A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) (18 page)
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Authors: Ann Granger
‘But they didn’t,’ said Fred Thorpe, who had been nodding agreement. ‘We discussed it, my father and I, and wondered if we ought to get in touch with Jonathan Tapley about it. You see, we didn’t know where Thomas Tapley was. As I explained, he hadn’t sent me his present address as he’d promised. But his cousin might know. In the end, I confess we didn’t contact Mr Jonathan Tapley because, after all, there was nothing specific to tell. The couple had left the area. I made sure of that by enquiry. They were certainly not in Harrogate. They may well have been genuine visitors, as they claimed, and if their manner seemed odd, well, they were foreign. We get everyone in Harrogate, as the major said, and our countryside is well worth visiting. All sorts come, artists, poets . . . and tourists.’
Now the major was nodding. ‘Quite so. During the week before those two turned up, Hartwell had reported he’d met a fellow tramping over the moor with a folded easel over his shoulder and a satchel of art materials in hand, disturbing the birds. He told him to be off. If the Guillaumes had arrived on foot, he’d have sent them packing. But they arrived in a carriage and that flummoxed the poor fellow. He assumed they must be gentry.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘I am very glad you’ve told me of this, Major.’
‘Thought you should know,’ said Griffiths. ‘Glad to have it off my mind.’
‘I’ll be honest with you, Ross,’ said Fred Thorpe when we were alone outside the house, waiting for our trap to come
round. ‘I wish now I’d written to Jonathan Tapley about the Guillaumes. I may have slipped up there.’
‘It would have made no difference,’ I consoled him. ‘Jonathan Tapley didn’t know where his cousin Thomas was living either. He’d been trying to find him.’
‘Eventually it was Jonathan Tapley who wrote to us, asking if we had an address for his cousin. We replied in the negative. Apparently, he had been trying to contact Thomas at his French address without luck. Mr Jonathan Tapley told us he had not known his cousin was back in England. I’m afraid we appear remiss.’ The solicitor shook his head ruefully.
‘In my experience as a police officer,’ I told him, ‘if a person wishes to disappear, he can show remarkable ingenuity. Thomas Tapley gave you the slip, as we’d say.’
‘We should have realised it earlier. You think this pair of foreigners were trying to find him, too?’ He squinted at me in the stiff breeze.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then, is it possible that he didn’t give anyone his address because he was hiding from them?’ the solicitor asked bluntly.
‘Yes, Mr Thorpe, I think it entirely possible.’
The trap rattled round the corner and drew up, waiting for us.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Fred Thorpe fiercely. ‘Given what happened to poor Tapley, I don’t like it at all! Well, at least they didn’t get an address for him from Griffiths.’
No, I thought but didn’t say aloud, but they did get a good look at the property. That alone would have told them Thomas Tapley was a wealthy man.
He had also been a frightened one.
ON MY return from The Old Hall and after parting from Fred Thorpe, I managed to find the telegraph office. I sent my message to the Yard. It was then time to make my way to Barnes’s home where I was royally received by Mrs Barnes and dined splendidly on a beef pudding and fruit tart.
By now, having had a long and eventful day, I was ready to retire to the Commercial Hotel and my bed. But instead I had another appointment to keep. I’d promised Fred to call later that evening and meet his father and grandfather. So, together with Sam Barnes, I set out for the Thorpe residence.
This turned out to be a substantial house where we found all the Thorpe family gathered, including the ladies. They were Fred’s wife and mother and a Thorpe maiden aunt. Young Fred, I learned, had children, but they were very young and fast asleep in the nursery. The house was fairly crammed with Thorpes. After the usual formalities of introduction and small talk, the womenfolk retired. Sam and I found ourselves comfortably seated before a crackling hearth, in company with the three Thorpe men. The port was passed round.
It did occur to me that I had drunk more alcohol that day than at any time since Christmas. I sipped cautiously at the
port and resolved to keep a clear head. It was not easy, what with fatigue and so much new information running round my brain after my meetings that day.
Fred’s father was very much a mature version of young Fred, his curly hair now grey but still abundant. To think that this robust man was of an age with the late Thomas Tapley only served to underline how unfairly Fate had treated the latter. To designate Fred’s father as ‘Old Mr Thorpe’ seemed equally unjust, but he seemed happy to be called so. Mr Thorpe Senior, the grandfather, however, was a fierce-looking ancient, brandishing an ear trumpet and swathed head to toe in tartan shawls. I foresaw certain difficulties of communication.
‘We were all of us very sorry to learn what happened to Tom Tapley,’ began Fred’s father.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Thorpe Senior shrilly, holding the trumpet to his ear and leaning forward in the winged Queen Anne-style chair; where he strongly resembled a tartan parcel that had been deposited there and forgotten.
‘Tom Tapley, Grandpapa!’ bawled Young Thorpe.
‘Let the side down!’ squawked Thorpe Senior. ‘When he was a lad.’
‘You do him an injustice, Father!’ objected Old Mr Thorpe vigorously. ‘And you forget you speak of an old and much respected client.’
