Death at the Jesus Hospital

20

‘Please put me out of my misery,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Very well, what we have is a letter, dated about three months ago from a firm of solicitors in South Africa called Rutherford, Rutherford and Botha. It’s quite short. This is what it says. “Dear Sir, we are acting for the estate of a recently deceased businessman. In his will the gentleman left considerable sums of money to two colleagues who had served with him in the British Army some years ago. We are anxious to trace these two people, an Abel Meredith and a Roderick Gill. Both should be over fifty years old. We have reason to believe that the men may be members of, or have links with, the Honourable Company of Silkworkers. Thanking you in advance for your co-operation, Yours sincerely, Thomas Rutherford.”’

‘Great God, Secretary, that’s astonishing news. Do you have a copy of your reply?’

‘I have it in front of me, my lord. It acknowledges receipt of the letter and gives the addresses as the Jesus Hospital in Marlow and Allison’s School in Norfolk. There was no further correspondence.’

‘And I presume that there is no indication as to the name of the businessman, if he ever existed?’

‘None at all. You could try the firm on the telegraph and see if they are willing to say anything.’

‘Is there,’ said Powerscourt, ‘any indication of where they were based, this firm of solicitors?’

‘Sorry, I should have mentioned that, my lord. There is an address in Johannesburg on the notepaper, though that may not exist any more than the dead businessman.’

‘I’ll see what we can do,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘though I don’t hold out much hope. Thank you so much, Mr Secretary.’

He bumped into Inspector Devereux on his way back upstairs, being escorted to the drawing room by Rhys. There was general excitement when Powerscourt told him and Lady Lucy the good tidings from the Silkworkers Hall. And that was not all. ‘I too have news,’ said the Inspector. ‘I have been on a sort of Cook’s Tour of London’s private investigators. Few, I regret to have to tell you, inhabit districts as superior as Markham Square in Chelsea. They all have one well-appointed room, fire in the grate, hunting prints on the walls, that sort of thing, to talk to their clients. The rooms behind, where they do most of their work, are much more squalid. I’d been to about to six or seven, many of them grouped around Lincoln’s Inn Fields for some reason I cannot fathom, and had no success at all. But as I moved east I struck a small piece of gold. In one of those little alleys off Fleet Street there is a one-man outfit — most of the others have half a dozen staff or more — called Joshua Wingfield Wallace and he had a tale to tell. Four or five weeks ago Wallace received a letter with no address and no signature but containing a ten-pound note and asking for maps and directions and general information about two particular places. Our Joshua was a bit suspicious about the lack of name and address, but ten pounds is ten pounds so he did what he was asked. You’ll never guess where the two places were.’

‘Jesus Hospital,’ said Lady Lucy.

‘Allison’s School,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Top of the class, both of you,’ said the Inspector.

‘Where did he send the information?’ Powerscourt was walking up and down the room now. ‘Did somebody come and collect it?’

‘Our friend was far too canny for that, my lord. The reply was to be sent to await the arrival of a Mr Smith at the Paddington Hotel round the corner from Paddington Station. The man who was on duty at the hotel reception that day is not due to clock in again until five o’clock this evening when I have arranged to go and talk to him.’

‘Excellent,’ said Powerscourt, ‘excellent.’ He was now walking up and down the room so fast that Lady Lucy worried he might be about to crash into a wall.

‘Passenger lists,’ he said suddenly.

‘Passenger lists?’ said Inspector Devereux, looking at Powerscourt in that concerned way people have when their friends or relations are falling ill or going mad.

‘Passenger lists? Are you feeling unwell, Francis?’

‘Passenger lists,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I repeat, passenger lists.’

He strode down the drawing room and settled on the edge of the sofa by the fire. ‘Consider what we have just learnt, Lucy, Inspector. I don’t mean our friend the oneman band near Fleet Street, I mean the letter found by the Silkworkers. We have one faint indication from the school that points to South Africa. Now we have this letter, real or not, from a firm of solicitors, real or not, supposed to come from Johannesburg. It seems to me quite likely that even if all the other information is false, the point of origin may be the real one. So Mystery Man sends out his initial inquiries from his home town. But he has to get here. And the only way to get here, unless you can find yourself a spaceship, is by boat. Mystery Man must have boarded a liner in Durban to come here. I think Durban is the nearest big port to Johannesburg but I could be wrong. But his name will be on the passenger list of the liner that brought him here.’

‘You are quite right, my lord,’ said the Inspector, ‘or he could have boarded the ship in Cape Town. I became rather an expert in these sailing lines when I was a boy, I’m afraid. I had about eight toy ships I used to play with in the bath. Union Castle Line, my lord, formed by a merger of two companies in nineteen hundred.’ The Inspector closed his eyes for a moment as if some great feat of memory was upon him.

