The Children of Silence (3 page)

‘This is a very interesting commission.’ He looked hopeful and opened the document case, which was well stuffed with papers. ‘But I regret that I cannot take it.’

‘Oh!’ His face fell and she could see that it had fallen before. ‘I cannot persuade you?’ he ventured.

‘No. Not on the terms you describe.’

He closed the case and prepared to leave, but she lifted her hand to forestall him.

‘You have asked me to start my enquiries by assuming that the remains found in the Paddington Basin are those of Mr Antrobus and with the object of proving that they are. It is quite impossible for me to proceed on that basis. I can gather facts, of course, but what if I uncover facts that show the opposite conclusion? What would you have me do? I can hardly ignore them. I can form theories and test them against the facts, of course, but if the facts do not fit it is time to find another theory. I cannot act as you wish and any detective who does will be taking your money in a spirit of mockery.’

Wylie fidgeted with his hat brim. ‘I did, when the remains were first found, engage a London man to make enquiries, and he did very little for a month and then told me that the task could not be achieved and presented me with his bill. And there have been others who refused even to make the attempt. Then I read in the newspapers about your giving evidence at a recent murder trial and was most impressed by the thoroughness of your methods. Someone I spoke to likened you to Jude the Apostle – he said you are the patron saint of lost causes. I am sorry to have troubled you, Miss Doughty.’

‘But it is an interesting case.’

He had half risen from his seat but paused, gave her a curious look, and sat down again.

‘I want you to be perfectly honest with me,’ said Frances. ‘I don’t think that you yourself are convinced that the remains are those of Mr Antrobus. And if I might venture an opinion, I don’t think Mrs Antrobus believes so either. Both of you are, however, very anxious that the remains are identified as those of Mr Antrobus because if they are he will be declared dead and Mrs Antrobus can try to extricate herself from her financial disarray some years earlier than anticipated. Am I correct?’

He hesitated and then nodded. ‘You are correct, of course.’

‘On all counts?’

He licked his lips. ‘I can only speak for myself, but – yes.’

‘And if events should turn out as you wish, Mrs Antrobus would be a widow and free to marry again if she so chooses.’

He said nothing but an embarrassed smile spoke for him.

‘Very well,’ Frances declared in her best businesslike manner, ‘this is how I suggest I proceed. I will start a new enquiry into the disappearance of Mr Antrobus. Since the previous one was conducted only in Bristol, I will see what I can learn in London. I will of course consult with your Bristol agent. But my mission, and I must make this very clear from the outset, will be to find out the truth, whatever that may be. While the remains found in the canal might be those of Mr Antrobus, they could just as well be those of another man. Will that be acceptable?’

‘You are very direct, Miss Doughty. I have heard that said of you also.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I believe we may accept your terms. Let me consult with Mrs Antrobus and I will call again.’

‘It will of course be necessary for me to interview Mrs Antrobus.’

‘She prefers to communicate by letter with people not familiar with her infirmity.’

‘Then you must familiarise me. Mrs Antrobus is most probably the best source of information there is on her husband’s character and movements. I must speak with her.’ Frances did not add that when conducting interviews she paid great attention to the facial expressions and attitudes of the people she spoke to and sometimes learned more from those than from the words spoken. And she would have some potentially embarrassing questions to ask Mrs Antrobus.

‘Very well,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘I do converse with her, of course, but it is essential that when I do so I speak quietly. Raised voices she cannot abide, not even so much as a sneeze or a cough. Do not wear silk, as it rustles so, neither must you wear shoes with hard soles or open and close a reticule or any case with a fastening where metal snaps against metal. The pain she endures from such sounds are like a knife thrust into her ear. And yet there are some sounds that still give her pleasure – the wind and gentle rain, and voices both soft and low. She plays the piano for relief and her sister has a low melodious voice and sings to her. Silence she finds a great trial as her ears seem to make a noise of their own that never stops by night or day.’

Frances could hardly imagine the misery that must attend such a life, and she looked forward all the more to meeting the lady in question. ‘I will write to Mrs Antrobus and make an appointment,’ she said. ‘I will also interview Mr Antrobus’ friends and associates who saw him in the months immediately preceding his disappearance. I need to know all his circumstances: his character, his faults, his ambitions – everything that might provide a clue as to his fate. I must consider whether he has met his death by accident, self-destruction or murder, and also if he might still be alive. I rule out nothing.’

Mr Wylie provided Frances with the Bristol detective’s report and the addresses of Mr Luckhurst and Mr Lionel Antrobus, who, Mr Wylie said, knew the missing man better than anyone in London other than his wife. The payment of a handsome advance fee completed the proceedings and he departed.

‘What did you think of Mr Wylie?’ asked Frances as she and Sarah studied the report and reread the newspapers over a large pot of tea. Frances never ceased to wonder how it was that hot tea, with or without a biscuit, could be so wonderfully warming to the system in the winter, yet so refreshing in the summer. Either way it never failed to stimulate her thoughts.

‘Wants to marry the lady, and it’s not just the money he’s after,’ remarked Sarah, ‘which is a new one round here. In Bayswater it’s money first and love second, if it ever gets a look in which it doesn’t often.’

