie, the stocky divisional man sent to meet them. ‘Ain’t worth getting a cab.’

  Divisional men were great walkers. Had to be. But Best and Littlechild were in no mood for exercise. Even in a cab the journey up Station Road and Green Lanes proved quite a trot, but the evening was turning golden and the pleasant, leafy surroundings helped to perk them up.

  Best expected to stop at some railway cottages or an old farm building, so the grandness of Mrs Grimes’s abode came as something of a shock.

  Standing back from a green, behind tall railings, stood a long, red-brick three-storey building overlooking wide and well-kept lawns and ornamental gardens.

  The pantiled roof was punctuated by tall Tudor-style chimneys and, to either side of a central turreted gateway, marched half a dozen smaller but still imposing decorative arched entrances.

  A handsome, gilt-lettered board proclaimed that these were the Fishmongers and Poulterers Almshouses. Would that I live somewhere this grand when I am old, thought Best.

  ‘We got a lot of these sort of places around here,’ confided Archie. ‘Somewhere for the rich to give their money so they don’t feel so guilty.’

  Mrs Grimes lived at number 4. She took some time to answer her door and, when she did, they realized why. Her eyes were bright and enquiring and her face was not unduly lined but she was leaning heavily on two walking sticks and panting with the effort of getting to her front door.

  ‘Mrs Grimes?’ Best enquired, doffing his hat.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘We’re friends of your son and would like to have a word with him if he’s here?’

  She gazed at the detective inspector with ill-concealed contempt. ‘You can’t be that good friends,’ she spat.

  Best was too tired to prevaricate. ‘Why not?’ he snapped.

  ‘Because he’s dead. That’s why,’ she snapped back and shut the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had taken some effort to persuade Mrs Grimes to open her door to them again.

  ‘He was let out early because he was sick,’ she said dully. ‘He went in a healthy man and came out dying!’ She glared at Littlechild and added, ‘And it was all your fault.’

  The inspector had been watching her sympathetically but he now held up his hand. ‘Just a minute, Mrs Grimes. It wasn’t my fault that your son was coining.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  ‘’E told me. Swore to me.’

  ‘Sons sometimes tell lies to their mothers so as not to upset them.’

  ‘On his deathbed?’

  What could one say to that? Fortunately, Littlechild didn’t try. There was silence for a moment.

  Littlechild, who sat opposite her in her sparsely furnished living room, inclined his head and enquired gently, ‘Did he by any chance explain what all that coining tackle was doing in his cellar?’

  ‘’E didn’t know. ’E swore to God ’e didn’t know. ’E was going to try to find out – but ’e was too ill and ’e died before ’e could.’

  ‘You see, Mrs Grimes,’ said Best gently, ‘we don’t have any record of his death at the Convict Office.’

  She gave him a withering look. ‘That’s not my fault!’

  ‘Have you got a death certificate?’

  ‘Course I ’ave. I ’ad to bury ’im, didn’t I?’ She pointed one of her sticks at a dark wood box on the sideboard. ‘Fetch me that chest.’

  Best brought it to her and, digging about whilst muttering to herself about the stupidity of policemen, she pulled out the narrow parchment certificate.

  It revealed the cause of death as tuberculosis and gave the date of death as 22nd July 1880. Almost a month ago.

  ‘Where’s his wife?’ asked Littlechild.

  ‘Left the country. Took the little girl with ’er.’ She kept her sad eyes resolutely on the box as she spoke.

  Eventually, she broke the silence which followed by admitting, ‘She didn’t go straight away. She wrote to ’im and visited ’im for quite a bit and she was faithful, give ’er that. But then she got fed up with it all and went back to Italy. Took little Mary with her.’

  There was another silence. Best was too exhausted to react to more sorrow.

  She glanced up at the two men and suddenly softened. ‘You two lads look as if a good night’s sleep wouldn’t go you no harm. Do you fancy a cup of tea – or maybe something stronger?’ She nodded over at a bottle of cheap gin. ‘That keeps me going – gives a bit of comfort.’