‘She probably sailed on this route,’ he said, frowning in concentration. ‘Southampton, Madeira, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, St Helena, occasional, Ascension occasional, Las Palmas, occasional, Southampton. There was a round-Africa service you could take if the other ships were full, but it took longer. The route I’ve just mentioned took over a fortnight from Cape Town to Southampton, longer from Durban.’

Powerscourt was reminded of Leith, Lord Rosebery’s train-obsessed butler, who was a walking timetable for the great railway routes of Europe. It looked as though the Inspector was his maritime equivalent.

‘Whatever the route,’ Devereux said, looking slightly embarrassed as if he’d shown too much of himself, ‘they will have passenger lists, as you said, my lord. Whether they’re kept in Southampton or in London I’m not sure.’

‘Do you know, Inspector,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘exactly what information these lists contain?’

‘I’m afraid I do,’ Devereux replied. ‘The lists contain the passenger’s name, the port where he or she boarded the ship, the class they are travelling in, and the amount they paid for the ticket.’

‘Do they, by any chance,’ said Powerscourt, ‘contain the address in England the passengers are going to?’

‘They do not, my lord. But I suspect we might not necessarily believe any information Mystery Man entered on that score.’

‘I think,’ said Lady Lucy, smiling at Inspector Devereux, ‘that you are going to be able to answer every single question we can think of about passenger lists. Do you know how often the great liners travel from South Africa to London and how many people they have on board?’

Inspector Devereux groaned. ‘I should have spent my time more usefully when I was a boy, Lady Lucy. Think of all the things I could have memorized, kings of France, presidents of the United States, all the known elements in the periodic table. I think I said before that the journey takes a little over a fortnight, so there will be two passenger lists every month. On average’ — Devereux was adding up the passenger numbers of the different ships but he wasn’t going to tell his audience that — ‘I should say that there are about two hundred in first class, another two hundred in second, and about a hundred in third.’

‘So,’ said Powerscourt, ‘given that the first murder took place on January the twenty-second, the anniversary of Isandlwana, we should go back to the beginning of December. I doubt if our Mystery Man would have arrived a day or two before his first killing. I think he would have given himself time to settle down. So there could be three sailings on which he could have travelled from South Africa, giving us about six hundred first-class passengers and another six hundred in second class. I think we can omit third class for now.’

‘But there won’t be six hundred names for us to wonder about, surely,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Some of the passengers will have boarded the ship at places other than Cape Town or Durban, some may have got off at Madeira if the ship stops there and not all the ships will be full at this time of year. Then there’s the fact that the Mystery Man or MM will be over forty-five if not over fifty. We can rule out anybody younger than that because they couldn’t have been at the battle.’

‘There might be another avenue we could explore,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Suppose we end up with eight or nine possible murderers from Durban — my knowledge of these liners is non-existent but I can remember a little of the geography from my time there in South Africa. It’s a long journey from Johannesburg to Durban but it’s about twice as long to Cape Town. I think you’d be on the train for two or three days. But our Mystery Man must have bought his ticket somewhere. Maybe the Union Castle have an office or an agent in place in Johannesburg or maybe he will have got it from a big travel agent. Could we hire somebody to look into that for us, Inspector?’

‘I don’t think we’d have to hire anybody, my lord. I’ll set the wheels in motion when I get back to the station. South Africa is only one hour ahead in the winter. We have reciprocal arrangements with their police on major investigations. They will go and make the inquiries for us — they will, in any case, be better acquainted with the means of buying tickets on their home turf and so forth.’

‘Just think, Lucy, think, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, rubbing his hands together, ‘we might actually get a name at the end of this process. For so long I have wanted a name. Now at last we might be able to get one.’

Inspector Devereux left for Paddington Station and an evening of preliminary telegraph traffic with Johannesburg and Durban. At the Paddington Hotel he discovered that the answer from Joshua Wingfield Wallace, the private detective, had been picked up shortly before seven o’clock the day after it was posted. The man on reception was new and eager to impress his customers and his bosses. He had, he said, tried to engage the Mr Smith in conversation, but with little success. The only information he got out of Smith, after handing over the letter, was that he, Smith, had to go back to the west of England on business the following day. He had gone to his room and not been seen until his departure the following morning. Smith had taken no meals or drinks of any kind in the Paddington. God knows, the man on reception at the time said, what he had done for food. He must have gone elsewhere by the back entrance. There was just one other thing, the young man on reception told Inspector Devereux. It would be easy to remember this Mr Smith, if that was his real name, which the young man doubted. The accent, the young man thought, was foreign though he couldn’t place it. He was of normal height, in his middle thirties, but he had a great black beard that reached down almost to his chest.

