Waxwork

FRIDAY, 22nd JUNE

‘I have good news for you,’ said Bell.

The prisoner looked up from her book, a glimmer of interest in her eyes. She made no response.

Bell looked across at Hawkins and rolled her eyes upwards in her long-suffering look. She planted her sewing-basketon the table and repositioned the stool the wardress on the last turn had just vacated. She was in no hurry to surrender the information.

The prisoner waited expressionlessly.

‘You want to hear what it is?’

Bell received the gratification of a nod.

‘There’s a visitor downstairs.’ She took her calico tray-cloth from the basket and shook it with such vigour that it made a sound like a whip. ‘I should finish this by Monday,’ she told Hawkins. From the corner of her eye she watched the prisoner’s lips part as if to ask the obvious. Yet the instant Bell turned in anticipation, the mouth closed again, defying her. Their eyes met. ‘You have some hair showing,’ Bell said, refusing to be bested. ‘Tuck it under your cap.’

Cromer obeyed. She did everything they asked, scrubbed the cell, folded her bedding, washed the tin plate, emptied the slops. They could not criticise her conduct. It was the expression on her face that provoked, and even that was difficult to account for. It was not a brassy look, like some prisoners gave, not holier-than-thou even. No, what was insulting about it was that she treated the officers as if they were not there. She excluded them from her thoughts.

‘Your husband,’ Bell said.

She lowered her eyes to the book.

Bell clicked her tongue and started sorting through the sewing-basket for a thimble. Privately she expected this wall of indifference would topple before the weekend. There were indications already. The wardresses on nights had noticed the prisoner saying things in her sleep, whimpering sometimes and calling out. Inside herself, she was more jumpy than she wanted anyone to know.

Bell was curious to see the husband. He visited Newgate daily, but always late in the afternoon, when Officers Davis and Manks were on duty. There was a story that the first time he had brought a dozen red roses and a nightdress from Swan and Edgar which had been impounded at the prison entrance. It was a mystery to Bell how women without an ounce of passion seemed to draw the devotion of decent men. Her own experiences with the sex were bitter without exception.

Miss Stones unlocked the cell door and brought him in, a worried, pale-complexioned man in a dark suit with his hands clasped tightly in front of him. A large spotted cravat and matching handkerchief tucked into his breast-pocket must have served as emblems of artistry in Kew Green. In Newgate they were so misplaced as to seem clownish. Poor devil-he looked twenty years older than she. Silver-haired, almost, and hollow-eyed. It was the relatives who suffered most, and no mistake.

Cromer had not even stood up to greet him.

To Bell it appeared that all Howard Cromer got in the way of a greeting from his wife was a head-to-foot inspection with the ice-blue eyes. He stood just inside the door, unfastening his hands and fingering his shirt-cuffs.

Hawkins brought the spare stool to the table.

‘My love-’ the man began.

‘Save your love, Howard, and tell me what is happening outside,’ the prisoner said as if she was talking to a servant.

‘Yes, of course.’ His mouth twitched into something like a smile. ‘The petition is being delivered to the Home Office this afternoon. We have thirteen thousand signatures demanding a reprieve. The committee have been tireless in their efforts. There is a public meeting tomorrow on Richmond Green and we are promised a speaker from the Howard Association. I am certain thousands will come. There is a veritable avalanche of sympathy. This morning the postman simply upended a sack of letters-’

‘Sympathy?’ she said in a disbelieving voice. ‘What do you mean-sympathy? I am not dead.’

His hand went to his neck and clutched it. ‘Forgive me, Miriam, dearest. This is a testing time for us all. If you can be patient, my angel, I am confident that justice will be done. I mean, of course … ’ His voice trailed awkwardly away.

‘I know what you meant,’ the prisoner said.

Silence.

The man fidgeted with his cuffs again. The prisoner scrutinised him thoughtfully.

‘Howard, has something else happened?’

He nodded once and moved on the stool so that it made a piercing sound as it scraped the floor.

There was an unmistakable note of urgency as she said, ‘Tell me, then, for pity’s sake!’

He hesitated.

‘I want to know, Howard.’ This was more of an appeal than an order.

‘My dear, we did not wish to raise your expectations prematurely, so I said nothing of this before. It is so easy, you see, to place a significance on things when we are hoping for developments as we are. It could be self-deceiving. Before speaking to you, I wanted to be sure in my own mind that this is significant. Today I am convinced of it, and so is Simon.’ He leaned towards her, resting his hands on the table between them. ‘This week I have received two visitors. On Sunday a detective sergeant came, as he put it, to dot “i”s and cross “t”s-in other words, to check your statement. He put some very searching questions to me and asked me to show him everything, the processing room, the studio. Believe me, he missed nothing. I showed him our album, the mother-of-pearl one, and he took away a photograph of you.’

She frowned slightly. ‘Why should he want a photograph?’

‘He didn’t say exactly. It was a carte of my favourite, the portrait of you in the black gown looking so magnificent.’

‘I was not feeling magnificent.’

He lowered his eyelids and shook his head. ‘Dearest, the image is what matters. The image. Whatever your innermost thoughts were, you looked superb.’

She displayed neither pleasure nor embarrassment at the compliment. ‘What exactly did this detective ask you about?’

‘Oh, everything. He was deeply interested in you. As you know, there is no topic I would rather talk about. I opened the album and there on the first page was the Kilpatrick family. I told him about your father bringing them to Kew for the portrait, and about our courtship. The pictures were all there for him to see. The fair at Hampstead. Our wedding. Trouville.’

Her mouth tightened and she said, ‘Images.’

‘Dearest, what do you mean?’ The husband’s face had creased with concern.

She shook her head. ‘No matter, Howard. Tell me, when the detective had finished looking at the album, what questions did he ask?’

It was cool in the cell, but he took out a handkerchief and patted his forehead. ‘Oh, questions about me-how long I had kept the studio in Kew, when I had first engaged Perceval as my assistant, and so forth. Of course he asked me about the day Perceval died. I told him I was in Brighton at the conference.’

‘You told him-or did he ask?’

‘I believe he asked. He wanted to know which train I caught.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What answer did you give, Howard?’

