Death At Epsom Downs

Newnham Grange was a late eighteenth-century house stuck all over with chimney pots and built on a branch of the River Cam about halfway between Foster’s Mill and the Newnham Mill, on the outskirts of Cambridge near the Silver Street Bridge. By a great coincidence, Charles had actually visited the house some time before, for it was the residence of George Darwin, the second son of the famous evolutionist Charles Darwin. George Darwin, professor of astronomy at Cambridge, was well-known in his own right, and his speculative interest in the movements of the moon and the tides happened to coincide with Lord Charles’s. After the publication the previous year of Professor Darwin’s book, The Tides and Kindred Phenomena of the Solar System, they had met several times to discuss these highly theoretical and rather fantastic topics, and Charles had once been asked to Newnham Grange to continue their conversation.

As Charles did not wish to make explanations to the Darwins (Mrs. Darwin was an American, a lovely woman but apt to make a fuss about things), he stopped the gig at Foster’s Mill and gave the horse into the care of a boy who worked there. After some discussion, he and Murray agreed that Murray would go to the Grange kitchen and try to find out from the cook whether she knew the whereabouts of her brother. Charles would wait on the nearby Silver Street Bridge.

Murray went on foot down the drive and around to the tradesman’s entrance. The kitchen door was opened by an aproned girl, and the odor of onions assaulted him. He snatched off his bowler hat. “Mrs. Thompson, please,” he said humbly.

The girl took in his green bow tie, checked tweed suit, and bowler hat. “I s’pose ye’re ’ere ’bout the oysters,” she said enigmatically.

“Actually, I-” Murray said.

“Ye’d better come in, then, and face up to it.” The girl opened the door. She turned and bawled, over her shoulder, “It’s a man ’bout them bad oysters, Miz Thompson.” She went into the scullery to carry on with the washing up, making a great show of banging the pots and pans.

Sally Thompson was a large woman with a round face and a cross expression. Her gray hair was curled like a large snail at the back of her neck, and her bulbous nose was red and covered with a spidery web of blood vessels. With a glower, she looked up from her work at the pine table, where she was elbow-deep in a tub of bread dough. The offending onions were cooking in a cast-iron fry pan on the coal range.

“I can’t take the respons’bility fer them oysters,” she said in a dark tone. “Ye’ll ’ave to talk to Mrs. Darwin. She wuz terr’ble upset, ’cause there was fourteen t’dinner, including Perfessor Kelvin, ’oo is partic’lar fond of oysters.” She gave him a knowing look. “I’m sure ye can guess wot ’appened after that.”

Murray preferred not to think about it. “I’m very sorry about the oysters, Mrs. Thompson,” he said contritely, “but that is not why I’ve come. I was sent by Mr. Thompson’s cousin Angus.” In the scullery, there was a lull in the banging of the pots.

Mrs. Thompson looked momentarily confused, as if she were having difficulty associating her dead husband’s cousin and the misadventure of the oysters. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, Angus,” she said, and turned a large lump of dough out of the tub onto the floury table. “ ’Ow is the old devil?”

“Oh, he’s quite well, thank you.” Murray added, inventively, “He asked to be remembered to you. With affection.”

Mrs. Thompson put her head on one side and smiled reminiscently, raising her voice over the sound of pot-washing, which had once again resumed. “Angus was allus me fav’rite on that side of the fam’ly.” She floured her hands and began to knead the dough with a vigorous push and pull. “Why’d ’e send ye?”

“He and I both are eager to get in touch with your brother,” Murray said. “It’s a matter of some importance, I’m afraid.”

“Eddie?” Mrs. Thompson’s eyes flickered. She frowned. “Wot’s ’e done now?”

“Oh, nothing,” Murray said hastily. “Nothing at all. But it is possible that he may have some information about an accident in Newmarket. Angus thought you might happen to know where he is.”

Mrs. Thompson kneaded more vigorously. “Are ye from the p’lice?”

“No, ma’am. As I said, your cousin sent me. He is as anxious as I am to be in touch with Eddie.”

“Well, it’s no good talkin’ to me,” Mrs. Thompson said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Ye’re on a wild-goose chase.” Into another pause in the washing-up clatter, she added, “I ain’t seen Eddie since Boxing Day. ’E don’t come ’ere much. We ain’t been wot ye might call close since our poor dear mother died.”

“Oh, dear,” Murray said. “That really is too bad.” The scullery remained silent. “You’re sure you can’t give me some clue to his whereabouts? It’s awfully urgent, I’m afraid. A man’s life may depend on his information.” He paused. “I’d be glad to make it worth your while.”

