Poor Tom Is Cold (7 page)

“Calm yourself, madam. Please calm yourself.”

One of the men carrying her was Frank Eakin, the other, the scarred juror whom Murdoch had seen earlier.

The bizarre entourage was heading for a carriage drawn up at the gate but, even as he watched, Murdoch saw the woman’s struggles begin to subside completely. They came through the gate and he waited to let them pass. The woman’s head was lolling back against the chair, but she turned in his direction and her eyes, wide with terror, met his.

“Help me,” she whispered. “Please, mister, help me.”

He had no chance to respond because the doctor stepped in front of him. The coachman opened the door of the carriage and she was lifted in, chair and all. The doctor climbed in himself, immediately pulled down the window blind, and they drove off. The two men, both of them panting from their exertion, watched.

“What’s going on?” Murdoch asked.

Curran realised who Murdoch was and he gave him a quick salute.

“Morning, Officer. That’s Mrs. Eakin. I’m afraid she’s lost her slates. We’re getting her to the loony bin.”

Murdoch was about to make some polite murmur of condolence but he didn’t get the chance.

Eakin snapped at the servant girl. “For God’s sake, Cullie. We’re getting soaked. You’re as useless as a stuck pig. Bring the frigging thing over here.”

She jumped to obey and Eakin took the umbrella. “Anything we can do for you, sir?”

“I was coming to speak to the members of the household concerning the death of Constable Wicken. I’m sorry if this is not an appropriate time. I can come back later.”

“What is it you’re after?”

“Any information. Whether anybody heard the gun shot. That sort of thing.”

“Nobody’s said anything about it.”

“I’d still like to talk to them. We’re asking questions of everybody in the vicinity.”

Eakin managed to produce a friendlier expression. “Of course. Terrible tragedy, that.”

He was studying Murdoch from the shelter of the umbrella and the detective began to get irritated. He was sorry for the man’s circumstances but he didn’t feel like spending more time in the rain than he had to.

“It shouldn’t take too long,” he said.

Eakin looked toward the house. The front door was open and a woman was standing on the threshold
watching them. She was dressed in mourning clothes and her hands were clasped in front of her as if in prayer. Whatever Eakin saw there made up his mind.

“You might as well come in now. Get it out of the way.”

He extended the umbrella to cover Murdoch and they walked toward the door in awkward intimacy.

“Augusta, this is Detective Murdoch. He wants to ask us all some questions about the fellow they found in the empty house.” He was closing up the umbrella as he spoke. “This is my sister, Mrs. Curran.” He gestured with his thumb. “Hitched to him.”

She stepped back so they could enter, then over his shoulder, she noticed the servant girl who was trailing behind them.

“Janet, you can get back to work. Go in the side entrance.”

She bobbed. “Yes, ma’am.” She scurried off.

“Come this way, Mr. Murdoch,” said Mrs. Curran. “We can talk in the drawing room.”

She turned and led the way down the narrow hall but not without a quick glance at Murdoch’s boots to determine just how wet they were. He wiped them hurriedly on the doormat and set off after her. Peter Curran was at his heels, and at the door, he tapped Murdoch on the shoulder.

“You don’t want me, do you, sir?” asked Curran. “Me being on the jury and all.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do. It won’t affect anything. It can all be repeated for the inquest.”

He’d found that asking questions of an entire family at the same time tended to yield a lot of information, if not about the case, certainly about them.

The drawing room fire was laid but unlit and the air was chill. Frank went straight to the fireplace and reached for the box of matches standing by the fender.

“That won’t be necessary,” said his sister. “I’m sure Mr. Murdoch won’t keep us.”

Eakin turned to her, glaring in a little spurt of anger.

“Aggie, it’s frigging freezing in here. I’m going to light the bloody fire.”

His sister didn’t retaliate for his rudeness except by a visible tightening of her lips.

“Mr. Murdoch, will you take that chair?” She indicated an armchair next to the fireplace. He sat down, took off his damp hat, and placed it beside the chair. The mantel was draped with black crepe and the mirror above was covered with a grey gauze. He wondered who had died.

Eakin had got a blaze going right away and stretched out his hands to the flames. Then, predictably, he turned to warm his backside. Mrs. Curran took a seat on the Turkish couch opposite him, while her husband remained by the door.

