Dear Laura (12 page)

Sated, they stood aside as he and Dr Padgett left the room, and murmured compassionately over the weeping woman they supported. The coroner’s hammer reminded them that all was not done. He cleared his throat diffidently.

‘The evidence is not yet adequate enough to form any
conclusions
. I shall adjourn this inquiry until further details are available.’

Then he retreated: closely followed by Sergeant Wilson.

I
NSPECTOR
John Joseph Lintott of Scotland Yard was a man whom the Croziers would not have known socially. He seemed a dull dog at first view; his greying hair parted in the middle and smoothed mercilessly down, his mutton-chop whiskers furled against flat cheeks. Quiet of dress and manner, his
respectability
could not be doubted, but he was no gentleman. One suspected that he came of an honest family who took
advantage
of every opportunity offered – and there had not been many. A man without style, yet of considerable shrewdness, he enjoyed some eminence in his little circle at the Yard. He lacked influential connections and would therefore not rise to the best positions. He never pandered to the curiosity of newspaper
reporters
, and therefore lacked publicity. In fact, he was one of those excellent and unsung persons who are the spine of any authority: a man who asked no more of his work than the enjoyment of doing it well, and accepting a modest salary in return.

He had risen from the ranks slowly, and knew the dark side of London. He tapped sources which his superiors found noisome, except when they took credit for rooting them out. In thirty years of police service he reckoned he had seen
everything
, could not be surprised and seldom was. He treated his inferiors with a mixture of good-nature and jocular bullying. His terrible patience, his reluctance to reach an easy conclusion, his acute perception, were backed by an indomitable nature. One might kill Lintott, but one would never deter him.

Yet each man has his weakness, and the inspector’s
underbelly
– so’s to speak – lay in his family. They were also his secret strength. He kept them securely tucked away in Richmond, and rejoiced in their anonymity. For they were very ordinary, these beloved ones, except in his eyes. Without them he would have been merely a nose on the scent, a hollow man. With them in his background he trod surely on streets that his constables only paraded in pairs.

He was as familiar with the swarming warrens of
Whitechapel
, the squalor of Devil’s Acre and Drury Lane, and the breeding slums of the Dock area, as with his Richmond cottage. He could shine his bull’s-eye lantern into the cellars of the
greatest
criminal slum in Britain: St Giles Rookery, known as ‘The Holy Land’, which sprawled from New Oxford Street to St Giles High Street. They knew him: the coiners, pickpockets, footpads, cardsharpers, ponces, prostitutes, beggars and
housebreakers
, kidsmen and shoplifters. And he knew them and could speak their jargon as easily as they did themselves.

‘What’s this then, Dollie?’ he would cry, snatching up a warm heap of part-feathered poultry. ‘Been beak-hunting?’ Or, ‘
Flying
the blue pigeon again, Charlie?’ as he came upon a quantity of roof lead. ‘Don’t gammon
me
,
lad!’ But with the filthy
children
, who shrank into shadows, he could be kind. ‘Here’s a mag apiece!’ he would say, distributing halfpence among them. ‘Now, mizzle! And if I catch a one of you smatterhauling or buzzing or griddling, I’ll have you on the cockchafer! Hook it! And mind what I say.’

They minded, but could no more have altered the pattern of their lives than they could have eased their hunger. London was two cities and two worlds: the one glittering, the other in perpetual darkness. Between them both the police force strove to keep some semblance of order and justice.

Lintott’s respectful voice, the way he held his ‘Bollinger’ hard felt hat to his chest, soothed Laura.

‘I have called at an awkward hour, Mrs Crozier,’ he
suggested
, seeing that she was taking tea in the parlour.

His years, his grey head, his air of competence, even though he was not a gentleman, brought out the child in her. He was reminded of his younger daughter, in disgrace over some slight
misdemeanour, silently begging for his intercession. But the elegance of her carriage, the composure of her voice and
gestures
, were those of a woman well-versed in social behaviour.

‘Do not mention it, Inspector Lintott. I shall ring for another cup, and perhaps you will join me?’

He hesitated only for a moment, summing her up as a
charmer
and therefore suspect on that score alone. Then spoke briskly.

‘On no account, ma’am. I have no wish to disturb you. But I should be obliged if I could have a word or two with your servants.’

She detected a snub and withdrew into hauteur: wounded.

‘My servants know nothing more than has been reported on the inquest.’

She ached at the recollection of their names and private lives spread out in
The
Times
and less mentionable newspapers.

