Death at the Jesus Hospital

13

The old men of the Jesus Hospital had been summoned to a special meeting in the Maidenhead police station. Black police vans brought those thought unfit to walk the seven hundred yards from the almshouse. The silkmen were kept in the police canteen until it was time for their interview. Afterwards they were free to leave or to wait for the police to take them back home. Under no circumstances were the men who had been through the interview allowed to speak to those who had not. Inspector Fletcher had decided that the easiest way to obtain the information needed about their past lives and their past connections was to ask them. He dreaded to think what might happen if he asked them to write anything down. He had looked at the records of the old men held by Monk in his little office and decided to start again. The Inspector and Sergeant Donaldson were seated side by side at the table in the interview room.

‘Thank you very much for coming,’ Inspector Fletcher began, ‘and thank you for agreeing to answer our questions about your lives before you came here. This will be useful in our investigation.’

There was usually a murmur of dissent from the silkmen at this point. The old gentlemen didn’t like being called out to the police station at ten o’clock in the morning. They didn’t like change to their routines in any shape or form. They didn’t like having to give details of their earlier lives. The sergeant had given it as his opinion that any of them with criminal records or other misdemeanours in their past were hardly likely to tell a police Inspector and a sergeant just yards away from the cells.

‘I am going to ask you a series of questions,’ Fletcher went on. ‘All you have to do is to tell me the answers.’ For once the Inspector’s pauses and hesitations worked to his advantage. The old boys had more time to take in what he was asking. ‘First, this is just for the record, could you give us your full name — that means all your Christian names if you have more than one — and your date of birth.’

Sergeant Donaldson was scribbling furiously in his notebook. He was to remark later that all of them could manage their names but about three of the silkmen were having trouble remembering their birthdays. They would stare blankly at the wall and scratch their heads. The Inspector waited.

‘If you can’t remember your precise date of birth, the year will do,’ he said, wondering if the whole exercise was going to come to nothing, defeated by the ravages of time and old age’s ability to wipe out people’s memories. Two out of the three who had forgotten the exact date managed to tell him the year. The third, Number Four, Bill Smith, known as Smithy, with his shock of white hair, gave up.

Inspector Fletcher took them through the names of their parents, the names of their wife or wives, if such were still alive, which he doubted, and the names of any children and where they were now. He asked for details of the jobs they had held and the places where they had lived. Had any of them, he asked, ever been employed by the government in any way? The post office perhaps? Most important, he said, what was the name and nature of their last job before they came to the Jesus Hospital.

Most of the old men were slow and suspicious, trying to remember some post they might have held thirty or forty years before. The sergeant took pity on them. He had a father the same age as these men, after all. This, he felt, was asking too much of the old boys, reminding each and every one of them how mentally frail they had become and the things they could no longer remember. When they had finished, they sat patiently in their places waiting for the Inspector to dismiss them. He had one last request for them all. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘My final inquiry does not relate to any of you, but I would like you to tell us anything that Abel Meredith may have said to you about his year of birth or his parents or his own family, if he had one, and any jobs or positions he might have mentioned to you. And one other question’ — this, in fact was the point of the entire exercise, heavily disguised under a cover of personal information — ‘did Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, ever ask you to go with him on a journey, to London perhaps, or maybe even abroad?’ Most of the old men looked blank at this point. Most of the information they gave was of little value, but in two cases the answers to this final question were pure gold.

Number Six, Colin Baker, said he had gone with the late Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, to Hamburg for a few days three months before. They had stayed at a modest hotel and seen the sights of the city and its many drinking establishments. Number Twenty had paid all the bills.

‘Were you with him all the time?’ asked Inspector Fletcher.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Number Six.

‘Was there ever a time when you were left on your own? When Abel Meredith, Number Twenty, could have gone to a meeting or something like that?’

There was a long pause while Number Six marshalled his thoughts. Sergeant Donaldson thought he might be about to fall asleep.

