by Emily Organ
The man gave another grunt and began hammering at a lump of stone.
“Thank you for your help!” I said with a sarcastic smile.
At that moment a movement caught my eye and Florence Burrell shot out from behind the workshop and made a run for the passageway as if her life depended on it.
I turned and gave chase, but James had already spotted her. He dashed across the courtyard and apprehended her just before she could reach the entrance. He launched himself at her and grabbed both arms.
“Let me go!” she screamed as she wriggled to get free.
I ran to catch up with them.
The grimy man from the workshop stepped out to see what was going on.
“Police!” James called out to him. “I’m making an arrest!”
“Get off me!” screeched Florence.
“Tell us why you were running away,” said James.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she sneered.
“Did you put something in my drink?”
“No! Now let go of me.”
“Cooperate with me please, Miss Burrell, or I shall be forced to arrest you.”
“I will!” She squirmed. “Just let go!”
“If you attempt to run away again I will arrest you. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes.”
The scar on her face looked slightly different now. I couldn’t work out why, but something about it didn’t seem quite right. James slowly let go of her arms.
“Can you please explain why you were running away from us, Miss Burrell?” said James. “One moment you were about to tell me more about Catherine and the next you were gone.”
“It’s because she put something in your drink,” I said. “Poison, probably. Is that what you did to Benjamin Taylor too?”
James was also looking at Florence’s scar as if he had noticed something strange about it.
“What are you talking about?” she snarled at me. “I only met him once!”
In a swift move, James reached his hand up to Florence’s face and rubbed at the scar.
“Get off!” She recoiled angrily, but when she looked at us again there was a red smear where James had touched her cheek.
“It’s not real!” I exclaimed. “Why are you trying to disguise yourself, Florence?”
It felt as though her dark eyes might bore right through me. Then she pulled off her spectacles and rubbed at the false scar with her sleeve. Most of the red dye came off, but the skin remained oddly puckered.
“Funny ’ow easy it is to fool people with a bit o’ glue and some beetroot juice.” She gave a laugh and her voice suddenly sounded deeper, with no trace of a West Country burr at all. “The glue’s ruined me face fer good, but it’s served me well for long enough.”
“Catherine Curran,” I said. Her headscarf had slipped from her head in the struggle and I could see now that her hair had been artificially coloured dark brown.
“Me real name’s Jane,” she retorted. “And as I’ve done away with all me ’usbands I use the name Vincent now. Jane Vincent.”
James grasped her arm again. “Miss Vincent, consider yourself in police custody for the murder of four men.”
“Save it, Inspector,” she spat. “You don’t wanna be wastin’ your time with me down the station. You were supposed to be getting married today, weren’t you?” She gave me a knowing glance. “It’s good you decided against it. I did it four times. Never ’ad a happy marriage.”
“We’re a five-minute walk from the police station on Bow Street,” said James. “If you could take Miss Vincent’s other arm, Penny, we can walk her down there.”
“No chance of it!” shouted Jane.
She bent her head down and sank her teeth into James’ hand. He cried out and tried to keep hold of her, but his grip had loosened enough for her to get away.
We ran after her along the passageway back to High Holborn, and I felt sure we would be close enough to grab her as soon as she stopped beside the busy road.
Only she didn’t stop. She kept on running and flung herself in front of a moving carriage.
“Jane!” I screamed as the horse managed to skip over her. I didn’t have time to cover my eyes before the wheels of the carriage rolled across her as if she were a bundle of rags.
Chapter 54
James dashed over to where Jane lay in the road. The four-wheeled brougham stopped and the driver jumped down.
“I didn’t see ’er!” he cried out, clearly distressed.
“She jumped in front of you. There was nothing you could have done,” said James.
A group of people had gathered around, but I remained on the pavement, not wishing to get any closer. I could feel myself shaking. A well-dressed lady in a large red hat stepped out of the brougham and began to cry. I walked over to comfort her.
“She did it on purpose,” I said. “There was nothing any of us could have done. It’s probably best if you get back inside the carriage for now.”
The lady did as I suggested.
James walked over to me, shaking his head sadly. “She probably died instantly,” he said. “Someone has found a doctor, but there’s nothing he can do.”
I watched the group of people crowding around Jane’s body, then removed my spectacles so that the tragic scene wasn’t so clear.
“I wish it hadn’t ended this way,” I said. “Perhaps we were wrong to chase her.”
“There was no need for her to lose her life,” said James sadly. “But we did what we had to do. We couldn’t have allowed a serial murderer to escape justice.”
“She almost poisoned you!” I said.
“It seems she did. What made you suspicious of her?”
I shivered. “I don’t know, really. There was just something about her expression I didn’t like. And the way she watched you as you picked up your drink. There was an odd smile on her face… I didn’t like it at all.”
“It’s just as well you turned up when you did!” said James. “I hadn’t expected to see her at the Museum Tavern this morning. She must have been following me.”
“Just as you thought someone was.”
