The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (13 page)

‘Gardener? Where did he come from?’ exclaimed Morris.

‘He’d helped earlier with the removal of the body into the shed. He had been hanging about since then, grumbling, because he wanted to be about his work, and objected very strongly to the use his potting shed had been put to! He was told he couldn’t go into his shed while the body was still there. But he still hung about grousing until we told him it would be some hours before he could use the place and we didn’t want him under our feet.

‘Mr Morgan sent for an experienced detective to come – which is yourself, Mr Ross, and the sergeant here with you – because Mr and Mrs Lamont are well known and respected locally and wealthy folk. They will want everything done proper. She don’t appear to have done herself in – killed herself – since there is no sign how she could have. Besides, she was a respectable woman. Mr Morgan declared it must be foul play and Dr Croft suggested it might be a case of strangulation. Well, we don’t see too many murders in that locality, you see, so Mr Morgan considered it a job for the Yard.’

Morris gave a groan. ‘Has no one taken any statements?’

Hepple looked offended. ‘Mr Morgan was of the opinion that you would wish to speak to the witnesses yourself, Mr Ross. That is to say, to speak to the parish clerk and the doctor. Mr Harrington has not been able to await your arrival. He has business in town, as I think I mentioned.’

The noise from the growler’s wheels increased suddenly. We had rolled on to the wooden bridge across the river to Putney.

‘We’re here, sir,’ said Hepple, looking and sounding mightily relieved.

We had arrived before the church and clambered down. The news had got about, not surprisingly. An eager crowd had gathered in the street and various individuals in it started to point out the new arrivals to each other. ‘It’s the detectives!’ we heard and, ‘It’s the Yard!’ A couple of young fellows raised a somewhat derisive cheer. I paid off the cabman and, with Morris, set off in the wake of Sergeant Hepple, our guide.

‘I don’t know about this, Mr Ross,’ muttered Morris. ‘The boys who found her have been sent away, the body has been moved, and I don’t know how many people have been called in to look at it before we arrive. Now half of Putney has turned up to see the show! All we lack is a brass band.’

We had been following a path alongside the river, which was still high and lapping at the bank, although here and there a streak of fresh glistening mud at the very edge suggested it was already turning. I asked Hepple when low water was again expected.

‘Around half past three this afternoon, sir, or a few minutes before.’

It wouldn’t help us. The place where the body had been discovered earlier was several feet below the surface of the water. When the tide receded, any evidence would have been washed away forever. There was a brick wall to our right. Leaning against it was a bearded man wearing a moleskin waistcoat and red neckerchief, arms folded. As we approached him, he demanded in a surly tone, ‘How long is it going to be?’

‘How long is what going to be?’ snapped Morris.

‘Until you move that woman out.’

‘What’s it to you?’ demanded Morris, who was clearly out of sorts by now.

‘I want my scythe. It’s in the shed.’

‘Scythe?’ Morris sounded taken aback. ‘Who are you, then? The Grim Reaper?’

‘No, I’m Coggins, the gardener, and I was all ready to cut the grass today. Mr and Mrs Williams will be coming home tomorrow. They’ve been travelling in foreign parts. They will want to see the garden tidy and that’s my job, to make sure it’s so. But I can’t do it without my scythe and that constable won’t let me into my potting shed.’

‘Mr Williams,’ Hepple informed us, ‘is the owner of the property where the shed is – where the body is. But he’s away, as Mr Coggins has said, until tomorrow.’

‘And he won’t want to find a body in his shed and the grass not cut!’ shouted the gardener after us as we abandoned him.

It wasn’t long before we were greeted by the sight of the legs and boots of several small boys. They had scrambled as far as they could up a brick wall and were leaning over the top, clinging on for dear life and eager for macabre entertainment.

‘Here we are,’ said Hepple in relief. ‘Oy!’ he added in a shout, ‘You just get down off there!’

The boys all dropped to the ground, some landing on their feet and others in small heaps on the path and rolling around.

‘Were any of you among those who found the body?’ I demanded, as they sorted themselves out and examined their bruises.

Disconsolately, they denied it. So we chased them away and opened a gate in the wall.

The potting shed was situated at the lower end of the garden, shielded by some bushes. As we approached I sniffed the air and thought I could detect pipe tobacco smoke. We rounded the leafy barrier to find a stalwart uniformed man, presumably Constable Beck, standing with his hands behind his back. A little further off stood two men in conversation. One, bulldog-like in stance and appearance, must be Morgan. The other – the tobacco smell had already betrayed him – was Dr Croft. Of the parish clerk there was no sign. Beck looked relieved at seeing his sergeant.