‘There was something strange, I suppose, now I come to think about it. It was on our first morning there, just before nine o’clock. I remember that because they had an enormous clock in the dining room where we were having breakfast. Not that you can get a decent breakfast in Hamburg, even the Jesus Hospital can do better than them. Anyway, Number Twenty, says he is just going to look for an English paper. I sat there trying to eat some disgusting cheese and a smelly sausage or two. Number Twenty came back after twenty minutes or so and said there were no English papers to be had. I suppose he could have met somebody in that time. I never thought about it.’

The Inspector and the sergeant exchanged meaningful glances but made no comment. ‘Did you get the impression that he had been there before? Was he able to speak to the natives in German?’

‘Well,’ said Number Six, ‘they certainly knew him at the hotel. I’m sure he’d been there before. And he could certainly jabber on to the locals in their ridiculous language, though I’m not qualified to say how good he was.’

That was all. Colin Baker, Number Six, the man with the wooden leg, could remember no more. Any attempts to obtain more details of this strange holiday were met by a shake of the head and a plea to be allowed to go home.

The other nugget came from Pretty Billy, Number Sixteen, who told of going to London for a day with Abel Meredith the month before he was killed. They had gone to an address in central London where Meredith said he had to see a man about some business to do with his investments. He, Number Sixteen, had been parked in the saloon bar of the Three Horseshoes, virtually next door.

‘Number Twenty left me with two large glasses of port, I remember that now,’ said Pretty Billy. ‘I don’t normally like port but I just fancied it that day. Isn’t it strange how these whims come over you!’ Number Sixteen sank back into a reverie of past port.

‘How long before he came back?’ asked Sergeant Donaldson gently.

‘What was that? Where was I? I see, how long before he came back. Half an hour? Both my glasses were empty by then and I was looking forward to another. But that was not to be. Not that day, anyway. Number Twenty was in a furious temper. “Bastards, bastards,” he kept saying to himself over and over again. He didn’t speak a word to me all the way back to Marlow. Then he went straight to the Rose and Crown and didn’t come out till closing time. I don’t think I can remember any more, Inspector.’

Number Sixteen was the last man to be interviewed. Inspector Fletcher scribbled a rapid telegram to Powerscourt with the news of Hamburg and the meeting in London and sent Sergeant Donaldson off to dispatch it. He leant back in his chair, considering the relevance of the German mission, when a stout constable knocked on the door and headed straight for him.

‘Sorry, sir,’ he began, ‘it’s that woman, sir, the one at the Elysian Fields, sir.’

‘What woman? What are you talking about, for God’s sake?’

‘Sorry, sir, it’s the lady who goes up to Sir Peregrine’s quarters, sir, the suite on the first floor. Constable Jones has apprehended her, sir, on her way out. She’s waiting to talk to you now, sir.’

Inspector Miles Devereux was waiting to meet James Ibbotson in a private room at the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station. Ibbotson was the managing director ousted by Sir Peregrine from his post at a leading insurance company some years before. The Inspector’s reporter friend Sammy Wilson had not only located the man, but had set up the meeting here today. Ibbotson was a short, nervous fellow, with a fancy waistcoat and very small eyes.

‘Good day to you, Mr Ibbotson, how kind of you to come.’

Devereux told him about the murder of Sir Rufus Walcott at the Silkworkers dinner hosted by Sir Peregrine as Prime Warden of the Company.

‘Got the wrong man, didn’t he, our friend the murderer,’ said Ibbotson.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Should have bumped off bloody Sir Peregrine rather than the other fellow, if you ask me. Would have been a public service, don’t you know.’

Inspector Devereux had wondered before now if the intended victim might not have been Sir Peregrine, the death of Sir Rufus a mistake.

‘We believe this murder may be linked to one or two others, one in Buckinghamshire where Sir Peregrine was spotted some time before the killing took place, and the other in Norfolk, near to where Sir Peregrine has a house.’

‘Arrest him then,’ said Ibbotson, with rather a vicious smile. ‘It’s about time the man was put behind bars. One thing’s rather a pity, mind you. If he killed all of them he can still only be hanged once. Three times would have been more satisfactory. No chance of bringing back disembowelling, I suppose?’

‘I take it, Mr Ibbotson, that you are still protesting your innocence about the so-called forgeries at your previous place of employment?’

