The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne (12 page)

MISS ANN MYFANWY JONES astonished herself by her own composure. She was completely calm. Utterly dry-eyed. Perhaps a little disappointed, but that was only to be expected. She had never seen a police station before – not on the inside. This one was as bad as she had feared. It was so bad it made her long for her room in No. 102 Magazine Lane, where, though the walls were thin, it did not stink.

There were two policemen. An inspector and a constable. The constable read aloud to her from a piece of paper which the inspector said she would have to sign.

The constable said: “In September this year – I cannot say the exact date – I was walking along Victoria Street when a man, resembling very much the photograph you show me, approached me and said: ‘Excuse me; are you not Miss Nancy Jones?’ I said: ‘I am afraid you have the advantage of me.’ He then said: ‘You have a brother Arthur in Detroit, America.’ I asked him how he knew me, and he said: ‘Oh, I’ve seen your photo at your brother’s in Detroit.’ I asked him when he had seen my brother, and he said: ‘Only a few weeks ago.’ I was quite satisfied in myself that he really knew my brother. He explained to me he was over here on business, that he had brought some horses over from the States to Holland, and that he had come to Liverpool from Antwerp. He said he was being delayed here owing to a cheque which he had been expecting going astray.”

It was so strange to hear her own words coming from beneath the constable’s huge moustache. They were all quite true of course. Absolutely true. But not the whole truth. So many things had been left out.

“We had this conversation in the Royal Ferry Hotel, New Brighton, where we had adjourned, as it was raining.”

That was all true. Perfectly true.

“We took the car to Wallasey Village. We simply talked about Detroit and my brother and different parts of America. Nothing of importance occurred.”

Oh, what a dreadful, black lie. He asked for her hand. That was a matter of great importance. He asked for her hand and he insisted it must be as quickly as possible. They were not young, he said, yes, yes, she would forever be his girl, even when they were old and bent and silver, but they had no time to waste and Father would not wish to give her up. He would forbid her. He would try to prevent her and keep her for himself. She must be strong, she must be his brave girl, his Nancy. If only she would come away, they could be married on the ship – the captain had the power to do it – and they could send for Father at once. The very day and hour they landed at New York, they would send a cable and summon him to a place of honour on the ranch, where they would love him and comfort him for the rest of his days and he would live and die with both his children at his side.

The constable kept reading: “ ‘Before we parted we arranged for me to meet him for lunch at 1.30 the following day at the hotel in question. The following day I reached the hotel about 2.30 and found him waiting.’ ”

No word of a lie. She could swear to all of that with her hand on the Bible. But it said nothing to explain why she was late and nothing at all to explain why he had waited. Why would he have waited for an hour?

It was the money, of course. She did not have enough money. She had the twenty pounds she had promised and: “Yes, of course, my dear, we will manage with that. It’s only to see us through. Just to tide us over although, my own one, I will have to pay extra to book a passage for you or perhaps they would allow me to change my cabin for two steerage places – but we would be separated, my dear. What? Another ten pounds? That would be ample – more than ample. I will wait here at the hotel until you come.”

And he did wait. He waited while she took the ferry to Liverpool and rode the car into town and closed her account entirely, all twenty pounds, four shillings and thruppence farthing. What would be the point of leaving four shillings and thruppence farthing gathering interest in a bank in Liverpool when she was raising horses on the other side of the wild Atlantic? So she took it all and signed the forms and came back to No. 102 Magazine Lane because there was money there. She knew where there was a little knitted purse of gold sovereigns in Father’s desk. She knew the exact drawer. She knew exactly where the secret knobs were and how to pull them so the hidden compartment would fly open. Hadn’t Father shown her often enough? Hadn’t she delighted in it? Hadn’t he warned her, over and over, that she must never sell his desk when he was gone – not at least until she had looked in the secret place? Of course taking Father’s money was wrong – of course it was – but it had to be done. She was making a better life for him in America, where he could rest at last, where he could see Arthur and not work himself to death in the business. It was for his sake. He wouldn’t have to go on until he dropped. He would see that and forgive. Boxer had explained all that and she could see – anyone could see – he was right. But Tetty was there, fussing about the place with her mop and duster, looking over her shoulder, snooping, and it wasn’t her house, it was none of her business, why couldn’t she just go? She had mislaid her spectacles. She found her spectacles. She had to adjust her hat. Now, where were her keys?

At last she was gone and Miss Ann Myfanwy turned the lock behind her and went into Father’s study. It only took a moment, only a moment, and then it was done and she put everything back, exactly as it had been, and comforted herself with the notion that he may not even notice the money was gone before the cable came to invite him to America.

She hurried along the street, terrified that she might have missed him, so terribly afraid that he may have given up hope. What if he thought her courage had failed her? What if he doubted her love? Oh, the pain he would feel. She could not bear it.

