A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) Page 9

  Jonathan had studied at Oxford and made steady progress through his chosen profession of the law. He had married a Miss Maria Harte in 1846. There was no recorded issue of this marriage. I was interested to learn that he had a London address in Bryanston Square. He also had a country property in Buckinghamshire. Mr Jonathan Tapley Q.C. was a very successful man, and also a very wealthy one. Had he inherited his fortune, made it all through his distinguished career at the bar, or had he, in the popular phrase, married money?

  His cousin, Thomas Tapley, was a different kettle of fish when it came to looking him up. I couldn’t find any trace of him at all. His birth would be recorded in the register of baptisms of the parish where he was born. But I had no knowledge of where that might be, as it would have taken place well before the requirement that all births be officially registered with a government office. He was not entered in any of the published directories of professional gentlemen, law, medicine or the Church, nor did he appear in the army or the navy lists. It would seem, therefore, that he’d been in possession of sufficient private income all his life to avoid having to work for a living. But even so he had finished up in Mrs Jameson’s first-floor front rooms with only a change of underlinen and a collection of second-hand volumes to his name.

  Morris had possibly done rather better. He hadn’t found a birth, but the records of Somerset House had contained details of a marriage in January 1848 between a Thomas Tapley, gentleman, with an address in Harrogate, and Eulalia Sanders, daughter of Alexander Sanders, gentleman. The marriage had taken place in Harrogate. Was this our Thomas or another of the same name? Jonathan would be able to tell me. Morris, in a regular tour de force of research, had also discovered a record, still in Harrogate, of a female infant, named Flora Jane, born to Thomas Tapley, gentleman, and his wife Eulalia in October 1848. He found no information about any more births to the couple.

  ‘The plot thickens, Morris!’ I exclaimed. ‘We may be in danger of haring off down the wrong track, but if this Thomas Tapley is our lately deceased Tapley, then where now are the wife and daughter?’

  ‘Very likely he done a bunk, left ’em in the lurch,’ said Morris, whose view of human nature has been sadly soured by his experiences as a police officer.

  ‘We’ll see . . .’ I said, taking up my hat and setting out.

  The senior clerk in Tapley’s chambers was a dry-looking fellow whose complexion suggested he rarely saw the sun. He wore a pince-nez and removed it, holding it aloft in his hand, as he conducted me to Tapley’s lair.

  ‘Inspector Ross, Mr Tapley,’ he announced in a voice as dry as the rest of him.

  Tapley’s study was comfortable and well furnished. I compared the room mentally with my office, back at the Yard, a product of Metropolitan Police thrift. Here a fire crackled in the hearth. Two leather-covered armchairs stood either side of it and a sherry decanter graced a small table conveniently at hand. There was a handsome mahogany desk. The walls were lined with leather-bound tomes. A glance told me all dealt with aspects of the law. If Tapley was unsure of a point, he had but to stretch out his hand to look it up.

  My scrutiny of the surroundings had not gone unnoticed.

  ‘It is a comfortable room but rather small for the purpose,’ Tapley remarked. ‘I share it with a colleague. He is out of Town at the moment and won’t interrupt us.’

  He indicated with a graceful sweep of his hand that I should be seated. I sank down into one of the leather chairs. He, however, remained standing. This put me at something of a disadvantage, as he towered over me. Tapley the barrister, I thought sourly, knew all the courtroom tricks.

  ‘Sherry, Inspector?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but we are not permitted,’ I said. And you know that, don’t you? I nearly snarled.

  ‘Of course.’ He walked to the window and stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out.

  ‘You were able to carry the sad news to your family?’ I prompted him, determined he should not manipulate me like a marionette on strings.

  He turned to walk back towards me. ‘Indeed, yes, that is to say, I told my wife. She was very upset, naturally. I have left it to her to inform Flora, my niece.’ He took a seat at last in the armchair facing me.

  Flora? I thought. It began to look as if the Thomas Tapley in Harrogate unearthed by Morris might be the unfortunate Thomas, late lodger of the Quaker widow.

  ‘I would be glad,’ I said politely, ‘of any and all details concerning your late cousin that you can give me.’