The passenger lists from Durban to London came early the following morning. Inspector Devereux came with them, three lots of passenger lists with two copies of each one, produced at remarkable speed by the Union Castle line’s staff in Southampton. The Powerscourt drawing room had been turned into a battle headquarters with two desks facing each other, one for the Inspector, one for the Powerscourts. Devereux’s sergeant, he told them, was still engaged in telegraphic conversations with the Johannesburg and Durban police.

‘None of the ships were full,’ Devereux said. ‘The Alnwick Castle, the Dover Castle, Walmer Castle all had plenty of space left. They told me, the Southampton people, that there was an average of about one hundred and twenty passengers in first class and about a hundred in second class. That means we’ve got six hundred and sixty names here. I suggest we begin with the Alnwick Castle.’ He handed a sheaf of papers to Powerscourt.

Lady Lucy had always been a believer in lists and notebooks and careful records. She had produced from her stores three brand-new dark blue notebooks, one for each of the participants. After a while, Powerscourt thought, the names and the numbers became hypnotic.

Of the first ten passengers only one deserved to have his name entered in the notebooks as a possible, Mr Raymond Armstrong. All the rest were the wrong age or the wrong sex and even Mr Ramon might have been too old at seventy-one.

‘Inspector Devereux,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘why is this Harry Jones person paying twenty-six pounds eleven shillings for first class when some of the others are paying one hundred and fifty-one pounds each?’

‘Size of cabin, sea views, state room or not, those are what usually sends up the price. Shouldn’t think this Jones has got a sea view at all.’

‘What do you say to the seventy-four-year-old Captain Cooper, Inspector?’ Powerscourt asked.

‘I think not. He’s too old. There’s only Mr Davies, the businessman, and Dr Hodge the politician left in the running for us here and I think we can ignore the doctor. No politician, wherever they come from, is going to risk killing three innocent people, however great their grudge. It would finish their career. So I think we can strike him out, just leaving us with Mr Davies.’

After an hour and a half they were nearing the end of the list of second-class passengers in the final liner, the Walmer Castle.

‘I say, Francis, Inspector,’ Lady Lucy was drawing doodles of glasses, wine glasses, champagne flutes, port glasses, brandy glasses on the left-hand page of her handbook. ‘I wonder if there mightn’t be another way of reducing the number of names we end up with. Do you think, Inspector, that we will be able to discover where most of the tickets were bought?’

‘I hope so,’ said the Inspector.

‘And am I right in saying that even though the ship goes round in a circle in a way, always returning to where it started, the tickets from here will be marked as going from London to Cape Town or London to Durban?’

‘That is correct.’

‘But some of the tickets will be for a return journey. You would pay for such a ticket all together, maybe with a slight reduction, even if you got two separate pieces of paper as you do with a train ticket. But even though it might say that you boarded the ship in Durban, you could be going home. You could have started out in London. And if a lot of the tickets were returns, bought in London, and even though some of the passengers would be marked as having boarded in Durban, and though they would obviously be travelling from South Africa to London, they’d be coming home again. They’d have bought their tickets in London. Mystery Man, on the other hand, would be coming on a ticket almost certainly bought in South Africa, maybe Durban Southampton Durban, but his journey would be the first leg, not the second of the trip. All of which, I think, means that if we can find out where the passengers bought their tickets, we can discount all those return tickets bought at the London end. That should eliminate quite a lot of people.’

‘Well done, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt. ‘That should save us a heap of trouble.’

Ten minutes later Lady Lucy drew a stream of bubbles coming out of an enormous champagne bottle on her pad. ‘We’re through, Inspector. We’ve got thirty-one names of the right age and sex in the first-and second-class accommodation on the three ships.’

‘Excellent,’ said Devereux. ‘I’ve got thirty-two but one of mine is a minister so I think I’ll get rid of the holy man. Some pretty strange occupations on board these vessels. Did you get the chap who was a musical instrument vendor, for heaven’s sake?’

‘We did,’ said Powerscourt, ‘and a quarryman and a fishmonger and a house painter.’

‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take these names to our telegraph office and set to work. I’ll wire over to Thomas Cook to see if any of their branches sold the things. Once we’ve eliminated the people who bought their tickets here I’ll launch the South Africans. The Inspector looking after us in Durban is a famous rugby player — he was on their inaugural tour here four or five years ago. He says he has very fond memories of playing in England.’

