A Fatal Freedom (2 page)

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she shouted. ‘Your attention, please!’ People turned to stare. ‘Look at these poor animals, living their lives in cages, don’t you long to free them? Such a noble word, freedom. But it isn’t only animals who need it.’

Ursula could not help admiring the spirit of the girl. The burnt orange outfit commanded attention, tendrils of dark hair beneath the beret had escaped the plait and softened her appearance. She had a full mouth, high cheekbones and fiery eyes that were ablaze with conviction.

People started moving towards her. Their mood hovered between interest and condemnation. ‘Well, I never!’ ‘Extraordinary!’ ‘Who does she think she is?’ and ‘Is this part of the entertainment?’

Thomas Jackman was cursing. He had no chance now of catching his subjects on film. Indeed, they seemed to have disappeared from the menagerie.

‘Freedom, ladies and gentlemen,’ the girl continued, her voice gaining intensity. ‘Freedom for us women – that is what we need. Join me now. Call Votes for Women!’

She was shouted down. ‘Disgraceful!’, ‘Shouldn’t be allowed’ and ‘Come away, dear’ could be heard on all sides.

Two burly men in well-worn suits appeared, obviously part of the menagerie, and headed for the table.

Ursula hated the idea of this spirited girl being apprehended. No point in trying to stop the men. What she needed was a way of shouting ‘fire’ without actually using a torch. Looking around, she found her gaze fixed on the lock of the ostrich cage. A padlock that should have been fastened hung open in the door’s metal loops. With her back to the bars, working blind, Ursula dislodged and dropped the padlock on the ground, then gently opened the door. Making a cheeping sound such as might attract chickens, she moved towards where the girl was now struggling in the grip of the two men.

It took no more than a few moments before a scream arose above the tent’s disjointed noise. ‘Those birds – they’re out!’

Ursula looked behind her. The ostriches were now stalking across the floor of the tent, their curious heads turning this way and that, the feathered behinds moving with the grace of a music hall dancer, their long, long legs taking them towards some parakeets. A young girl held out a hand as though she wanted to stroke one of them.

‘Get away from those birds, they’re vicious,’ called someone.

People moved hurriedly out of their way.

The two burly men abandoned the girl and hustled after the birds. Jackman tried to catch her but, moving with the speed and slipperiness of an eel, she eluded him, as well as some half-hearted attempts by others to detain her, and ran out of the main entrance. Jackman looked frustrated and furious.

‘What happened?’ asked Ursula.

‘Damnation knows! Begging your pardon, Miss Grandison. But that’s the very end of enough.’ Holding his camera, Jackman looked around the tent hopelessly. ‘They’ve gone. She was in cahoots with them, no doubt about that.’

Down at the other end of the tent the ostriches had been rounded up. The sightseers drifted back to look at the lions, the bears and the monkeys, all interest lost in the girl and her message, if, indeed, it had been a message.

‘But who were that couple? Why were you trying to photograph them? And how did you manage to hide your camera underneath that table?’

A man hurried up. Surely, thought Ursula, he had to be the proprietor of the menagerie. His costume was magnificent, Mexican bandit crossed with Spanish grandee; black hair was slicked down, thin moustache twirled up either side of his face, dark eyes flashing with anger. ‘Tom,’ he boomed. ‘You swore to me there would be no disruption; instead you cause uproar. The animals will take hours of calming.’

Ursula looked around. The occupants of the cages hadn’t seemed to pay much attention to any of the disruption, but perhaps the smaller ones did seem a little more lively than before. Certainly the hyena seemed to have woken up. At that moment two lions let off mighty roars; those standing in front of their cages fell back.

‘You see? Now I shall have to delay my show. I’m not putting my head into one of their mouths when they’re in that state.’

Jackman placed a hand on the man’s arm. ‘Pa, I apologise. I had no idea that girl would pull such a stunt. Don’t know who she is, where she came from. Did someone catch her?’

The splendid showman shook his head. ‘Gone – the men were too busy catching the birds, no one was on the door. And that’s another thing, how in heaven’s name did that cage get opened?’ He strode over to where the ostriches were being persuaded to re-enter their home, picked up the open padlock and waved it at the assistants. ‘When I find who was responsible for this, he will wish he’d never been born.’

‘Warn’t us,’ both assistants said. ‘Dunno how those varmints could’ve opened the door,’ said one.

