A Dreadful Murder (8 page)

She threw a worried look towards the corner of the room and Taylor followed her gaze. He made out the figure of a young man, standing in the shadows. His hair looked tousled as if he’d just got up. ‘You must be Michael,’ said Taylor.

‘What if I am?’

The Superintendent produced one of his lazy smiles. ‘I’m told you do labouring jobs at Frankfield Park from time to time.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Were you there when Mrs Luard was killed?’

‘No. Last time they needed me was July. You can check it in their records.’

Taylor nodded. ‘So who was employing you on the 24th?’ His eyes were adjusting to the dimness and he could see the rigid set of the youngster’s shoulders and jawline.

‘Can’t remember . . . could have been anyone.’

‘Give me some names,’ Taylor said, taking his notebook and pencil from his pocket.

‘He was here with me,’ Mrs Blaine blurted out. ‘Ain’t that right, Michael?’

‘Yeah.’

Taylor shook his head. ‘You were seen walking up Church Road at about 12.30. Where were you going?’

A look of hostility glittered in Blaine’s eyes. He wasn’t used to having his movements questioned by anyone. ‘I sure as hell wasn’t going to Frankfield Park.’

Taylor flipped to the front of his notebook. ‘You were at the summer house the next morning. One of the constables took your name.’

‘So? It wasn’t just me that was curious.’

‘How come you weren’t working that day either?’ Taylor glanced around the cramped room. There was a mattress for the mother and younger children, a couple of wooden chairs and a folded blanket which was probably what Blaine rolled himself up in at night. ‘It looks to me as if your stepmother needs every penny you can earn.’

‘We get by.’

‘Only through the kindness of ladies like Mrs Luard.’ Taylor turned back to the woman. ‘You must be worried her charities won’t help you now that she’s dead.’

Mrs Blaine looked away, unable to meet his eye. ‘Her husband should hang for what he did.’

‘Except it wasn’t the Major-General who murdered her, Mrs Blaine. She was attacked by two men, and one of them had a revolver. We think the weapon was stolen from a house in this area.’

There was no response.

‘The man with the revolver used the butt to club Mrs Luard down. She lay unconscious for several minutes before he and his friend decided to shoot her.’ He turned to Michael Blaine. ‘It was a stupid and vicious crime,’ he said. ‘The sort that low-grade vermin commit.’

The young man took a step forward, balling his fists. ‘Save your breath. What happened over there was nothing to do with me.’

Taylor ignored him. ‘The only reason Mrs Luard is dead is because she knew her killers. We’re looking for local men – aged between seventeen and twenty – with a history of thieving and poaching. There’s no trust between them. They took it in turns to fire into her head so that if one of them hangs they both will.’

He watched the colour drain from Mrs Blaine’s face and saw the speed with which her stepson gripped her arm in an iron fist in case she tried to speak. ‘I guess it’s true what everyone’s saying,’ Michael hissed. ‘You’ll make a poor man swing rather than the bastard she married. You’ve already been after Will Farrell. Now you think you can come after me.’

Taylor stared him down. ‘The Major-General can prove he was halfway to Godden Green when his wife was shot. Can you do the same?’

‘I don’t have to. It wasn’t me that killed her.’

‘Then you’d better hope Will Farrell stays quiet. I gave him an easy ride yesterday.’

‘You’ve got nothing on either of us.’

Taylor glanced around the room. ‘So it won’t matter to you if we search this place?’

‘Like hell you will,’ Blaine snarled. ‘Where’s your warrant? We’ve got the same rights as the rich.’

‘What are you afraid we’re going to find, Michael?’

‘Nothing. I’m afraid of what you’ll plant on me. You think you can treat us like dirt just because we’re poor. Mrs Luard was the same. She made us beg for every penny she handed out.’

‘You’ve never begged in your life,’ Taylor said coldly. ‘You send your stepmother out to do it for you. The world is full of worthless layabouts who’d rather be kept by women than lift a finger for themselves.’