‘Dammit, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt after the Inspector left, ‘there’s something niggling at the back of my mind and I can’t get my hands on it. It’s slipped away. I think it might be important.’

‘Well, Francis, you know my views. If you worry away at it, whatever it is, it won’t come to you. If you think of something else altogether, it’ll make its own way to the front of your brain. Think of the latest sins and wickednesses of our precious twins. That should do the trick.’

Powerscourt never heard the end of the sentence. He had shot out of the room and returned almost at once with an enormous atlas under his arm. He took a notebook from his jacket pocket and riffled through the pages. Then he opened the atlas at a page showing the west of England. ‘Contrary to popular opinion after my announcement about passenger lists, Lucy, I have to repeat that I am not going out of my mind. You will recall that the Mr Smith, correctly named or not, said he had to get back to the West Country. And I have just remembered what I was searching for in my mind. When I first met Inspector Devereux in the Silkworkers Hall he was looking at a collection of rubbish that had been collected after the dinner. Among the objects was a part of a ticket, whether bus ticket or train ticket I know not, from a place ending in “be”. Now that is pretty useless in itself, there are a great many place names ending in “be”. And I remember thinking at the time that it could have been the murderer himself who dropped the ticket stub — all the Silkworkers who were there that night came from central London. Now let’s have a hunt for places ending in “be”. I think it means valley in Celtic. Let’s look at Dorset. Here we are. Kingcombe, Barcombe, Loscombe, Melcombe Horsey, riding centre presumably.’

‘Combe Fishacre,’ Lady Lucy took up the chase, ‘Thorncombe, Combe Almer, Motcombe, what a lot of Combes.’

‘Let’s try Devon,’ said her husband. ‘Ellacombe, Maiden-combe, Overcombe, Widecombe, Babbacombe Bay.’

‘Holcombe, Harcombe,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘Boscombe, Salcombe, Combe Buckfastleigh, Branscombe.’

‘I’m sure there’s a whole lot more. I’m going to contact the London Library in a minute. The librarian there is an expert on British place names, I think he even wrote a book on them a couple of years back.’

‘Forgive me, Francis, I’m being dense. What can we do with this list of place names?’

‘We can’t really do anything with them until we have narrowed down the list of names. Now I think about it, mind you, they might help produce the names. This is one of the great beauties of having an Inspector on board, my love. He brings entire police forces with him. We suggest to the good Inspector Devereux that he contacts his brothers in Christ in the counties of Devon and Dorset and Cornwall and ask them which, if any, of the places might be large enough to be issuing tickets, and in which place a man intent on murder might want to hide himself. If the murderers, and I now think there were probably at least two of them, have arrived in one of these places recently, the police should either know about it or know who will tell them, estate agents or hoteliers, those kind of people.’

March 5th 1910. 10.35 From: Inspector Devereux Metropolitan Police.

To: Ticket Offices, Union Castle HQ Southampton.

Re: Triple Murder Inquiry.

We are anxious to discover where the following passengers bought tickets for voyage from Southampton to Durban, single or return, in December last year or on the first voyage in January. Allen, Briggs, Bell, Cameron, De Villiers, Dixon, Dalrymple, Fish, Gibbons, Grant, Hughes, Jackson, Jones-Parry, King, Kruger, Lowther, Macaulay, Matfield, Middleton, Newton, Peters, Poundfoot, Randall, Smit, Steyn, Strauss, Trumper, Turnbull, Vincent, Williams, Winder.

March 5th 1910. 10.45 From: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police. Same inquiry to Messrs Thomas Cook.

March 5th 1910. 11.25

Lord Powerscourt to Charles Hagberg Wright, Librarian, London Library.

Re: Place Names ending in be.

Currently engaged on triple murder inquiry. Suspect villains may have been based in West Country in a place ending in be. Have suspicious bus or train ticket found at one murder site ending in be. Villains may not wish to advertise their presence. Which villages or towns would you recommend we contact. Regards Powerscourt.

March 5th 1910. 12.45

From: Thomas Cook.

To: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

Of 31 names sent, two bought their tickets through our West End branch. Dalrymple, Jones-Parry. Returns Southampton Durban Southampton. First Class. Regards.

March 5th^ 1910. 13.50.

From: Union Castle Ticket Office, Southampton.

To: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

Of 31 names mentioned in your wire, seventeen purchased their tickets in England through our offices or by post: Briggs, Cameron, de Villiers, Dixon, Gibbons, Grant, Jackson, Lowther, Macaulay, Middleton, Newton, Peters, Poundfoot, Randall, Trumper, Turnbull, Williams. All return, Southampton Durban Southampton, except de Villiers and Trumper who were single, second class. All except Cameron, Gibbons, Grant, Newton first class, those four second class. Good luck. Union Castle Line.