‘No, I don’t!’ snapped his parent. ‘He did let the side down. There was a big fuss when he was up at Oxford and he had to leave very suddenly. His mother took it badly, not because she knew what he’d been up to, but because she didn’t. He was caught with another fellow in what they like to call a compromising situation. No one would tell her and she
thought he’d been in some boyish scrape like seducing a serving girl. It was easy enough to let her think that was the case and that the girl had been paid off. She was a woman who always accepted what she was told. But it wasn’t girls he fancied, it was fellows!’
Well, I thought, Thorpe Senior might be hard of hearing, but there was certainly nothing wrong with his memory.
Old Mr Thorpe turned to me and spoke in a low voice. ‘What my father says about the reason for Tapley being sent down is true. But although the news that he’d been disgraced couldn’t be disguised, very few people here in Harrogate knew the real cause of the scandal, or if they did, they didn’t speak of it. His mother never knew until her dying day.’
‘But your father seems to have known all about it.’
‘What’s that?’ yelled Thorpe Senior, brandishing the ear trumpet.
‘Inspector Ross says that you knew the true facts, Grandpapa!’ shouted Fred Thorpe.
‘Had to know them! His uncle came to see me, warned me it might come to court, if the truth got out, and we’d need to seek counsel. Serious offence! Hanging matter back then. But it didn’t come to that. All hushed up. Well, all for the best. He wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last.’
‘Tom later married,’ Fred’s father said to me before turning to his own father and repeating the words
fortissimo
. ‘
He later married!
’
‘Yes, wisest thing he could have done. I advised it myself. Landowner in his early forties, sound in wind and limb, no sign of wanting an heir, tongues got wagging again. “Get him a wife!” I said. So he married one of Alexander Sanders’
daughters, the plain one!’ declared Thorpe Senior with relish. ‘She had a squint.’
‘Tom and his wife then also had a daughter, Grandpapa!’ from young Fred.
‘Surprised he managed it. Has she got a squint?’ asked the old fellow with interest.
‘No, Mr Thorpe!’ I took it upon myself to shout at him. ‘I have met the young lady, Miss Flora, and she is very handsome.’
Thorpe Senior grunted and slumped down among his shawls.
‘Mrs Thomas Tapley died, sir, and Miss Flora has been brought up by Mr Jonathan Tapley and his wife.’ I found I was now shouting everything.
‘Shrewd fellow, young Jonathan,’ muttered the ancient. ‘Got his wits about him. Tom never had any wits. Took after his mother, probably.’
‘
He went to live in France, Grandpapa
!’
‘Best place for him, I dare say,’ mumbled Thorpe Senior.
Disconcertingly, he then fell asleep.
‘This is a late hour for my grandfather,’ young Fred apologised to me.
After my busy day it was a late night for me, too. I took the opportunity to thank them all for their hospitality and help, and expressed my pleasure at meeting them. I shook hands with Fred Thorpe and his father. Grandfather Thorpe was snoring gently among his tartan shawls so I asked Fred to say my goodbye for me later.
‘Very likely by tomorrow he’ll have forgotten you were here tonight,’ said Fred ruefully.
‘I thought his memory wonderfully clear.’
Fred smiled and shook his head. ‘Anything that happened years ago is as yesterday to him. But real yesterday itself, that’s another matter.’
‘Well?’ asked Sam Barnes as he walked with me back to the Commercial Hotel. ‘Any ideas?’
‘To tell you the truth,’ I confessed, ‘I have learned quite a lot today, but whether it’s led to anything definite? Not yet. I must return to London tomorrow on the early train.’
‘I’ll call by and walk with you to the station, see you off,’ Barnes promised. ‘Hope you’ve enjoyed your visit.’
Elizabeth Martin Ross
‘It’s a pity we’ve got to go home,’ said Bessie as we climbed aboard the omnibus for our return journey.
Her tone was wistful. I reflected that she seldom made an expedition to anywhere new and today was a treat for her. But we did not have to go home, not straight away. Ben would not be back before evening, if he returned today at all. He might not do so until tomorrow. Besides, perhaps Horatio Jenkins had judged me right. I was as much bitten by the detection bug as he was. He had hung about Bryanston Square in the hope of making some progress – and had been rewarded with the sight of me. I would do the same and hope for similar good luck.
‘We’ll go first to Bryanston Square, where Mr Jonathan Tapley and his family live,’ I said firmly.
Bessie’s eyes opened wide. ‘You’re never going to knock on his door, missus!’ she gasped.
‘No,’ I told her with regret, ‘I can’t do that. I am sure Maria Tapley would not allow me to see Flora. But we’ll go
there and walk around the area and, well, who knows?’
‘I’d like to see his house,’ said Bessie.
Bryanston Square was quiet and, in the spring sunshine, invited strollers to linger. There was a pretty shady park in the middle of it protected by railings. Today the gates stood open and a pair of nursemaids pushed their charges, in wicker bassinets, up and down the paths. Bessie and I went in and sat down.