Mrs. Thompson turned the pliant dough and pummeled it as though it were the truant Eddie. “I ain’t me brother’s keeper,” she snapped. “Off with ye now. If ye can’t ’elp with the oysters, ye’re no good to me.”

Murray turned, catching the flash of an apron at the scullery door. “If you hear of him,” he said, putting one of his cards on the table, “I can be reached at this address.”

For answer, Mrs. Thompson only assaulted the dough more energetically. Murray put on his hat and went to the door. “Thank you,” he said loudly. “I’ll be off now.”

He went out, leaving the door open a little behind him. Ten paces down the path, he stepped into the shrubbery and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Inside two or three minutes, the surly girl had joined him. He put his hand in his pocket and felt for a coin.

“Where is he?” he asked in a low voice.

The girl looked at the coin and gave a scornful grunt. “Thought ye said ’twas a man’s life.”

Murray added a second coin.

“ ’E’s down there,” the girl said with a nod toward the river. “At the cottage on the bank, just down from the bridge. That’s where she lives, the old witch. But ye’d better ’urry. ’E’s leavin’ today. ’E’s goin’ t’America.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

But she was already striding off, back to the scullery and a sink full of dirty pots and pans.

Charles and Murray made their way down an overgrown path toward the river, which still smelled of sewage, although drains had recently been installed throughout the town. Charles half smiled, remembering the story of Queen Victoria, being shown over Trinity College many years before by its master, Dr. Whewell, and asking, when she walked over the bridge, about the pieces of paper that were floating down the river. Dr. Whewell, with extraordinary presence of mind, had replied: “Those, Your Majesty, are notices that bathing is forbidden.”

The path dipped down to the riverbank. Ahead of them stood a small timber-framed Tudor cottage that might have been a bucolic addition to a romantic landscape painting, overhung as it was by a large weeping willow and fronted with a rose hedge in full bloom. Behind the cottage a small herd of cows was fording a shallow inlet on their way to their pasture at Sheep’s Green, and out on the river proper Charles could see two rowing teams in their sculls.

But the damp situation and the occasional spring rises of the River Cam had not done the cottage any good, and whatever pastoral romance it might have offered to a harried city-dweller in search of a weekend rural retreat was obscured by its dilapidated reality. The plaster on the walls had sloughed off, exposing the lath underneath; the thatched roof was ragged and pocked; the plank door sagged at an angle; and the window frame gapped so widely that, open or closed, there must be no want of fresh air indoors, especially when the winter winds blew. Through the dirty glass, Charles saw that the ground floor was one small, dark room, like a cave, brick-floored, with a fireplace at one end and a ladder at the other, reaching up through the low ceiling into a loft. Mrs. Sally Thompson seemed not to have made a great success of life, at least so far as material possessions might testify, for the room contained only a bare table, three chairs, and a narrow bed under a gray wool coverlet, pushed against the back wall. There was no china on the mantel, no pots of geraniums on the sill, no braided rug on the floor, no cozy cat warming itself by the fire-walthough an old black-and-white dog lay under the willow tree. Two empty whiskey bottles in the dustbin outside the door suggested one possible reason for the lack of niceties and knicknacks. Mrs. Thompson was fond of her tipple.

Inside the cottage, a slender man in a light-blue checked suit was just descending the ladder from the loft, a blue tweed cap on his head and a portmanteau in one hand. He turned toward the door just as Charles stepped inside, followed by Jack Murray, who was followed in turn by the dog, who stood just inside the doorway, scratching. They seemed to fill the small room.

The man looked up, his face draining of color, his eyes wide with sudden fear behind thick-lensed glasses. Then, seeing men whom he did not recognize, his fear turned to nervous belligerence.

“Who’re you?” he demanded thinly. “What do you want?”

“We’ve come to talk to you, Mr. Baggs,” Charles said, wondering just who the man had feared might find him. The police, perhaps? Or someone else?

The man cleared his throat. “There’s no Baggs here,” he said indistinctly. “You’ve got the wrong house. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be off. I’ve a train to catch.”

“It’s Baggs, all right,” Murray said in a low voice to Charles. “I saw him once, with Badger. No mistaking those glasses. He’s blind as a bat without them.” At the mention of Badger’s name, the man pressed his lips together.

“Mr. Baggs,” Charles said. “I am Charles Sheridan and this is Jack Murray. We are conducting a private investigation, commissioned by the Jockey Club, into the murder of your partner. We would like to ask you a few questions, please.”