The youth’s eyes narrowed angrily. ‘You don’t know nothing.’

Taylor turned towards the door. ‘I know this. Mrs Luard would still be alive if she’d left you to starve in the workhouse.’

Henry Warde threaded his way through the saloon bar of the Farmer’s Inn to where Taylor and Philpott were sitting. The Superintendent slid a pint of ale across the table. ‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘We’re two ahead of you.’

Kent’s Chief Constable put his hat on the table and sat down. ‘How did it go?’

‘So-so. We’re frozen to death but we visited every family on Mrs Anderson’s list. Most of them allowed us to search their houses. The further we drove from Ightham the more willing they were to let us look.’

‘Did you find anything?’

Taylor shook his head.

‘So it was a waste of time?’

‘Not exactly.’ Taylor took out his notebook. ‘It’s all in here. The most likely culprits are Michael Blaine and Will Farrell. We’ll need warrants to search their houses but I doubt we’ll find anything.’

Warde took a mouthful of beer and ran his eye over Taylor’s notes. ‘There’s a sighting of Blaine near Frankfield Park . . . two or three witnesses claiming that Blaine and Farrell go poaching together . . . and someone who says he knows Farrell wasn’t at home on the 24th.’ He shook his head. ‘We can’t arrest them on this.’

‘Not for murder,’ Taylor agreed, ‘but Will Farrell’s scared out of his wits. I might be able to crack him if we can bring him in on a poaching charge.’

‘How?’

‘By persuading him that whoever fired the second shot isn’t guilty of murder. You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.’

Warde frowned. ‘That’s no defence in law. If there were two of them, they were jointly to blame for what happened.’

‘But Will might avoid the noose if he gives us Blaine. A good barrister will argue that he only fired because he was afraid Blaine would kill him if he refused.’

‘How do you know it was Blaine who shot first?’

‘I don’t, but I can’t see him taking orders from a seventeen-year-old. Michael Blaine’s a much stronger character than Will Farrell. If Michael hadn’t wanted Mrs Luard dead, the murder wouldn’t have happened.’

Warde toyed with the pages of the notebook. ‘It’s a good theory,’ he said, ‘but that’s all it is. What if you’re wrong?’

Taylor opened his tobacco pouch. ‘The case will never be solved,’ he said, smoothing a cigarette paper on the table. ‘We’re out of leads and out of ideas.’

* * *

It wasn’t in Henry Warde’s nature to make a decision in a hurry. As the next day was Sunday – and all good people would be in church – he said he’d use the rest of the weekend to think about it.

He was worried about the political fallout if Taylor’s plan backfired. The newspapers would have a field day if the Kent Police arrested a youth on a trumped-up charge for the sole purpose of getting him to confess to a crime he didn’t commit.

Perhaps Taylor should have insisted, but he’d learnt by now that it was better to let Warde reach a decision for himself. And, in truth, he was as keen to have a day off as the Chief Constable. He caught the last train to London to spend twenty-four hours with his wife and children, and quelled any doubts that his suspects would vanish.

The news that both Blaine and Farrell had been absent from their homes since Saturday night greeted him when he arrived at Warde’s office on Monday morning. The Chief Constable was surprisingly cheerful about it. He took their flight as proof of guilt and told Taylor it was only a matter of time before they were caught.

Taylor had no such certainty. He helped draw up descriptions for the neighbouring police forces, but it was a fine example of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. With a start of thirty-six hours, the youths had had plenty of time to disappear.

It was Taylor’s view that they’d have gone to ground in London. And he knew there was little chance of finding them in the cramped and crowded tenements of Whitechapel or Blackfriars.

With no evidence to support Taylor’s theory – and in face of Mrs Blaine’s and Mrs Farrell’s continued insistence that both youths had been at home on the day of the murder – Kent Police posted them as ‘wanted for poaching’ and kept their real reason for being interested in the pair to themselves.