‘I am indeed, sir. I am as innocent as the newborn babe. I was cheated out of my position, sir, cheated. It’s a scandal.’

‘Forgive me for asking, but what is your occupation now?’

‘You may ask,’ said Ibbotson, ‘indeed in your position you must ask. It took me eighteen months, sir, to obtain a new post. My name had been blackened right across the City of London. I now have connections with the National Trust through my wife’s family. I am employed by them as senior accountant.’

‘I have to ask this question too, Mr Ibbotson. Where were you between ten o’clock at night on the twenty-first of January and nine o’clock the following morning?’

‘I was at home,’ said Ibbotson. ‘We had two friends from the Trust to supper. I suppose they went home about half past ten. My wife and I turned in shortly after that. The following morning I went to work in the usual way. I reached my office about half past eight and was there, or in meetings, all morning.’

‘And your friends and colleagues would support your account?’

‘They would. I shall give you their names.’ The former managing director entered three names into Devereux’s notebook. He turned back at the door. ‘Please let me know when you arrest Sir Peregrine, Inspector. I would be most interested.’

‘What would you do?’ asked Inspector Devereux.

‘Revenge,’ the little man said, ‘is a dish best eaten cold, according to the Spanish. I have spent years with the prospect of revenge getting colder every year. It’s well refrigerated by now, my lust for revenge, it’s practically turned to ice. I would, of course, visit Sir Peregrine in prison. I don’t think I’d bother saying anything. Just looking at him behind bars in prison clothes would be enough, I think. I’m sure I could look at him all day.’

Sergeant Morris wasn’t looking forward to his interview with Mrs Maud Lewis, christened the merry widow by his Inspector. The sergeant wasn’t as hopeless with women as the Inspector, but he thought he might have to ask her a number of very personal questions. As he passed the Farmers’ Arms and set off up the road, he consoled himself with the thought that she might be one of those talkative women only too happy to tell her entire life history once they have a captive listener. The sergeant had met a number of those in his time.

She was all charm as he arrived, showing him into an enormous drawing room lined with paintings and photographs of dogs. Mrs Lewis was about fifty years old and dressed from head to toe in black. She was a nervous woman, forever fidgeting in her chair or clasping and unclasping her hands. The sergeant had an aunt with exactly the same mannerisms. A servant was ordered to bring them tea at once.

‘Sergeant Morris, did you say, you must be all worked off your feet just now with this terrible murder. What a business! And to think that I knew the deceased! I’ve never known a deceased before! My own dear Roderick, cut off in his prime in that dreadful way!’

The sergeant saw that he might have trouble steering the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.

‘Perhaps you could tell me how you came to be living here in Fakenham, Mrs Lewis? Of course there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be living here, but I don’t think you’ve been with us very long.’

‘You’re quite right, Sergeant, I haven’t been here very long, but I do like to think that Fakenham has taken me to its bosom! Such kind people! We lived in the Midlands before where Horace had his business. He was my late husband, Sergeant, bless him. Horace had a chain of stores, you know, clothing shops, shirts, blouses, undergarments. Horace always said that ladies’ undergarments were his top sellers. Give them the right stuff and the customers will always come back, that was his motto. The shops were in and around Birmingham but we lived in a better sort of neighbourhood, Edgbaston Park. We had a very tasteful residence there. Do you know Edgbaston Park at all, Sergeant?’

The policeman shook his head.

‘It’s rather like one of these Norfolk towns, Edgbaston Park, quite superior people living there. We were so happy in the place, Horace with the shops, the boys off our hands, all our friends.’ Mrs Lewis paused briefly to pour some tea. ‘But then, two years ago to the day next Wednesday, we were struck by tragedy. Well, Horace was, really. He was up a ladder in the back storeroom of the main shop, checking on the supplies of some items of hosiery when he was struck down! Quite what Horace was doing up this ladder when he had all those people on his staff I don’t know. Anyway the young lady with him tried to bring him round on the floor where he’d fallen. No use, no use at all, Horace had had a heart attack up the ladder and that was the end of him. He’d often talked of heaven being like an enormous shop where you could buy everything without paying. Well, now he’d gone there. By express. He’d always been fond of expresses, Horace.’

