A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) Read online

  When Jenny had left us, I turned to Mrs Jameson. She gave me much the same account as she’d given Lizzie the previous evening. I was again struck by how easily Tapley had talked his way into her small household. She was aware of it and regretted it now.

  ‘Indeed, I can’t blame Jenny if someone slipped in through the kitchen, when I took in Mr Tapley with no proper references. I wish I could explain to you how it came about, but he was such a pleasant, harmless sort of person.’

  Of a type I’d certainly met before, I thought grimly. ‘Mrs Jameson, please be frank, did Mr Tapley at any time seek to borrow money from you?’

  ‘Oh, no, Inspector!’ She looked shocked. ‘Certainly not. He always paid his rent regularly and never sought extra time to find the money.’

  She then surprised me by adding, ‘I do not think he was a confidence trickster, as I believe such people are called.’

  Lizzie was right. Mrs Jameson was a very sensible woman and by no means naive. She’d been unwise to let her rooms to the man, but at the time perhaps there had been no reason why she shouldn’t. Were all my suspicions about Tapley unfounded?

  I accompanied her back to her house, Jenny trailing dolefully behind us. I wondered how soon she would be using her Quaker references to seek a new place. Before I left them, I warned them that neither must go into either of the rooms rented by Tapley. Nothing must be disturbed until the police gave permission.

  ‘I shall probably be back again later today myself, with another officer,’ I told them. ‘Because we’ll need to search those two rooms thoroughly by daylight.’

  Search his rooms again was all we could do for the moment. Apart from that I would make sure news of the murder reached the later editions and the evening papers. With luck someone would come forward with information or at least to confirm the identity of our man. We would need as much luck as we could get.

  When I reached the Yard that morning, Sergeant Morris was waiting for me. He’d been told of the case by Superintendent Dunn and ordered to assist me. Thank goodness for that, I thought. I also found Biddle’s report on my desk, neatly written out.

  ‘Well, well,’ I said to Morris, ‘that boy will make a detective yet! Have you read this, Morris?’

  ‘I have, Mr Ross,’ Morris replied lugubriously. ‘And it seems a very nasty affair to me, very untoward as you might say.’

  ‘You might, indeed, Sergeant. There are a number of mysteries around the deceased. Not the least of them is how he acquired his skill at talking his way into the homes of respectable women, renting rooms from them, even persuading this one to let him have a street-door key giving free access to the house, with no other reference than one from his previous landlady. His appearance was down at heel. He was well spoken and educated but appeared out of thin air in response, Mrs Jameson says, to an advertisement she’d placed in the local press. That might suggest he was already living locally – or it might not.’

  ‘He’d kissed the Blarney stone, by the sound of it,’ observed Morris.

  ‘We’ve no reason to suppose him Irish, or Welsh or Scottish or, come to that, English. He told this respectable Quaker widow he had a wish to return to live in London where he’d lived many years earlier and that was all he told her. She took him on trust. But that does not mean we have to take anything about him on trust. That includes his apparent straitened means. He never tried to borrow money from her or to delay payment of his rent. He spent a fair amount on books, even if most of them do appear second-hand. He went to a coffee house every morning to make his breakfast, though his landlady would certainly have been willing to have him eat it in her house at no extra cost. He told her it was because he liked to read the newspapers. He dined with her in the evenings.’

  ‘What did they talk about, while they were having their supper?’ asked Morris.

  People who don’t know him sometimes underestimate Morris. That is their mistake and many wrongdoers have made it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But you are quite right. If he didn’t talk about himself, what did he talk about? Not religion, I shouldn’t think. The lady is a Quaker but there’s no Bible in Tapley’s rooms, nor any other devotional book. We shall have to ask her, Morris.’

  ‘A Quaker lady, you say?’ Morris said thoughtfully. ‘They’re inclined to see the best in people, are Quakers.’

  ‘The lady is not naive, Morris. I’ve spoken with her. She’s sharp enough. It makes it all the more remarkable that she let the two rooms to him.’

