The Dorset House Affair (8 page)

‘I don’t think they’ll have heard of this Sophie at Dorset House, Mr Edwards,’ said Box. ‘This Maurice Claygate was known to be a bit of a philanderer. He’d already compromised a young French lady, and then abandoned her for a new lady-love. It’s quite possible that this Sophie was another of his conquests. I wonder whether he put that note the footman gave him in his pocket? If so, it could still be there.’

There was nothing in the pocket of the tail coat hanging over the back of the chair. Box bent over the dead man, and began a deft search of his clothes. A silver dress watch in his fob pocket had run down, its fingers pointing to seven o’clock. Here was a silk handkerchief, thrust deep into the left-hand trouser pocket. And here in the other one— What was this? A folded piece of note paper….

‘Here it is,’ said Box. ‘“Come straight away to Lexington Place. If you fail me, I will tell your papa all. Sophie”. Hardly blackmail, but it suggests that this wretched young man was entangled with Miss Lénart. But then again—’

‘Then again, Mr Box,’ said Edwards, ‘someone else may have written that note in order to lure him to his death. A murderous rival, perhaps. First the lady, then her lover. But it’s too early for us to dream up possible theories. The police hearses will be here any minute, and there’s a lot of routine work to be done. I expect
you’re anxious to be getting on your way. If anything new turns up, Mr Box, I’ll come down to King James’s Rents and give you the details.’

As soon as Inspector Edwards had gone, Box drew Knollys out on to the landing.

‘Listen, Jack,’ he said, ‘there’s something about this business that won’t hold water. Young Maurice Claygate receives a note from his lady-friend: “Come and see me, or I’ll tell your pa
everything
”, or words to that effect. I saw him receive that note, Jack, and he looked amused at it, which was very odd, to say the least.’

‘I expect his pa knew what a scamp he was,’ said Knollys, ‘so that the young lady’s threat would hold no terrors for him.’

‘Perhaps. Off he rushes, leaving his birthday guests to fend for themselves. He arrives here – and what does he do? He comes upstairs, and prepares for bed. Why didn’t he seek out his
lady-friend
to ask her what it was all about?’

‘Maybe he did, sir, and then when she’d told him what was the matter, he went upstairs—’

‘No, Jack, you’re not thinking straight. When Maurice Claygate arrived here
Sophie
Lénart
had
been
dead
for
eight
hours
!
If he’d discovered her body, he wouldn’t have then calmly prepared for a good night’s sleep. It’s all wrong. And there’s
something
else. The footman who handed Maurice Claygate the note was a small-time villain called Aristotle Stamfordis – Harry the Greek. What was he doing at Dorset House? It was none of my business last night. I was there to take safe possession of a secret document for Sir Charles Napier. But I intend to make it my
business
to find out what Stamfordis was doing there at the party last night.’

‘What do you want us to do now, sir?’ asked Knollys.

‘I’m going back to King James’s Rents. Mr Mackharness needs to be told about this development. Meanwhile, I want you to go to Callaghan’s Cab Yard in Old Compton Street, and have a look at the abandoned cab that PC Denny found. I can’t for the
moment see what connection it could have with this business, but it deserves to be looked at.’

As they emerged from the house into Lexington Place, they were descended upon by a knot of eager reporters, notebooks at the ready. A little band of curious onlookers were being kept away from two closed hearses that were lumbering towards the house over the cobbles.

‘Anything for us, Mr Box? … Is it true that Mr Maurice Claygate’s lying murdered in there? … Who’s the lady? What’s her name? … Were they stabbed or shot? Are the police going to make a statement?’ Box remained silent, but he knew that from his silence these eager questioners would weave sensational accounts of the Soho murders.

Box shooed the reporters away as though they were a cloud of flies, and allowed Sergeant Knollys to beat a path through the crowd towards the opposite pavement.

‘Jack,’ said Box, ‘this double murder is going to be the
sensation
of the week in the evening papers, and all over the weekend. They’ll all be relishing the fact that a well-known scapegrace, one of the gilded youth of the metropolis, had been found murdered in a house belonging to a mysterious foreign woman. I’m going to take a brisk walk back to the Rents by way of Haymarket and Cockspur Street. You go, now, to Callaghan’s Cab Yard, and look into the business of that abandoned hansom.’

Callaghan’s Cab Yard proved to be a vast, cobbled, open arena enclosed on all sides by high brick walls, and entered from Old Compton Street through a carriageway that could be closed at night by tall iron gates. A long range of stables occupied the far wall, and Knollys could see a number of grooms at work, together with a farrier, whose glowing brazier stood on an ash-strewn square of paving-stones.

Ranged against the other walls of the yard were rows of
hansom cabs, leaning at a drunken angle towards the ground, with their shafts rising into the air. From a distance they looked to Knollys like a flock of obedient long-necked geese waiting to be slaughtered. There was a strong smell of manure about the place, and an air of constant activity.

Sergeant Knollys walked the length of the yard until he came to a brick shed built against the end wall. Thick black smoke poured from a chimney on its roof, and the breeze blew it down in an acrid cloud across the yard. A painted board above the door announced that the shed was the General Office.

‘Hey, you, what do you want?’ cried a very powerful, hectoring voice from inside the shed. In a moment, a tall, stout man emerged, clutching a handful of bills. His red face seemed fixed in a permanently belligerent frown, and his little staring eyes started from their sockets. The man wore a heavy fawn greatcoat and a brown bowler hat. His legs were clad in leather gaiters rising from stout brown boots.

