by David Field
Chapter Eleven
Percy lit his pipe and inhaled the first lungful.
‘I thought I might explode at one point in there. I believe that four mince pies comes close to being a mortal sin. I hope they served Samuel Bradley bread and water for his Christmas lunch — that’s all he deserves after getting off with Manslaughter. He poisoned his own wife, for God’s sake!’
‘I don’t think Esther will want us to talk shop,’ Jack replied as diplomatically as he could.
Esther snuggled up to him, kissed him on the cheek and smiled. ‘As long as we’re not in there listening to your mother droning on about her successes at bridge — card by card, no less — I don’t care what we talk about.’
‘In that case, young Jack,’ Percy continued, greatly encouraged, ‘and before your aunt comes to herd me back into her presence, did anyone pass on to you that file I left with your desk sergeant? He made the family connection and I rather imagine that it would have come to you first.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Jack replied. ‘Mind you, it may well be somewhere in the pile of a dozen or so that got dumped on me just before I ran away for Christmas. They were all horrible and I decided not to ruin my little remaining “goodwill toward all men” by interviewing the victims. All vulnerable single women and all given horrible experiences by a slimy burglar.’
‘Then you’ll probably find mine somewhere in your pile,’ Percy confirmed, ‘since it involved exactly the same thing and I’m advised that you advanced types in Burglary now look for patterns in offending, rather than wearing out your boot leather pounding the pavement for real clues. Anyway, keep your eyes open for it. Name of Beckwith, from memory.’
‘Lillian Beckwith?’ Esther’s ears pricked up at the name.
‘I think so, why?’ Percy enquired.
‘From Holborn, or somewhere in that direction? Worked as a waitress and had a certain undergarment stolen from her person?’
‘That certainly sounds like the one,’ Percy agreed.
‘Sounds like the cases I had just before Christmas,’ Jack joined in with a grimace, ‘since some of my victims lost them as well. But from their clothes drawers, not while they were wearing them. Anyway, it sounds as if your file belongs with mine.’
‘How come you knew about this case?’ Percy asked with one of his penetrating stares at Esther, just as Beattie emerged onto the lawn and called him back into the house.
‘In a moment, my dear,’ he called back. ‘I’m just talking to Esther here. Get Constance to talk to the budgerigar if she’s that desperate for an audience.’ He turned back to Esther and lowered his voice. ‘Esther, how did you know about this case?’
‘It’s connected with my new job and I seem to remember that the real objective of the attack was to dissuade the woman from joining the Alliance that my new employer is organising. It’s a sort of female trade union.’
‘The victim mentioned a union, right enough,’ Percy confirmed, ‘but she took it to mean her local pub.’
‘Some of my victims were being warned off joining something as well!’ Jack added. ‘It certainly sounds as if all these cases are connected. I’ll have a read of your file first thing when I get back to work.’
‘You’ve got a week’s house-hunting before that,’ Esther reminded him. ‘But I think your first job will need to be to come down to where I work and talk to Helen, because from what I could gather she was another victim and I don’t think she ever reported anything.’
‘Percy — now!’ Beattie shouted from where she was standing, hands on hips, by the washing line.
‘Coming, dear,’ Percy replied, before turning back to Esther with a grin. ‘Now there’s a woman who definitely doesn’t need a union in order to get her point across.’
Chapter Twelve
Jack turned the key in the front door lock and pushed the door open. The smell of dust that met them was not promising, but the set of rooms was exactly what they had in mind, the purchase price suggested by the property company was within their budget and Clerkenwell was respectable enough even for Constance Enright not to completely disapprove.
‘It’s been empty for several months,’ Jack reminded Esther as they stood shivering in the hallway. Outside it was snowing heavily and they’d been obliged to kick snow off their boots on the scraper at the front door before entering by way of the front hall, and by the time they’d reached the second floor they were almost dry, although they left a faint smear in the dust as they progressed down the inner hallway of the rooms they had come to inspect.
Esther pushed open the first door, then gave a muted squeal as something small and furry scuttled to the far corner of the room and sat there quivering.
‘The rats are obviously still in residence,’ she muttered as she eyeballed the creature and mentally defied it to come any closer.
‘It’s a mouse, not a rat,’ Jack advised her with an amused grin.
‘It’s still living here, whatever it is,’ Esther replied with a disgusted twist of her mouth. ‘If we were to buy this place, do you know how to get rid of them?’
‘Just put down some of Aunt Beattie’s gravy,’ he joked. ‘That would poison anything.’
‘Seriously, Jack — I really don’t like rats.’
‘Good job it’s a mouse then,’ he replied, still amused.
‘Let’s take a look at the other rooms,’ Esther suggested frostily, ‘and if they’ve got furry things in them as well, we’ll go and look somewhere else.’
‘This is the last on our list for today, remember,’ Jack replied, ‘and we didn’t like the first three.’
‘That place in Stepney was nice enough,’ Esther reflected, ‘and it had one more room than this place. But, as you tactfully pointed out, it’s a bit too “East End” for your mother’s liking.’