‘I liked living in Dorset Square when I worked at Mrs Parry’s,’ observed Bessie, adding hastily, ‘but I like working for you and the inspector an awful lot more. What I meant was, Dorset Square is like this, with a bit of green in the middle.’
‘There’s certainly no greenery around Waterloo Station,’ I admitted. Mention of Aunt Parry led me to wonder if, since we were so close, I ought to go and call on her again, should nothing of interest happen here. As I’d been so recently at Aunt Parry’s, I wasn’t keen on visiting again so soon. She might interpret that as wishful thinking on my part. I certainly didn’t regret leaving her house.
‘Missus!’ hissed Bessie, gripping my arm.
Daydreaming as I’d been, I hadn’t noticed that the front door of the house had opened. Two female forms emerged. Both were young, so neither could be Maria Tapley. One was well dressed, but in mourning. The other, plainly dressed in grey, wore the discontented expression of a ladies’ maid. They were crossing the road towards the park where we sat.
‘They’re coming ’ere!’ gasped Bessie. ‘Do you reckon that one in black is poor old Mr Tapley’s daughter?’
‘I do indeed,’ I told her. ‘I’m certainly going to find out!’
The two girls had entered the park and begun to make a
leisurely tour of it. They were not talking. Flora, if it were Flora, walked a little ahead of her companion, her head slightly bowed so that I couldn’t see beneath the brim of her bonnet. The maid followed behind, demure but still sullen, carrying a shawl over her arm in case her mistress suddenly felt cool. I was on tenterhooks watching them until they had almost completed their circle and had neared Bessie and me. At this point I stood up.
‘Forgive me,’ I said to the young woman in black. ‘But are you by chance Miss Flora Tapley?’
She looked up in surprise. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. Then she frowned. ‘But I am afraid I don’t know . . .’
‘I’m Elizabeth Ross, the husband of Inspector Ross who is investigating your father’s death. I would like to say how sorry I am about the dreadful thing that happened. I was slightly acquainted with your father. He lodged not far from us. I used to see him walking about and we would exchange the time of day.’
Her face lit up with pleasure. ‘You knew my papa?’ She glanced at the maid. ‘Wait here, Biddy, I’m just going to take a turn about with Mrs Ross.’
We walked on, leaving the two maids standing together watching us. Bessie looked excited. The other girl, Biddy, was openly scowling. She has had instructions from Maria Tapley, I thought, never to leave Miss Flora alone. What did Maria fear?
‘What’s brought you here to Bryanston Square, Mrs Ross?’ Flora asked.
‘I – I have a relative who lives in Dorset Square. Her name is Parry and you may have come across her. I was thinking of visiting her.’
That was not untrue. I had considered visiting Aunt Parry again – and had decided against it. But I had no need to tell Flora that.
‘It looked so pretty and peaceful in the park here, I decided to sit for a while,’ I added.
‘It is nice here,’ agreed Flora in a sad voice. ‘And it’s about the only place I am allowed to go without Aunt Maria to watch me. Even now she sends Biddy along to make sure I don’t get into any mischief.’
Mischief? That was an odd word to use. Again, I wondered what mischief Mrs Tapley imagined her well-brought-up niece would be tempted to undertake.
‘You are to be married, I understand,’ I fished. ‘She is guarding you zealously.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about my marriage,’ returned Flora in an offhand way. ‘It may not take place. A problem has arisen because of the manner of my father’s death. George’s parents don’t like that at all. They have grown distinctly cool towards the whole idea and me. My uncle and aunt – although they are not really related in that way – are in quite a state about it. They were so pleased when George asked to marry me. But if George doesn’t care for me enough to marry me despite what’s happened, well, I don’t know that I want to marry him, after all. He should defy his parents if they object. Don’t you agree?’
‘Well,’ I said cautiously. ‘I don’t know the gentleman or his family . . .’
‘George is very kind and never wants to upset anyone.’ Flora made an impatient movement of her hands. ‘I mean, naturally he doesn’t want to upset
me
, but he wouldn’t wish to upset his parents, either. His parents are nice, but fearfully
stiff and proper. Then there is the question of the title, you see, which is so important. Of course, George isn’t the heir. His elder brother Edwin is that. But if any accident befell Edwin . . .’ She paused and then added, ‘Not that it’s likely to. Edwin is very dull and doesn’t go climbing mountains or anything. He studies moths, if you please. He sits outside in the garden in the evenings with a lantern and a net to catch them. But suppose Edwin were to fall mortally ill, let us say develop pneumonia, sitting outside half the night. If he died, then George would become the heir. George has had that drummed into him since the nursery. So there must not be any scandal concerning his future wife, that is to say, me.’
Flora gave a little ‘tsk!’ of annoyance. ‘It’s not as if Edwin shows any sign of getting married himself and having a son of his own. That would free George to stand up for what he wants. But without that I am afraid George will never fight for anything if it means going against his parents. If we were to marry, it would still be the same. I have come to realise that. I have always had to do what Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Maria want me to do. And if I were George’s wife, I’d have to do what his family wants. I find that very tiresome. Why do you think, Mrs Ross, no one ever asks me what
I
want?’