Chapter Twelve
Inspector Benjamin Ross
‘THERE IS absolutely no doubt in my mind that Fawcett is a fraudster,’ I said to Dunn the following morning, after I had given him Lizzie’s account of her visit to Clapham. ‘The woman Scott is in thrall to him. Others will be as completely convinced. He must be investigated.’
‘The matter is already set in hand,’ said Dunn. ‘I have contacted several other police authorities and passed out the description Mrs Ross gives of him. We shall have to tread carefully, however, or he will guess the game is up here and he’ll be off to pastures new.’
‘I am aware of that, sir,’ I said dolefully.
I was frustrated that we could not stop Fawcett and his profitable enterprise at once, but Dunn was right. At the first sign of our suspicion, he would slip from our grasp. He would reinvent himself elsewhere and it would not be until he came to the notice of yet another police authority that anything could be done. Plenty of his sort kept themselves ‘in business’ for years before the law finally caught up with them. Even then it was always very difficult to prove anything against them. The problem often was that those deceived by such tricksters were unwilling to stand up in court and admit how they had been fooled. Mrs Scott, for instance, even if she were ever to be convinced of his falseness, would never make public admission of it. Her pride would not let her, and more. The Fawcetts of the world survive because not only money has been taken from the victims. The fraudster is protected because the gullible have given him something much more precious: their trust and, in that way, their hearts. For them, discovery of the deception is more akin to finding a lover unfaithful than just a robbery. As police officers, we just have to hope that knowledge of the truth engenders enough rage to make some of them speak out.
I left Dunn feeling that things were not going our way. But, as often happens, the unexpected offered a gleam of hope.
‘There you are, sir!’ declared Morris, for once wearing a broad smile. ‘Found him, that Seymour chap. Like you said, he’s on the books of the same agency for “upper servants and superior staff” out at Northwood.’ Morris gave a snort of derision. ‘No use going to them if you just want a housemaid. Governesses and companions, best sort of lady’s maid and gentleman’s gentleman, and butlers, that’s what they deal in. Well, Mortimer Seymour is butler at a place down near Newmarket now. He works for a Colonel Frey. I have the address here.’ Morris waved a piece of paper. ‘Shall I get down there and talk to him?’
I took the address slip from him. ‘The Manor House,’ I said. ‘We may have to go through his employer to speak to him. It’s better I go. No offence, Morris, but the colonel will appreciate my rank.’
Morris nodded. ‘You’re right. I’d be sent round to the back door!’
‘You appear to be conducting this investigation by railway,’ grumbled Dunn. ‘If you exceed your daily expenses allowance it will be no use asking me to justify it. The department’s budget is not limitless and plenty of your colleagues are doing their work on foot within the boundaries of the capital. Let’s hope you turn up trumps this time.’
I hoped so too. I had plenty of time, as the train took me down to Newmarket through the peaceful East Anglian countryside, to think out a strategy. There was no knowing how the colonel would react to a police officer turning up at his door, wanting to interview a member of his staff. I did not want to cost Seymour his place. I decided that, when I arrived, I would hire a cab to take me out to the village where the colonel lived and on arrival, find the most prosperous-looking tavern or small hotel if they had one, there to eat my midday meal. I would have to find a way to include that in my expenses. The landlord or landlady, or failing them, the waiter in the dining room or even the potman, would be able to tell me about a local landowner. Forewarned is forearmed.
As I was driven out to the place, I realised that here I was in racing country. There were plenty of signs of that, from strings of thoroughbreds on the skyline to the names of the pubs, all of which seemed to have some direct connection with the turf. The tavern in which I found myself was a spacious, comfortable place by the name of the Finishing Post. Very droll, I thought. A roaring fire heated the dining room and the menu offered a choice of pork chops or mutton stew. I settled for the mutton stew and it arrived, pleasantly bubbling and colourful, with carrots, swede and turnip bobbing about with the meat, and dotted with silvery globes of pearl barley. The smell was mouth-watering.
‘All cooked in ale, sir,’ promised the waiter, as he set down my generous plateful.
I tucked in, as did the other two diners, a pair of fellows wearing loud check jackets, whose conversation was unintelligible to me. I have never followed the horses. Luckily these two finished before me and left; so that I was alone when the waiter brought my coffee.
‘Can you by any chance tell me how I can find the Manor House, the residence of Colonel Frey?’ I asked.
The waiter’s face brightened. He leaned forward conspiratorially. In lowered tones, although we were now alone, he hissed, ‘You’ll be the police officer from Scotland Yard, sir!’
I didn’t bother to ask how he guessed my occupation, although out here in the country that was more surprising than, for example, Jed Sparrow recognising me in London.
But the specific ‘
the
police officer’ . . .’ startled me considerably and I couldn’t help but show it. ‘You’re expecting one?’ I asked. How could this be? Surely no one had sent word ahead that I was on my way?
‘We all know the colonel has sent for an officer to come,’ said the waiter smugly.
‘Really?’ I replied as I mentally reordered my whole approach to the colonel. ‘It’s common knowledge, then?’ I added. I have found that is always a good conversational gambit for getting people talking.
‘This is racing country, sir, and has been since good King Charles the Second’s time. If it concerns the horses, everyone knows,’ said the waiter.
The horses! I should have guessed, perhaps. It wasn’t some ghastly murder or major house robbery, but something to do with the stables. As for the Merry Monarch, he was cropping up all over the place in this investigation. When not strolling in Green Park, it seemed he was watching his horse run here at Newmarket.
‘Awkward business,’ I said to the waiter in a confidential undertone, to match his.
