The Fatal Engine

by Harriet Smart

  “Yes, but –” she sighed and plucked at the sheets. “And Patton does not like it. Of course, that is no reason, but she has had to endure a great deal from me over the years, and I think this might be the last straw. She spoke twice today about going to see her sister and brother-in-law, who have retired from service – you know they run private lodgings in Leamington and are doing very well with it? – well, I am sure she is hinting that she wishes to join them and leave us for good.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. She probably just wants a holiday.”

  “But I think this might be too much, even for Patton. Julia was apparently shockingly rude to her when she went in to dress her hair. I cannot have that!”

  “Then you must tell Julia that she must behave herself.”

  “Easier said than done,” said Emma.

  Giles thought for a moment and said, “How would it be if I made it clear to her that they are only to stay until Christmas, but we will help them find somewhere more suitable to live?”

  “That might work if she has any money. I doubt that she has.”

  “She must have some. Her husband cannot have sent her back to England imagining she will subsist entirely on the charity of her family. He must have some pride – unless...” He sighed.

  “Yes, quite,” Emma said, “unless she has deserted him. There has been no mention of her applying to his family, has there? And if little Alexander is a cuckoo in the nest, then –”

  “We must not assume that,” said Giles.

  “Yes, but it would explain a great deal. It would certainly be enough to destroy their marriage, unless Captain Gordon is a saint of some sort, or a fool, and I suspect he is neither.”

  “You never met him?”

  She shook her head.

  “My father liked him,” she said. “But whether that means anything, I cannot say. He was often a poor judge of character. When my mother was still alive to guide him, it was not such a great defect, but...” She sighed and moved across the bed, closer to Giles, seeking the comfort of his arms. He was happy to oblige, and she lay with her head on his chest.

  “I’m sorry I have landed a burden on you,” he said. “We will be firm that it is until Christmas and no longer. I will make that clear to her.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We cannot risk losing Patton. We should none of us manage without her. I have never come across such fine mending.”

  “It is not your fault. If anyone is at fault it is Julia for doing whatever it is she has done. I am tempted to ask you to get the full truth out of her. After all, if she was honest about her predicament then she might find me more sympathetic.” She pressed a little closer to Giles.

  “That would be a last resort,” said Giles. “Police interrogation is not really something for the family circle.”

  “I should like to see you do it,” said Emma, and then cringed. “Oh, but how heartless I am! I have no idea what she may have suffered and I should not condemn her so readily, I really should not. If she were a stranger I would have far more pity for her. Why is it our own flesh and blood provoke us so?”

  “I don’t know,” said Giles, pushing her nightcap back so that he could stroke her hair. She sighed with pleasure as he did. At the same time, a child’s scream broke out.

  “Is that Alexander?” said Giles.

  “Poor child, he is a lost soul,” said Emma.

  Giles got out of bed, pulled on his dressing-gown and taking his candle, set off down the passageway.

  The children were sleeping in a large, pleasant room, but like the rest of the house it was rather lacking in furniture, and by the light of a chamber candle it looked inhospitable. It reminded Giles of the spartan conditions of his own youth, when chilblains and streaming noses had been commonplace. The window had blown open behind the fixed shutter and was banging in the wind.

  It was a wonder it was only Alexander crying.

  Sophy, shivering in her nightgown, and on tiptoe, was leaning over the cot.

  “Sandro, please stop, please,” she was whispering. “If you keep crying they will make us go away again and I don’t want to.”

  “Sandro? Is that what you call him?” said Giles. Sophy jumped at the sound of his voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, retreating back to the bed. Hamish now sat up and said, “What?”

  Giles reached into the cot and picked up the struggling, screaming bundle of outraged child. He was suspiciously damp in places, and Giles was wondering whether to send Sophy to wake Patton when Emma came in with another candle.

  “He’s...” he began.

  “I see,” said Emma, taking him from Giles. She sat down on the stool by the hearth and began most efficiently to remove and then replace the child’s napkin and nightshirt. As she did so, Sandro began to quieten.

  “Papa calls him Sandro,” said Sophy. “After his dead brother.”

  Emma got up, handed him to Giles and began to strip the bedding from the cot. The child’s little arms wound about Giles’ neck. He began to walk up and down the room with him.

  “Get back into bed now, Sophy,” Emma said. “You’ll catch cold.”

  Sophy obediently climbed back in. Hamish had already gone back to sleep.

  Emma finished remaking the cot and Giles went to put the now quiet Sandro back, but the moment he attempted this, the child broke out screaming again. Giles scooped him back into his arms and the crying once more subsided.

  “What are we to do with you, Sandro?” he said, and carried him back to their bedroom.

  “You are making a rod for your back,” said Emma, following him, as he climbed into bed with the child still in his arms.

  “It is too cold to stand and rock a cradle. I will put him back when he goes to sleep.”

  “He will be with us in the morning,” said Emma, getting in beside him. She sighed and then smiled. “But he does look content.”

  “Well, you like to lie in my arms, don’t you?” said Giles.