The dog growled low in his throat. Baggs put down his portmanteau and straightened his shoulders, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “A… private investigation?” he asked hesitantly.

“Right,” Murray answered gruffly. “We ain’t police.” He booted the dog outside, closed the door, and shoved the bolt into place. The action was clearly a threat.

Baggs’s chin began to quiver. “I… I don’t know anything about Badger,” he said plaintively. “I heard he’d been shot, but I’d already made plans to leave before that happened. I’ve been… I’ve decided to go into a different line of work, you see. In America. I’m looking for more opportunity.”

“That’s interesting,” Charles said, as Murray began to edge around the table. He gave Baggs an encouraging smile. “It is a natural thing to want more opportunity, and I congratulate you on your initiative. But what about your business in Newmarket? I’ve heard that it’s thriving. I shouldn’t think you’d want to leave it.”

“Business?” Baggs asked uneasily, his glance shifting from Charles to Murray. He took a step backward, in the direction of the fireplace. “That’s all over. Badger and I ended our partnership the week before, quite… quite amicably.”

“Amic’bly, huh?” Murray snarled, now standing within an arm’s length of Baggs. He spoke in a thick Cockney accent that made him seem larger and more menacing than he was. “That ain’t wot Sobersides sez. ’E sez you threatened to kill Badger if ’e didn’t lay off about the doping. ’E sez ’e’ll swear to it in court. So wot about it, huh? You killed ’im, right? You killed Badger.”

“No!” Baggs took another step backward. His eyes were wide and frightened behind his glasses, his mouth was working. “We… we may have had a few hard words. But-”

“When I said that your business was thriving, I was speaking of your connection with the Americans,” Charles said mildly. “I understand from various sources that you have undertaken a new business arrangement with them, which was in part the reason for terminating your relationship with Mr. Day.”

“That ain’t all,” Murray said menacingly. He thrust his face close to Baggs’s and growled, “You ’ad a row wiv Badger at the Great Horse jes’ before ’e was killed-a big row. You wuz seen, and ’eard, Baggs, so don’t try to lie out of it.”

Charles pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, crossing his legs. He leaned back. “I fear that Mr. Murray is correct,” he said regretfully. “The proprietor will testify that you followed Badger out of the pub and didn’t come back. I’m very much afraid that the police believe that you are the killer, Mr. Baggs. They’re looking for you, you see. They will no doubt trace you, just as we did.” He shook his head, the gesture seeming to say that it was a pity that such a promising career could be cut off by so dreadful a misunderstanding.

Baggs sagged against the fireplace mantel. “I… I’m not the man they’re looking for,” he whispered. His eyes were terrified. “I… I swear it.”

Murray yanked the other chair forward. “Oh, yeah?” He put a thick hand on Baggs’s shoulder and forced him into the chair. “You sure look like that man to me, Baggs, you do fer a fact. You and Badger ’ad a row, you followed ’im out in the alley, you shot ’im.” He leaned over and shouted into Baggs’s ear. “You did it. Didn’t you?”

Baggs shook his head wordlessly, his eyes rolling.

Charles leaned forward. “Then who did?” he asked softly.

“I… don’t know,” Baggs said. He blinked rapidly, as if he were blinking back tears. “I… didn’t see.”

Murray reached down and snatched Baggs’s thick glasses. “Lemme see them specs o’ yers. Mebbe you need better lenses, huh? Mebbe that way, you can see.”

“Give me back my spectacles!” Baggs cried, leaping up from the chair and grabbing at the air. “I can’t see without them!”

Roughly, Murray pushed him back onto the chair. “But you couldn’t see wiv ’em, now, could you, guv’nor? You couldn’t see ’oo killed Badger, right? So they ain’t much good to you, are they?” He held up the glasses with a grating laugh. “So mebbe I’ll jes’ step on ’em.”

“No, no!” Baggs turned to Charles, begging. “Stop him, please, sir!” He rubbed his eyes with the backs of both hands, like a schoolboy. “Make him give them back, sir!”

“I’m afraid that Mr. Murray is deplorably single-minded,” Charles said sadly. “He has his own methods for getting information, and he does not take direction well. You will have to undertake to persuade him yourself.”

Baggs was openly weeping now. “What… what do you want?”

Murray leaned close. “The truth!” he thundered. “ ’Oo killed Alfred Day?” He put the spectacles on the floor and raised one foot as if to crush them.

Faced with this terrifying loss, Baggs broke down completely.