Having put her in her place, Lintott twisted his hat with becoming modesty.

‘A mere formality, Mrs Crozier. A half hour would suffice, with your permission.’

Firmness underlay his deference.

‘I begin to dread the expression “a mere formality”,’ said Laura, attempting lightness. ‘Whenever anyone uses it
something
fearful follows.’

He stood, politely unmoved.

‘You may ask
me
anything you please, Inspector. I am afraid the inquest distressed me, but I have quite recovered and will answer you calmly.’

‘My dear lady,’ said Lintott, who intended to draw his
conclusions
without her help, ‘enough has been demanded of you already.’ Still, he pitied the dark hollows of her eyes. ‘I shall not trouble you more than I need to, ma’am.’

‘You do not wish to speak to me at all?’ Laura asked, turning her amethyst ring, set like a flower in its gold oval.

Was she relieved or disappointed? He could not tell.

‘It may be necessary later, ma’am. There are certain
statements
to check and corroborate. But, at the moment, your
servants
if you please.’

He nodded at the bell by the fireplace, and she rang it, disquieted.

*

Kate escorted him into the kitchen, where the staff were oily with buttered muffins. And this was a different man who smiled on them all and accepted a cup of strong tea from Mrs Hill’s own hands: sharp-eyed, self-assured and dangerously genial.

‘The beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, ma’am,’ he observed. ‘A warm welcome on a cold afternoon. Very raw
outside
, Mrs Hill. Very inclement weather we’re having.’

‘Ah!’ sighed the cook, refilling her own cup, ‘you may well say so. We feels it all the more, I can tell you, with the master gone.’

And she looked up at the ceiling and lifted the corner of her apron to two dry black eyes.

‘A sad business, Mrs Hill. I can see you know what you’re about in this establishment,’ and he admired the battery of iron and copper saucepans on the wall. ‘And somebody is clever with their fingers,’ tapping one of the rag rugs softly with his buttoned boot.

‘That’s Miss Nagle, Miss Blanche’s nurse. She sets of an evening with me and makes them.’

‘I should like a word with her too, by and by. Yes, I
will
have a muffin, I thank you kindly.’

‘Five is the best time,’ said the cook, glancing at the eight-day clock, whose hands stood at twenty minutes to the hour. ‘Miss Blanche goes into her Mama’s parlour until six. Have a
morsel
of plum jam with that, Inspector. Harriet, cut the Inspector a slice o’ seed cake.’

Red-cheeked, Harriet severed the giant cake.

‘Thankee, my dear. I see you have an eye for Art, Mrs Hill,’ nodding at the Pear’s Calendar. ‘A very fetching study, that one.’

‘He looks the image of Master Lindsey,’ said Cook, striving to bring the conversation round to the family. ‘Poor little
fatherless
dear. Ah yes!’

‘Your husband’s a lucky man, Mrs Hill, having a wife that can bake as well as this.’

‘Husband?’ cried the cook, bridling with delight. ‘Lor’ bless
you, sir, I ain’t got a husband. They calls me Mrs Hill out o’ respect. And respect I will have.’

‘Then you’ve disappointed somebody,’ said the inspector coolly, wiping jam from his fingers. ‘You’ve sent some poor fellow off to war with a broken heart!’ and he jerked his chin at the scraps of military red in the rag rug.

Harriet Stutchbury giggled, Kate smiled, and Mrs Hill threw her apron over her head and laughed aloud. Lintott looked amiably on.

‘That’s Miss Nagle’s intended, sir. They’ve been a-courting these ten year.’

‘Then she don’t intend to have him, I’d say!’

‘Oh yes, she do!’ they chorused, enchanted with him.

He was so friendly, sitting there taking his tea with them. They had expected, somehow, to be bullied. Mrs Hill poured him another cup and sugared it liberally.

‘Try a scone,’ she urged. ‘Do!’

‘It’s beyond me,’ said Lintott idly, as if talking to himself, ‘why a gentleman of Mr Crozier’s standing should have made away with himself. Why, bless you, I haven’t a half nor a quarter of what he had – and I’m as happy as larks in a pie. Particularly if it was one of
your
pies, Mrs Hill! Is that a
mutton
pie on the dresser?’

Shining with pleasure, she cut him a wedge.

‘I’ve had nothing since Mrs Lintott grilled me a dish of kidneys for my breakfast. She’s a fine cook, too, Mrs Hill – but she don’t make pastry like this. Never tell her I said that, mind! Yes, your master had a deal on his conscience, to be sure, but
I
wouldn’t have made away with myself under the circumstances.’