He returned a quick smile. ‘You know me, dearest, incorrigibly vague about such things. Then I took him to look at the studio. I showed him where the decanters were kept and told him how you filled them each Monday morning after the delivery from Morgan’s. We looked at the processing room, naturally, and he asked to see inside the poison cabinet. Insisted on opening it himself with my key. I treated the fellow throughout with the utmost civility.’

‘He was not hostile towards you?’

‘No, I would not say so. Sharp, yes, but that was his manner, I suspect.’

‘He went away satisfied?’

The husband shrugged. ‘He should have been.’

‘But you formed an impression to the contrary?’ The prisoner watched him keenly. Bell had never seen her so attentive.

The husband drew himself up a little on the stool. ‘Well, my dear, there has been a development since which compels me to conclude that the inquiries are continuing.’

‘The second visitor you mentioned?’

‘Yes. He arrived yesterday afternoon.’ He beamed reassuringly. ‘I wish you had seen him, Miriam. He would have amused you. Picture him in the reception room, if you can. A strongly-built fellow with a black beard and a broad face scarred down one side, and rather bulbous eyes. He was in a black suit very shiny from wear and a brand-new butterfly collar on a shirt that was frayed at the cuffs. But, my dear, this is the joke-he was wearing a policeman’s boots!’

The prisoner still declined to smile. ‘What did he want?’

Her husband nodded. ‘That was what I asked him. Do you know what? He answered in a broad north-country accent-his smoking-party turn, I’m ready to wager-that he wished to arrange to have his “photo took”. What do you think of that? For some occult reason Scotland Yard had sent this buffoon to insinuate himself into Park Lodge on the pretext of sitting for his portrait! Well, you know that I suspended work in the studio after what happened in March, except for one or two long-standing appointments. I explained this to my visitor, really to see what he would say. He told me his name was Holly and he was down from Yorkshire for a few days on business. He wanted his “photo took” as a present for his wife, and he would be obliged if I would make an exception and give him a sitting as he had come out to Kew for the purpose, on the recommendation of the proprietor of his hotel. Hotel! In those boots, he wouldn’t get past the commissionaire. However, I am not one to obstruct an officer in the course of his duty, even if he does stoop to subterfuge. I entered into the spirit of the thing and invited him into the studio. As you may suppose, he wasted no time in getting the conversation round to Perceval. He professed great interest in seeing the very room where the “occurrence”, as he described it, took place. I showed him everything I had shown the first detective. I could see it was all he could do to restrain himself from taking out his notebook.’

Bell glanced towards Hawkins. She had put her hand in front of her mouth. The prisoner’s husband was keeping two of his listeners entertained, even if Cromer herself showed not a flicker of amusement.

‘Did this man ask questions, Howard?’

‘Not so many as the sergeant did on Sunday, but then he could not be so direct, or I might have guessed he was a policeman! Mainly he was interested in details of circumstances, where Perceval’s body was found, where the cyanide was kept and so forth.’

‘Nothing more definite?’ She regarded him challengingly, as if he were responsible for the visitor’s conduct.

He lifted his hands in an assuaging gesture. ‘I told him everything he wanted to know, dearest. I photographed him, too, against that backcloth of the Strand, just to humour the fellow.’ He took a picture from his pocket and held it for her to see.

Bell’s interest in the husband’s story was so consuming that she had leaned forward to look before it dawned on her that what was happening was an infringement of regulations. ‘That’s not permitted, sir,’ she told him. But she had caught enough of the portrait to satisfy her curiosity, a head and shoulders view of a burly, bearded fellow with eyes like pearl buttons. A memory stirred in her brain, too elusive to recapture, and not pleasant anyway. Photographs played odd tricks at times.

The prisoner commented, ‘From the look of him, I would say he is more brutish than acute.’

‘He had the intelligence to keep up the pretence,’ her husband said. ‘He gave me an address in Bradford to post the portrait to, and he insisted on paying me in advance. I expect it’s the Bradford Police Station.’ He tried to sound amused. ‘I hope they are satisfied with the result.’

She stared at him in silence.

Lines of concern transformed his expression. ‘Miriam, my darling, forgive me. I find this such an ordeal. I try to cloak my feelings in facetiousness and I know it is in appalling bad taste in the circumstances. The situation is so unnatural-seated here with a table between us. To be allowed only to look at you, not permitted even to touch your sweet hand. It is too cruel.’

She said in a voice devoid of emotion, ‘You have always maintained that to look at me is all that you desire.’

He looked abashed, as if she had rebuked him. ‘True, my dear. I meant it, of course, as a tribute.’

For an instant the prisoner appeared on the point of saying something, but she changed her mind, simply drew a long breath.

The husband was obviously at a loss. He filled the gap with words. ‘Take heart, Miriam. These developments must be significant.’

‘Have you spoken to Simon?’ she asked.

‘I have kept him fully informed, of course.’

‘And what is his advice?’

‘Quite simply, to wait.’

She thought a moment, frowning. ‘Howard, that may not be the right thing now. What you have told me is disturbing. I cannot understand why they sent the second detective if he had no questions of any importance. The way it was done, sending a man to masquerade as a client, is suggestive of incompetence. We cannot tamely wait for someone to see sense. It may not happen in time. You must talk to Simon.’

He nodded. ‘I shall go straight from here. I’ll tell him what you say, depend upon it, dearest.’

‘I am compelled to.’

He started to get up. ‘You are never out of my thoughts, Miriam. When this is over … ’ He smiled encouragement. ‘Is there anything else, my darling?’

‘Yes. Ask Simon to visit me tomorrow morning. I want to speak to him. And Howard, I shall not expect to see you.’

He blinked in surprise. ‘But-’

‘I shall not expect to see you,’ she repeated, spacing the words. ‘Do you understand?’

He dipped his head quickly.

‘Howard … ’

‘My dear?’

‘I am grateful.’

Hawkins unlocked the door to let him out. When it had closed again, the prisoner let her breath out slowly as if a crisis was past. She turned her book over and started to read.