‘Go and stand outside that gate,’ Hepple ordered him, ‘and keep those youngsters from coming back.’

I held out my hand to Morgan and introduced myself. He, in turn, began to introduce Croft.

‘Inspector Ross and I are already acquainted,’ said Croft before Morgan could complete his introduction. ‘Well, Ross, I don’t think we anticipated seeing one another again so soon!’

Morgan frowned at this unexpected turn in events, so I thought I should say hastily to him, ‘I had reason to call on the doctor a few days ago. Yes, Dr Croft, I had not thought we’d meet again – certainly not in these circumstances.’

‘The body’s in there,’ said Morgan, pointing at the shed with some impatience.

Four of us, myself and Morris, Morgan and Dr Croft, all squeezed into the small shed. Much of the room in there was taken up by a wooden bench from which all the clay pots had been swept and lay about higgledy-piggledy, some on the floor, two or three broken, the soil in them scattered together with any cuttings. I could imagine the gardener’s reaction to that when he finally got in here and saw what had happened to all his careful labour. In addition the shed held implements, including the scythe, spades, forks and so on. Thick cobwebs hung across the roof space and a spider watched us from the corner where he lurked awaiting his prey.

But an earlier killer had struck. The body of a woman in a dark dress lay stretched on the workbench. Light from a small window above fell on her. Death can sometimes lend a dignity, even serenity, to a face. Sadly this is not often the case in those who have died violently. Rachel Sawyer, even as a younger woman, had probably never been a beauty, or even passably attractive. The face down on to which I gazed was plain almost to the point of ugliness, with thick eyebrows, a lumpy nose and coarse skin. The potting shed surroundings might have appeared unseemly for another corpse. But Rachel had been born and had died in workaday surroundings well suited to her. Her mouth was opened to reveal her tongue pressed against her upper teeth. Her eyes were open, bulging and glazed, her complexion livid and greying hair disordered. I gently moved aside a few strands of hair to reveal her earlobe. It was pierced to take an earring but none adorned it. There was no sign the jewellery had been torn out roughly by someone in haste, either by her killer or another. Had she not bothered to fix earrings before leaving the house because she was in a hurry? Or had it been because she felt that early mornings were not the time of day for any kind of ‘dressing up’?

‘Well, Doctor?’ I asked.

This was Croft’s area of expertise and he squeezed between us to join me by the body.

‘It is not I who will be conducting the postmortem,’ he said firmly. ‘However, I have taken a quick look, and there are marks on the neck I would consider pressure points. I therefore suggest manual strangulation, throttling, as cause of death. At this point it can only be an educated guess. If whoever conducts the postmortem finds the hyoid bone fractured, that would confirm it. Here, you may see it for yourself.’ He pulled down her collar a little.

I leaned over the body to see where he pointed. Just above the collar and below the jaw, the throat appeared swollen to my untutored eye, and there were dull red bruises.

‘Would she have struggled, fought back?’ I murmured, more to myself than in a question to Croft.

Croft answered anyway. ‘Not necessarily. If the attack came suddenly, the assailant had strong hands and gripped her throat tightly, she might have died quite quickly, unable to do anything. I will say no more. I will leave it to your pathologist.’

I looked over my shoulder towards Morgan. ‘Nothing has been removed?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Morgan. ‘Nor did the parish clerk mention removing anything. He’s gone up to the church, where he has business, if you want to find him.’

‘Have a word with him later,’ I murmured to Morris, who nodded. ‘And we are confident in the identification of her as Rachel Sawyer?’

‘The clerk knew her as worshipping at the church and I know her by sight, too,’ said Croft. ‘That is Miss Sawyer, the housekeeper at Fox House. There is no doubt about it.’

‘How long would you say she has been dead?’

‘Not long,’ Croft said firmly. ‘Rigor is beginning but is very far from complete. I would estimate she has been dead four to five hours. It might even be a little less. It is never possible to be exact in these matters.’

‘The clothing was not disarranged in any way?’ I glanced at Morgan.

‘She was as you see her now,’ Morgan said. ‘The parish clerk has assured me.’ He paused. ‘Bear in mind the body was originally found by young rascals foraging along the river bank. The clerk saw no purse or reticule lying on the mud, and no jewellery could be seen on her person.’ (Morgan had checked this point as I had done, and mulled over the possible reason.) ‘The boys may have removed that before they fetched help. It is a great pity the clerk sent them away. We are doing our utmost to find them. But if they took anything of value, they won’t admit it. If they try and sell it, well, we might hear of that.’