The second inquest into Mrs Luard’s death was held a few days later in the George & Dragon. It ended as the first had done, without a verdict. But this time it was Henry Warde who was to blame. Convinced that Blaine and Farrell would be found, he told the Coroner that Kent Police expected to make an arrest before the week was out and asked for another delay.

It was a mistake.

When no arrest happened, the gossips busied themselves on why the Chief Constable of Kent had wanted to silence the Coroner yet again. Suspicion deepened when it became public knowledge that Major-General Luard was leaving Ightham for good on 16 September.

Was he fleeing Kent to avoid a murder charge? Had the Chief Constable realised that he couldn’t protect his friend for ever?

* * *

Taylor looked up in surprise when Henry Warde was shown into his office on the afternoon of 17 September. He had spoken to the man by telephone only the day before and Warde had made no mention of a trip to the city.

He stood up to shake the Chief Constable’s hand. ‘There’s nothing to add to what I told you yesterday,’ Taylor said with regret. ‘London’s a big place. If Blaine and Farrell are here, no one’s seen them.’

Warde lowered himself into a chair. He looked tired and depressed. ‘That’s not why I came.’ He took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to the Superintendent. ‘Charles Luard killed himself this morning. He left me this letter.’

Taylor stared at him in shock. ‘
Killed
himself?’ he echoed. ‘How? Why? I thought he was staying with your brother.’

‘He was. He wrote some letters during the night then left early this morning to throw himself under a train.’ He gestured towards the folded paper. ‘He explains it in there.’

Taylor rested his forehead in his hands. ‘We let him down. We should have realised he was as much a victim of the murder as his wife was.’

‘He told my brother he’d lost hope of anyone being convicted.’

With a sigh, Taylor opened his bottom drawer and took out a bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses. ‘What about the Luards’ son?’ He filled the glasses and pushed one across the desk. ‘Didn’t you tell me his ship was due to dock in Southampton this afternoon?’

Warde nodded. ‘Poor fellow. He’s barely had time to come to terms with his mother’s death, and now he has to learn of his father’s.’ He reached for his glass and downed the contents in a single gulp. ‘If Charles had waited, the lad might have persuaded him out of it.’

Taylor lifted his own glass and warmed the liquid between his hands. ‘It’s kinder this way. If your friend had killed himself anyway, his son would have had to bear the guilt.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Was one of the letters addressed to him?’

Warde nodded. ‘The others are to Caroline’s family in Cumberland and the staff at their home at Ightham Knoll. There was also one for my brother.’ Warde nodded to the page in front of Taylor. ‘It said similar things to mine.’

A picture of the Major-General, writing letters by gaslight, sprang into Taylor’s mind. It was a sad and lonely image. An old man quietly doing a last duty by his son and friends before he killed himself.

‘You have to make this public,’ Scotland Yard’s Taylor urged, pushing the page across the desk. ‘If you don’t, his enemies will claim he killed himself out of guilt. Or worse, that he left a confession which you and your brother have suppressed.’

Warde reached for the brandy bottle. ‘They’ll claim it anyway,’ he said bitterly. ‘Publishing what he wrote won’t convince them he was innocent. The only way to do that is to prove someone else was guilty.’

But, as both men now feared, that would never happen.

The final inquest into Caroline Luard’s death ruled that she’d been murdered by ‘person or persons unknown’. The verdict on her husband’s death was that he had committed suicide while ‘temporarily insane’.

The Coroner said that the Major-General had been driven to kill himself by the hate mail he received. Those who believed him innocent were shocked at how much cruelty had been shown by his neighbours. Those who believed him guilty thought he’d received his just deserts.

The letters he wrote in the hours before his death were read out at his inquest and published later in the local newspapers. Some found them moving and sincere, others thought they were a final, dishonest attempt by Major-General Luard to ‘clear’ his name.

No woman was ever named as Charles Luard’s mistress.

No man was ever named as Caroline Luard’s lover.

Charles and Caroline’s surviving son, Captain Elmhurst Luard, was killed in France in September 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I.