  ‘What I meant to say, sir,’ Morris explained, ‘was that they’re good people themselves – though I dare say they have their occasional black sheep – and they look for good in others. They reckon the world a sinful place and no police officer will argue with that! But they pride themselves – although they don’t go in for pride, it being sin – on seeing the good in others. Perhaps this Quaker widow lady trusted Tapley because she saw something in him that others might not.’

  ‘Hm, well, I’ll bear that theory in mind, Morris. Now I’d better go along and see Superintendent Dunn and get his view of the matter.’

  Dunn’s view was predictable. I didn’t need to hear it from his lips to know it. The superintendent believed in taking the direct line between two points. It was sometimes difficult to dissuade him from any conclusion so reached.

  ‘Well, it’s a dreadful business, of course, when a respectable gentleman is murdered in a decent household, with the roast ready to come to the table and a scripture-reading lady downstairs in the parlour. But from the police point of view, Ross, it is a simple matter. A thief broke in, Tapley disturbed him – or he was alarmed to come upon Tapley reading – so the miscreant struck out in a panic, having in hand some implement of his criminal trade, and killed the poor old fellow.’ Dunn looked satisfied at having arrived at this. But, because he knew me as I knew him, he waited for my objections.

  ‘There was no sign of any breakin,’ I ventured. ‘No forced window.’

  Dunn waved this away. ‘He slipped in through the kitchen, then, while the maid had her back turned, he went up this servant’s stair . . .’ Dunn tapped my plan of the upper floor. ‘He used this spiral stair to reach the first floor. He left the same way after committing his heinous assault. We have to seek among London’s criminal fraternity, Ross! First port of call, known housebreakers.’

  ‘But why should he attack Tapley, if Tapley was reading quietly and hadn’t noticed that the door had opened behind him, sir? Why creep in and strike the victim down? It was unnecessary and, frankly, madness. It is one thing to be charged with housebreaking, and another to be charged with murder. We don’t hang a man for theft any longer in this country but we do hang him for a murder.’

  ‘Housebreakers are not reasoning beings, Ross. They plan their breakin and nothing more. Anything more is due to their low, violent instincts.’ Dunn nodded in agreement with his own words.

  I was not ready to give up my argument. ‘Habitual housebreakers operate by night or at dawn, when the household is asleep, sir. An opportunist sneak thief, on the other hand, doesn’t go upstairs, where he may be trapped. He seizes a purse left lying on a table, a small ornament of value, something of that nature, and clears out as fast as he can.’

  Dunn began showing signs of irritation. ‘So, are you saying the culprit entered the house with the express purpose of killing this blameless man, in his sixties, who spent his days in coffee houses and his evenings reading? Who was apparently in receipt of some small income, enough to prevent him pawning or selling his gold watch, but not enough to buy a new set of clothes or make him worth robbing?’

  ‘It does sound very odd, sir,’ I had to agree. ‘But we have to consider it. The victim, Thomas Tapley, is something of a mystery figure. We know nothing about him, nor did his landlady.’

  Dunn sighed and yielded with bad grace. ‘You will investigate, of course, to see if it is indeed a deliberate murder. It’s a rum business, I admit. But don’t waste time or manpower looking for com
plications where there are none, Ross. We are short of both those commodities here at the Yard.’

  ‘I am aware of that, sir.’

  ‘This female, Mrs Jameson, ought not to have let her rooms to him,’ the superintendent went on crossly, rubbing his hands through his wiry hair. ‘It was very unwise of her. Bound to be trouble sooner or later, perhaps not murder, but some problem. She knew absolutely nothing about the fellow! What on earth made her take him in?’

  ‘Sergeant Morris thinks perhaps she identified some good qualities in him,’ I ventured.

  Dunn snorted. ‘I wish I had a guinea for each time some deceived woman has told me that! They usually offer it as an excuse after the man has spent all their money, or run off with the nursemaid, or turned out to be a bigamist. Your Mrs Jameson wasn’t the first woman he’d charmed in that way, apparently,’ Dunn rumbled on, ‘because he showed her a letter from his previous landlady in – where?’

