Waxwork

TUESDAY, 19th JUNE

Cribb had spent Monday footing it round Brentford and Kew checking the statements in the file at Scotland Yard-work for a constable. As there was no constable assigned to the case, he had done it himself. It was a self-inflicted chore. He was unwilling to rely on any statement taken by Inspector Waterlow. So he had talked to the Brentford pawnbroker Miriam Cromer had done business with, he had seen Dr Eagle in his surgery and he had spent two hours questioning the servants at Park Lodge. Nothing significant had emerged. It was dispiriting to admit, but he could not fault Waterlow’s work.

Over a solitary beer that evening he had concluded that whatever the outcome of this inquiry, there was nothing in it for him. If he proved beyond doubt that Miriam Cromer had made a false confession and been convicted of a crime she did not commit, the embarrassment to the judiciary, the Home Office, the police did not bear thinking about. The hullabaloo would be heard all over England. Nobody would thank him. And if his inquiry upheld the verdict of the court, it would simply underline the thoroughness of Waterlow’s work. In handing on this case, Chief Inspector Jowett had played his meanest trick.

Tuesday morning found him in the Strand, at the office of the Portrait Photographers’ League. He had decided to make an independent check of Howard Cromer’s movements on the day of the murder.

The League shared the second floor with an insurance broker. Cribb’s knock was answered by a worried-looking clerk in a thin suit of faded black and a frayed collar.

‘Yes?’

‘This is the Portrait Photographers’ League?’

‘Yes.’

‘Excellent. And who are you?’

‘Wallis, sir. The clerk.’

‘Well, Wallis, may I come in?’

‘But I don’t know-’

‘A member,’ Cribb said with plausible stiffness. ‘There is no objection, I trust, to a member calling?’

‘This is only the office,’ Wallis said, keeping a firm hold on the door. ‘Members generally meet at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, to which the League is affiliated. That is in Savile Row.’

‘That’s no good to me,’ said Cribb. ‘You are the man who can help me. You do have the minutes of the Annual General Meeting here?’

‘Somewhere, but I am not certain-’

‘Then kindly produce them, would you? I don’t have a lot of time.’

The clerk took a deep breath and said, ‘That really isn’t possible this morning.’

‘Not possible?’ said Cribb in a shocked voice. ‘Not possible for a member to inspect the minutes of the A.G.M.? Are you familiar with the Constitution?’

A moment later he was in the office with a copy of the minutes in his hand.

A theory he had gently nurtured for two days took a turn for the worse as he read, ‘The Annual General Meeting at the Metropole Hotel, Brighton, 12th March, 1888. Owing to the indisposition of the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman presided. Opening the meeting, he welcomed the sixty-three members present.’

He asked Wallis, ‘Were you at Brighton this year?’

‘I was, sir.’

‘It says here that the Vice-Chairman presided. That is correct?’

‘Quite correct, sir.’

‘The meeting opened in the morning, I believe. There was no delay?’

‘No delay, sir. It started sharp at eleven.’

If Howard Cromer had opened the A.G.M. at eleven, he must have left Kew soon after nine that morning.

‘How long did it go on?’

‘It should tell you in the minutes, sir. Some time after four, as I recollect. There was an adjournment for lunch, of course. That was between one o’clock and half past two.’

‘Mr Cromer presided for the whole of the meeting, did he?’

Wallis frowned. ‘Mr Cromer, sir?’

‘Howard Cromer-the Vice-Chairman.’

‘No, sir. Mr Cromer did not take the chair.’

Cribb held out the minutes. ‘This states quite clearly that the Vice-Chairman presided. Mr Cromer is the Vice-Chairman, is he not?’

‘He is, to be sure,’ said the clerk, ‘But at the start of the A.G.M. he was not. If you recall the agenda, sir, one of the final items of business was the election of the new committee. Mr Cromer is the new Vice-Chairman. Mr Dartington-Fisher, of the outgoing committee, presided. The new committee were elected towards the end of the afternoon.’