We all jostled and squeezed our way out again. Croft tactfully wandered off a short distance and busied himself with refilling his pipe.

‘Well,’ said Morgan quietly. ‘I am completely at your disposal, together with Constable Beck there, but otherwise I leave this in your competent hands, Mr Ross.’

‘I’ll be grateful for Constable Beck. Has the coroner been informed?’

‘I sent a message by telegraph to his office. The coroner may give instructions regarding moving the body. We can’t leave it here.’ Morgan indicated the potting shed.

‘Ideally,’ I said, ‘I’d like Dr Carmichael over at St Thomas’s to take a look at it. He’s examined a few murder victims in his time. I am not questioning the judgement of Dr Croft and I think we are probably agreed as to death being caused by manual strangulation. But we are laymen in medical matters and Croft has expressed himself unwilling to carry out a postmortem examination. In any case, that wasn’t his line of medicine. I’d like to hear what Carmichael has to say. I have just one more question. Has anyone informed the woman’s employers?’

Morgan gave a crooked smile. ‘Well, now, Mr Ross, Putney has grown apace over the last twenty or thirty years, but at heart it is still a small and close community. I would be surprised if no one at Fox House has heard the news of a body being discovered by the time you get there. As to whether they’ll know it was Miss Sawyer’s body, that’s another matter. By rights they shouldn’t.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But the church clerk may have spread the word already.’

‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘it seems my first call must be at Fox House, and I must hope the clerk hasn’t been there before me.’

We all left the garden with the exception of Constable Beck, who glumly remained on guard over the body.

Chapter Ten

I SENT Morris to run the parish clerk to earth. After that, if possible, he should trace Mr Harrington the magistrate. He must get statements from them both; and anyone else who might have seen Rachel Sawyer alive that morning. Then I set off alone for Fox House. I had feared that I might be followed all the way by a retinue of spectators, but they had dispersed. I suspected Sergeant Hepple had made sure of this. I had received precise directions from him and before long found myself standing where the wretched Mills must have stood some sixteen years before, in the shelter of the trees opposite the house.

Lizzie had added her description to that of Mills, so that I felt I knew this place already. There it was, a long, low building of considerable age that did suggest it might once have been an inn. But the busy road on which it once had stood was now a quiet lane, seeing hardly any traffic. Even if Lizzie and her helpers had not encountered a walker, who might well have been Lamont himself, Wally’s cab would have attracted notice as it jolted by. I glanced up at the roof. There was little wind today and the running fox turned slowly back and forth as the breeze played with it. I fancied I could hear a faint creak. The old weathervane had stood aloft many years; if I were the owner, I’d send a man up there to check its safety. The window to the right of the main door, I conjectured, that is the parlour. Standing there to peer inside, Mills saw murder done. Now another murder connected with this house had brought me to it.

I walked across the road, up the path to the door. The ghostly form of Mills, soaked with rain, seemed to walk beside me and I had to drive away the unsettling notion. The brass knocker resounded with a dull echo within.

The door was opened by a butler. Well, I thought, it would seem the Lamonts keep more staff than the Cannings. A butler, Rachel Sawyer as housekeeper (doubling as companion to the lady of the house) and a cook, as it had not been suggested that Rachel had cooked. There must be a housemaid and probably a kitchenmaid, as Bessie had been before she came to work for Lizzie and me.

I produced my card. ‘I am Inspector Ross of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, and I would like to speak to the house owners.’

Unimpressed, the butler eyed me, read my card, and eyed me again. ‘Mr and Mrs Lamont are at table, sir. It is lunchtime.’

Being accustomed to work through the day when on a case without pausing to eat, I had not remembered that others kept a more regular timetable. It must be well after twelve by now.

‘I am very sorry to disturb them, please apologise on my behalf. But I must speak to them now, without delay.’

‘On what business shall I say, Inspector?’

‘Official.’

The disapproving butler took my card away to convey news of my arrival to his employers. He returned within a few minutes to ask me to step inside and wait. He then left again. My arrival was clearly the subject of some discussion. I took the opportunity to look around me. The interior of the house matched the date of the building and its probable early use as an inn. This central hallway was wide enough to accommodate travellers arriving with luggage, and the walls panelled with aged dark oak. There was a smell of cooked food. One of the small rooms opening off to the left must be the dining room. To confirm this I heard the murmur of voices and a faint clatter as if someone had dropped a knife on a plate.

The butler returned and told me Mr Lamont would be there in a moment and made to retire. I stopped him.

‘I would like to see both Mr and Mrs Lamont, if that is possible.’