Sleep had not subdued Cribb’s anger. This morning in the front room the linnet was chirping and sunlight glistened on the brasses, but Jowett’s words hung in the air. ‘It is not for you to speculate on a matter that I made quite clear is not within police jurisdiction.’ Cribb stood motionless at the window, his mouth set in a tight line, eyes seeing nothing. The anger had turned inwards.

For a week he had been occupied in a sterile exercise. Used by politicians. Yet from the start he had realised that any outcome challenging the verdict of the court would embarrass Whitehall. They had wanted him to paper over a small crack, not bring the whole edifice crashing down. Trained as he was to work on investigative principles, he had preferred to keep an open mind about the murder. Establish the facts, root out the truth and let the politicians deal with the consequences. Greenhorn!

The wound went deeper. He had believed this case might transform his career. It hurt him to admit that now. He had supposed that seventeen years as sergeant had left him with few illusions about the future. If Millie still fondly believed someone at the Yard would soon recognise his ability, he was not so deluded. Ten years had passed since that day they had created the Criminal Investigation Department. Inspectors had been appointed to fourteen of the sixteen divisions. Of the two to which sergeants were nominated, his own was one. Why? No one had given him a straight answer. ‘Keep your defaulter sheet clean, Cribb, and who knows?’ He had kept it clean for ten years, managed one of the toughest divisions in the Met, and he was still a detective sergeant. Who knows? If he didn’t know by now, he was no detective at all.

Millie would go on hoping for a miracle: he faced facts. To the high-ups he was a natural sergeant. ‘One of your door-to-door detectives, fly to everything. Not a man to waste behind a desk.’

He had put promotion out of his mind. Yet what had happened a week ago? It had only wanted Jowett to let slip the name of Sir Charles Warren to set his pulse racing. A secret inquiry on the personal orders of the Commissioner!

The prospect of working for Warren had given him nightmares, but he had jumped at it like any pink and scrubbed probationer given his first incident to investigate. Impress Sir Charles with a few inspired deductions and promotion was in the bag. For that he was ready to face the perils of working for the Commissioner without the sanction of the Director of the C.I.D. The real politics-the politics of Whitehall-he had not paused to consider. He deserved to stay a sergeant.

He sighed, shook his head and turned from the window. There was nothing to be gained from self-pity. He crossed the room and opened the sideboard drawer. Pen and ink. He would write the report for Jowett and put this whole thing out of his mind. Three sheets of Millie’s notepaper.

Report of an Inquiry into the Confession of Mrs Miriam Cromer to the Murder of Josiah Perceval at Park Lodge, Kew, on the 12th March, 1888.

When this was done he would take it to the Yard and afterwards cross Trafalgar Square to the Haymarket to try and get tickets for that comic opera Millie had been talking about.

How should he begin? It hardly mattered. Whatever he wrote, Jowett would revise it before it reached the Commissioner’s desk.

Keep strictly to the facts.

‘1. The death by poisoning of Josiah Perceval took place at Park Lodge, Kew, on the 12th March, 1888. At the Old Bailey on the 8th June, 1888, Mrs Miriam Cromer pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death.

‘2. Subsequent to the trial a photo-engraving cut from a photographic journal was received at the Home Office. It showed the husband of the prisoner at Brighton on the day of the murder wearing a key on his watch-chain which was established as being one of two keys to the poison cabinet. The other was found on the body of the deceased. The question arose as to how the prisoner had unlocked the poison cabinet on the day of the crime, as she had stated in her confession. An inquiry was ordered into the events described by the prisoner in her confession, Chief Inspector Jowett of the Criminal Investigation Department leading, assisted by A. Cribb, Detective Sergeant, First Class, M Division.’

Cribb paused, absently touching his lips with the end of the pen. The easy bit was done. The correct procedure now was to take the confession point by point. He got up from the table and went to the shelf where he kept his papers, weighted by the black-bound Metropolitan Police Acts. Something fluttered to the floor. Millie would put her scrapbook cuttings among his things. He picked it up, a picture of some actor clipped from the Penny Illustrated Paper, and slipped it under the cover of her book. He found his copy of the confession and put it on the table. Would he require anything else? Nuttall’s Standard Dictionary, for certain.

At the table again, his eyes ran through the first paragraph of Miriam Cromer’s confession. A general statement of her guilt. No comment necessary on that. Second paragraph.

‘Some time in 1882, when I was twenty years of age and lived at my family home in Hampstead, I injudiciously agreed to take part with two friends in a group photograph … ’

Two friends. Judith Honeycutt, now dead, and Miss C. Piper.

The newspaper report of the inquest on Judith Honeycutt had given Miss Piper’s address at Kidderpore Avenue. It was a long street in West Hampstead, off the Finchley Road. Cribb had gone there on Wednesday evening after making his inquiries about Ducane. No family by the name of Piper was known in Kidderpore Avenue. Somebody had suggested Miss Piper might have been the young lady who had lodged at old Miss Marchant’s for a few months. She had been about twenty and had come there after a disagreement of some sort with her family. She had not stayed long. By 1885 she he moved out of London. And Miss Marchant had died soon after. The house was now occupied by a family of Russian immigrants. They had no forwarding address for Miss Piper. Cribb had abandoned the search. There were scores of people with that name in London, hundreds throughout the provinces. He remembered a C.S.M. Piper from his army days, and a pet shop in Islington called Piper and Son. Hopeless, trying to locate one girl with that name in the short time left to him. He did not even know her Christian name. She could be married by now.

Wherever she was, soon after eight on Monday morning she would be the sole survivor of the three young girls who had light-heartedly agreed to pose for a photographer six years before. If the episode had ever occurred.

He felt in his pocket and took out the photograph of Miriam Cromer. He would need it presently for the spelling of Brodski’s name on the reverse. He put it face upwards on the table in front of him. He remembered first seeing it, enlarged, in the drawing room at Park Lodge, and trying to read her character in it: an unlikely achievement. For the camera, people put on their best expressions like Sunday clothes. Hers, to be sure, was less rigid a look than photographs generally captured. That was why he had asked for a copy of this print. It conveyed something more than the stilted studio pose. But was the conflict written on her features any guide to the way she thought and behaved?