Cribb’s eye raced down the minutes. ‘Election of Committee for 1888/9. Messrs. D. C. Turner (Chairman), H. Cromer (Vice-Chairman) and W. Hollinghurst (Secretary) were elected unopposed. Mr J. Templeton and Mr P. Hartley-Smith were nominated for the position of Treasurer, Mr Templeton being elected by forty-seven votes to thirty-one.’

So Howard Cromer had been in Brighton on the afternoon of the murder-or had he?

‘These nominations: were they made in advance of the meeting?’

‘Naturally, sir. If you recall the Constitution-’

‘Were these gentlemen present at the meeting?’

‘Assuredly,’ said Wallis, toppling Cribb’s theory with a word.

‘You’re positive?”

‘If it is Mr Cromer you are thinking of, I spoke to him myself at the conclusion of the meeting, sir.’

With a click of the tongue, Cribb resumed his reading of the minutes. He wanted to see if there was any evidence that Cromer had been present at Brighton in the morning.

‘Here’s a queer thing,’ he presently said. ‘The Treasurer was elected by forty-seven votes to thirty-one. Would you check my mental arithmetic, Wallis? Forty-seven and thirty-one comes to more than sixty-three, doesn’t it? It states at the beginning that there were sixty-three members in attendance at this A.G.M.’

‘Sixty-three in the morning, sir. A number of members were unable to be present for that session from pressure of business. The election is generally held over until the afternoon to ensure that members arriving late have an opportunity to register their votes.’

Possibilities mounting again, Cribb asked, ‘You wouldn’t recollect who arrived late?’

Wallis shook his head. ‘My memory doesn’t go back to March, sir. Not unless’-he reached for a box-file-‘they wrote to the secretary advising him that they were unable to be present in the morning.’

Cribb waited while the clerk sorted through the contents of the file.

‘A lot of these are simple apologies for absence. I dare say you sent one yourself, sir. Now here are some pinned together. These, I think-’

‘May I?’ Cribb whipped the small sheaf of letters out of the clerk’s hand and riffled through them. ‘Ah.’

The first piece of new evidence to come his way. On headed notepaper from Park Lodge, dated Sunday, 11th March, 1888, Howard Cromer had written:

‘My dear Thorne,

This is to advise you that I am unfortunately prevented by another commitment from attending the first session of the A.G.M. tomorrow. In tendering my apology, I assure you that I shall be present after lunch and that I wish my nomination for the Committee to stand.

Sincerely,

H. Cromer’

‘You won’t need this,’ said Cribb, pocketing it. The others he handed back.

‘Just a moment, sir!’

‘Regrettably,’ said Cribb, ‘I haven’t another moment to spare. Good day to you, Wallis.’

Out in the Strand, he started whistling. This was a thankless assignment, but it was still pleasing to have picked up something Waterlow had missed. As he approached the Proud Peacock, he decided to treat himself to a pint of his favourite brew.

Alone at a table under the window, he took out the letter and read it again. He was entitled to feel elated. It was a development.

… I am unfortunately prevented by another commitment … There was no mention on the file at Scotland Yard of Howard Cromer having another commitment. The information did not incriminate him, but it destroyed the alibi everyone had assumed he possessed. He had not been in Brighton on the morning of the murder. That innocent-sounding expression ‘another commitment’ could have a sinister meaning.

Cribb saw no difficulty in casting Howard Cromer in the role of murderer. The motive Miriam had supplied would serve equally well for him. If she had decided, after all, to confide in him, tell him Perceval had been blackmailing her for months, he might well have resorted to murder. Anyone threatening to blight Cromer’s career with scandal about his wife was touching him on the raw. Ambition and blind devotion made a dangerous combination. In Cribb’s judgment, Cromer was a man capable of resolving the problem ruthlessly.

If he had committed murder and it had been discovered, it was possible that Miriam, blaming herself for what had happened, had agreed to make a false confession.