March 5th 1910. 14.25.

From: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

To: Inspector Paul Roos, Durban Borough Police, South Africa.

Request info on type of ticket, first or second class, and route, single or return, held by the following passengers Union Castle Cape Town or Durban — Southampton — Durban or Cape Town in the two sailings last December 1909, and first sailing Jan 1910: Allen, Bell, Fish, Hughes, King, Kruger, Matfield. Smit, Steyn, Strauss, Vincent, Winder.

March 5th 1910 15.10.

From: Charles Hagberg Wright, Librarian, London Library.

To: Lord Francis Powerscourt.

Re: Place Names ending in be.

Many place names ending in ‘be’ across West Country, mainly Devon and Dorset, virtually none in Cornwall. Many too small to be good hiding places. Have four for preliminary consideration. Boscombe, next to Bournemouth. Railway station, mineral water, pier, hotels. Ilfracombe, North Devon coast. Tourist town fed by ferries along Bristol Channel. Many hotels, houses owned by naval personnel. Railway station. Babbacombe Bay, smaller than others. Tourist area with many hotels. On coast near Torquay. Served by buses not by trains. Salcombe on its own estuary leading to Kingsbridge. Growing in importance as holiday centre with hotels, large villas for rent, etc. Sailing town, GWR bus serving Kingsbridge railway station. If these don’t work, come back for more. Regards. Good Luck, Hagberg Wright.

March 5th 1910. 15.50.

From: Inspector Devereux. Metropolitan Police.

To: HQ Devon Constabulary, HQ Dorset Constabulary.

Re: Triple Murder Inquiry.

Am looking for party of two or three foreigners, probably South African, who may be staying in one of the following resorts in your jurisdiction, Boscombe, Babbacombe Bay, Ilfracombe, Salcombe. Principal suspect over fifty years old, others probably younger. They could be staying in hotel or rented house. Probably arrived mid to late December. All extremely dangerous. Do not approach unless it can’t be avoided. Regards.

March 5th 1910. 18.15.

From Inspector Paul Roos, Durban Borough Police.

To: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

Re: Triple Murder.

Results so far. All tickets except Bell and Fish, purchased Durban. Bell, Fish singles ex Cape Town. Families related, believed to be going to family function in Oxfordshire and tour of England. Durban passengers Hughes, King, return tickets originating London. All businessmen, known to South African authorities. Smit, Steyn, travelling return Durban Southampton Durban. Pastors with Dutch Reformed Church going to conference in Holland. Information on rest later. Regards.

March 5th 1910. 19.05.

From Inspector Galway, Torquay Police Station.

To: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

Re: Triple Murder:

Babbacombe Bay part of our beat. No trace in hotels or guest houses there of your suspects. Regards, Galway.

March 5th 1910. 19.40.

From: Inspector Harkness, Boscombe Police Station.

To: Inspector Devereux, Metropolitan Police.

Re: Triple Murder.

All Boscombe hotels and guest houses checked. No trace of your suspects here. Sorry. Good luck.

‘I don’t think we’re going to get any more cables today,’ said Inspector Devereux, fresh from the Metropolitan Police telegraph room. ‘You should have had copies of all them,’ he went on, stretching his legs out in front of the fire in Markham Square. ‘What do you think of the news so far?’

‘Normally,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘I’m a hopeful sort of person. But here we are. We’ve eliminated most of the people travelling Durban or Cape Town to Southampton. There’s absolutely no sign of the people we’re interested in, or might be interested in if we knew who they are. Half of the place names in Devon and Dorset have reported back and there’s no sign of the suspects there either. The field is contracting all the time. What happens if we’ve got it all wrong? What happens if they’re not South African at all, if they didn’t need to come here on a great liner because they lived here already? What happens if the strange mark on the dead bodies is just a decoy, a red herring designed to throw us off the scent? What happens if we’ve got everything wrong?’

‘You’re very pessimistic this evening, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I think it’s too soon to give up the ghost. We’re not out of the hunt yet. Let’s wait and see what news tomorrow brings.’

‘But what happens if I’m right and we’ve got everything wrong?’

‘I don’t believe we have got everything wrong, Lucy, my love. But I tell you what I would do if we were wrong.’

‘What’s that, Francis?’

‘I should present my compliments to the Honourable Company of Silkworkers and resign from this case with apologies for failure. And then I should retire completely from all investigations of every sort. Like the man in Candide, I should cultivate my garden.’