Looking at the picture now, he could not be objective. He saw it in terms of what he had learned. There were dangers, he knew, in speculating, but he saw the face of a young woman trapped. She was married to a man in love with her image. He prized her, treated and cosseted her not as his wife, but a subject for his camera. His bedroom was filled with her photographs. His adulation and excessive kindnesses only fomented her frustration, for how was she to express her resentment towards a husband who was infinitely kind?

When Perceval had added to her torment, she had found a focus for her bitterness. In murdering him, had she also been destroying her husband?

Theories. He would never know.

Truthfully, he could not tell if it was the face of a murderess.

He turned back to the report. Three girls: Miriam Kilpatrick, Judith Honeycutt and Miss C. Piper. So many names began with the letter ‘C’. Constance? It did not matter any more. Finish the report.

‘3. In the second paragraph of her confession, Mrs Cromer referred to certain photographs taken in 1882 which Perceval used for the purpose of blackmail. She stated that she and two of her friends, members like herself of the Highgate Literary and Artistic Society, were induced to pose-’

It would not be Constance. Nor Charity, Cora, Clara. This was profitless. Miss C. Piper. How could he possibly know what it should be? Yet his brain continued to supply names. Mysteriously, he felt he would know if he got it right.

Cynthia, Christine, Caroline.

‘ … unclothed or nearly so for photographs that they were informed were to be used by the distinguished artist Sir Frederick Leighton as preliminary studies for a painting of a classical subject.’

Catherine, Celia, Charlotte.

Charlotte Piper.

It was practically right. Charlotte. Lottie.

Lottie Piper.

Cribb clenched his fist and beat it on the table. He knew how the name had got into his head. Millie had mentioned it that night he had woken from his nightmare and got up to make tea. The comic opera she wanted to see was The Mascotte, with Miss Lottie Piper.

Another blind alley. He cursed his luck. Nothing had gone right for him. Lottie Piper had no connection with the case. But the knowledge that if she had, if he had found Miriam Cromer’s friend, he would have hared off to find her, was mortifying to accept. It was fate giving an extra twist to the knife. He still wanted to discover the truth.

It was too much to hope that Miriam Cromer’s friend had taken up a career on the stage as Miss Lottie Piper.

But he would try to find out.

He took down Millie’s scrapbook from the shelf. Scores of pages were pasted with portraits of actors and actresses. Best to start from the back. He found Lottie Piper’s picture on the second sheet, sketched in pen and ink, wide-eyed, with a skittish look, her face framed in dark curls.

MISS LOTTIE PIPER AS BETTINA IN ‘THE MASCOTTE’

One of the successes of the season is that of Miss Lottie Piper in the leading role of ‘The Mascotte’, the Opera Comique at the Haymarket. This charming actress, the daughter of a Hampstead stockbroker, has graced several productions at provincial theatres and now reveals a talent for comic opera which is delighting audiences in the capital.

Finding a cab in Bermondsey was a tall order, but within minutes Cribb had stopped a four-wheeler.

‘The Haymarket. The Mascotte is still running, is it?’

‘Bless you, sir, that’ll run for months yet.’

So he was at the stage door when her carriage drew up. She got down in a flurry of swansdown and scent, the curls proclaiming who she was, but prettier by far than the artist had made her, in a primrose-coloured skirt, emerald green jacket and matching hat with two black feathers.

‘Gentlemen,’ she announced (Cribb was one of five), ‘how kind of you to come! I am overwhelmed, but I must tell you that I never go for supper after the performance. It’s such a dreadful bore, but I find I need my sleep.’

She had blown a kiss and was through the door before Cribb or the others could put in a word. With fine theatrical timing the doorkeeper appeared from nowhere and stood with arms folded.

Cribb could have shown his identification. Instead, he started the dispersal by strolling up to Piccadilly Circus. In ten minutes he was back. There was no one left outside. Whistling, he walked in and up the stairs. He was not challenged.

He followed the scent of freesias. Her name was on the door. Miss Lottie Piper. Much more chic than Charlotte.

He expected a dresser to answer his knock. He was wrong. She came herself, opening the door just enough to look out. The penetrating stare she gave showed she was capable of dealing with callers.

‘Not what you think, miss,’ said Cribb. ‘Police, in fact.’ He took out his photograph of Miriam. Now he would know if his luck had changed. ‘If you have been reading the papers … ’

The challenge in her face was supplanted by a frown. ‘Do you want to talk to me about her?’ She studied Cribb’s face as if making up her mind.

‘I carry a card,’ Cribb said, feeling in his pocket.

‘Darling, I can see you’re not carrying champagne,’ she said.

She stepped back and let him in.

Lottie Piper thrust flowers into his arms. ‘Hold these while I fill some vases. They must have been lying here for hours. I hate to see things die, don’t you?’

There were three sets of mirrors in the dressing-room. Clutching the bunches of roses and carnations he looked outlandish from every angle.

‘Now.’ Having attended to the flowers, Lottie Piper removed her hat and arranged herself on the chesterfield, gesturing to Cribb to use a tub-chair. ‘I expect my maid by half past four. May we finish by then?’

‘I hope so, miss. You did recognise the photograph, then?’

She nodded. ‘But I don’t recognise you,’ she said sharply. ‘You must have a number, or something.’

‘Sorry, miss.’ Cribb reddened. ‘Detective Sergeant Cribb.’

‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought there was much call for detection, considering Miriam’s confession was in all the newspapers.’

‘Yes, miss.’ Cribb needed to secure co-operation here. Lottie Piper was used to speaking the best lines. ‘She is due to hang on Monday. Representations have been made to the Home Office on her behalf and it’s my job to see if they hold water.’

‘Has madam decided she would like to change her plea?’

Cribb was unprepared for the venom in the remark. He said tersely, ‘I’ll ask the questions, miss.’

She giggled nervously and tossed her curls. For a second the star of The Mascotte became Miss Charlotte Piper of Hampstead. ‘As you wish.’ ‘You saw the confession in the papers. A section of it refers to you, though not by name. Am I right?’

She gave him a long look. ‘Let’s not be coy, Sergeant. You may ask me if I took off my clothes for a photograph. You won’t make me blush, after two years in the theatre.’