“Shall I light the lamps, Augusta?” In the gloom, Peter Curran would have been a sinister-looking fellow except
that his whole bearing was so hangdog, Murdoch felt sorry for him.

She didn’t look in his direction at all but addressed the air in front of her. “I would have thought it was obvious we need some light.”

Murdoch took a quick glance around the room. There were other crepe trimmings on the sideboard and around the pictures on the walls. The furniture was dark hued and, although the plush green coverings were thick and patterned with gilt flowers, the effect was gloomy. The house wasn’t that grand and he had the impression the drawing room wasn’t much used. Probably a family aspiring to a lifestyle beyond their class. Fine furniture but not fine manners. On the other hand, to be fair, it had been his experience that ungraciousness could be found at any level of society.

Curran lit a lamp from the sideboard and brought it closer to where they were sitting. Augusta pointed wordlessly at a small japanned table and he placed it there.

Murdoch took out his notebook to indicate he was ready to start. Frank Eakin, smelling slightly of singed corduroy, came and sat beside his sister. The family resemblance was strong. Short nose and round chin, fair complexion. Augusta had light brown hair that she wore pinned tightly in a knot on top of her head. Eakin was trying without much success to sport side whiskers and a moustache.

“Is this everybody in the house?” asked Murdoch.

“No, there’s Mr. Eakin, our father, but I’m afraid he is indisposed. Besides, I’m sure he could not help you. He always takes a sedative at night. Nothing would wake him.”

“Anyone else?”

“There’s Mr. Jarius Gibb. You must have met him. He’s the foreman of the coroner’s jury. He is our older brother.”

“Stepbrother,” interrupted Eakin. “His mother was a widow when she married our father. Unfortunately, she did not live too much longer afterward. Father married for the second time. This Mrs. Eakin, Harmony by name and nature, was our mother.”

He was offering this information in a chatty way that Murdoch found odd. As did his sister, obviously, because she frowned at him.

“Frank, really! I doubt that is relevant to the officer’s enquiry.”

Murdoch had a vivid image of the two of them as small children ready to squabble at any moment. But that early animosity seemed to have hardened into mutual disdain.

He addressed Eakin, trying to be as delicate as he could. “And your wife, sir? She was in the house last night, I assume.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Eakin, the lady who …” He waved vaguely in the direction of the door.

“That’s not my wife. She’s married to my father. As I said, Mother died last year. My father married again this April. Quick you might say. Properly speaking, the woman you saw is my stepmother, young as she is.”

There was a strange sound from Curran, and Murdoch could have sworn he had guffawed and stifled it immediately. He looked over at Curran but he was sitting in the shadows behind the light and he couldn’t see his expression.

“Mrs.
Nathaniel
Eakin was indeed in the house,” answered Augusta. “But as you saw, she is dreadfully ill. Her doctor has been forced to commit her to the provincial lunatic asylum. I doubt she would be aware if Beelzebub himself visited us.”

Her tone was sharp. No love lost there, Murdoch thought.

“Do you have other servants?” he asked.

“Only Janet, the girl you saw. We hire extra help as we need.”

Murdoch felt a twinge of pity for the young servant. He could imagine the amount of work that was foisted on her.

“I assume your husband has spoken to you about the tragedy I am investigating, Mrs. Curran?”

“My brother told me. But I thought the coroner declared him a suicide.”

“We won’t know anything for certain until after the inquest. That is why I am conducting this investigation.”

“’Scuse me.” Frank got up and went to the fire. He grabbed the poker and gave a recalcitrant piece of coal a couple of good thwacks. Flames leaped out. He stayed where he was, watching the fire.

“I am interested in any information you can give me,” said Murdoch. “We think the constable died some time between midnight and one o’clock. Did any of you hear anything?”

“I for one am a very sound sleeper,” said Augusta. “I heard nothing at all.”

“Where is your bedroom, ma’am?”

“On the third floor. My husband and I have a suite there.”

Murdoch nodded at Curran. “What about you, sir?”

“Not a peep. I sleep like the dead.”

“You were on the third floor as well?”

Augusta looked at Murdoch as if he had said something quite rude but his guess was right.