It was time he tested the truth of that story of blackmail, of innocent young ladies duped into displaying their bodies for improper photographs. It was no secret to the police or anyone else that the trade in such things was centred in Holywell Street, five minutes from where he was sitting. Some half-dozen shops purveyed what they euphemistically termed ‘art studies’. They were patronised by errant schoolboys, provincials, gentlemen who should know better and Inspector Moser of Scotland Yard, whose purifying zeal was periodically praised by the Bow Street Magistrates.

Miriam Cromer had named Holywell Street in her confession, but Cribb attached small importance to that. The information, if it was to be believed at all, came from Perceval, who was unlikely to have divulged his real source to his victim. Most probably he had mentioned Holywell Street to alarm her. The knowledge that her picture was on open sale in that quarter would be sufficient to secure any respectable woman’s co-operation. Still, it had to be investigated.

It was a slum of a street, due for demolition in the proposed improvements to the Strand. One glance along the narrow pavement cluttered with trestle tables surrounded by silent groups of men was sufficient to discourage all but the most determined. In fact not all the trade was pernicious. A jeweller’s and two tobacconists’ provided pretexts for the not so bold to venture there.

Cribb sifted patiently through a tray of photographs of music hall performers until the question he expected was asked: ‘Were you looking for anything in particular, sir?’

He glanced round at the proprietor, a mid-European by his accent, shabby, in carpet slippers and wearing pebble glasses. ‘Yes, these are not exactly to my taste. Artistic subjects interest me more. Do you have anything after the style of Lord Leighton?’

‘Lord Leighton. I think I know what you mean, sir. Something illustrative of the classic myths, eh? If you would care to step inside … ’

The tray he was shown contained about sixty faded photographs of women so well concealed in gauze that they would not have looked out of place at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. In the next twenty minutes he graduated by trays to what were labelled poses plastiques, arrangements of listless models in thick fleshings.

‘You have nothing more’-he turned his eyes towards the inner part of the shop-‘artistic than these?’

The proprietor shook his head. ‘Not at present, sir. I may, of course, get some. If you could come back on another occasion … ’

This required a different approach. By conventional methods it would take a week to win the confidence of Holywell Street.

Farther up was a shop sporting a green awning with the words Gallery of Fine Art-J. Brodski (prop.) Cribb marched straight in and found J. Brodski.

‘Where can we talk in confidence?’

He was shown to an office at the back. It contained a desk heaped with old newspapers and unwashed crockery. There was a smell of stale cigar smoke.

Brodski looked anxious, a fat, bearded man with restless eyes and bad teeth.

‘You know who I am?’ barked Cribb.

Brodski whispered, ‘Police?’

Cribb flourished his identification.

‘Mr Moser he was here last month,’ protested Brodski in a voice of alarm. ‘So help me, it is true. My case it came up at Bow Street Friday. I was fined twenty-five pounds.’

‘Twenty-five pounds!’ Cribb started to laugh.

‘Please tell me what is funny about that.’

Cribb let him flounder a little. ‘You say you were fined twenty-five pounds!’

The sweat was beading on Brodski’s forehead.

‘I don’t deal in misdemeanours,’ Cribb went on, articulating the word with contempt. ‘Do you think it interests me what smutty little pictures you keep locked in the drawer of this desk? You could have the Queen herself mother-naked on a tigerskin rug. I don’t care a twopenny damn. The crime I’m investigating will get you put away for life, Brodski. That’s if your life is spared.’

Brodski had turned the colour of the awning outside his shop. ‘Please, I do not understand,’ he said in a strangled voice.

‘Of course you understand,’ said Cribb, tight-lipped. ‘There’s a man dead, Brodski. Murdered. He came here last winter to buy pictures of this woman.’ He took out the photograph of Miriam Cromer and pushed it across the desk.

‘Straight, I never see this lady in my life!’ squeaked Brodski. ‘God strike me down, I know nothing of this thing.’