Cribb was not so confident of keeping down his colour. ‘What you got up to, miss, is of, er-’

‘No interest? Darling, that is not gallant, even if it may be true. Have you seen any of these deplorable photographs?’

Cribb admitted he had not.

‘I’m not in the least surprised,’ she commented, well in control again. ‘They are the talk of London and nobody has seen them.’ She smiled archly. ‘That three respectable young ladies should so far forget themselves as to pose for pictures of that sort!’

Cribb fingered his side-whiskers, trying to seem unconcerned. He would not admit to Lottie Piper that he had not made up his mind whether the whole story was moonshine.

‘Do you know my difficulty?’ she went on. ‘The stage must have corrupted me dreadfully, because the pictures I remember were absurdly tame. I admit they were not the kind of thing you would hand round at Sunday school, but I can’t imagine they set Holywell Street on fire either. Five minutes from here you can see far worse without paying a halfpenny-at the National Gallery. I am obviously beyond redemption. Dear Miriam took a much more serious stand on the matter, actually poisoning a man on account of it.’ The smile returned.

Cribb lifted an eyebrow. ‘Do you believe that?’ Before she answered, he said, ‘When did you first know Miriam Cromer, miss?’

‘Years ago, as small girls,’ she said. ‘My father met hers in some connection and suggested as she was my age that she should come to the house to play. I should think we were not more than ten years old. We had a huge garden on Hampstead Hill and Papa always said it was no garden without the sound of children playing there, so I was presented with sundry playmates, most of whom I loathed. To be fair, Miriam was easier to tolerate than most. With her fair, straight hair she was unlike me in looks, so there were no invidious comparisons. She tended to look up to me as the rightful occupant of the garden. I think she was conscious of the fact that her people were in trade, even though her father had been mayor, whereas Papa was on the Stock Exchange. Status was very important to Miriam. When I was feeling generous I would play lady’s maid to her, and she was never happier. I don’t pretend we were twin souls. There were times when we were not on speaking terms, and it was usually a relief when the holidays ended and I went back to boarding school, but all in all we put up with each other. As we grew older, we met less, except for church and occasional parties and soirees.’

‘You joined the Literary and Artistic Society,’ put in Cribb.

Lottie Piper smiled. ‘We were Girls of the Period by then-or supposed we were. Life in Hampstead was very confining, you may imagine. Schooldays were over, and the social life revolved around St John’s. We met the same people over and over. When we read in the Express that this new society was being formed in Highgate, we made our fathers’ lives a misery until they agreed to let us join. We knew nothing about literature or art, but we convinced ourselves that people who did would find us enchanting. There was another girl we knew in the parish-Judith Honeycutt. Her father kept the umbrella shop, which was a little infra dig, but Judith was a kindred spirit, so the three of us joined together.’

‘That would be 1882, would it?’

‘Darling, I have no idea. I don’t have a head for dates. All I remember is that the lectures were a dreadful bore, but the company was a revelation. The place swarmed with velvet coats and feather boas-another world! For half an hour or so at the end there was coffee and homemade cakes and everyone left their seats and mingled. It’s laughable now, but to me at twenty that little hall buzzing with conversation was the Cafe Royal. I had never experienced anything so exotic. I am certain Miriam and Judith were no less enchanted. We would stay till the last possible minute we could without seeming too desperate to be noticed. Then we would catch the bus home and talk all the way of the exciting people we had met. After that it was just a question of wishing away the days to the next meeting.’

‘How did the business of the photographs arise?’ Cribb asked, mindful that the dresser was expected soon.

‘Exactly as Miriam described it. We must have been members for six or seven months when we had a talk from someone from the Royal Academy, on Florentine Art. Fearfully boring. Afterwards over the coffee-cups everyone said how stimulating it had been, as we were bound to, and that we couldn’t wait to visit the National Gallery to see the paintings he had described, just as the previous week we had gone away vowing to read every one of Milton’s poems. Nobody ever asked if we did, thank God. Well, as usual on the way home I started telling the other two of the encounters I had made, when Miriam stopped me, saying she had something unbelievably exciting to tell us. I remember being dubious, having noticed she had spent most of the coffee-time with Mrs Rousby, one of the Society’s founders, an over-rouged person with a domineering manner, but I gave way gracefully. I am bound to admit that Miriam’s news was more sensational than any I could supply. Mrs Rousby had said she was delighted to hear that Miriam had enjoyed the lecture, because it showed she had an affinity for art. Painting, Mrs Rousby said, was her passion. She was a personal friend of Sir Frederick Leighton, and she happened to know that the great artist was interested in finding a number of elegantly proportioned young ladies with artistic sensibilities to pose for a vast canvas he was painting on a classical theme.’ Lottie Piper gave a small shrug. ‘You know the rest, of course.’

Cribb wanted to hear it from her, but he was willing to provide cues. ‘It appealed to you as an adventure, and you felt safe, going together.’

She nodded. ‘At the next meeting of the Society, the three of us engaged to pose. We were given an address in West Hampstead, which I questioned, since I happened to know that Sir Frederick’s house was in Kensington, but Mrs Rousby explained that a preliminary study was to be made by one of the artist’s assistants. Left to myself, I should not have gone, but by this time not one of us would have spoiled the adventure for the others. The following afternoon we presented ourselves in West Hampstead and learned that the assistant was not a painter at all, but a photographer.’

‘May I ask,’ Cribb put in quickly, ‘whether he was also a member of the Society?’

‘He was.’

This was no time to hesitate. ‘Named Julian Ducane?”

‘Yes-until the name became inconvenient. You must know about that.’

‘Broadly, miss. First, would you be so kind as to tell me about the pictures he took?’

She twisted a curl round her finger. ‘You are a very dogged detective. Aren’t you going to spare my blushes?’

He shook his head. ‘If I understood you just now, there isn’t much to blush about.’

‘I blush for my naivete, Sergeant, not for shame. Have you met Julian?’

‘He is known to me as Mr Howard Cromer, miss.’