I wanted to see the impact the news had on both of them. Supposing, of course, they hadn’t heard already and had time to compose themselves and agree a reaction.

The butler looked at me as though there would be no end to the social faux pas I would make. But he said he would tell them. Meantime, he showed me into a small room on the right-hand side of the hall, with a low-beamed ceiling: the very parlour through the window of which, some sixteen years earlier, Mills had with horror watched Isaiah Sheldon die.

I had hoped for this and, while waiting, studied the room. It was eerily the same as Mills’s description, adding substance to his story. An oil lamp still stood on a small table by the window, and yes, there stood a grandfather clock! There was the hearth with chairs set either side of it, although no fire was lit today. But the copper coal scuttle was filled to the brim and ready if needed. The chairs looked new. The one in which Isaiah Sheldon had died had been removed. It would have had a sad association but, in any case, after sixteen years and with new and younger owners, it was no surprise the furniture had changed. Two or three small oil paintings hung on the walls, family portraits I guessed, and by run-of-the mill artists. One was of special interest. It showed a middle-aged man of business, of florid complexion, wearing a black coat and shirt with high collar starched into sharp points and stock. His waistcoat was of a rich brocade and he stood with his hand resting on a thick accounts ledger. He looked a decent sort of commercial John Bull. This must be the late Isaiah Sheldon when still engaged in the coffee trade.

The door opened to a rustle of petticoats. A woman came in, closely followed by a man. He stepped forward in front of her and demanded, ‘I am Charles Lamont – this is my wife. May we ask your business, Inspector Ross? And why it is necessary to disturb both of us?’

He cut a handsome figure, perhaps forty-five years of age, with dark hair and moustache. He had, perhaps unconsciously, struck a pose, one arm hanging straight down by his side. The other arm was crooked to reach inside his coat to a silk brocade waistcoat rivalling that of Sheldon in the portrait, a forefinger hooked into one of the little pockets. A heavy gold watch chain of the type called an ‘Albert’ was strung across his midriff. If any artist were engaged to paint him, I thought, that is very much the pose he’d choose. He spoke crisply and appeared indignant. But I’d interrupted his luncheon and could not blame him for being displeased.

The woman, who now stood a little behind and to one side of him, was watching me warily. The detective in me – who lives as a voice in my head – whispered: this is a woman who knows something. But what it is, and whether it concerns the events of today, remains to be seen.

Or is her apprehension (I replied silently to that voice) based on concern that the man’s aggression – at present only simmering beneath the surface – may lead him to say or do something unwise? From what Dunn had told me of the man (learned from the assistant commissioner), Lamont was of volatile temperament.

‘I am very sorry to disturb you both and at such an inconvenient moment,’ I began. ‘I have to apologise on two accounts, because I am afraid I am also the bringer of bad news.’

‘What sort of bad news?’ asked Mrs Lamont quickly.

Lamont turned his head slightly to cast her a glance; before turning back to stare straight at me, his thick black eyebrows raised. ‘Yes, Inspector, what kind of bad news?’

‘You have not heard that a body was discovered earlier today down by the river?’

‘No,’ said Lamont simply.

‘Ah, I had wondered if one of your servants might have heard the news. That sort of thing quickly gets spread about.’

‘I do not encourage the servants to gossip,’ said Mrs Lamont, and pressed her lips tightly together. She was a handsome woman – perhaps once the beauty described by the appreciative Mills – but now her manner appeared severe.

‘Why is this discovery – very sad, of course – of any interest to us, Ross?’ Lamont asked.

‘Because it has been identified as being that of someone in your employ, your housekeeper, Miss Rachel Sawyer.’

At that, with a little gasp, Mrs Lamont collapsed on to the carpet in a dead faint and lay there insensible.

That put an end to the interview for quite a while. Lamont ran to the door and shouted for assistance. Then he bent over his wife in concern and seized one of her limp hands.

‘Amelia? Amelia, my dear?’ He looked up at me, his features working in fury. ‘Are you a complete fool, Inspector?’

To be fair, he had reason for his rage. But I am a practical man. There was a sewing table in one corner of the parlour, the sort with little compartments for thread and so forth. Lizzie has one. I went quickly to it, and riffled through the contents until I found what I needed.

I turned to Lamont and held up a pair of scissors. ‘You had best cut the lady’s laces,’ I said.

‘
What?
’ His face turned purple.

‘Come, come, man!’ I snapped. ‘If she can’t breathe properly there will be great difficulty in bringing her out of a swoon!’

Lamont blinked, then held out his hand. I passed the scissors to him and tactfully turned my back.