  He inclined his head. ‘I shall do so, even though it will cost me some pain and embarrassment.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘We are both of us toilers in the cause of upholding the law, Inspector. We both know that the most respected citizens, and the most respectable of families, may harbour secrets they would not wished revealed to public knowledge. We both know that when murder occurs, thorough enquiries follow. They will, one hopes, lead to someone being charged with the crime. They will also bring secrets to the surface, wished or unwished. The thorough preparation needed to prosecute or defend such a charge in a court of law also makes of some wretch’s life an open book.’

  He’d had ample time to prepare this pretty speech. I read his implication as easily as he meant me to do. I replied, as I knew he hoped:

  ‘Secrets must, indeed, be revealed to the investigating officers. But they are of interest only when they have a bearing on the particular crime. What’s necessary must be made public. What is not of public interest, has no bearing on the crime, well, that needn’t become known to all and sundry.’

  I fancied he looked relieved. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  I was sorry to damage his confidence. ‘But I should remind you that the gentlemen of the press have quite another agenda. One can’t keep everything from them, at least not easily. What they do with the knowledge is beyond my powers to control.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ he replied bitterly. ‘However, I don’t expect you to control the press, Ross. It’ll be up to me to try to do that. I realise I might not be successful.’

  ‘The press can also be very helpful to us in this kind of affair,’ I warned him. ‘Had I not been able to put the report of the finding of a body in the evening papers here in London, you would not have seen it, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. Further references to the case may jog the memory of someone, somewhere, who may come forward with valuable information. On the other hand, we don’t want the worst kind of sensational journalism or we’ll get inundated with wild stories and claims. We will try to keep anything personal and embarrassing to the family out of it. But if we want the press’s help, we have to offer something in return. It’s a matter of treading a fine line, Mr Tapley.’

  He nodded, took a deep breath, and placed the tips of his long, slender fingers together. ‘You appear to me – you won’t take offence at what I say, I hope – to have a more subtle nature than most police officers. I have, in my time, had to deal with some deeply unimaginative ones – and some out-and-out blockheads. You are obviously not in that category. I know you will treat anything I tell you with sensitivity.’ He paused. ‘Are you going to write any of this down?’ He raised one dark eyebrow a little quizzically.

  I felt myself flush. ‘With your permission, I will make a few notes, Mr Tapley. It will save me having to return to you again unnecessarily.’

  I fished out my notebook and pencil and sat ready.

  ‘Well, now,’ he began. ‘My father was the younger of two brothers. He made his way as a soldier. His elder brother managed things rather differently. He married an heiress. In 1806 my cousin Thomas was born. You may have already discovered that I was born in 1816 . . .’

  I felt myself flush once more and hoped it wasn’t visible or that he’d put it down to being seated near the fire. I reflected again that Tapley had a barrister’s nimble mental footwork and I’d have to be ever alert to keep ahead of him. So far, he seemed to be keeping marginally ahead of me.<
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  ‘And that, therefore, Tom was a full ten years older than I. For that reason we were not close as boys. I was a squalling infant when he already fancied himself quite a fellow. By the time I was ten years old, Tom was out in the wide world. But Tom’s childhood was greatly affected by the death of my uncle, his father, when Tom was seven. After that he was brought up by his devoted mother. He was educated at home, because she had decided he was too delicate to go away to school . . .’

  Jonathan Tapley paused before adding, with what might have been either dry humour or resentment: ‘Nobody thought I was too delicate to be sent away from home at a young age to cope as best I could with the rigours of a public school education!’

  ‘At ten years of age,’ I said with some asperity, ‘I was working down a coal mine.’

  I had, at last, wrong-footed my companion. He looked startled. ‘Were you, indeed?’ He stared at me long and hard. ‘My cousin Tom had a far easier life than either of us, then. How, may I ask, did you escape the coal mine for the police force?’

  ‘A generous benefactor, a local doctor, was responsible for taking me and another boy out of the mine and paying for us both to be educated,’ I told him.

  ‘Then your benefactor has been well repaid.’