‘Of course. “Julian” was right for Hampstead, but “Howard” is assuredly Kew Green. He would know. He is extremely sensitive in matters of taste. Do not underestimate him. He is silver-tongued, Sergeant. We three girls were on our guard when we arrived at his studio that summer afternoon. In a matter of minutes he had given us a sherry and a homily on the vital contribution photography was making to the perfection of fine art. Spell-binding names were tossed so casually into the conversation that we were convinced he was on intimate terms with them-Bill Frith, Eddy Landseer, Lawrie Alma Tadema. And, of course, Freddy Leighton. Freddy, we were told, was preparing to paint his masterpiece, a canvas ten feet high and fifteen feet in length encompassing all the principal figures of Greek mythology. Some thirty gods, goddesses and nymphs were to be depicted, and Julian had been asked to take a series of photographs as preliminary studies. He showed us a selection he had already taken, and we were reassured to see that the models were without exception decently robed. In short, Sergeant, we consented to pose. The pictures he took that afternoon were unexceptionable and Julian’s behaviour was exemplary. We put up our hair in the Greek fashion and wrapped ourselves in linen sheets for three or four short poses and got half a sovereign apiece for our pains. It needed little persuasion to induce us to return the following week. Do I need to go into that?’

Cribb lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘You were given an extra glass or two of sherry, I imagine, and told that Sir Frederick was delighted by the previous week’s results.’

‘Enraptured was the word,’ said Lottie. ‘So enraptured, in fact, that he had asked if we would model not as anonymous nymphs, but principals. I was to be Sappho, Judith was Helen and Miriam Aphrodite. In each case, our costume amounted to a strip of muslin and a comb. The postures, I repeat, were not offensive. As Julian very reasonably pointed out at the time, how could you possibly depict a Greek goddess in stays? We got a guinea each and giggled all the way home. Quite soon, I had forgotten about it. I remember mixed feelings of disappointment and relief when the picture was not listed in next summer’s Royal Academy show, but it had not crossed my mind that the photographs had been put to any other purpose. That is really all I am able to tell you, darling.’

‘There is another matter,’ said Cribb as casually as he could. ‘Your friend Judith died in tragic circumstances two years after this incident. You appeared as a witness at the inquest.’

Her manner changed abruptly. There was ice in her voice as she said, ‘If you know about that, then you know what I told the coroner. There is nothing more to be said.’

‘Touching on Miss Honeycutt’s death? Oh, I’m sure you told the coroner all you were obliged to, miss.’ Cribb looked down at the hat on his knees and rotated it half a turn. ‘But the coroner would not have asked you the things I need to know, such as how Miss Honeycutt came to be in Ducane’s employment at the time of her death.’ He looked up quickly. ‘You can tell me, Lottie.’

She gave him a guarded look that made him regret the impulse to use her name. ‘This is a free country. She went to work for him.’

‘Come now, that’s no help,’ said Cribb without changing his voice a semitone. ‘Judith is dead. Miriam is locked in a death-cell. You are the only one who can tell me how it was that those photographic sittings led to one girl working for the man and the other marrying him. Did he blackmail them?’

‘Blackmail?’ Her face rippled into laughter. ‘That’s delicious! Darling, I’m sure you do a marvellous job in the police, but it’s a terrible mistake to account for everything in criminal terms. You evidently need a few elementary lessons in feminine psychology. For a well brought-up girl to take off her clothes, however tastefully, for the first time in the presence of one of the other sex is an experience that is frightening, but not without a measure of excitement. It can stir up unsuspected emotions. Not one of us confessed it to the others, but we were deeply interested in the impression our bodies made on Julian Ducane. When he took our photographs he was scrupulously careful to treat us with equal charm, but we knew, you see, that we should meet him again at the Society. Each one of us in her private thoughts imagined him when he developed the prints becoming intoxicated with her charms. He was almost twenty years our senior and had shown no partiality to any of us, but in our girlish imaginations he was a privileged being. At the meetings we pursued him unashamedly-with what purpose it is difficult to say, because not one of us would have been allowed to walk out with a man our parents had not met. Soon there was an obvious rivalry between us. For convention’s sake we rode to and from Highgate together, but once we entered that hall we were sworn enemies. Julian, poor man, was at a loss. Well, can you imagine being hounded by three starry-eyed females scarcely out of school? He tried to solve the problem by introducing us to his friends. One was his solicitor.’

‘Allingham.’

‘Simon, yes. There is no doubt Simon was smitten with Miriam, but Julian was the prize she aspired to. Her self-esteem demanded it. I know, because I was similarly afflicted until I came to my senses. We were the three graces in a modern Judgment of Paris. To win was everything. Little by little, Miriam ousted us. She is one of those enviable females who can cast a spell over men. Not one of you is capable of seeing her as she really is. It takes another woman to do that.’

‘Speaking for myself, I have never met her.’

‘Then she has not made a fool of you, but she would. When I understood this power she had, I saw the futility of competing with her. It was only when I relinquished the contest, so to speak, that I realised how absurd it was to be chasing Julian. He was tolerably successful in his work and dapper in his dress, but a dreadful bore really. And so old! Imagine!’

‘A little over forty, I believe,’ Cribb said.

‘Grotesque! Well, as I mentioned, I turned my attention elsewhere. Judith, too, soon after appeared to retire from the contest. She started talking to me again, telling me about young men who had tried to flirt with her across the counter in the umbrella shop. It was her way of telling me she was no longer interested in Julian, or so I understood at the time. Judith and I confided in each other a lot; it helped to heal the wounds. She was dark-haired, like me, and vivacious. She had a sense of humour, too. We had a secret joke that Julian must have sold Miriam’s photograph to Burne-Jones, whose women are so solemn and underfed. Cattish, weren’t we? All this went on over many months. The meetings were fortnightly, did I tell you?

‘Then one day, to my intense surprise, Judith coolly announced that she had changed her job. She had been taken on by Julian as his assistant. This on the top of a bus to Highgate on the way to a Society meeting. Miriam was speechless. If you could have seen the look in her eyes, darling! It was naughty of Judith to trot it out so casually, yet I suppose she didn’t want to make an issue of it. I remember Miriam sitting through that meeting stony-faced, and when the coffee came she didn’t even look in Julian’s direction. He came over to make conversation and she just bit her lip and walked away. It was Simon who went after her to find out what was wrong. Julian was utterly at a loss.’