‘We’re the ones who have to live wherever we finish up,’ Jack replied, ‘and if we want to decorate it to our own tastes before the wedding, we’ll need to find somewhere pretty soon.’
‘We’ve already spent the first four days of your leave looking at places,’ Esther replied glumly, ‘so let’s take a walk through this one, then you can take me for a late dinner somewhere.’
‘Let’s go and take a look at the view from the front window.’
‘If we can see through all the muck and grime that’s collected on it,’ Esther observed unenthusiastically as she followed Jack to the window with one wary eye on the hole in the skirting board that the mouse had disappeared into. Through the window they could see down into the street and across it to another row of houses that seemed identical to the one they were inspecting. Carriages were passing back and forth and Jack pointed to a horse bus.
‘The sign on the front of that says that it’s heading for Holborn. From there I could change for Whitehall, so only two bus rides. And you could get down to Spitalfields on that Whitechapel service we saw as we walked up here.’
‘Assuming I still have a job then,’ Esther reminded him gloomily, ‘which seems unlikely at the rate at which the Alliance is losing members.’
‘Are they still leaving?’ Jack replied.
Esther sighed and nodded. ‘I was in there two days ago, while you were getting measured for your wedding suit and five more dropped out over Christmas. Poor old Helen’s getting quite despondent.’
‘I’m back to work next Monday,’ Jack reminded her, ‘so do you want me to call in then? We could have dinner together afterwards at that pie shop down the road from you.’
‘Never let it be said that you don’t know how to show a girl a good time,’ Esther smiled as she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. ‘But yes, come down as soon as you’re able. Now for the time being, let’s have a look at the other rooms, which hopefully the mice will have left all to us.’
‘It’s going to need an awful lot of work,’ Esther enthused over morning tea the following Monday, as she and Helen sat sorting through a week’s correspondence, ‘and there’s a rather suspi
cious damp patch in the bathroom, but Jack reckons he can fix that, and the price was within our range, so it looks as if we’ll shortly become the proud owners of a set of second floor rooms in Clerkenwell. The less fashionable half, unfortunately, but the suburb name should be enough to satisfy Jack’s mother.’
‘Is she a snob?’ Helen enquired.
‘Not so much a snob, but certainly very particular and of course she wants the best for her only son. What mother wouldn’t?’
‘And when will you be moving in?’
‘Not until after the wedding, obviously and that’s not until June, so we have plenty of time to decorate the place and get in things like carpets and so on. We’ve still got something left over from the money I got for this place and apparently Jack qualifies for part of the family trust fund when he gets married. His younger sister got a payout of some sort when she got married last year and Jack’s determined to get his share before his mother spends it all.’
‘It must be a very exciting time for you,’ Helen said, smiling, ‘and I wish you all the best, even though I haven’t met your fiancé yet.’
‘He promised to come down here sometime in the next few days,’ Esther advised her, ‘and we think that there may be some pattern behind all these resignations you’ve been getting from the Alliance.’
‘As you’ve probably already deduced,’ Helen replied as her smile disappeared, ‘I don’t have a very high opinion of police officers, after my latest experience with them, but obviously I’m more than happy to meet your own young man, particularly since he seems to have made you a very happy person. Quite a treat to have around the place, in fact.’
‘Did you never have a young man of your own, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Helen nodded. ‘I did, once upon a long time ago, but he died and since then, well to be perfectly frank with you, most of the men I meet in the union line of business are far too aggressive and domineering. Not my type at all.’
‘So nobody since the one who died?’ Esther probed.
Helen shook her head. ‘There’s one who’d still like to make what he would no doubt call an “honest woman” of me, but he’s really not for me. He and I ought to be a good match, because he’s also recently started up a union — woodworkers in his case — but he’s not very engaging in personality, once you get below the surface of his somewhat greasy charm. You may have noticed the regular arrival of flowers here, for example.’
‘I had noticed,’ Esther replied diplomatically, ‘but I didn’t like to say anything, because of course it’s none of my business. So they’re from your gentleman admirer?’
‘Yes, along with ridiculous sugary poems and suchlike that arrive almost weekly in the general mail. There’s never any signature, as if I didn’t recognise his over-ornate handwriting.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Esther persisted, ‘a lot of women would be bowled over by romantic gestures like that.’
‘I’m not a lot of women,’ Helen insisted, ‘and I’ve reached the somewhat mature age of thirty-five without some man in my life telling me how to lead it. So George Manners can go and drip his honeyed charm on someone who might appreciate it. Now, what’s the net loss of membership this week, following all this post-Christmas correspondence?’
It was almost dinner time the following day before Esther was obliged to leave her desk inside the rather false looking ‘office’ that lay behind the dividing wall, walk through the hole in the panelling that might one day constitute a doorway and cross to the front door to answer the knock. Outside in the street stood an enthusiastic looking Jack, armed with what seemed to be a very heavy carpet bag, which he dumped onto the floor as soon as he had stepped inside and given Esther a warm kiss.
‘Pie shop first,’ he insisted. ‘I’m fair famished. Tell your employer that a knight in shining armour commanded his horse to kick down the door and swept you off into the noonday sun for a banquet in his palace. Or at least a mutton pie at “Umberto’s Trattoria”, as it describes itself on the wall. That’s Italian, isn’t it? What happened to the Jewish cafes?’