‘Been some little kid, I bet,’ said the other. ‘Thought it was fun to have us chase them all round the place.’

‘I’ll have ’is guts for garters, whoever it was.’ Pa inserted the padlock into its loops. ‘Wicked bite those birds got; ostriches can kill. Bert, find the key and make sure the cage is properly locked this time.’

Ursula could not help feeling guilty. The padlock had not been her fault, but the birds could not have opened the door themselves. If she had known ostriches could be so dangerous, she wouldn’t have encouraged them. But to confess would cause even more trouble for Jackman.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ the investigator said. ‘I’m sorry about the fuss, Pa. There’s some money for your men, thanks for your help.’

* * *

Some fifteen minutes later Ursula and Jackman entered Regent’s Park.

‘Take a pew,’ said Jackman, waving at a bench.

Ursula was happy to accept the invitation. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I think it’s time you told me what all that was about.’

Jackman set down his Box Brownie, wiped his brow with a cotton handkerchief and slumped hopelessly down beside her. ‘I don’t often fail but I’m out to the wide here. If I’m not careful, Peters is going to call me a right Bengal Lancer.’

‘Bengal Lancer?’

He straightened himself with a curt laugh. ‘It’s rhyming slang: a Bengal Lancer, a chancer. Forgot for a moment you’re a Yankee.’

‘Ah,’ said Ursula. ‘Lancer, Chancer; that’s neat.’

‘Neat? What’s tidy about it?’

Ursula laughed. ‘Didn’t someone say the English and Americans are divided by a common language? It’s a bit of slang. To us “neat” can mean that something is fit for its purpose.’

‘Ah,’ said Jackman. He sat silent for a moment and Ursula let him gather his thoughts while she admired the swathes of green grass and graceful trees stretching up to a magnificent terrace of stuccoed houses. They had some of the grandeur of Mountstanton, the house she had stayed in at the start of her visit to England. She didn’t want to think about what had happened there, so she prompted Jackman, who finally took a deep breath and launched into an account of his current assignment.

‘I was approached by Mr Joshua Peters of Montagu Place, Marylebone. Mr Peters is worried that Mrs Peters …’

‘His wife?’

‘Who else?’

‘His mother? No, I’m sorry, Thomas, of course it is his wife.’

‘He was worried his wife, Mrs Peters, is, as he put it to me, “straying from hearth and home”. He commissioned me to follow her for a spell to see if she was meeting up with some fellow.’

‘And it was Mrs Peters who was at the menagerie today? And the man with her was, I take it, not Mr Peters?’

‘You have it. She’s been meeting him regularly, putting on a show, making it seem that they have run into each other accidentally.’

‘An act just in case anyone who knew her caught sight of them?’

‘You got it. And she’s good at it; could get a part on the boards I reckon. Now, I managed to chat up Mrs Peters’ maid. Nice little thing, innocent as a newborn kitten. Told me how unhappy her mistress was with the master …’

‘My, you did chat her up well.’

‘It’s my manner,’ said Jackman smugly. ‘Charm the birds off the trees, I do.’

‘One moment she’s a kitten, the next a bird,’ said Ursula, straight-faced. ‘What is the name of this dear little girl?’

‘Millie. And Millie tells me how her mistress is to visit the menagerie today. Says how fine it’s supposed to be. I reckoned she was angling for an invitation from me for her afternoon off. I reported the matter to Mr Peters, without disclosing my sources …’

‘I’m glad you didn’t betray Millie’s indiscretions.’

‘Without disclosing my sources, as I said, and asked Mr Peters if he didn’t want to go along to confront them.’

‘In public?’

‘That’s exactly what he said to me. And he told me how tricksy Mrs Peters could be. She looks like an angel, he said, but he swears no schoolboy can lie as she can. Which is why he wanted a sworn statement of the different occasions I’d seen her with this man. And then he asked if I couldn’t arrange for a photograph to be taken of them at the menagerie. Said she would not be able to explain that away. I said he didn’t know what he was asking. Could hardly get them to pose for me, could I? And I couldn’t set up flash photography. I told him I’d have a go with a Brownie, but I doubted there’d be enough light to develop a recognisable image.’

‘Yet another one of your talents, photography?’

‘Always been interested. And it comes in useful from time to time.’ He unslung the Brownie from his shoulders. ‘Such a clever little box this. Got a rotary shutter, takes snapshots and timed exposures as well. Three stops and two finders.’ He turned the camera around to show Ursula. ‘This one’s for upright exposures, like portraits, and this one’s for horizontal, landscapes they call them. All very straightforward.’