  ‘Southampton, sir.’

  ‘A port . . .’ observed Dunn thoughtfully. ‘There is a regular packet service to and from France sailing from Southampton, is there not?’

  ‘I have wondered if that means anything, sir. He certainly might only recently have arrived in this country after spending some years abroad. That would account for his not being able to produce any other references.’

  ‘He might have been abroad, or in gaol or in the madhouse. Do we have this letter of reference?’ Dunn looked fiercely at me.

  ‘So far we have nothing, sir. That includes his house key – and it looks increasingly as if the murderer took that with him. If he did, it will be of no use to him now. Mrs Jameson is fetching in a locksmith this morning. But it indicates he intended to return and that suggests something he wants is there. We have to find it. But without knowing what it is, identifying it in the first place will be a problem.’

  ‘Tapley will have kept that letter of reference from his former landlady,’ mused Dunn. He got up from his chair and walked to the window where he stood with his back to the room, his hands clasped at the small of his spine and balancing on the balls of his feet. His shiny, uncreased boots looked brand new. Distracted, I wondered if he found them tight.

  The superintendent spun round and fixed me with his small but piercing grey eyes. ‘Find that letter, Ross! It was the only bona fide piece of recommendation the fellow had. If he’d ever intended to move to new lodgings he’d have need of it again. He’d have kept it, mark my word. We must trace his former landlady in Hampshire. She may be our only lead.’

  ‘I’ll be taking Morris with me to the house shortly, sir, to search Tapley’s two rooms again,’ I said. ‘Before we leave I’ll arrange for the report of the murder to appear in this evening’s newspapers. I will tell the pressmen that we are anxious to confirm the identity of the corpse; and that there is a possibility the victim lived briefly in Southampton. That may spark some interest. If we can find the coffee house he was in the habit of frequenting, he may have chatted more freely to someone there. I’ll get Biddle on to that when he reports back on duty again. The youngster did very well last night, sir.’

  Dunn squinted at me, the grey iris of his eyes almost invisible. ‘Experience tells me, Ross, that this nice old gentleman, who wouldn’t hurt a fly and collected books, was on the run from something or someone!’

  It wasn’t the first occasion when Dunn had abandoned a fixed point of view and taken up another. The speed with which he’d changed his mind this time was still disconcerting. So, from seeking known housebreakers, I was now to chase down Tapley’s history and seek a reason for murder. The next step would be for Dunn to decide this had been his idea from the first.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  I sent a man out to go round the newspaper offices and make sure the murder made the late editions. Morris and I then returned to the Jameson house where we found the locksmith busy at his trade, and Mrs Jameson standing over him. She looked unhappy, as well she might, because removing the old lock had made a sorry mess of the front door, leaving an unsightly gap around the newly fitted replacement. The next person to be called to the house would be a carpenter, I guessed.

  I explained to the lady that, as soon as the work was finished, it would help us if she would go and stay with my wife – or perhaps with some other acquaintance – for a few hours so that we could search the house.

  ‘It’s better you are not here, ma’am,’ I told her. ‘It gives us a free hand and we’ll be moving about a great deal in the two rooms rented by Tapley. That might upset you. But I am glad of a chance of a word with you. When Tapley dined with you, did he speak much of himself?’

  Mrs Jameson took her eyes reluctantly from the locksmith. ‘Oh, well, no, he didn’t, Inspector. Now that you come to mention it, he hardly told me a thing. I didn’t pry, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally. So, if I may ask, what did you talk about?’

  She looked vaguely up and down the street as if something there might jolt her memory. ‘He read the newspapers, every day without fail. He must have read them in coffee houses or public libraries because he never brought one into the house. I should have noticed, or Jenny would have done. I don’t allow a newspaper into the house, you see, Inspector. The papers are full of all kinds of unsuitable reports of people misbehaving in every way. I wouldn’t wish a young person like Jenny to find one and read of it. Having a young person in the house is a great responsibility, Inspector, as I expect you find with your maid.’