She took another mouthful of tea. The sergeant wondered how the unfortunate Horace had coped with this very talkative wife. Had she gone on like this all evening in the tasteful residence at Edgbaston Park?

‘It took such a long time to get things straight, Sergeant. The staff in Horace’s shops did ask me on a number of occasions if I would take over the management of the business but I said I would find the memories of Horace too painful. They understood that, bless them. I still own some shares, mind you, so Horace keeps me supplied with dividends from beyond the grave! I’m sure he would be pleased about that. And then I came here. And then I met Roderick. My fiancee, you know. We hadn’t told anybody about it, well, hardly anybody, but you are the law, aren’t you, Sergeant, so it’s only proper I should tell you. Render unto Caesar, Roderick used to say. Do you know, Sergeant, I’ve never known what that meant, and I’ve never liked to ask in case people thought I was stupid. Do you know what it means, Sergeant?’

‘I think, Mrs Lewis, that it’s a quotation from the New Testament. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, render unto God the things that are God’s. It means you should pay your taxes to the state like a good citizen, and you should go to church and worship God as well.’

‘I think that’s very fair, Sergeant. I expect you have to know things like that in the police force. Come to think of it, you are like Caesar, the law of the land, and the dear vicar is like God.’

‘Could I ask, Mrs Lewis, forgive me if this seems a personal question, how you came to know Mr Gill?’

‘I met him through the church, of course — appropriate now we are talking of rendering unto God. He was often in the church, looking after the accounts, counting the collection money. The Reverend Williamson is a very conscientious man, but I don’t think he knew anything about money. He used to say that Roderick was his right-hand man. Horace had a chap in the shops who did the figures, not a nice man like my Roderick, but he knew all about the taxes and how, sometimes, you could avoid paying them. Dear me, I shouldn’t have told you that, should I! Horace would be so cross with me. If you’ve got one sin, Maud, he used to say, it’s that you open your big mouth without thinking about it!’

‘Don’t worry about that, Mrs Lewis,’ said the sergeant. ‘We’re engaged on a murder investigation here, nothing to do with taxes.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Mrs Lewis. ‘Now where was I?’

‘You were talking about your meeting with Mr Gill.’

‘Ah, yes. I think we grew close when we were working on the arrangements for the Harvest Festival. It was as if love was blossoming among the fruit and vegetables dotted around the church. After that Roderick used to come to my house after we had a few drinks in the Farmers’ Arms together. Roderick would drink Guinness and I would have a glass of port — Horace introduced me to port years ago — and things progressed from there.’

‘When did you become engaged, Mrs Lewis?’

‘I’ll always remember that, Sergeant. It was after the midnight carol service on Christmas Eve. We were sitting together near the front. I remember thinking that Roderick was coming close to me during “Oh Come all ye Faithful”. Then he came even closer when we were singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. And then, would you believe this, Sergeant, he actually held my hand while we were singing “Silent Night”! Discreetly, of course, not so people could see. I wondered if he was going to propose while we were in church, in “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” perhaps, but he waited till we were home again.’

The sergeant wanted to ask if the school bursar stayed the night on these romantic evenings, but he thought it better not.

‘Have you told your children about this?’

A small cloud seemed to pass across Mrs Lewis’s features. ‘Well, I did, actually. I think it’s fair to say that neither William nor Montague ever understood Roderick. They never liked him. It was so unfair. Roderick tried so hard.’

‘Did you have rows about it, Mrs Lewis? Sorry, but we have to ask questions like these.’

‘I expect somebody has been telling stories out of school at the Farmers’ Arms. Quite why these snooping people have to listen in to private conversations I’ll never know. Yes, there was a row.’ For the first time in the conversation Mrs Lewis seemed to have lost the power of speech.

‘Was the row about money? About who you were going to leave the shares to?’

‘My goodness, they were listening carefully, weren’t they! Yes, it was. What you must understand is that Horace left the two boys very well off. Each of them has as many shares in the business as I have, if not more. Neither of them has to work at all. So I can’t see why they were so cross when I said I was going to leave my shares to Roderick after we were married and I made a new will.’