‘Feminine psychology isn’t his strong point, either,’ said Cribb.

She smiled at that.

‘So Judith had cut in on Miriam’s game,’ he said. ‘How had she managed that?’

‘By sheer resourcefulness. She used the advantage she had over Miriam and me: she was in employment. She noticed in the Express that Julian was advertising for an assistant. She put it to her father that it was time she learned a more creative occupation than selling umbrellas. After that it only remained to convince Julian of the advantages of employing female labour.’

‘What are those-apart from things she couldn’t go into?’

Lottie gave him a level look. ‘As well as being his assistant, she would act as receptionist. And she would bring a woman’s delicacy to the retouching and tinting processes.’

‘Smart,’ said Cribb. ‘You have to hand it to her. There she was, installed in the studio with all day to work her charms on Julian, while Miriam sat at home fretting.’

She shook her head. ‘No, Sergeant. Give Miriam credit for more gumption than that. If Julian was taking on an assistant, he would be free to delegate much of the humdrum work making negatives, or whatever they do, and devote more time to photography. Fashionable photographers, as you know, like to put notices in their windows to proclaim the prizes they have won. Julian’s business was expanding, and it was time he started entering for photographic competitions. Of course he would require a model.’

‘Ah.’ Cribb understood. ‘While Judith was in the darkroom, Miriam and Julian would be out with a camera and a picnic basket.’

‘That’s it. He was always saying she was photogenic, so she offered to pose for him, all very decently, I hasten to add. His Greek art phase was a thing of the past now that he was becoming respectable. Miriam persuaded him to buy her new hats and parasols and strings of beads to assist the photography. She was triumphant-and she had the relish of knowing poor Judith would be developing the pictures. Personally, I would have poured acid on them. Miriam convinced Julian that she was his inspiration. He stopped everything he was doing whenever she visited the studio. I don’t know what excuses she made at home, but she was there two or three times a week.’

Cribb listened, remembering Howard Cromer had given the impression Miriam had not entered his life before he came to Kew.

‘You would think Judith had been eclipsed,’ Lottie went on, ‘but not yet. I saw her one Thursday morning in Hampstead High Street. Feeling for the poor girl, I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her, but she crossed the road and, to my amazement, her face was pink with excitement. She took me into a teashop and told me she was engaged to be married to Julian! It took my breath away. The whole thing, she said, was secret until they had bought the ring. I was the first to know, because she was bursting to tell someone how happy she was. She had not told her father yet, but she was sure he would not object. Yes, they intended to break the news to Miriam that evening. Judith was certain she would share in their joy. I told her frankly not to be so sanguine about that. Miriam would be incensed. I warned her not to make it a long engagement because I was sure Miriam was too single-minded to give up. She laughed and said she had no fear of losing Julian.’

It was the girlish talk you could hear any day of the week on buses and trains, except that this was life and death.

‘She said a strange thing. Had I never noticed the way Julian looked at Miriam? It was not the way a man looked at a girl he really cared for. Julian didn’t see Miriam as a person at all, but a face. A face to be photographed, not kissed. She was meant to be looked at through a camera. I said perhaps he saw all women with a photographer’s eye. Judith laughed again and said she was sure he did not. She was carrying the proof.’

‘His child?’

Lottie nodded.

Cribb stared at her a moment. ‘You didn’t tell the coroner this.’

She lowered her eyes. ‘I know. It seemed kinder to say nothing. By that time, Judith was dead. I couldn’t alter that. Julian was up to his ears in trouble, with the suicide in his studio and the poison not being kept in a cupboard and everything. In his evidence he said nothing about the engagement, or Judith being pregnant, and nor did I. I didn’t say anything untrue, just kept silent about what she had told me. If I had spoken up, it would not have changed the verdict, but it would have ruined Julian’s reputation for ever.’

‘Tell me this,’ said Cribb, and there was an edge to his voice. ‘How did you account to yourself for Judith’s death?’

Her eyes reacted with tiny darting movements. ‘Sergeant, I couldn’t account for it. What I told the coroner was true. The day before she died, she had been so jubilant, not worried in the least about being pregnant. The next thing I heard was that she was dead. All I could suppose was that Julian had changed his mind, and when he told her, she took poison. A woman in that condition may be subject to erratic behaviour if she gets a sudden shock.’

‘Do you still believe that?’

Lottie Piper slowly shook her head. ‘Since I read in the newspapers what happened in Kew, I do not. I believe Judith was murdered.’

‘By Miriam?’

‘She confessed to the murder in Kew, didn’t she?’ Lottie searched Cribb’s features for some sign that he shared her conclusion. ‘Her name was not mentioned once at the inquest, but she could easily have done it. She was used to visiting the studio two or three times a week. If Julian had broken the news of the engagement to Miriam that Thursday evening, she could have gone to the house on Friday knowing he was going to be out and Judith would be alone. It would be natural for them to make tea if, as I suspect, Miriam came giving the impression she wanted to congratulate Judith. She could have created an opportunity of adding the poison to Judith’s cup, and then watched her die. Yes, it’s a hateful thing to say about someone you have known since you were ten years old, but what other explanation is there?’

If Cribb had one, he was not revealing it. He thanked Lottie Piper for seeing him. When he got downstairs, he called in at the box office and bought two upper circle tickets for The Mascotte. For the Monday performance.

Chief Inspector Jowett’s thin fingers drummed the edge of his desk. His eyes roved round the walls of his office, taking in the portrait of Sir Robert Peel, the stag’s head, the volumes of Archbold, Stone and the rest, anything but Sergeant Cribb, seated opposite him.

‘To have come here, in broad daylight,’ he said for the third time.

‘Not possessing a telephone-set,’ said Cribb, eyeing the instrument on the desk, ‘I had no option but to come in person, sir.’

‘You could have left a message downstairs.’

‘Requesting you to come and see me? I doubt if you would have liked that, sir, so soon after yesterday. The matter requires a decision this evening, sir.’

Jowett was too upset even to light his pipe. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and peered through it at Peel. ‘By Heaven, you had better be right, Sergeant. Nothing you have told me so far has altered my opinion of the case. Miss Charlotte Piper’s tittle-tattle is what I would expect from a low comedy actress.’