‘Very, sir. If word gets out that anyone’s been near the horses, well, the security at all the stables has been increased. The colonel has a couple of men patrolling his premises night and day – with shotguns! But I did hear he was thinking of calling in the police.’
It occurred to me I had to be careful here. I didn’t want to find myself face to face with the real officer called in by the colonel and have to explain why I was using his visit as cover.
‘We didn’t think you’d be here so soon, though,’ said the waiter with admiration. ‘You’ve got to hand it to you fellows, right off the mark. You weren’t expected until next week.’
Thank goodness for that!
‘That’s why the colonel’s gone away for a couple of days,’ said the waiter. He really was an excellent informant. We could do with a few like him in London. And the colonel was away from home? Better and better. After so much frustration were things at last starting to go the way of our investigation?
‘He’ll be sorry to have missed you,’ said the waiter.
‘His, ah, lady is at the Manor House?’ I enquired.
‘Mrs Frey has accompanied the colonel. I believe they are visiting their son. He’s away at the university. Oxford,’ concluded the waiter. ‘We had expected that the young gentleman would have gone to Cambridge but his father wished it otherwise.’
There is not much privacy to be had in small communities and it seemed that Colonel and Mrs Frey had no secrets from anyone local, at least not concerning their general business and movements.
‘Another officer will come when the colonel returns,’ I assured the waiter. ‘In the meantime, I’d like to go out to the Manor and make some enquiries.’
‘Half a mile down the road,’ said the waiter. ‘Turn right as you leave here. You can’t miss it.’
Just as well I wasn’t planning to nobble the horses, and no surprise that the colonel had posted armed guards. I might find it more difficult to get past them when I reached the Manor House than I’d found it gathering all the background information here!
I certainly could not have missed my destination. A white board painted with the information that this was Manor Stables gleamed at the roadside for all to see. The colonel, obviously retired from a military career, had turned his hand to either breeding or training racehorses.
I turned down a lane and found myself approaching a considerable establishment. To my right was the manor house itself, a square, grey building with tall chimneys, which looked as though it might date from the reign of that same King Charles. To my left were several stable blocks around a sizeable yard; beyond them I could see a manicured track, winding out over the nearby landscape. The gallops, I thought, digging into my scant knowledge of the racing world.
I had had time only to observe these generalities when a very large man wearing a bowler hat jammed down over a pair of cauliflower ears, and carrying a fearsome-looking blunderbuss, stepped out from behind a tree and barred my way.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, ‘might you be looking for someone?’
The words were friendly enough but the blunderbuss wasn’t.
‘I am Inspector Ross from Scotland Yard,’ I said hastily. ‘If I might show you my warrant card?’
I handed the document over and it was very thoroughly studied. He then nodded and returned it to me. To my relief, he turned away the muzzle of the blunderbuss as well.
‘We’ve been expecting you, sir,’ he said. ‘But the colonel isn’t at home.’
‘That is a pity,’ I said calmly. ‘In that case, as I have come from London, perhaps I might just see the stableyard and talk to whoever is in charge? Then one of my colleagues will return next week when the colonel is at home.’
‘It’s Mr Smithers you want,’ said the man. ‘If you’d follow me, sir.’
I did as bid and we arrived in the large cleanly swept yard where a boy was leading a horse round in a circle observed closely by a stocky, red-faced man in gaiters.
‘Who is this, Kelly?’ demanded this individual as I appeared with my armed escort.
‘Inspector Ross, Mr Smithers, from Scotland Yard, as the colonel ordered,’ said Kelly.
Well, well, we are here to serve the public and if Colonel Frey had ordered up a detective, here I was.
The red-faced man, whose purple nose suggested to me a close acquaintance with strong spirits, turned back to the boy and ordered briskly, ‘Keep leading him round, Jim!’
He then nodded at Kelly to dismiss him and addressed me. ‘You’ll want to see the layout of the place.’
‘Indeed, yes, thank you.’
I followed him as we went around, asking what I hoped were suitable questions, and gathering as I did that the reason behind all this activity was that known members of a notorious gang of horse dopers had been spotted in the area.
‘We know which one they are after,’ said Smithers to me. ‘It’s His Eminence here.’
I was temporarily bewildered by the sudden introduction of a clerical figure. But a snort and snuffle, the stamp of a hoof, and the head of a chestnut horse appearing over a stable door, identified His Eminence. He pricked his ears and gazed at me enquiringly. I was glad he couldn’t speak. He looked more intelligent than his handlers.
‘Is the season not over?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes sir, but as I thought the colonel would have explained, that is not the problem,’ Smithers replied, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.
‘I did not speak to Colonel Frey myself,’ I said quickly. ‘I only understood this was to do with doping horses.’
‘More than that,’ said Smithers grimly. ‘This is poisoning, sir. They mean to murder His Eminence, or so they say, if the colonel will not pay. The loss of the horse would be a blow. The stud fees, you understand.’
‘Blackmail!’ I exclaimed as all now became clear.
‘The colonel took all the letters to Scotland Yard with him. But he will not pay, sir!’
‘Of course,’ I said firmly. ‘No, no, certainly not, never pay. But we will get the villains, never fear.’
‘Whoever it is, they will have hired these doping tricksters to do the work for them,’ Smithers informed me.
‘If they were seen and recognised so easily,’ I said, ‘then I would guess it was intentionally. The blackmailer meant to underline the threat by letting it be known his hired desperadoes were close at hand, should the colonel stand firm.’
‘The colonel will stand firm, sir. He is a military man.’
The time had come to extricate myself from what was becoming a very interesting case. But not
my
case. When I got back to London, I thought, I would straight away have to find whoever of my colleagues was dealing with all this, and inform him of my activities and the freedom I had taken with his investigation for my own cover.