  Dr Martin had sadly not lived long enough to see his prodigy become a police inspector, or to see me marry his daughter. Perhaps the last was just as well.

  Tapley was continuing his story. ‘Tom stayed at home, cosseted by his mamma and a bevy of aunts and other assorted spinster ladies. There is a portrait showing him to be an attractive child. He found it easy to please all the womenfolk who surrounded him. He had an excellent brain and would, if encouraged, have made a first-class scholar. As it was, he turned out a dilettante, dabbling in literature, the arts, the natural sciences: any subject that took his fancy at the moment and for the moment.’

  ‘In his lodgings, where he died,’ I told him, ‘he had quite a library.’

  ‘Poor Tom,’ said his cousin. ‘He did love books even if he skimped the tasks set him by his long-suffering tutor. But he did learn one skill from his upbringing, Ross, and learned it well. He discovered how to play on the soft natures of older women. He adopted the attitude that there would always be a female presence to look after him. Of course, as he grew older, the ladies he’d known in childhood either died or dropped out of his life. His mother passed away when he was in his late twenties. But he always seemed to find another to take her place.’

  As he had found Mrs Jameson and, before her, the landlady in Southampton who had written so warmly recommending him.

  Jonathan Tapley had begun, for the first time since I’d made his acquaintance, to look ill at ease. ‘He was sent up to Oxford but only stayed there briefly. He left, as they say, under a cloud. There was an incident . . .’ Now Tapley was clearly unhappy. ‘He was discovered with another student in what the law declares to be an unnatural act and a crime. In those days, all this happened in 1824, it was a hanging matter. That awful sentence, thank heaven, has at last been abolished for the offence. But as you’ll know it remains punishable by imprisonment with hard labour. As a result, a culture of secrecy has grown up around the matter. Still, you’re a police officer and I don’t need to tell you that.’ He made a dismissive gesture.

  ‘At the time, it was dealt with quickly, efficiently and privately. It was in the interest of both families and of the college, to say nothing of the wretched youngsters themselves. Tom was barely eighteen at the time and terrified out of his wits at the danger he found himself in. But it didn’t frighten him into lifelong celibacy. Other later encounters had to be hushed up. It was obvious that, while Tom saw women as providers of home comforts, those did not include that of the shared bedchamber. His personal preference, in that respect, was for his own sex.’

  There was a silence. I quickly reviewed the tale Coalhouse Joey had told Lizzie, of the young fellow who had so secretively visited Tapley when the landlady had been away from the house. This could be the explanation, an assignation of a sexual nature. But would Tapley take such a risk in the house where he lodged? Actually bring a young male lover there? There were other places where he might go and meet such a person without danger of being caught. Yet people do behave foolishly when a physical urge overrules commonsense. There was no need to repeat Joey’s story now. I hadn’t interviewed the boy himself. The story came second-hand from Lizzie. Besides, any man who sat down to play with Jonathan Tapley should, I’d realised, keep a poker face and cards out of sight.

  ‘I see,’ I said aloud. ‘But yet your cousin married?’

  ‘Yes. His experience at Oxford had, at least, taught Tom the importance of discretion. Our society displays a remarkable degree of hypocrisy, Ross. You can’t be unaware of that! What is known of, but never spoken of, is largely left undisturbed. But public knowledge, scandal, is greatly to be feared. It brings swift retribution. I don’t know what your private view of the subject is, Inspector. I do however know that you, as I am, are required to uphold the law. I personally feel the law is too harsh. Tom could no more help his nature than any other man. But, like others of his persuasion, he was obliged to live a double life with an ever-present fear of one day finding himself breaking rocks on Dartmoor.