‘He never did,’ said Mrs Hill sturdily, ‘not the master.’

The inspector dusted crumbs of pastry from his knees, and raised his eyebrows.

‘Not the master,’ Mrs Hill repeated with honest conviction. ‘He was a Christian gentleman.’

‘He wasn’t afraid of nothink,’ Harriet offered. ‘He would have fetched a constable and set that huzzy packing, not killed hisself.’

‘An upright and charitable gentleman,’ said Henry Hann,
who so far had sat in nervous silence. ‘The only One he feared was God.’

‘Well, well, well,’ Lintott ruminated. ‘And what do you think, my dear?’ to Kate Kipping.

She replied deliberately, ‘It’s hardly my place, sir, to set myself up for the Law. If the Law decides that the master made away with himself that’s good enough for me.’

‘Ah, you’re a clever girl, I can see. And who’s this little wench, then?’ as the kitchenmaid appeared gaping, from one of her sojourns in the scullery.

‘That’s only Annie Cox. She don’t know nothink and thinksless.’

‘I’ve a daughter much the same age as you, Annie. How are you, Annie?’

‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir,’ bobbing a curtsey.

‘That’s good, Annie.’ He signalled Mrs Hill with a lift of his fingers.

‘Annie!’ said Cook, interpreting, ‘you’ve finished your tea. You can light the fires upstairs. Off with you.’

‘So you don’t think your master committed suicide?’ said Lintott, looking round. Cook, Harriet and Henry shook their heads. ‘Then what did happen?’ he asked in quite a different tone. ‘Remember, if it wasn’t suicide it must have been murder. No one takes a bottle of sleeping capsules by mistake. Are you saying Mr Crozier was murdered?’

His eyes threatened them. They did not speak, suddenly afraid: pleating an apron, fingering a cuff, twisting a button.

‘Someone wrote those letters,’ said Lintott quietly. ‘I wonder who that was?’

The kettle boiled away on the kitchen range, unnoticed.

‘All that was said,’ Mrs Hill began timidly, ‘was that it didn’t seem in the master’s nature to do away with hisself. We don’t know nothink more.’

The door opened behind the inspector, and Miss Nagle walked in: tall, spare, starched.

‘Come in, come in, my dear,’ cried Lintott cheerfully. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to join us. I know all about
you
,
my dear!’ And he smiled into her startled face. ‘There’s one of Her
Majesty’s
gallant redcoats a-pining for a kind word from you. Sit,
do. I know Mrs Hill won’t mind me asking you to take a chair. I’m an admirer of hers. Now where can I go that’d be nice and quiet?’ Lintott asked, hard and friendly together. ‘Because I want to speak to each of you privately in turn. Would your mistress let me have some small room, do you think, my dear?’ To Kate Kipping, who alone among them eyed him steadily.

‘I’ll ask her, sir, if you like.’

‘That’s right, Kate. It is Kate, isn’t it? I thought so. Tell her I shall be a little longer than I thought. Say I’m on the track of an anonymous letter-writer, Kate. That will set her mind at rest. At any rate, we hope it will. A good mistress won’t suspect her own servants, I should hope Eh, Mrs Hill?’

The cook’s answer was inaudible.

‘We mustn’t fret your mistress, must we, Kate?’ Lintott asked, turning to her.

‘No sir. Mrs Crozier has had more than enough of grief.’

‘And you’d do anything to spare her grief, wouldn’t you, Kate?’

‘If it was in my power, and according to my conscience, sir.’

‘Oh, you’re a quick one, Kate. I shall have to watch you, I can see.’

‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes, Kate, for now. So, mizzle!’ He stared round, smiling. ‘That’s a criminal way of saying
cut
along
,’
he explained. ‘But, then, none of you would know that, would you? Not unless you’d done something wrong and got yourselves in prison. Then you’d learn it fast enough, and the hard way. You see that?’

He opened his hand wide. Blunt-fingered, square-palmed, it lay on the scrubbed table like menace.

‘That’s a policeman’s hand. The Hand of the Law, you might say. It’s as safe with honest folk as a new-born babe, and as gentle. Do you know what it does with the wrong ’uns?’

He balled it into a fist.

‘So mind you tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ Lintott said, amicable again. ‘I
will
have the truth, you know. I’m a stickler for it.’