“Yes, but I thought it was all in my imagination! Are you all right, Penny? You’re shivering.”
James removed his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“I’ve said it already, but I can’t believe you cancelled your wedding,” I said. “Is it really true that your engagement to Charlotte is over?”
“Of course it is!”
“I keep thinking you’re somehow going to become engaged to her again.”
James gave a snort of amusement. “I sincerely hope not.”
A police constable arrived on the scene.
“What a strange day,” I said, watching the sombre group in front of us.
“It is indeed,” replied James. “More than enough has happened for one day, and it’s not even noon yet.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” I put my hand inside my pocket and pulled out the second-class ticket. “I have a train to catch.”
“Where are you going?” His brow furrowed.
“Derby,” I replied, “to see my mother. But don’t worry, I think I’m going to give it a miss. Besides, my travel bag is still inside the Museum Tavern.”
“Inspector Blakely?”
We turned to see the constable approaching us.
He cleared his throat before continuing. “I’m sorry for the interruption, sir, but do you have any idea what happened here?”
“I do, yes,” replied James. “Would you like me to explain it all to you at Bow Street station?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir.”
“That’s not your usual attire is it, Blakely?” asked Chief Inspector Fenton, surveying James’ smart suit.
“No, I was supposed to be attending a wedding.”
“And work interrupted you?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh dear. Let’s hope the bride and groom aren’t too upset that you missed t
heir big day!”
James smiled and said nothing more as we followed Inspector Fenton into the mess room at Bow Street police station. Sergeant Richards had joined us from Bermondsey, as had Inspector Austen from Lambeth. The mess room had a billiard table at the centre and a cloud of tobacco smoke hung in the air. It wasn’t the sort of room many women saw the inside of, but James seemed keen to keep me with him.
We sat down at a table. Inspector Fenton had narrow eyes and dark, mutton-chop whiskers tinged with grey. I had come across him before when reporting on the murders down in St Giles.
“So the woman who now lies in the Macklin Street mortuary is the Bermondsey poisoner?” he asked.
“Yes, we are fairly sure it’s her,” said James.
“Did she confess before she died?”
“She said that she had done away with all her husbands,” replied James. “That’s as much of a confession as we could get from her.”
“It sounds damning enough,” replied Inspector Fenton. “What did her real name turn out to be?”
“Jane Vincent,” said James. “She became Jane Taylor after she was married to Benjamin Taylor.”
“Jane Taylor was the name she told Molly Coutts to use when she went ‘on the run’ to Kent,” I added. “She told Molly to pretend to be her and to stay at a succession of inns and lodging houses in order to keep the police occupied. She had threatened to tell Molly’s mother about an affair Molly was having with a married blacksmith, but her mother found out about it anyway! She needn’t have gone to all that trouble for Catherine, I mean Jane.”
“Jane gave Molly a fair amount of money, too,” added James.
“When Benjamin Taylor told Jane to leave six years ago after she had failed to murder him, she changed her name to Catherine Vincent and simply married again,” I said. “She was Catherine Vincent, then Catherine Peel, then Catherine Burrell and finally Catherine Curran.”
“She managed to confuse just about everybody,” said James. “And I’m still marvelling at what can be achieved with a little glue and beetroot juice.”
“To the detriment of her skin, we might add,” I said.
“She didn’t care, though, did she?” said James. “In fact, I’m not sure Jane Vincent cared about anything much at all.”
“Apart from money,” I said. “How many life insurance policies did she take out in the end?”
“We found about ten in total,” said James, “but there may have been many more.”
“To think that she accumulated all that cash and then threw herself under the wheels of a carriage,” I said.
“I don’t suppose she ever thought she would be caught,” replied James.
“We’re satisfied that she is the woman who was seen with Benjamin Taylor at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern,” said Inspector Austen. “But what about Inspector Martin’s death?”
“I think I know the answer to that, sir,” Sergeant Richards piped up. “The day Inspector Martin interviewed Sally Chadwick he asked me to make him some tea. I put the kettle on the stove in the constables’ office, and a short while later Florence Burrell arrived. We had been expecting her as she’d sent a telegram to say she would be visiting. I explained to her that Inspector Martin was otherwise engaged, but that I’d let him know she had arrived when I took in his tea. I pointed in the direction of the waiting room and asked her to take a seat there.”
“So she was unaccompanied for a while?” asked James.
“Yes, just for a short while,” replied the sergeant. “I returned to the constables’ office to fill the teapot with hot water, then left again to have a quick word with the desk sergeant about the paperwork relating to Sally Chadwick’s confession. I went back to the constables’ office to fetch the tea and found Miss Burrell walking along the corridor toward me looking rather lost and confused. I realise now that she must have been inside the constables’ office.”
“Then Florence Burrell was, in fact, Jane Vincent, the Bermondsey poisoner?” asked Inspector Fenton.
“Yes, sir. I assumed she was tired and had lost her way. That’s what she told me had happened, and I foolishly believed her.”
