Act of Murder (11 page)

‘I’m sorry, ma’am. But if I could ask you a few questions?’

She let her hand curl in the air by way of reply but remained silent.

‘Tell me about last night. What time did you both retire?’

A deep sigh. ‘Eleven-thirty or thereabouts. Richard went back down to the bar. I was asleep when he returned, but he woke me fumbling for his key. I vaguely recall staggering to the door
to let him in.’

‘Was he intoxicated?’

‘I have no idea. I was asleep again almost immediately.’

‘The hotel manager tells me you have been quite busy this last week. You have a show.’

‘Yes. A magic lantern show.’

‘Can you tell me what happened when you awoke this morning?’

‘I heard nothing! Nothing at all!’ Suddenly her eyes were wide open, blazing at him with a fearsome intensity, and she sat up, gripping his arm tightly. ‘How is that possible,
when he was . . .’ She slumped back, exhausted. ‘The medicine.’

‘Medicine?’

She slowly shook her head from side to side and gave a sharp laugh. ‘It was meant to nullify my pain. My goodness! It did that all right. Nullified every one of my senses, too, by the
looks of it.’

Gradually, with infinite patience, Slevin discovered that she had taken an analgesic – Chlorodyne – to help her to sleep, and the compound had been brought by her husband the evening
before.

‘It would have rendered you quite impervious to any disturbance, ma’am.’

‘So while I was sleeping, some . . . some demon . . . entered our room and . . . and . . .’ The scenario was too much for her, and she broke down into a flood of tears that only
subsided when, once again, a heavy tiredness seemed to overwhelm her.

He took a deep breath and reached to hold her hand. She looked up at him through eyes that were raw with weeping.

‘This will be most difficult, ma’am, but if we are to find the foul fiend who did this to your husband, I need to know more.’

She sniffed and nodded.

‘When you awoke, did you see anyone in the room?’

‘No one. I just felt . . . I was cold, and damp. And when I reached down I could feel a wetness . . . oh Richard! Dear Richard!’

‘Do you know of anyone who could do such a thing to your husband, ma’am?’

‘No one! He was the most solicitous of husbands. Of men.’

‘Your room was in disarray. Someone was evidently looking for something. I just wondered if anything had been taken. Robbery could well be the motive. Perhaps your husband awoke and
discovered the villain.’

She looked about to give a response when suddenly she stopped, as if she had remembered something. ‘I thought he was lying.’ she said finally.

‘Ma’am?’

Now she was alert, her tiredness in abeyance as something struck her. ‘Yesterday afternoon. I had taken to my bed, for my face was most painful, and Richard went out. He told me he’d
fallen in with some card sharps who tried to cheat him. He returned here breathless and . . . and said they’d pursued him. I simply thought it was a lie.’

‘Why would you think that?’

Again she hesitated. It would be indiscreet for her to say anything further in explanation. ‘An intuition, sergeant.’

‘Did he say where he had met these card sharps?’

‘He did not.’

‘But he seemed . . . perturbed by them?’

‘Yes. He told me they had manhandled him in an alleyway.’

‘I see. Did you have valuables in your possession?’

‘No. Apart from a few jewels, my necklace, a brooch . . . but they were not taken.’

‘Were they well hidden?’

‘I keep them in a small case beneath the bed. Richard has often mocked me for using such a hiding-place. “It’s the first place a thief will look,” he used to say. But I
was surprised to find they were still there.’

Slevin took out a notepad and wrote something down. He would get Constable Bowery to follow this particular line of enquiry. It wouldn’t be difficult to confirm, if, as her husband had
said, he had been chased through the streets of Wigan by a group of ne’er-do-wells. It wasn’t something people would have missed, fog or no fog.

‘Can you think of anyone else, now or in the past, who would wish to inflict such harm on your husband?’

‘None, sergeant. Richard was a very popular figure. Ask his audiences.’ She placed a hand against her right cheek. ‘It has begun,’ she said in a whisper.

‘What?’

‘It has begun. I knew it would be only a matter of time. Will you pass me my reticule, sergeant?’ She indicated a small tortoiseshell purse on a nearby table, its gold pique-work
sparkling as a rare shaft of sunlight penetrated the lace curtains.

Slevin dutifully brought it to her and watched as she withdrew a small brown bottle. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is that the compound your husband had prepared for you?’