But he was still there, still waiting by the fire in the hotel parlour, hunched over at the fireside, worried and tense, but he looked up when he saw her at the door and bounded to her and embraced her. And he took the money.

The constable read on: “ ‘It was arranged that I should meet him early in the afternoon or evening at the top of our road the following day. He seemed very anxious that I should meet him the following day.’ ”

Yes, he had seemed anxious. He was frantic. How he pleaded with her to be strong. Pack a bag. Only enough for the voyage. Just a few things. Everything else that she wanted could come on by ship with Father. And she mustn’t be silly and worry about clothes; he would dress her in silks and furs as soon as they arrived in New York.

The policeman read on. His moustache bobbed as he spoke the words. “ ‘That was the last time I saw him, and I have not heard from him since.’ ”

No, she had not heard from him since. The last time. The very last time.

The policeman. What an accent he had. Coarse. Saying her words. “ ‘The next morning I wrote a letter to him at 10 Riversdale Road, Seacombe, the address he had given me, saying I was afraid I would not be able to keep the appointment in the afternoon, but I would be sure to be there in the evening.’ ”

She could not keep the appointment in the afternoon. How could she? Not after that morning, when she had wiped Father’s whiskers from the sink and rubbed away his trail of tooth-powder spit. She could not leave without seeing him again. But in the evening, there would be time for a proper goodbye, one last kiss before she left. He might not know what it meant – not until later – but she would know. She packed her bag and laid it in the coal shed, on a copy of the
Daily Telegraph
, to save it from the dust, and she sent her letter by the first post. She poured out her love in that letter. So much wasted time, so much loneliness and sorrow, but now she could see that it was all worth it, that Heaven had placed those obstacles in her way only that she might now enjoy true, deep, lasting love and happiness with the man she had been destined for from the day the stars were made. She licked down the envelope, kissed it and marked it with an X.

The policeman mumbled on: “ ‘I kept the appointment in the evening, and after waiting about a quarter of an hour and he not putting in an appearance, and being afraid he had not obtained my letter, I went to 10 Riversdale Road and inquired for Mr Walker.’ ”

That poor old lady. Poor Mrs Graham. She hardly knew what to say. Yes, Mr Walker had been staying there, but he was gone. He left, my dear. The day before. Quite suddenly. About four o’clock in the afternoon. No, not an American gentleman, a Canadian gentleman. No, not a horse trader, a manager with the Cunard line, transferred suddenly and unexpectedly to Antwerp. Yes, dear, a letter had come for him. Yes, about noon. Why, yes, dear, it was in a blue envelope. Yes, with an X on the back. From you, dear? Well, you may as well. If you’re sure.

Miss Ann Myfanwy opened the letter and showed the signature, no more than the signature, just so Mrs Graham might reassure herself. She read the letter again. Suddenly it seemed almost funny. She threw it in the fire.

The constable said: “He never made any reference to Scotland.”

It was almost over. Like the agony of a tooth being pulled. One last wrench and then the agony would be past.

The inspector said: “And this statement is all truth? Sign here, Miss. Thank you, Miss. You’ve been most helpful. You can go.”

She stood up. The constable opened the door for her and she walked down the corridor, alone, to where Father was waiting. He gave her his arm. He knew all about the money and he forgave her completely. He said: “I think you’ve had a lucky escape, Nancy. And I’m not angry. Not angry in the slightest. Perhaps a little disappointed, but not at all angry.”

One last wrench and then nothing there. The gap of a missing tooth forever and ever.

AS A CONSEQUENCE of the message from Superintendent Neaves, Mr Sempill placed another reckless charge upon the ratepayers of Broughty Ferry and hailed a cab for the castellated glories of St Pancras station, where he caught a train which took him – by second-class carriage – to Tonbridge, in Kent. He was careful to keep the ticket stub as a proof of his expenditure, to be reclaimed at later date.

It was November 12th, fully nine days after poor Miss Milne had been discovered dead, and, to judge by the newspapers, not far short of a month after her murder. Still, Mr Sempill entertained the fond hope that close examination of the villain brought to his notice at Tonbridge Court might yet provide the evidence required.

Accompanied by Mr Neaves, he sat down in the public benches. He stood up again and moved to another spot. He wanted the best possible view of the man when he came up from the cells to take his place in the dock.

An elderly gentleman, a worthy of the town now given a position of respect and a little income in his old age, stepped onto the dais with heavy tread and announced the arrival of the magistrates with a long, wavering cry of “Court!”

Everyone stood. The three magistrates took their places and bowed solemnly. Everyone sat down. The business began.