  She didn’t know Bessie, I thought. Banning newspapers from the house wouldn’t have kept Bessie from hearing the gossip and any shocking news in particular. Maidservants operate a sort of telegraph system of their own by which anything like that runs round like wildfire. No doubt Jenny, too, would gather this sort of intelligence. Morris was right. There was a kind of innocence of the world about Mrs Jameson. Jenny would be much more alert to its pitfalls.

  ‘So,’ Mrs Jameson was saying, ‘of an evening, if he came down and dined with me, he told me of any current events he thought might interest me. I think I shouldn’t have known what was going on in the wide world if poor Mr Tapley hadn’t told me. I don’t mean he told me details of lurid murders—’

  She broke off and looked at me in distress. ‘Oh, dear . . . and now the press will be reporting his murder.’

  ‘But he spoke to you of, perhaps, international affairs? What the government intended to do at home?’ I tried to sound reassuring. ‘Of course he didn’t report scandal.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s it! In fact, he made me realise how lamentably ignorant I have become since poor Ernest died.’ She turned her attention back to the locksmith. ‘I shall miss Mr Tapley. Have you finished?’

  I thought she meant, had I concluded my questions, but I realised she had addressed the question to the locksmith.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. He sounded relieved.

  ‘Then you may be on your way and I will call and settle the bill with your employer.’

  The locksmith, a sturdy fellow with close-clipped hair, prepared to set off, gathering up his tools and a small canvas sack that appeared to be heavy.

  ‘Wait!’ I called to him. I pointed at the sack. ‘Is that the old lock?’

  ‘Yessir . . . the lady don’t want it. Mr Pickles might have a use for it.’

  ‘He works for Mr Pickles,’ Mrs Jameson explained. ‘Mr Pickles is a member of our society.’

  ‘Society?’ I asked. ‘The Society of Friends, Inspector. He is a fellow Quaker.’

  I nodded understanding. ‘But, if you don’t mind, I’ll take charge of the lock for the time being. I’ll write you a receipt for it.’

  Both of them looked surprised. ‘What do you want with it?’ demanded the locksmith.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘But this house was the scene of a murder last night and that lock was part of the house at the time. We are not sure yet how the murderer entered. We may have to examine it.’

  ‘He didn’t pick this lock,’ said the lock
smith, holding up the sack. ‘The only way he’d open this lock is with a key. This is a Bramah, this one is. That’s the best you can buy, you ask anyone in the trade.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked.

  ‘Yus, really,’ said the locksmith. ‘There was a feller picked one a few years ago, or reckoned he did, but it took him hours and hours and he done it with no one watching him. It was a special lock the company had put on show in their window. They were offering two hundred pounds if anyone could pick it. That just shows you what a good’un the company thought it had made. So this feller, he had a go and got it open after weeks fiddling with it. But no one saw him actually do the opening of it, did they? So they don’t know how he done it. He might’ve picked it and there again, he might not. I, myself,’ added the locksmith, ‘know a bit about locks and I couldn’t pick a lock like that one I just took out of the lady’s front door.’

  ‘Just leave it there,’ ordered Mrs Jameson, cutting short this flow of information that I was actually finding quite interesting.

  The locksmith shrugged, set the bag with the old lock down on the ground, and trudged away. I scribbled out a receipt for the lock and handed it to Mrs Jameson, who murmured, ‘I am sure there is no need . . .’

  ‘Regulations require, ma’am, that if I take possession of something at the scene, I give you a receipt for it.’

  Mrs Jameson was impressed by regulations. She said she would go to another Quaker lady’s house for the day. In exchange for the receipt for the old lock, she handed me her friend’s address on a scrap of paper. I thanked her for her help and forbearance. Mrs Jameson departed, taking Jenny with her.

  As she passed by me, Jenny whispered, ‘I’m glad we’re going out for the day, sir. I don’t like it in this house no more. It fair gives me the creeps. Every little sound makes me jump and I don’t see how I’m going to sleep here. I won’t even be able to get my work done, not with looking over my shoulder every two minutes.’