‘But you didn’t. Get married, I mean, did you, Mrs Lewis? You didn’t have much time between the engagement and the murder.’

‘No,’ said Mrs Lewis sadly, ‘we didn’t. Such a pity as I’d seen a very beautiful hat over in Norwich. I was so looking forward to getting married in that hat.’

‘And tell me, pray, the will you already had in place, the one that was valid when Mr Gill was killed, where did that leave the money?’

‘That went to the two boys, all of it. I hadn’t even met Roderick when I made that will.’

‘I’ve nearly finished, Mrs Lewis, just one last thing, if I may. Could you just give me the address or addresses for the boys? I don’t think they live locally, do they?’

‘Montague lives at fourteen North Road in Highgate near the school, and William lives at thirty-four Noel Road in Islington. Such pretty houses they have. Now then, will you take a glass of Madeira before you go, Sergeant? A small sherry? I usually have a little tipple about this time!’

The sergeant declined. As he made his way back to the station he wondered if Mrs Lewis realized the import of what she had told him. She had just pointed out that her two sons, singly or together, had very powerful motives for murder.

Powerscourt discovered to his great delight that M. Olivier Brouzet, director general of the French secret service, was not at his elegant headquarters in the Place des Vosges in Paris. He was in London, conferring with his English counterparts. He met Powerscourt in a charming room, hung with Gobelin tapestries, in the French Embassy.

‘Thank you for your note, how pleasant to meet you again, Lord Powerscourt.’ Olivier Brouzet was still slim and dapper with a charming smile. ‘You mention you have been having trouble with secrecy in your secret service? Is that so, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt explained about the murder at the Jesus Hospital and the two further murders at places connected with the Silkworkers Company. He mentioned the strange marks on the dead men’s chests. He told Brouzet about meeting Colonel Arbuthnot outside the almshouse and his great reluctance to give any details of his interest in the victim and the manner of his death. And he passed on his latest intelligence about the highly suspicious trip to Hamburg and the meeting in London that infuriated Abel Meredith. He complained about the secrecy in the organization he had served.

‘Maybe you should make allowances, my friend. This secret organization of yours is very young. Perhaps they do not yet know how to behave.’

‘Colonel Arbuthnot hinted that Meredith might have been turned into a double agent by the Germans. Do you think that is possible?’

‘Anything is possible in this secret world, my friend. This Meredith would seem to have been used as a courier, but then the colonel more or less admitted that, did he not, when he said his service sometimes used the Silkworkers as messengers. It’s quite smart, I think. Maybe we should infiltrate our winegrowers’ fraternities and use them to take messages to and from Germany under cover of friendly visits to the vineyards of Hock and Moselle. In the world of espionage, Lord Powerscourt, if you look at things very closely for a long time you may end up entertaining the most fantastical notions. You can think you are going mad, and some of us do. It becomes like a repeating image in a hall of mirrors. The man is a double agent, no, he is a triple agent, you can go on for ever. Certainly the British have turned quite a lot of people in recent times. Betraying your country is often preferable to four years in some ghastly English prison where the inmates will beat you up all the time for being a German spy. Patriotism flourishes in the most unlikely places.’

‘What would you advise, Monsieur Brouzet? Should I take this spying business seriously or not?’

‘That is a difficult question, my friend. Part of the difference between our two countries on espionage-related matters is that of geography. You have the waters of the North Sea between you and the Kaiser. For us, he is, literally, next door. That is why I think these matters are taken more seriously in France than in Britain. Let me ask you a question. From what you have told me, you think these mysterious marks hold the key to the crimes, the fact that all three corpses have been defaced in the same way. Is that right?’

‘It is,’ said Powerscourt, wondering where this French logic might be taking him.