  They accepted the second option gratefully and were bidden to help themselves. Her sudden change of heart after the tirade of hate at the door was a turnabout familiar to both men. Elderly, lonely people were usually grateful for any company, particularly that with which they could discuss departed loved ones, no matter what the context. Besides, they couldn’t always find the energy to sustain anger.

  ‘I expect you ’adn’t ’eard because he wasn’t due to report again until this week,’ she revealed quietly. ‘They let him do it by letter ’cos he was sick.’ She levered herself into a more comfortable position. ‘Matter of fact that’s what I thought you was here about. Funny, ain’t it?’ she asked.

  Not very, thought Best.

  Best was grateful that Wood Green Police Station was only a short way further up the High Road.

  So as not to spoil the tone of this newly colonized middle-class district, the architects of the brick, two-storey building, which stood on the corner of residential Nightingale Road, had clearly done their best to ensure it resembled a modest villa.

  Once there, Best wrote out a telegram to Cheadle informing him of the death of Grimes and confirming that they had seen the death certificate. It was not unknown for wanted men to arrange for their own temporary demise, so police had to be sure.

  He had to write fast. A mounted messenger was due to leave for Tottenham Police Station, which was connected to the telegraph system.

  The lines must have been clear with Cheadle waiting at Scotland Yard because the messenger brought back a reply, which stated: ‘Best, stay at Wood Green overnight. Smith will arrive tomorrow morning re other business. Littlechild, go home.’

  All right for some, thought Best.

  Chilton House was a three-storey, tawny London-brick villa behind a gated entrance which sat well back from the pavement.

  It wasn’t a huge house, thought Best, but it was quite substantial. The stone steps which led to a colonnaded porch and the white limestone trims around the windows gave it a more expensive air than its neighbours. Indeed, he guessed, it was of sufficient rateable value to grant the owner the right to vote – should they be a man, of course. Clearly, Miss Maud Forrest was, at the very least, comfortable.

  A white, gravel path circled a small, ornamental flower plot before reaching the entrance, in front of which stood a glossy, black brougham van. Between the shafts, an equally glossy black stallion waited patiently. Discreetly inscribed in gold letters on the van’s side were the words: Jacob Finbury, Funeral Furnishers and Mourning Outfitters.

  Had it not been for the van’s presence, Best and Smith would have gained the impression that no one was at home. It was some time before they received a re
sponse to their ring on the doorbell. Eventually it came in the form of a stout, flustered-looking, middle-aged woman drying her hands on her apron.

  She looked at them enquiringly then demanded bluntly, ‘Yes? Who’s callin’, please?’

  ‘Mr Best and Mr Smith who were at the palace when Alice took ill,’ said Best. ‘Just come to pay our respects,’ he added piously.

  No point in getting the whole neighbourhood gossiping before they had the results of the pill analysis.

  The woman frowned in concentration as she memorized what they were saying, her lips moving and head nodding as she did so. Then she turned abruptly and walked away.

  Best and Smith exchanged amused glances.

  ‘Not been attending her etiquette lessons at Miss Dogood’s Academy, I see,’ muttered Best.

  She soon returned to say, ‘You’re please to come in ’ere.’ She stood back from the door and awkwardly directed them to a handsome but fussily-furnished drawing room.

  ‘Miss Forrest is bein’ measured and outfitted,’ she announced. ‘An’ she says to tell you that she’ll come as soon as she can and to please make yourselves comfortable.’

  She was visibly relieved to have got that all out and was about to leave when Best murmured, ‘This is all such a sad business.’

  The woman looked confused.

  ‘Oh, er, yes …’ she said, pushing a damp strand of greying hair behind her ear. She hesitated, unsure of what was expected next.

  ‘You have our condolences,’ he added.

  ‘Oh, I never knew ’er,’ she exclaimed, shaking her head. ‘I just come in from the agency, to ’elp out.’ She hovered uncertainly. ‘This is my first time ’ere …’

  ‘Well, you’ve been a great help,’ Best assured her as he settled into one of the rose-bedecked armchairs.

  The world was looking rosier today as well, Best admitted. He’d had a good night’s sleep in the bed of a constable who had been called home to see his dying mother. The mattress had been a biscuit and the room above the police station barracklike, but he had been too tired to care.