After a moment or two I heard the lady give a faint moan and I can confess to you freely that I was very pleased to hear it.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, swivelling to face him. ‘I did warn you it was bad news.’

‘Bad news?’ Lamont struggled to control himself. He was still kneeling by his wife. He had rolled her on to her side and the back of her bodice was still unhooked. The scissors lay on the carpet and I assumed he’d cut the staylaces, as I’d suggested. Lamont glowered up at me. ‘Your claim is nonsense, in any case. If a body has been found it cannot be that of Sawyer. She has duties in this house. She cannot – could not – have been anywhere near the river this morning.’

Amelia Lamont was stirring and appeared to be coming out of her faint. Help arrived at that moment in the persons of the butler and two maids. The maids patted Mrs Lamont’s hands and urged her to speak. The butler, who with foresight had brought a jug of water, took it upon himself to sprinkle a little with great delicacy on the lady’s face. I was irresistibly put in mind of a clergyman baptising a baby. Mrs Lamont was assisted by the maids, first to a sitting position, and then to her feet. She was half-carried, half-led from the room, the maids supporting her to either side. The butler would have followed behind with his jug of water, but Lamont called him back.

‘Ask Miss Sawyer to come to the drawing room at once!’ To me he added, ‘We will settle this nonsense once and for all. There has clearly been a mistake. The body of which you told us cannot be Sawyer’s.’

‘Miss Sawyer does not appear to be in the house, sir,’ replied the butler in tones of deep regret. ‘I have not seen her myself this morning.’

Lamont muttered an oath and waved the butler away. The man departed with his jug of water.

Now we were alone, Lamont turned his full fury on me. ‘I asked you earlier why you needed to see us both. Now I ask you again. If this wretched woman
is
Sawyer, why could you not have broken the news to me and left me to break it to my wife? Could you not foresee what a shock it would be to her? This whole scene has been a disgrace! Improper, embarrassing and totally unnecessary. I shall complain most forcefully to your superiors.’

I couldn’t reply that I had needed to see her reaction for myself. It had told me an important fact: that she had not known about the body or, if she had, certainly not known that it might be Rachel Sawyer’s. As for his threat to complain about me at the Yard, if he chose to do so, he might find he had to join a queue of aggrieved persons, bringing up the rear behind the governor of Newgate, the home secretary, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Mr Hubert Canning, taxpayer.

‘I understand your dismay,’ I told him. ‘Unfortunately, in inquiries of this nature, the usual conventions have to be discarded.’

‘Inquiries?’ he asked sharply. ‘You have brought us the news. You claim to know the identity of this unfortunate woman. Even if it is Sawyer, of which I am still not convinced, then neither my wife nor I was aware she had left the house. How can we help you any further? Where is – where is the body?’

‘At the moment it is temporarily housed in a potting shed in the garden of a house near to the spot where she was found.’

‘Potting shed?’ cried Lamont.

‘The body had to be moved to prevent the rising river level covering it. She was found on the mud.’

‘Sawyer threw herself into the river? Good grief, why on earth should she do that? She was a level-headed woman and devoid of any imagination. She gave no indication of being suicidal. She lived here in comfort. What on earth could have prompted such a desperate act?’

‘No, Mr Lamont, you misunderstand. You will appreciate that there has been no time for a proper postmortem examination nor for the coroner to rule on the body, but we have reason to believe we are dealing with a case of murder.’

‘Murder?’ Lamont shouted. ‘No, that is impossible! Who would kill her and why? She was . . . nobody of any significance, a housekeeper for many years in this house. Murders don’t happen in Putney, Inspector, or certainly not in respectable households!’

‘Sadly, Mr Lamont, I have to inform you that murder in respectable households is surprisingly well known to the police.’

Lamont spun on his heel and walked to the window where he stood, his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the trees on the further side of the road. ‘There is no doubt?’ He spoke without turning, his tones now muted.

‘It doesn’t appear so, sir. The woman is dead. Two people have named her.’

‘They could both be mistaken. Some errand may have called Sawyer away early. She may yet return.’ His voice was flat and carried no conviction.

I did not try to answer this and my silence ended his resistance to the news.

‘Who found her?’

‘Some mudlarks. I am afraid this means considerable disruption to your household. Miss Sawyer’s movements must be traced in detail, what time she left the house, whether she was alone, went directly to the river bank, spoke to anyone in the vicinity and so forth. It would have been early this morning. Can you think of any reason why she should have been down by the river at that hour?’

‘Of course I can’t!’ he snapped. ‘There
is
no reason why she should be there.’