‘I’ve seen advertisements for them,’ Ursula said. ‘They seem aimed at the young.’

‘They’re much more than a toy,’ said Jackman. ‘Anyway, Mr Peters said he would make a snapshot worth my while.’

‘But what about the girl? Who was she?’

Jackman groaned. ‘I reckon she’s Mrs Peters’ sister. Millie told me about her, said they were very close. ‘I’d fixed it with Pa earlier, Charlie Maddocks I should say, but he’s always known as Pa, and his wife’s Ma. We go back a long way; I’ve run into Charlie and his menagerie – and the circus that’s part of the set-up – all over the country. Anyway, he’d agreed I could leave the camera in the tent. I know how visitors spend their time looking at the beasts. And I reckoned that Mrs Peters and her fancy man would be a little apart from the main crowd, seeking a bit of privacy, know what I mean?’ He looked at Ursula.

‘Indeed.’

‘When I saw the two of them standing close together, so still, with him holding her hands, well, I thought it might work after all. Then that wretched girl pulls her stunt.’

‘Is there any chance Mrs Peters could have suspected that she was being followed? Oh, I know you’re very skilled, and you’ve told me some of the tricks you use, moustaches, wigs, different hats and style of clothes, but Mr Peters’ comment about her being able to explain anything away suggests she is much sharper than she looks. So, she asks her sister to come along with her to meet this man. Do we know his name?’

‘Mr Daniel Rokeby.’

She wondered how he’d found this out. ‘She may well have thought putting someone on her track was the sort of dirty trick her husband was capable of. I think she put her sister completely in the picture. So while she speaks with Mr Rokeby, or allows him to speak to her,’ she added, remembering how silently the woman had listened to the man, ‘the girl pretends to be looking at the hyena but is actually keeping an eye out for someone who could have followed them.’

‘Watching me?’

‘If Mrs Peters has noticed you, she will have described you.’ She surveyed Jackman. ‘About five foot nine inches, well built, looks around forty years old, has a fine head of light brown hair, sideburns, thick eyebrows that almost meet, brown eyes, a slightly beak-shaped nose, wide mouth.’

He looked astonished. ‘You reckon she could have clocked me that well?’

‘If she’s really cheating on her husband, and she’s as bright as he suggests, yes. And could you perhaps have underestimated her? How many times have you followed Mrs Peters?’

‘Six.’

‘And where have they met?’

‘The first time was this park, the second an art exhibition, then there was some sort of literary society meeting, I had a little difficulty getting into that, not being a member …’

‘I expect that’s where Mrs Peters noticed you. And once she had, she would have kept a very sharp eye out. Her description might not have been quite as detailed but enough for her friend or sister to know who to look out for.’

For the first time in their acquaintanceship, Thomas Jackman looked chastened.

‘That speech about freedom for the animals and the cry for Votes for Women was a marvellously judged piece of distraction.’

‘It’s a cry that’s becoming more and more familiar,’ said Jackman gloomily.

‘Votes for Women?’

He nodded. ‘Your sex has a lot to answer for.’

‘It’s a cry we are hearing in America as well. I think it’s only fair for women to get the vote. Why shouldn’t we have equality with men?’

Jackman hardly seemed to hear this. ‘Now I have to go to Mr Peters tomorrow and explain just how I have failed. No doubt Mrs Peters is currently back at Montagu Place sipping a glass of wine and making eyes at her husband.’

Ursula thought about the maid who had told Jackman that her mistress was unhappy and she remembered the radiant look that had come over the face of the woman with the wonderful eyes, as though she had at that very moment made a decision.

‘What is Joshua Peters like?’

‘Hard business man. Not the sort of man I like to cross.’

Could such a man make a good husband? ‘And would you say he loved his wife very much?’

Jackman gave her a sharp glance. ‘What you’re asking is, does he look on her as a prize he would hate to see given to someone else?’

Ursula nodded.

‘I’d say that would about sum him up.’ He sat fiddling with the chain of his watch. ‘I wish I knew how those wretched birds escaped.’

‘Yes, that was unexpected,’ said Ursula. ‘Do you think the girl opened the cage before she leaped on the table to give her speech?’ She felt even Mrs Peters could not have improved on the innocence of her look as she said this.