‘You’re lying!’ said Cribb in a snarl. ‘He bought some pictures, three or four at least, one called Aphrodite with Handmaidens. He came back in March and asked to buy the plates.’

‘No, no! I swear it-I never sell such picture. You make the mistake, please believe me.’

Cribb sat grim-faced through the histrionics.

‘You don’t believe?’ finished Brodski.

‘Not a word.’

The fat man pitched into another crescendo. ‘This not the only picture shop in Holywell Street. There is four, five others. Maybe this man go there. You think?’

Cribb shook his head.

‘What will happen?’ asked Brodski in despair. ‘What you do with me now?’

‘Find me an envelope. A clean one.’

Brodski unlocked the desk and rummaged through the drawer, in his confusion uncovering prints enough to put him away for months.

Cribb addressed the envelope to himself at Scotland Yard. ‘I’m giving you one chance, Brodski. We know that a shopkeeper in Holywell Street sold pictures of this woman to the man who was murdered. I shan’t ask you to peach on one of your neighbours. It doesn’t interest me who handled the photographs. What I want from you is the name and address of the supplier-the man who printed the photographs and owns the negatives. You understand? Take this picture, show it to the others in the street, get that information and write it on the back.’ He took out his watch and flicked up the lid. ‘It’s almost half past two. That gives you three and a half hours. Put the photograph in the envelope and see that it catches the six o’clock post at Charing Cross. It will reach me at Scotland Yard by the last delivery, at eight tonight. If it doesn’t come, Brodski, you can expect me here within the hour. It won’t be twenty-five pounds this time.’

The letter reached the Yard by the 8 p.m. delivery. Cribb had sorted through the post before the duty constable knew it had arrived. Such eagerness was exceptional. In the regular way he would have left the thing unopened till next morning. This was not a regular investigation. The only regular thing about it was the time ticking away.

He ripped open the envelope, glimpsing Miriam Cromer’s face before he turned the photograph over. Brodski’s message was written unevenly in the small space under Howard Cromer’s ornate imprint:

Please Mr Cribb this truth. I ask all the street. Nobody know this lady. Brodski.

Cribb’s lips tightened. He believed Brodski. The man had been badly scared. He would have supplied a name if he could. Whether his neighbours had been frank with him was less certain. Cribb had no way of finding out. He had played the trick and lost. He picked up his hat and left Scotland Yard.

He decided to walk the three miles home to Bermondsey. In his present frame of mind he would be no company for Millie.

Tomorrow was Wednesday. Unless there was a reprieve, the execution would take place on Monday morning. By now, the hangman must have received his summons. Miriam Cromer must have been moved into the condemned wing of Newgate, ready to take the short walk to the execution shed.

Unless there was a reprieve … A recommendation to the Queen from the Home Secretary. Something he had once heard passed through his mind, a story that Her Majesty was merciless towards miscreants of her own sex, reluctant ever to sign a reprieve. When a woman had confessed to murder, pleaded guilty and been sentenced to death, it would require more than an element of doubt to save her from the gallows. The abiding principle of British justice no longer applied in this case. Miriam Cromer was guilty unless she was proved innocent.

In reality, Cribb had three days left. If there were grounds for a reprieve, the Home Secretary would need to know before the weekend. He would need to weigh the evidence, make consultations, reach a decision and possibly make a recommendation to the Queen.

Three days.

Darkness was closing in as he took the footway over Hungerford Bridge. The Thames, blood-red and streaked with shadows, moved soundlessly below. The boards vibrated to the rhythms of a train steaming towards Charing Cross. Billowing vapour engulfed him.

Before it cleared, he had decided how he would spend Wednesday morning.

He would begin by winning the confidence of Inspector Moser. He would make it clear that he was not asking to see the Yard’s collection of confiscated prints and photographs out of prurience. Nor was he ambitious to oust Moser as the scourge of Holywell Street. He was interested only in securing evidence of blackmail.