Mr Sempill was cheered to find that crime in Tonbridge was not so very different from crime at home in Broughty Ferry. It gave him a homely feeling. There was the usual tragic mix of drink, stupidity, nuisance and desperation but very little of genuine evil about it. And then, they reached Charles Warner.

He was led upstairs from the cells by a mountainous policeman. Following on behind, Warner was a tall, slim figure with a springing step, elegant and gentlemanly and, somehow, strangely cat-like.

Mr Sempill said: “A night or two in the cells seems to have done him no harm.”

“My guess is he’s quite at home there,” said Mr Neaves. “It’s not the first time he’s seen the inside of a jail, I’ll wager. And he’s fit, I’ll say that for him. So far he has totally refused to give any account of himself, beyond the fact that he walked from London overnight, with the intention of making his way to Dover and getting a boat across to the Continent.”

The clerk stood up and read from a sheet of paper. “Are you Charles Warner, 210 Wilton Avenue, Toronto, Canada?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You are charged that on November 5th, nineteen hundred and twelve, you obtained board and lodgings at Ye Olde Chequers Inn, High Street, Tonbridge, in the county of Kent, without paying or intending to pay and that you did so by fraud. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty, sir.”

He was, well, Mr Sempill couldn’t quite decide what he was. Calm, certainly. Composed. Arrogant? Cocky? No, that’s not the way of the confidence trickster. He had to be cleverer than his victim, he had to be smart, but he couldn’t afford to be sneering. You can’t win confidence by sneering. You must be friendly: “Hail, fellow, well met.” Warner had that all right: approachability, affability and something else too – authority. He seemed a little frail, with his jacket buttoned high at his throat, but he had the look of a man born to command. Officer class. Chief Constable Sempill recognised it at once. He had striven after it for years.

“There’s no doubt at all in my mind that that man is a foreigner,” Mr Sempill whispered, “even if he is a Canadian subject.”

“Definitely foreign,” said Mr Neaves.

The trial was a simple and routine affair, although it began in the unfamiliar English manner with the prosecutor setting out the circumstances of the case in a long series of unproven accusations instead of the civilised Scottish custom of moving directly to evidence.

“We will show,” he told the magistrates, “that the accused Warner mercilessly preyed upon the good nature and trusting manner of Mrs Strange, the proprietrix of Ye Olde Chequers Inn, to obtain board and lodging to the value of ten shillings and nine pence, that he deceived Mrs Strange by means of a crude stratagem and that he personally benefitted by fraud.”

The chairman of magistrates looked down from his bench. “Is there anything you would like to add, Mr Warner?”

“Your Honour, it’s all a simple misunderstanding and I’m very glad to have this opportunity to clear matters up.”

“Please, no speeches from the dock, Mr Warner. As you are representing yourself – which is of course your right – I will endeavour to give you every possible assistance, but there are certain forms which must be observed.” The chairman dipped his pen in a large bottle of black ink and drew an inexplicable heavy line across his blotter. “Call your first witness.”

And so it went on for an hour. The landlady, Mrs Strange, was called to give evidence that she was, in very fact, the owner of Ye Olde Chequers Inn and that the accused Warner had arrived and requested two nights’ board and lodging.

The poor woman was downright apologetic about the whole business, as if it had been the proudest moment of her life to be defrauded by such a fine gentleman. “I should like to tell Your Honours that Mr Warner was a gentleman in all his dealings with me and with my staff,” she said.

“Even when it came to paying his bill?” the chairman of the bench asked.

“Well, p’raps not that.”

The chairman dipped his pen and drew another thick black line.

“But in every other respect, Your Honours, a perfect gent, and I’m heartily sorry it has come to this, Mr Warner, truly I am, on my life.”

Warner made a soothing gesture from the dock as if to say: “There, there, dear lady. Please do not distress yourself.”

Mrs Strange told a story that Mr Sempill had heard a hundred times before. An unknown gentleman arrives at the hotel carrying a large, heavy bag. He engages a room for two nights. He dines very well, from soup to nuts, and he selects a good bottle to wash the whole thing down. The gentleman is charming, generous and open-handed. Indeed, he insists on buying a drink for the girl behind the bar, much to the annoyance of the cellarman, who is secretly in love with the girl behind the bar, and “Just put it all on my bill,” says the gentleman.

In the morning, the gentleman rises early and enjoys a hearty breakfast, conversing merrily with the landlady all the while. “Would it be possible,” he wonders, “if it’s not too much of an imposition, dear lady, would it be possible for me to leave something in your safe?

“I am en route to the Continent,” he says. You will please notice the “en route”, never “on my way” but always “en route”. “I am en route to the Continent and I have a number of letters of introduction and a considerable number of cheques drawn on the American Express. I don’t wish to carry them with me. Might I leave them in the hotel safe, until I leave?”