‘It is,’ she said as she pulled off the stopper. ‘It brings blessed relief.’

‘Then I think you must refrain – at least for a while.’

She looked at him as if he’d said something improper. ‘What is the matter?’

‘You have already been given quite a strong sedative by the doctor sent for by the manager.’

‘So? That was a sedative. This,’ she held it up and he could see it was still over half full, ‘is an analgesic.’

‘And as such rather dangerous to take so soon after your previous medication.’

‘What nonsense!’

But before she could react he had swiftly removed the bottle from her grasp and placed it out of her reach.

‘Really, sergeant! That is brutal and insensitive.’

‘And necessary.’

‘But what about my face? What do I do about my face?’

The phrase ‘grin and bear it’ stuck in his throat. ‘I’m afraid you must allow the sedative to do its job,’ he said finally. Then he stood up as she closed her eyes
in a mute display of indignation. The latter part of the interview, he reflected as he left the room, had witnessed a subtle shift from horror at her husband’s brutal death to concern about
herself. He wondered if that was a reflection of the way their relationship had been. He certainly had the impression that Mrs Richard Throstle had been rather niggardly with the truth. Still, he
would speak with her again, he had no doubt.

*

Constable Bowery was standing in the porticoed entrance of the Royal Hotel, keeping the idle and the curious away. When he saw Sergeant Slevin in the foyer speaking to the
manager, he snapped his fingers at one of the younger constables just inside the door and told him to take his place.

‘Excuse me, sergeant,’ Bowery said when the sergeant was about to go into the residents’ bar.

Slevin turned and gave him an impatient glance.

‘Only, is it right what they say?’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Poor bugger had had his old chap sliced off? Balls an’ all?’

‘That was one of his wounds, yes.’

‘An’ they’d been dropped in a pisspot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bloody ’ell! Just think of it, eh?’

‘I’d rather not. Now I have to speak to several very irate travellers, constable, so . . .’

‘I saw ’im.’

‘Who?’

‘The victim. I took the missus to see ’im t’other night.’

‘Really?’

‘Course, I knowed it weren’t real, all done with them lanterns an’ all, but the missus . . . you shoulda heard her scream.’

‘Quite. Now the manager tells me they had nine guests staying here last night – that’s seven plus the Throstles. There are six of them in the bar and we need to take down their
names and addresses, and ask them if they noticed anything strange or unusual last night, or any previous night.’

‘They’ll have seen summat bloody unusual if that bugger were up to his tricks. Him an’ his lanterns. You know what I reckon, sergeant?’

Slevin was about to push open the door to the bar, where he could hear raised voices and protestations of outrage. ‘What?’

‘We could be lookin’ at the spirit world.’

In spite of his desire to press on, Slevin stopped and looked at the constable, whose expression showed a deadly earnestness.

‘I mean, that bugger conjured up all sorts durin’ his show. There were sights yonder I’d never seen before. Can’t all have been fakery now. Stands to reason. He
might’ve called up demons what didn’t want callin’ up, eh? They say you should let the dead stay dead, an’ if you disturb ’em, well, the spirits can turn very nasty
indeed. My cousin went to a sittin’ once an’ she . . .’

Slevin raised a finger and pointed it at Bowery. ‘You utter one word of that superstitious drivel again an’ you’ll be on mortuary duties for a fortnight. That should curb your
enthusiasm for the dead. Understand?’

Bowery nodded and the admonitory finger was lowered.

‘Now,’ Slevin said. ‘Let’s get busy.’

‘Hang on, sergeant,’ said Bowery, anxious to show he still had a grip on the real world.

‘What now?’

‘You said there was seven guests apart from Throstle an’ his missus?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, if there’s only six of ’em in yon bar, then where’s t’other bugger?’

‘He isn’t here, constable. Early riser, apparently. And I’m glad to see you retain a grasp of basic arithmetic.’

Constable Bowery, on whom irony was wasted, smiled and followed his sergeant into the small bar.

The results of the interviews, once Slevin and Bowery had shared their findings, were less than encouraging. No one had seen or heard anything unusual the previous night, although one of them
– Mr Golding, the Inspector of Mines – had spent half an hour in the bar late the previous night and seen the victim, who had been enjoying a convivial drink and more than a few
sniggered confidences with the hosiery salesman, Mr Jenkins. Golding had shared the conversation briefly, explicating the range and compass of accidental deaths in the coalmines.