  ‘As he grew older the temptation to acquire the protection of marriage, as plenty of other fellows like him have done, grew. Also, only through marriage, quite apart from keeping scandal at bay, would he ensure that a doting female of the respectable sort would run his home, preside over his dinner table and take the place of all those devoted female relatives of his childhood. The lady of his choice, of course, would know nothing of his sexual preference and, naturally, no one would explain it to her. Women of good family are generally ignorant on that subject and there is a consensus of opinion in our society that they should remain so. Tom took the marriage route in 1848. He was already in his early forties. His continued single status – bear in mind he was a well-to-do man who could afford to marry – was causing some comment. He chose carefully. His wife wasn’t a young woman. She was in her late thirties. Her family was alarmed at the thought of her, the spinster of the family, sitting in a corner in some relative’s house until she died. She probably didn’t relish the prospect either. She was delighted to become mistress of her own household. My father, who had a soldier’s robust sense of humour, remarked that forty-eight was indeed the Year of Revolutions, since Tom Tapley had walked up the aisle.’

  Jonathan Tapley actually smiled. ‘To the astonishment of us all, this union proved very happy and even, most unexpectedly, bore fruit. A daughter was born later in the year, almost nine months to the day. Her name is Flora and she’s now nineteen years of age. Tom, once he got over the surprise, was quite the proudest father I ever saw.

  ‘Sadly, his wife died when Flora was only three. Doctors had told my wife and me we must resign ourselves to never having a child of our own. We offered to take Flora into our household and bring her up. Tom was grateful. My wife and I were overjoyed. It is not too strong a word. To us, it was a gift from above. Flora’s presence has transformed our lives, Inspector. No natural daughter born to us could be more dear.’

  He fell silent and I could find nothing to say. To hear and see this self-assured, rather pompous stuffed shirt of a man reveal his humanity and his vulnerability was deeply moving.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘the “niece” of whom you spoke earlier is, in fact, what? A young cousin once removed?’

  Jonathan Tapley made a visible effort to pull himself together. ‘Yes. In view of her young age, it was more convenient for us to refer to her as a niece and for her to call us Uncle and Aunt.’

  It also blurred her relationship to her father, your cousin Thomas, and any stories that might be circulating, I thought. Introduced to the world as your ‘niece’, no one would automatically think of Tom and the whispers about him.

  ‘So, you see, it was all neatly arranged . . .’ Tapley was saying, ‘except in one re
spect. As Flora grew older and showed signs of growing into a very pretty and charming young lady, we had to give some thought to her future. She was ten when my wife and I decided something must be done to ensure no unpleasantness cast a shadow over it. Ten is still a child. But the years fly by, and all too soon she’d be going out into the world. We hoped she would meet a very suitable young man and marry happily.’ He fell silent again and seemed to be waiting for me to identify the problem aloud, although it was obvious enough.

  ‘If there should be a scandal concerning her father, or if his name should become known as a frequenter of certain circles, and if it came out that she was his daughter, her prospects would be blighted,’ I said. ‘Good families cherish their reputations. They flee public notoriety. Passing her off as your niece might be interpreted by some as an attempt to mislead. There would be no good marriage for Miss Flora.’

  Your own good name, I thought, might also have a shadow over it.

  ‘Quite,’ Tapley said briefly, ‘although I object strongly to your use of the expression “passing off”. We never attempted to mislead anyone. That was not our purpose. For her to call me “Uncle” seemed obvious at the time. She was an infant when she came to us.

  ‘I knew my cousin was anxious about his child’s welfare, although he’d had little personally to do with Flora since she lost her mamma and came to us. He visited occasionally, bearing some expensive gift. I fancy he found the visits difficult, however. But he would want only her happiness. I took him aside and put a proposition to him. It was that he should put his affairs in order, drawing up a will naming Flora as his heir, and me as her guardian. Tom would then go abroad and stay there. He might live wherever and in whatever manner he chose. But he would remain outside of this country.’

  ‘A remittance man . . .’ I murmured. So, that was it.

  ‘Strictly speaking, he was not that because he wasn’t paid by me to stay away,’ Tapley corrected me. ‘Tom was a wealthy man. He would draw upon income from his investments and rents through an arrangement with a bank wherever he was, for his own support. He agreed it would be in Flora’s best interest. Besides, for him life might be easier. In Europe, Inspector, the laws are generally less vindictive than they are here regarding Tom’s situation. In France, for example, the act which had nearly sent Tom to the gallows when a student ceased to be a crime late in the last century.