And, of course, he might. Of course it would be no trouble at all. The gentleman takes a thick envelope from his pocket. It is carefully placed in the safe. The gentleman is extravagantly grateful and now he must conduct some business in the town, but he hopes there will be some more of that excellent beef and porter again in the evening. The gentleman leaves and in all likelihood the gentleman will never be seen again.

But the girl behind the bar is also the girl who cleans the rooms and she gives the most awful cry when she drops the gentleman’s case and two house bricks fall out on her toe and that brings the cellarman, who runs upstairs and takes in the whole scene with a glance.

Then he runs downstairs and opens the safe and finds that the gentleman’s envelope contains nothing more than a torn newspaper, and then the cellarman – who never liked the gentleman – runs out into the street and find a constable, who apprehends the gentleman on the coast road to Dover.

“What identifies that bundle of paper as my property?” Warner asked the cellarman.

“You gave it to Mrs Strange.”

“That is a matter of contention. Was a receipt issued? Was it signed for? Is there anything on that bundle of worthless papers to suggest that it has anything to do with me?”

“Well, I . . . We both know . . .”

“Did you have a lawful warrant?”

“A warrant?”

“A search warrant, entitling you to break and enter the property?”

“What property?”

“The envelope.”

“Of course not.”

Warner rocked back on his heels and addressed the bench. “I would ask Your Honours to discount the envelope entirely. Not only is there no connection to me, but it has been unlawfully obtained.”

The clerk of the court stood up. The chairman of the bench leaned down. The clerk of the court whispered in the chairman’s ear. The chairman sat down in his seat with a thump, dipped his pen and scored another black line. “Continue,” he said.

“I have no further questions.”

After that, there was nothing left to deal with but the closing statements when Mr Prosecutor was able to show the court overwhelming evidence of guilt and a clear and deliberate attempt to defraud. “I invite Your Honours to convict,” he said, in a voice that scraped like a coffin lid closing.

The chairman of the bench seemed eager to do just that, but a tug on the sleeve reminded him that the accused had yet to speak.

Warner, of course, had not given evidence. He asked the bench to note that and to recall that they could make “not the slightest implication of guilt or innocence as a result”.

“So noted,” said the chief magistrate. “We also note that your closing statement is not open to cross-examination.”

“And you are right to do so, Your Honours. In which case I ask you to consider what has been shown against me. I concede that I asked for two nights’ board and lodgings. The reason that I did not avail myself of two nights’ board and lodgings at Ye Old Chequers is that Kent Constabulary insisted, rather vehemently I might add, on providing board and lodgings of their own. It is claimed my luggage contained two bricks. Is it an offence in Kent, in England or anywhere in the British Empire for a man to carry a brick? Your Honours, many an honest builder would find himself where I stand today if that were so.

“The matter of the envelope has already been dealt with, and in short, all that has been shown against me is that I went for a morning walk, during which I was arrested. That dear Mrs Strange has been bilked of her payment is a fault which lies entirely at the door of the police.”

With a flourish of the hand and a deep bow, he said: “I throw myself on the mercy of the court, secure in the knowledge that the fine tradition of English justice means I must soon walk free from this place, an innocent man with no stain on my character.”

The three magistrates conferred together for a moment, nodded at one another, and the chairman scored another black line across the paper, banged his gavel and announced: “Guilty!”

With an icy smile, he said: “You wanted board and lodgings, Warner and you have already had a week’s worth, courtesy of the ratepayers of Kent. You may now look forward to fourteen nights’ more, with their best wishes. Take him down.”

The mountainous policeman began the process of herding him down the stair, but before he gave way before the avalanche, Warner managed another courteous bow and he raised his finger to the brim of the hat he was not wearing in an insolent salute as he vanished into the pit.

Mr Sempill wasted no time. “The longer I observed him,” he told Superintendent Neaves, “the more convinced I became that this man answers the description of the suspect seen at Broughty Ferry.”

“I agree, wholeheartedly.”

“Quite clearly this is an educated man with considerable pretensions of being a gentleman, and from the able manner in which he cross-examined the witness, I was inclined to think he had had a legal training. Neaves, would you oblige by instructing one of your men to have the prisoner’s clothing examined?”

“Certainly. But, after all this time, you can’t expect to find any evidence.”

“It’s no time at all, man. He’s been in jug for a week, locked away from his own clothing and forced into prison uniform. From what you told me, he walked down here from London the day before – the day the body was discovered. I think he was flushed out of hiding by the news and making his way to the coast to flee to the Continent. If he had any money he would have gone by train, and a man who has no money might very well not have a change of shirt either. And I want him photographed too. If that’s possible.”

“Of course, that’s easily done.”

“Excellent. I look forward to inviting you to a hanging!”