‘I’m looking for Mr Callaghan,’ said Sergeant Knollys.

‘Well, you’ve found him, haven’t you? What do you want? I’ll have no damned loiterers hanging around my yard.’

Sergeant Knollys sighed, and produced his warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Knollys of Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to enquire about an abandoned cab that was brought in here earlier this afternoon. I’d like to have a look at it, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Police, hey?’ said Mr Callaghan. ‘I’ve no truck with the police, mister. They’ve nothing better to do than stop poor cabbies to look at their papers, or to move them on. “Move on”, they say. Where the deuce are they supposed to move? They might be waiting for a fare to come out of a particular address, but that doesn’t worry the police.’

‘This abandoned cab was brought in by a shopkeeper,’ said Knollys. ‘If you’ll show me where it is, I’ll have a look at it and be on my way.’

Mr Callaghan waved a hand towards a section of wall beyond the stables, where three rather dirty cabs stood forlornly, their shafts in the air. One of them, Box noted, had a broken window.

‘I can’t remember every damned thing that happens in this yard,’ said Callaghan. ‘It was one of those three cabs you see over there. Have a look if you like, and then I’ll be obliged if you’ll take yourself off. Hey, Ernie! What are you doing, leaning against the wall like that? Find some work to do, or you’ll be out on your ear this instant!’

As Mr Callaghan made to move away, Sergeant Knollys put a restraining hand on his arm. The man started in surprise.

‘Callaghan,’ said Sergeant Knollys, ‘I am investigating a double murder, and it’s possible that the hansom cab that was brought in here has a connection with that crime. You have refused to cooperate with me without good or sufficient reason, so I am taking you in for questioning—’

‘Gawd strewth, Officer,’ cried the bully, turning pale, ‘there’s no need for that. I’m only too willing to co-operate. You must have misunderstood me. Come over here, and let me show you the cab in question.’

It was an ordinary hansom cab, though dusty and a little dilapidated. It was the cab with the broken window that Knollys had already noticed. Mr Callaghan was now all smiles.

‘What did you say your name was, Officer? I didn’t quite catch it when we first met. Sergeant Knollys? Well, Sergeant, let me tell you about these three cabs. You’ll see that they’ve no licence plates, because they’re no longer in commission. They’re what we call second-hand. I usually have a few like that for sale. They’re very handy for a small tradesman or market-man – anyone in trade with his own horse.’

‘And what would I have to pay for a cab like this?’

‘I usually take about fifteen pounds, though I’m prepared to bargain on that score. This is the cab that was brought in this morning by a Mr Robinson, who keeps a shop in Carlyle Passage,
just off Beak Street. As a matter of fact, I recognized it, because I’d sold it only a fortnight ago to a Greek-looking man who came in here with ready money.’

‘A Greek-looking man?’

‘Yes, you know, looks like a foreigner but isn’t one.
Greek-looking
. I told him it would cost him fifteen pounds, and he paid up without haggling. I’d have kept it here in the yard until he came looking for it, but if you want it, you’re welcome to take it. As for the horse, I can find out where he came from, if you like, and return him to his owner. Anyone round here will tell you how helpful I am to the authorities.’

‘I don’t want to take the cab, Mr Callaghan,’ said Knollys, ‘but I
do
want to look inside it. Then I’ll take myself off, as you put it.’

Knollys opened the front flaps of the cab, and peered inside. Like most hansoms, it was dark and rather cramped, with a
characteristic
smell of stale tobacco and musty upholstery. Knollys drew his hand across the seat, and when he brought it into the light, he saw that it was smeared with congealed blood.

Arnold Box sat at his little round table in the living-room of his furnished lodgings at 14 Cardinal’s Court, and sifted through a selection of the Saturday morning’s papers. The table was littered with the remains of his breakfast, and he was sipping a final cup of strong tea while he smoked one of his thin cheroots. His
landlady
at number 14, Mrs Peach, was a motherly, obliging lady, and she’d sent out her boy Leonard into nearby Fleet Street to purchase the day’s papers from the stall outside the
Daily
Telegraph
offices.

The
Morning
Post
treated the murders with its usual judicious sobriety.
‘The
tragic
demise
of
Mr
Maurice
Clay
gate
under
such
unusual
circumstances
,’ it said,
‘will
be
a
cause
of
concern
for
many,
but
particularly
to
his
parents,
Sir
John
and
Lady
Clay
gate,
and
to
Miss
Julia
Maltravers,
the
young
lady
who
was affianced
to
the
unfortunate
young
man.
Inspector
Joseph
Edwards,
“C”
Division,
had
ascertained
that
the
young
woman,
who,
like
Mr
Claygate,
had
been
shot
in
the
chest
with
a
pistol,
was
a
Miss
Sophie
Lénart,
thought
to
be
a
frenchwoman.
Inspector
Edwards,
after
consulting
the
rate
books
and
other
public
documents,
ascer
tained
that
Miss
Lénart
was
a
young
lady
of
modest
means,
who
earned
a
living
as
a
commercial
interpreter.
She
came
originally
from
Paris,
but
had
lived
in
England
for
a
number
of
years.
She
was
fluent
in
all
the
commercial
languages
–
English,
French,
German
and
Spanish
.’