Curran chuckled in embarrassment. “Not last night I wasn’t. I snore. Keeps my wife aggravated. I was in the stable loft. Better.”

“So was I,” added Frank. “I have a room there so I can keep an eye on the horses. I didn’t hear anything except them farting.”

This remark was obviously intended to offend his sister, who took the bait.

“Frank, how many times must I ask you not to be so coarse?”

“That’s not coarse, Aggie. It’s a fact of nature. Horses fart all the time. Noisy buggers.”

Any further argument was halted by the mantel clock which began to announce the hour in such a deep-toned gong, it was impossible to speak. Involuntarily they all looked in its direction. It was a massive bronzed piece, more than two feet high, and the clock face nestled in the middle of the bust of a smiling woman, rather Roman in appearance. Her hair and collar were lavishly hung with imitation coins and the word “Fortune” was embossed on the base. As the sound died away, Murdoch closed his notebook, picked up his hat, and stood up.

“I won’t keep you any longer. What time might I catch Mr. Gibb?”

“He works at the city offices. He issues marriage licences. He is usually home by six o’clock.”

“Either I or a constable will come back then. For now, I’ll just have a word with your servant before I go.”

Frank Eakin grinned. “Janet’s a fanciful girl, Mr. Murdoch. Don’t take everything she says as gospel. She believes in ghosts. She’s always going on about hearing them wandering round the house.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. Where would I find her, ma’am?”

Augusta stood up. “I’ll take you. She should be in the kitchen.”

“We’ll get back to the stable,” said Eakin. “You won’t want us any more, will you, Officer?”

“Not for now.”

At the door, Mrs. Curran paused and apparently speaking to nobody in particular, she said, “It won’t be necessary to leave the lamp lit.”

Her husband hurried to obey and blew out the light. The sour, smoky smell of the extinguished wick wafted on the air.

Murdoch left with a feeling of relief. Being with this family was like sticking your hand in a wasp’s nest.

P
EG THOUGHT SHE MUST HAVE BEEN
in the bathtub for a very long time but it was hard to be sure. There was no clock in the room and her memory of coming here, of being put into the tub, was not quite real, as if she had been dreaming violent, vivid dreams. However, her eyes were focusing properly now and even though her head felt as if she were inside a blanket, she was no longer under the influence of the sedative. She knew she was in an institution.

She shivered. The water had cooled to the point of discomfort. She turned her head. There were three large bathtubs in the room and she was in the middle one. On her left was a woman whose face, with its well-defined nose and chin and good wide brow, showed some refinement of features. She wasn’t young but her hair was still brown and abundant, braided and pinned into a crown on top of her head.

“Hello,” said Peg softly.

The woman’s eyes were closed and she didn’t respond.

“Good girl.” The woman in the other tub had spoken loudly. “You’ll go to heaven, my dear.” Her hair was white and stringy and Peg could see there were large bare patches on her scalp, the skin showing pink.

“Hello,” she said.

The woman looked over at her but her eyes were blank and unseeing. Suddenly she burst into harsh crying. Peg could offer no comfort but the tears stopped as abruptly as they’d begun and the woman started to sing a cheerful hymn.

All three women were in the same position. A canvas cover was stretched across the iron tub. There was a hole for the patient’s head; the rest of the body was completely immersed. There was a canvas harness which sloped backward and Peg was fastened to it by a strap at the waist. Her arms were tied at the wrists and her legs were similarly restrained at the ankles. The bonds weren’t tight but she couldn’t slip out of them. Even if she had been able to get loose, she knew she wouldn’t be able to lift the canvas cover because it was tied to rings at the side of the tub.

Somebody will come soon. Keep calm, keep calm
.

But the panic swept over her and she couldn’t stop it bursting out of her mouth.

A woman in attendant’s uniform came hurrying in. She was large and her features were strong to the point
of being masculine but her expression was kind. She clucked sympathetically.

“What’s this now?”

“Let me out, please let me out.”

“Are you cold?” the attendant asked.

“Yes, yes, I am. Can I get out?”

“I’ll just warm up the water a bit and that’ll feel better. All our ladies show great improvement after a time in the tub. Wish I could do it myself; my beaters get real sore at the end of the day.”