‘And how did Mr Throstle seem?’ Slevin had asked.

‘Interested, sergeant. That’s how he seemed.’

‘In what?’

‘Why, in my experiences.’

‘And Mr Jenkins?’

‘Oh he’s an affable sort of chap, if a little boring. Told us about his two daughters, immensely proud of them, he was.’

‘Did he appear to be . . . worried about anything?’

‘Who?’

‘Throstle.’

‘Not at all. Confident is the word I would choose.’

‘Didn’t mention card sharps, by any chance?’

Golding shook his head. ‘He seemed in high spirits. The future is beckoning, he kept saying. Expansion is the word.’

‘Is there anything you can tell me that might shed some light on the dreadful fate that lay in store for him?’

The Inspector of Mines looked to the ceiling for inspiration. ‘He did happen to ask me if I had any opportunities for female company in my line of work.’

‘That was a strange question to ask.’

‘Yes, it was. I told him of course that the very nature of my work with the mines precluded much contact with the gentler sex. ’

‘Did he elaborate?’

‘On the subject of women? Not really. But he did say – now this was when he had taken more than his fair share of drink, and he began to slur his words most alarmingly – he did
say that I was quite right. I should keep away from them, because they are demons. That was it. Demons. “And they have fathers that are worse than demons.” I quote him verbatim,
sergeant. It just seemed a curious thing to say.’

‘Thank you.’

Mr Golding had nothing more useful to add, and so he retired to his room to consult his papers.

‘What’s all that about fathers?’ Bowery asked in the solitude of the empty bar.

‘Perplexing, constable. That’s what it is. But perhaps also revealing.’

Bowery blinked. How could something be perplexing and revealing at one and the same time?

‘I should like to speak to the missing Mr Jenkins.’

‘You reckon he’s our killer, sergeant?’

‘No, constable. But I should like him to corroborate something Mr Golding, our esteemed Inspector of Mines, said. It appears that Mr Richard Throstle had an eye for the ladies. Ladies with
fathers. What does that suggest to you?’

Bowery thought. ‘Well, it suggests
young
ladies, sergeant. Dads don’t tend to turn into demons when their daughters get past a certain age. They don’t get angry any more
if someone tips their cap at ’em – they get grateful.’

Slevin gave him a pat on the back. ‘Excellent, constable! Reason founded on the rock of experience. The best kind.’

Bowery, who had no idea what the sergeant was on about, nevertheless smiled. It wasn’t often he got a pat on the back from Sergeant Slevin.

Then a very rare thing happened. Constable Jimmy Bowery had a flash of inspiration.

‘That’s a bugger,’ was how he articulated the sensation.

‘What is?’

‘Well, it might be owt an’ it might be nowt.’

Slevin sighed heavily.

‘Yesterday we were called out to Springfield. Billy Cowburn. Know ’im?’

Slevin shook his head.

‘Well, neighbours reckon he heaved his daughter downstairs.’

‘Why?’

‘Neighbour said she saw a chap runnin’ from the house, an’ Cowburn after him cursin’ an’ threatenin’ to rip him apart. Looks like he’d caught ’em
at it.’

‘Where’s Cowburn now?’

‘Ah,’ said Bowery, letting his gaze fall to the floor. ‘Well, we had him an’ then we didn’t.’

‘Thus giving our esteemed chief constable occasion to harangue you in his office last night.’

‘You heard.’

‘I did.’

‘But what I’m sayin’, sergeant, is that it could’ve been Throstle what run, and Cowburn what did for him, eh?’

Slevin pondered this scenario for a while. ‘I think we’ll have a word with Miss Cowburn,’ he said finally.

*

Georgina Throstle had of course given instructions for the evening’s
Phantasmagoria
to be cancelled. The manager of the Public Hall, Mr James Worswick, whom she
had summoned to her new room at the Royal (thoughtfully provided by the hotel management and situated on the ground floor), had been the embodiment of sympathy and understanding. Unaware of the
exact details of her husband’s unfortunate demise, he was therefore at a loss to explain to anyone who would listen to him later how his words could have reduced the poor woman to a state
almost of delirium.