  “Yes, I’m jealous,” she said, stroking Sandro’s head and then bending and kissing him. “But how sweet he is. Perhaps he will settle better tomorrow. Charles was rather difficult at this stage. I used to go and sleep in the nursery with him often enough. James would not have tolerated him in our bed.”

  “More fool him,” said Giles.

  “Are you thinking of your Edward?” Emma said after a moment.

  “Yes, and I am glad to have this chance at last. He never got old enough to scream the house down. I can’t think of a more pleasant burden, to be honest, but I think we should get him a nurse. Mrs Vernon should not be changing dirty linen in the middle of the night. Sally will be able to put us in the way of someone reliable.”

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, Giles found Carswell at work on the post-mortem of Benjamin Roper.

  “Any thoughts on that wound on the back of his head?”

  “It is definitely a factor in his death,” said Carswell. “Although it does not look as though there is much damage, that is a vulnerable spot and a blow aimed at the correct angle with the right force would cause a subcranial contusion which would have left him severely incapacitated.”

  “But not dead?”

  “No. It was the loss of blood that did that. He must have been staggering about after the blow to the back of his head, then he stumbled and fell onto the corner of the bench, face first.”

  “Pushed by someone?”

  “That’s impossible to say.”

  “But if Miss Roper, for example, had pushed him, having been struck previously, it would have been easy for her to knock him off his feet.”

  “Very.”

  “So that part of her account may have some truth in it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Carswell.

  “And would she be capable of cracking him across the back of the head?”

  “If she used the right sort of weapon, there is no reason why not. Accor
ding to the sister, she had a short temper and was prone to violence. And given that she is under the influence of something, that may act as a disinhibitor.”

  “There is no way of establishing the space of time between each wound, I suppose?”

  “The most I can tell you is that it is no more than a couple of hours.”

  “So the question must be: who delivered that blow on the back of his head? And if it is not Miss Roper in her strange state, then who? Amy?”

  “She didn’t organise life insurance policies,” Carswell pointed out.

  “But she knew about them and presumably she will benefit equally. And she is not entirely as she seems. I found this in her room.” He took the little muslin packet containing the French letter from his pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the bench.

  “She is sensible and has a lover, then,” said Carswell.

  “Or she is in the trade.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Carswell. “And one French letter doesn’t mean a great deal, surely? It does not make her a murderer.”

  “No, of course not. It’s simply an unusual thing for a woman in her place in life to have among her possessions.”

  “I wish it were not,” said Carswell. “I wish it were a commonplace. If I had my way we would hand these out by the boxful at the Infirmary.”

  “I’m not sure the world is ready for that,” Giles said.

  “It will be, when people understand the benefits.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might have got hold of it?”

  “In Northminster? No,” said Carswell.

  “And it would not be cheap.”

  “No,” said Carswell. “Have you ever –?”

  “Not for some years,” Giles said after a moment, remembering with pain a visit to an expensive establishment with his fellow officers. He had to find, on the spot, what seemed to be an extortionate amount of money to purchase such an item. It had been a rule of the house and it had entirely ruined the pleasure of the evening. He had hardly been able to perform with it on and the charming whore had mocked him for it. That had been the beginning of the process of his self-reform – no moral epiphany, but humiliation, disappointment and a terror of not being able to pay his bills.

  He folded the French letter back into the muslin. “A clumsy device, all in all.”

  “It is the best we have at present,” said Carswell. “And all that suggests to me is that Amy Roper is involved with someone intelligent, rational and progressive-minded, who has a care for her health and her reputation.”

  Carswell’s idealism on this point was clearly unshakable.

  “Then he will be anxious to see her after her father’s death and will want to comfort her,” said Major Vernon, trying to form a picture of this honourable lover in his mind. He remained rather shadowy. “If that is all there is to it. Perhaps he has called on her at Mrs Steeles. I shall have to enquire. And I shall go to Throcktons and ask about their cordials.”

  “I have not begun on that yet,” said Carswell. “I am going to see Miss Roper when I am done with this. She was still unconscious when I left this morning. Mr Harper is going to examine her. He may have another theory. He has made quite a study of strange mental conditions. It may yet be that it has nothing to do with anything she has taken.”

  “I do wonder about her – this blow to the back of the head complicates it all. And she said most definitely that she saw him lying on his back. Are there any circumstances in which he could have been on his back? Could he have fallen, from the head blow, onto his back so she could have seen him as she described?”

  “It’s possible. She also talked about the blood, though.”

  “Yes, and that makes no sense. I wonder if she has somehow imagined she had done it, having heard Amy’s account – heard and misunderstood it? Amy will have rushed in with the terrible news – how clear would her account have been? Would she have said if her father is on his back or lying face down on the floor? No, it would have been all about the pool of blood and ‘Papa is lying dead on the floor,’ don’t you think?” Carswell nodded. “If Sarah Roper’s mind is under attack – from forces as yet unknown – and she is showing considerable signs of confusion, then might she have imagined the whole thing? Is that possible?”

  “That would be an even harder defence to sustain, I think,” said Carswell. “In the carriage she kept repeating to me that she had killed him.”