Sarah’s robustly cynical view of the world had not been modified by the fact that she was walking out with Professor Pounder, who taught the art of manly self-defence at his Bayswater academy. The Professor was a handsome fellow who cut a fine figure, and it was a matter of some mystification amongst young ladies who prided themselves on their beauty that he should prefer the company of someone so decidedly plain. The Professor, however, was impervious to external show and reserved his admiration for a woman with a stalwart nature and fists that could crack walnuts.

‘Yes, but there is more to Mr Wylie than a simpering affection,’ observed Frances. ‘Perhaps I will learn more when I see Mrs Antrobus. I shall write to Mr Ryan in Bristol. His report is very thorough but it is three years old. Mr Wylie has been kind enough to enclose a portrait of Mr Antrobus, and I can see that he was unremarkable in appearance. He might easily have taken the train to Paddington without anyone at the station noticing him particularly, and there is no feature here that might have helped Dr Collin match him against the remains found in the canal.’

‘Will you be speaking to Dr Collin?’ asked Sarah. An uncomfortable inference hung in the air.

‘I will write to him for an appointment, but he will be as unhelpful as it is possible for him to be.’ Dr Collin, while Frances’ own family doctor who had known the Doughtys for many years, had never quite forgiven her for revealing that he had once made an error of judgement, something to which no medical man would ever admit unless forced. Dr Collin appeared to believe that the letters MD after his name conferred upon him a pre-eminent place in the estimation of the public, a glow of veneration in which he liked to bask as if it was the summer sun. His manner towards Frances was pure winter.

‘One point which was made very forcefully in court,’ remarked Frances, ‘was that if the remains are not those of Mr Antrobus whose else could they be? No other man of that age has been reported missing in Paddington and, importantly, all the material found with the bones was the remains of good quality gentleman’s apparel. There were no coarse fibres as might be expected had a poor man worn a second-hand coat over a rough shirt. He was not a bargeman or porter in his working clothes, killed in a quarrel, but a man of means whose absence would surely have been widely commented on. Even if he was not resident here but a visitor, no other person has come forward to say that a relative has not returned from a visit to Paddington and also laid claim to the remains.’

‘I hope you’re not going to go off solving murders again,’ warned Sarah. ‘Remember what happened last time.’

Frances did not have to be reminded of the distressing attack on her person that had occurred during an earlier investigation, and she shuddered. She had not mentioned it to Sarah, but she still sometimes had dreams in which she smelt her assailant’s foul breath and felt the pressure of his body crushing against her, only to wake up in alarm and confusion. The miscreant was currently reflecting upon his sins in prison, while the evildoer whose instrument he was, in common with several others whose paths had crossed hers, had recently been found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey and condemned to death. It was a consequence of her profession that occasionally troubled her conscience, but she reminded herself that the law was both firm and just, and she must be the same.

W
hen Frances commenced a new enquiry and sought meetings at which to gather information, she usually started by assembling the names and addresses she required and wrote letters to secure appointments. It seemed only polite. Sometimes when the ground had been prepared for her by recent events her card or a letter of introduction, together with good manners and a respectable appearance, served just as well. It was at later interviews that she deliberately tried to take people by surprise and prevent them from manufacturing stories to deceive her by arriving without prior warning. There were also times when, stung into a temper by repeated lies, she burst in upon her quarry in a wholly undignified manner, a proceeding which left her feeling a little ashamed of herself but rarely failed to get results. As Frances wrote her first letters in the Antrobus case she wondered whose door she would have to belabour this time.

Within hours of Mr Wylie’s visit Frances received a neat little note in Mrs Antrobus’ flowing yet legible hand which confirmed that she would be delighted to see Frances the following morning.

June was the herald of summer in Bayswater, and the lifting of winter gloom and passing of a cool spring had given a new lightness to Frances’ heart. The fine, warm and above all settled weather had brought out the best in fashion. On every promenade young ladies paraded their newest ensembles in shades of sunny yellow and bright sky blue, with ribbons and bows in their bonnets, ruffles at cuffs and hem, and dainty parasols in their hands.

For over a year Frances had been in mourning both for her brother and father, and while that particular state would, in a sense, never change, she felt that it was time to put off her most sombre attire and adopt a deep pearl grey trimmed with a touch of white. A portrait of her brother with a twist of his hair enclosed in a locket hung about her neck from a black ribbon. The instruction not to wear silk when visiting Mrs Antrobus was an easy one for her to comply with as she had never owned or even worn a silk dress. As she checked her appearance before going out, she realised that she looked like a governess and would probably always do so. A governess, however, did not wave for a cab with such confidence or step lightly aboard with such aplomb as a lady detective.

The dust thrown up by carriage wheels that had once been a choking nuisance to both lungs and pretty fabrics in dry weather was somewhat less of a trial than in previous years. The long needed completion of the wood paving along the length of Westbourne Grove meant that traffic now rumbled over level hardwood sets rather than rattling and shaking over rutted macadam and pebbles, and it was possible for shoppers and strollers to spend more time in front of the windows of Mr William Whiteley’s growing emporium, marvelling at the latest trimmings from Paris.