‘Well, my friend, it seems unlikely to me that all three dead men were involved with the secret service and acting as couriers to Germany and back. I do not believe the Germans would come all this way to kill all three of them. I think that’s very unlikely. So I think you should not close your mind to the possibilities of espionage in this case, but I do not think it should be at the forefront of your mind either. I tell you what I will do. Quite soon I have a meeting with the superior officer of this Colonel Arbuthnot. I shall ask him about events at the almshouse. I shall tell him that we had an agent holidaying at your Elysian Fields Hotel who heard about the murder inquiry and reported back to us. I shall, of course, let you know what he says.’

Inspector Fletcher had never interviewed a professional mistress before, if that was what she was. He wasn’t quite sure if she had committed any crimes. The young lady had blonde hair and bright blue eyes and went straight on to the attack as if she were a professional boxer.

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘are you in charge round here? That man of yours, Constable whatever his name is, he seems to have lost the power of speech.’

‘I am the senior investigating officer, looking into a case of murder. Fletcher is my name. I’m an Inspector.’

‘Good for you. Well done. Nobody’s mentioned murder round here to me. Everybody’s still alive in this hotel as far as I know. Some of them may be bloody old but they’re not dead yet. Not quite. My name’s Francesca, by the way, my friends call me Frankie. I don’t know nothing about this murder, wherever it was. Why can’t I go home? You’ve got no cause to hold on to me. I’ve got work to do.’

‘I’m sure you do. What kind of work do you do, Miss Francesca?’

‘I’m a masseuse. And I do occasional escort work sometimes. If the money’s right. Do you need a massage, Inspector? You look pretty tense to me.’

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said the Inspector. ‘I wonder if you could tell me about your relationship with one of the directors here, Sir Peregrine Fishborne.’

‘What’s it got to do with you, my relationship as you call it, with old Fishcake? None of your bloody business.’

‘There you’re wrong. The murder we are investigating took place at an almshouse not far from here. Sir Peregrine was here at the hotel the night of the murder. We think you may have been with him. The date of which we speak is January twenty-second.’

‘I may have been with him that night,’ Francesca said, ‘and I may not. I can’t be expected to remember exactly where I was all the time. I still don’t think it’s any of your business.’

‘Did you come down with Sir Peregrine in his car? Or did you make your own way here? It was a Saturday. The hotel people remember you being here. In the Baron Haussmann Suite.’

‘What if I was?’

‘Could I ask you what you were doing with Sir Peregrine so late at night?’

‘You may. He needed a massage. He often sends for me here when he needs a massage. He’s got a terrible back, old Fishcake, just terrible.’

‘I see,’ said the Inspector. ‘And does the treatment involve you staying the night?’

‘You’re the nosey one, aren’t you? Course it does. Sometimes the treatment doesn’t work first time round. You have to do it again. “Frankie,” old man Fishcake would say to me, “despite your best efforts, I’m afraid it hasn’t taken. One more time if you please.” And usually he needs it again in the morning. Help him through the day, that sort of thing. What’s he done anyway, my client? You’re not suspecting him of the murder, are you?’ With that Francesca began to laugh. ‘All the time he’s lying there, scarcely able to move, you think he’s off up at the almshouse killing somebody? Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Can you remember, Miss Francesca, if Sir Peregrine required further treatment in the morning? Can you remember what time he left the hotel?’

‘There is one thing you can say about old Fishcake, he’s very regular in his habits. He always wants it in the morning, the treatment, I mean. Never known him not to. He usually left very early in the morning after I’d seen to him. Seven o’clock? Eight o’clock? Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. His back was so bad one day recently I had to stay till ten o’clock.’

‘Has this masseuse duty been going on for long, Miss Francesca?’

‘Long enough, Inspector. There are times when a girl might like to be pummelling something younger, if you follow me, but I can’t complain. I’ve been seeing to him for about six months, I should say.’

‘How does he get in touch with you, Miss Francesca?’

‘You’re getting very cheeky, young man. I shall answer this question and then no more. He’s lent me a flat so I can treat him there when he needs me to. Just off the Strand. And he’s installed one of those telephone things so he can call when he needs me. That’s your lot, sunny Jim. I’m off.’

The constable and the Inspector made their way back to the station.

‘Do you know, sir, I’m not feeling too good,’ said the constable.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

‘It’s my back, sir. I seem to have twisted something. I think I need a massage.’