  “There is a great deal of work to do, then,” Giles said, and went upstairs to see how Coxe and his men were getting on with the late Mr Roper’s papers.

  “Here’s his appointment book, sir,” said Coxe. “It’s somewhat abbreviated but I think, by comparing with the correspondence, such as it is, we can determine a few names and places. For example, he seems to have been seeing a great deal of EW – once a week for the past three weeks – and I think that must be Mr Edgar Williamson of Williamson and Collworth.”

  “That’s the large manufactory on the Axworth Road, is it not?”

  “Yes, this one,” said Coxe, handing him a letter headed ‘Williamson and Collworth’. “From Mr Williamson and dated April 20th this year. Nothing much to remark in it. Just arranging a meeting. But look where they are meeting, sir.”

  “At The Greyhound in Darnell’s Cross,” said Giles. “Strange place for a business meeting. Why not in Northminster?”

  “My thought entirely, sir,” said Coxe. “Not exactly convenient for either of them. And then there is this. From Market Craven, Messrs Blake, worsted manufacturers. Roper has met with JB twice in the last month.”

  “Any idea where?”

  “This is a guess, sir, but you see that DX is next to the initials for both JB and EW, which does perhaps suggest Darnell’s Cross.”

  “Yes, it may well be. That’s good work, Inspector Coxe. I think we should go and see Mr Williamson.”

  The snow had turned to slush and they had a weary trudge across town to Williamson and Collworth’s manufactory, which occupied a large site on the edge of the city.

  As they walked, Giles enquired about Coxe’s wife and children.

  “Mrs Coxe was pleased with her note from Mrs Vernon,” said Coxe. “But she’s not sure how she should answer.”

  “Is this about her Police Families Welfare Committee?” Asked Giles.

  “Yes,” said Coxe. “She doesn’t think she will be of any use, and that the other ladies might think she was stepping out of her place. She says it is kind of Mrs Vernon to think of her, but –”

  “Of course, Mrs Vernon has no wish to force her to do anything she does not feel comfortable with. She felt it might be of interest to her and that she would have a great deal to contribute, far more than some of the other ladies, in fact, but I appreciate she must have a lot on her hands. We have that house full of children now, and I hadn’t quite realised how much work they create.”

  “Whose children are those, sir?”

  “My sister-in-law’s. The youngest is eighteen months. And loud.”

  Coxe laughed at that.

  “It’s the teeth coming,” he said. “And not being able to talk properly. They calm down soon enough.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  They had reached the gates of Williamson and Collworth.

  A clerk informed them that Mr Williamson was in Weaving Shed Number 3, and took them there.

  It was hard not to be impressed by the sight that met them: a host of complex machines, lined up in the vast space, all performing with a perfect regularity of motion, all weaving the same bright scarlet cloth. It made Giles think of a regiment of perfectly drilled soldiers. What surprised him was how few hands seemed to be employed to supervise this extraordinary enterprise and that most of them appeared to be young women, who moved deftly between the machines, their wooden-soled shoes adding to the raw cacophony of the giant shed.

  In a far corner a machine was not at work. Its scarlet stuff had spilled from its great roller, and lay like a pool of blood on the floor, whi
le male hands in blue smocks stained with oil were fussing over the machine itself. Two gentleman-like figures were standing watching like anxious parents.

  The clerk, followed by Coxe and Giles, approached these gentlemen.

  “It could be the warp regulator, sir,” said a man in a blue shirt, crawling out from under the machine.

  “That’s more than possible,” said one of the gentlemen to the other. “There has been a tension issue on machine seven too, Mr Williamson, and I adjusted the drive and it seemed to set it right, but I think there may be a flaw in the shape of the sprocket. It might need reworking in the shop.”

  “If that’s the case then we may have to shut down the whole shed,” said Mr Williamson. He glanced over and saw the clerk coming towards him. “Yes?”

  “Two gentlemen from the police for you, Mr Williamson. Major Vernon and Inspector Coxe.”

  “Troubles never come singly,” Williamson said, glancing at them.

  “We could do it section by section,” said his companion. “That way we will not lose too much time.”

  “Do what has to be done, Evans,” said Williamson, now coming towards Giles and Coxe. “And the less time wasted the better!” He put out his hand to Giles. “How do you do, sir? James Williamson at your service.” Then suddenly he withdrew his hand and held it up, showing a tell-tale patch of grease. “Forgive me. I was – well, as you can see, we are having a little difficulty with this one.” He gestured back towards the errant machine, then took out his handkerchief and wiped his hand clean. “How can I help you today, Major Vernon?”

  “Perhaps we might talk somewhere a little quieter?” Giles said.

  Williamson took them to his office and served them some excellent strong coffee, for which he was himself clearly anxious. He downed one large cup and then began another before enquiring, “So, Major?”

  “I wanted to ask you a little about an acquaintance of yours, Benjamin Roper. An engineer and inventor.”

  Williamson frowned.

  “Did he give you my name?”

  “No. Mr Roper has been found dead in suspicious circumstances. We found some of your correspondence.”