‘There never were any, so far as I can remember,’ Esther replied, smiling. ‘And take it from me that onion bialy is an acquired taste. Stay there for a moment while I nip upstairs and get my hat — it looks like more snow out there.’
An hour and a half later, Jack was shaking hands with Helen, somewhat formally, in the kitchen.
‘As Esther may have told you, I don’t really approve of policemen,’ Helen warned him, ‘but I’m prepared to suspend judgment in your case, since you’ve obviously made Esther so happy.’
‘Can I get that in writing?’ Jack said with a boyish grin. Helen became an instant convert as she smiled and offered Jack a seat while she put a pan on to boil for tea.
‘I brought your bag upstairs, by the way,’ she told Jack over her shoulder. ‘I assumed that it has something to do with why you’re here at Esther’s insistence and doesn’t just contain your laundry?’
Jack blushed slightly and nodded.
‘No, it doesn’t, but it has to do with laundry, I believe. Other people’s, that is. Your members’?’
‘That’s about as helpful as my last conversation with a police officer,’ Helen complained, but with a smile. ‘Could you bring yourself to be a little more specific?’
‘Sorry. The fact is that I work at Scotland Yard in something called the Burglary Division. As its name suggests, we look more carefully at reported break-ins to people’s houses and rooms and look for patterns in them. I gather from talking to Esther that some of your members have recently received uninvited invasions of their homes during which certain items of clothing have been removed, or interfered with in some way. All of them have also received a warning against joining your union — the “Alliance”, I believe it’s called. And one in particular — a Miss Lillian Beckwith,’ he added after a quick look inside his notebook. ‘She seems to have suffered even more, according to the report that my uncle made.’
‘Your uncle?’ Helen queried.
Jack nodded. ‘My Uncle Percy. He’s a sergeant who works at the Yard, same as me. It was pure coincidence that his report landed in my pile and now I’m even more convinced that there’s a pattern to all this.’
‘You mean that all the poor unfortunate women who’ve been threatened into having nothing to do with the Alliance have suffered the same indignity?’ Helen enquired.
‘No, not all of them,’ Jack explained. ‘That’s what makes all these incidents fall into a pattern. In my bag here are about a dozen or so reports from women who all received unpleasant visits — usually while they were out working — during which a piece of paper was left behind, warning them to refrain from joining a “union”, as the notes call it. I’m prepared to work with the theory that the “union” in question is your Alliance.’
‘These notes to which you’re referring,’ Helen asked, somewhat white in the face, ‘were they typed on a single sheet of paper, with something else obscene written in pencil above it?’
‘You’ve had one of these “visits” yourself, haven’t you?’ Esther said quietly as she reached out and placed her hand on Helen’s trembling wrist.
Helen nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s concentrate on what Jack has to tell us.’
‘There’s not really a lot more,’ Jack admitted, ‘except for the all-important “pattern” that I already mentioned.’
‘You mean there’s more?’ Helen enquired. ‘Surely the “pattern”, as you call it, is in the fact that each note was warning away a potential member of the Alliance?’
‘Yes and no,’ Jack replied unhelpfully. ‘Certainly they all that have that in common, as I quickly spotted when I read the file reports. But some of them endured more than that, didn’t they? Every one of them got the warning, but only some of them suffered the additional indignity regarding their underwear. It was only when Esther mentioned that Lillian Beckwith was an important link to what might have proved to
be a fertile source of new members that it occurred to me that the “underwear” victims, if I may call them that, were singled out for special treatment by whoever carried out the break-ins. If it turns out that they — like Lillian Beckwith — were of additional importance to your Alliance, then we have our definite pattern. We also have a strong suggestion that whoever carried out these disgusting attacks was acting under orders from someone who understood the significance of the “special” ones and knew who to target more strongly and why. Someone very familiar with your recent recruitment drives.’
‘I hope that doesn’t make me a suspect?’ Esther said, horror-stricken.
Helen reached out and placed a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Of course not, Esther. Apart from anything else, the break-in to my house occurred the day before I met you for the first time.’
‘At the risk of having my engagement broken off, along with parts of my face,’ Jack said, grinning, ‘you have to accept that whoever’s doing this will be someone you least suspect. Someone who knows your every move and may pose as a friend.’
‘What about those other women you told me about?’ Esther asked Helen. ‘You know — the ones who formed unions of their own?’
‘Out of the question,’ Helen insisted. ‘Apart from the fact that their moral principles would stand firmly in the way of such a thing, Annie’s believed to be in India somewhere, whereas I read in the newspaper only yesterday that Clementina was in Manchester, addressing a group of women in the cotton trade.’
‘Anyway,’ Jack continued, ‘what I’d like to do, if it’s alright with you, is to compare the names of the victims in all these files I’ve brought with me with names from your membership lists. If they match up and if we can identify why some of them were important enough to merit “extra attention”, shall we call it, in the matter of their undergarments, then we have a clear pattern we can work on.’