‘The daughter of a member of the Stock Exchange, sir.’

‘He has my sympathy. What is this decision, for God’s sake?’

‘I want permission to question Miriam Cromer, sir.’

Jowett swung round in his chair, eyes blazing. ‘Damn you, Sergeant, we went into this before! It can’t be done. Do you understand plain English?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I asked you for a written report on your investigations. That was all I asked for, not a rambling account of your adventures at the Haymarket. Where is that report, eh? You haven’t got it, have you? Yet you have the neck to come to Scotland Yard-’

‘There’s something else I should tell you, sir,’ said Cribb in an even tone. ‘There has been a development.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Howard Cromer, alias Julian Ducane, has disappeared from his home. I have reason to believe he is making for one of the Channel ports.’

‘Good Lord!’ A glazed look spread over Jowett’s eyes. ‘Why on earth should he do that?’

‘No fault of mine, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘After my interview with Miss Piper, I took a train to Kew with the intention of putting certain questions to Cromer. I felt I had enough information to get the truth from him this time. I wanted to find out why he had concealed from me the fact that he was on close terms with Miriam Cromer before he ever came to Kew, why he had withheld vital information at the inquest on the late Judith Honeycutt and what he was doing on the morning of the day Josiah Perceval was murdered. When I got to Park Lodge I was informed by a servant that Mr Cromer was not available. I put some further questions to the maid and then effected an entry into the house. From the appearance of Mr Cromer’s bedroom it was clear that he had packed a number of his clothes and personal possessions and taken them with him. This the servant confirmed under questioning. It appears that Mr Cromer left the house at about one o’clock. This morning he had visited his wife in Newgate. He returned, packed a small portmanteau and left within a few minutes without taking lunch or speaking to the servants. I obtained a description, which I have telegraphed to Dover, Newhaven, Folkestone, Holyhead, Harwich and Southampton, with instructions to detain him. There was a copy of Bradshaw on his bed, sir.’

Jowett had gripped his mouth and chin in his right hand and was twisting the flesh without regard to appearance.

Cribb continued, ‘After that I returned to London and went to Mr Simon Allingham’s chambers in Bell Yard. There was a possibility that Mr Cromer had contacted his solicitor.’

Jowett managed to nod.

‘I don’t know if you have met Allingham, sir. He is a forthright young man. Arrogant would not be too strong a word. I asked him whether he had seen Mr Cromer in the last twenty-four hours. He tried to evade the question by asking what right I had to inquire into Cromer’s movements. He wanted to know whether a warrant had been issued. I told him there were certain questions I wished to put to Mr Cromer-’

‘Yes, yes, Sergeant, I’m sure you acted properly,’ broke in Jowett with a sudden shift of emphasis. ‘Did he tell you anything of significance?’

‘He eventually admitted he spoke to Cromer at about noon, sir.’

‘And …?’

‘He was not prepared to disclose the subject of their conversation.’

‘Deuced impertinence! We could have him on an obstruction charge.’

‘I think he knows his rights, sir.’

Jowett spluttered contempt.

‘When I told him Cromer had skedaddled he said he wasn’t in the least surprised considering the way he had been treated by the police.’

‘What?’ Jowett turned from crimson to white. ‘What’s this-intimidation? Cribb, you haven’t used violence on the man?’

Cribb gave Jowett a withering look.

‘I should like to know what the devil has been going on,’ said Jowett, the colour rising again.

‘So should I, sir,’ said Cribb with no attempt to conceal his anger. ‘Things have been happening that I know nothing about. I think I have a right to be informed when another officer is sent to interrogate a witness.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Allingham told me a man arrived yesterday afternoon at Park Lodge and gained admission on the pretext of wanting his portrait taken. From his manner and the interest he took in the details of the crime it was damned clear to Cromer that the man was a detective. Now Cromer has taken fright and cleared off.’ Cribb planted his hands on the edge of Jowett’s desk and leaned over it. ‘I spend a week patiently building up my case, foot-slogging round London, talking to God knows how many insignificant witnesses, all to prepare the ground for a face-to-face with Cromer, and what happens? This nincompoop’-Cribb pulled a photograph from his pocket and tossed it in front of Jowett-‘goes out to Kew and puts the fear of God in him.’

The Chief Inspector picked up the picture. ‘Who gave you this?’

‘Allingham. It’s a print from the plate Cromer made.’

Jowett studied the portrait of James Berry. ‘Sergeant, this man’s face is vaguely familiar, but I cannot place him. I know nothing of this.’

Cribb knew when Jowett was speaking the truth. ‘Someone must have sent him. If it wasn’t you, it must have been the Commissioner.’

Jowett’s hands rose like grouse from cover. ‘Wait, Sergeant. We cannot leap to conclusions. Terribly unwise. I feel quite certain that Sir Charles would not … ’ He covered his eyes and released a huge sigh. ‘Well, if he did, it is not for us to question his decisions. He may be privy to knowledge that we are, er … It will be justified in the fullness of time, I am confident.’

The fullness of time? Cribb shook his head and drew back from Jowett’s desk. Was the man totally insensitive?

‘The question to be decided is how to proceed,’ said Jowett, piling words on his evasion. ‘If Cromer proposes to leave the country we must obtain a warrant. We shall need a charge-something to detain him.’

‘What do you suggest, sir?’ Cribb quietly asked.

Jowett rubbed the back of his head. ‘It’s not so simple when you put it like that. Sergeant, the more I look at this, the more conscious I am that we are dealing with a very resourceful criminal.’

‘He could be across the Channel already.’

‘Then we shall extradite.’

‘On what charge, sir?’ Cribb knew as well as Jowett that an extradition order was obtainable only for serious crimes.

There was an awkward silence.

‘We can’t charge the man with murder when his wife is already convicted of the crime,’ said Jowett. ‘Not unless we can prove they were jointly responsible. No, by Jove, we can’t charge Cromer unless his wife is pardoned. Once the fellow gets to the Continent, he’ll be clean away. What is to be done, Sergeant?’

‘Is the Commissioner in his office?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘I want permission to question Miriam Cromer,’ said Cribb for the third time.