“But in actual fact she had just tipped a large amount of arsenic into the teapot,” said James.
“Yes. I didn’t even think that she might have been in the constables’ office,” said Sergeant Richards. “She was walking away from it, so I assumed she was walking back from the other end of the corridor. I thought she had maybe walked down there, realised it was a dead end and then made her way back again. I should have realised sooner what had happened, but we were all so convinced that Sally Chadwick was responsible I didn’t question it. I made a terrible mistake.”
“We all did,” said James.
“She did well to locate the teapot in the constables’ office so swiftly,” I said.
“She may have visited the police station before,” said James. “In fact, she may have done so in another disguise to specifically plan the poisoning. Having got away with two murders, can you imagine how alarmed she must have felt when it was discovered that John Curran had been poisoned? What better way to disrupt the investigation than to target the investigating police officers?”
“And it did disrupt the investigation,” I said with a sigh.
“That explains why we never found any evidence that Sally Chadwick had poisoned Inspector Martin,” said James.
“And what of Sally now?” I asked.
“There’s only one person who can really help her,” said James, “and that’s herself. Until now she has refused to implicate Jane Vincent – or Catherine Curran as she knew her – in any of this. Perhaps when she learns the woman is dead she will finally be at liberty to tell the truth.”
Chapter 55
Once James had assisted Inspector Fenton and his men with their paperwork, we walked back to the Museum Tavern to fetch my travel bag.
A bell close by chimed five o’clock.
“Well, I really have missed my train,” I said. “I shall have to visit my mother another weekend.”
“I don’t recall you mentioning that you were going to see her,” said James.
“It was a last-minute decision. I didn’t particularly wish to remain in London.”
“Why not?”
“Because I couldn’t bear to stick around on your wedding day!”
“Oh yes, of course. I apologise, Penny. I can only imagine how it would have felt if the tables were turned. I have to say that it must have been… awful.”
“I had planned to leave London,” I said.
“For good?”
“Yes. I was going to see my mother about borrowing some money to buy a ticket to America.”
“America?” James stopped and stared at me. “You were intending to leave the country?”
“You were about to get married!”
He sighed. “Yes, I suppose I was. Thank goodness I didn’t go through with it. I would never have coped with you going to America. Never.” Then he frowned. “You’re not still planning to go, are you?”
“Of course not! If you’re not still planning to marry Charlotte Jenkins I won’t be going anywhere.”
“Good.” He grinned. “Then we have a deal.”
There was a warmth in my chest which I only usually felt after a glass of sherry. I realised as we walked that I couldn’t stop smiling.
I could still scarcely believe that the wedding had been called off. I hoped I would never have to see Charlotte again.
We retrieved my travel bag from the Museum Tavern, which had thankfully been handed to the bar tender for safekeeping. An old man was dozing at the table we had been seated at.
“My beer has been cleared away,” said James. “I suppose it was a few hours ago now. Goodness, I hope no one else drank it.”
I looked nervously at the dozing man, concerned that he might have drunk the poisoned beer while James went to confirm with the bar tender that the drink had been tipped away.
“Thank good
ness for that,” he said when he returned. “No one else drank it. Though if it had been kept we could have had it tested for arsenic.”
“I think enough arsenic testing has been done for the time being,” I said. “Anyway, she cannot poison anyone else now.”
“Let’s go and have dinner,” said James. “I’m not supposed to be on duty, but I told Sergeant Richards we’d be at the Whitmore Restaurant in case anything important comes up. Hopefully it won’t.”
The Whitmore was a cosy little restaurant with red wallpaper and a low-slung, beamed ceiling. The candle on our table gave James’ face a warm glow, and although he looked tired I could see a sparkle of happiness in his eyes.
“We must prepare ourselves for a few days of unpleasantness,” he said. “My former fiancée won’t have taken kindly to being abandoned at the altar.”
“She didn’t get quite that far, did she?” I said. “At least you managed to speak to her at home and saved her the indignity of turning up at the church in front of all your guests.”
James laughed. “Oh dear. It’s terrible, it really is.” He rested his head in his hands. “Dreadful, really. I didn’t think I was capable of doing something like that. I must be the most unpopular man in Croydon at this moment.”
He placed his hands back on the table and I rested my hand on his, feeling my fingers tingle as I did so. Although this physical contact wasn’t entirely appropriate, I felt happy that it no longer felt forbidden.
“It’s probably best if you stay away from Croydon for a while,” I said.
“Oh, I intend to. And I shouldn’t think it would be terribly safe for me to return home either. Mr Jenkins is no doubt hammering angrily at my door as we speak.”
We both laughed, then he fixed me with his earnest gaze.
“I made the right decision, Penny, I know that. I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long.”
“I’d hazard a bet that you are worth the wait, James.”
We managed to dine for an hour or so before the inevitable interruption came.
“Oh no,” groaned James as the lanky form of Sergeant Richards stepped into the restaurant.
