The Poisonous Seed (39 page)

‘But who wanted to murder Mr Keane?’ said Wilfred. ‘Someone took a great deal of trouble to remove him.’ He hesitated. ‘Um – since you have taken an interest in his affairs – can you suggest what might have been the motive?’

‘That,’ said Frances, ‘is very difficult, as I believe that so many people were eager to see Mr Keane’s demise as to be sufficient in number to form a Society. Mrs Keane had every possible motive, as did her footman, with whom, I believe,’ Frances lowered her gaze briefly, but it needed to be said, ‘she is in a most irregular association. Mr Keane’s employers at the bank will be glad to hear the news, as will any persons who assisted him in his frauds. Mr Meadows, for example, if he should still be alive. Then, of course, there are the relatives of poor Mr Truin, who, if they suspected Mr Keane of the murder, might, in the absence of any proof they could show to the police, have decided to take the law into their own hands. The man who actually committed the crime may have been someone hired for the task.’

Wilfred scribbled rapidly in his notebook. ‘We are employing an artist to draw a portrait from the impressions of those who saw the murderer,’ he said. ‘When I have it, would you come to the station to look at it?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Frances. She could not help but be flattered. Whether they liked it or not, all of a sudden, the police required her help and not the other way about.

That evening she sat down with the shop and household accounts, totalling with a guilty horror what she had expended on the now useless visits to Tollington Mill and Somerset House. Even with the business prospering, it was impossible to accumulate in just a few weeks what was required to pay the current bills and renew the lease. Several notes from creditors had arrived that morning. She had funds to meet the most pressing, but the others would have to wait.

On the following day she went to Paddington Green police station, where Inspector Sharrock was looking more than usually harassed. ‘I understand you wished to see me?’ she asked, unable to repress a slight smile.

‘If you would come into my office, Miss Doughty, I will show you the portrait we have had made of the murderer of Mr Keane,’ said Sharrock brusquely, leading the way.

Frances sat at the desk, and he dropped two pictures in front of her, then plumped down into his chair, which creaked loudly at this unwarranted treatment. ‘Do you recognise the man?’ he asked, then suddenly leaned forward, ‘and let me add, Miss Doughty, that if you were a gentleman, you would now be at the very top of my list of suspects, and possibly already under arrest!’

‘I assure you, Inspector,’ said Frances, with great dignity, ‘that though I would have been pleased to hear of Mr Keane’s death, it would only have been if he had died at the end of a hangman’s rope, after being found guilty in a court of law of the murder of Mr Garton. His death at this juncture gives me no satisfaction.’ She perused the pictures. One was a full-length portrait of a slender young man, clean-shaven, with hair cut very close to his head, and wearing a sombre dark suit and spectacles. The second picture was a head and shoulders view.

‘Both the nurse and the warder have agreed that the pictures are a very good likeness,’ said Sharrock. ‘Well? Is it anyone you know?’

Frances frowned. Her first impression was that she had never seen the man portrayed, and yet there was something familiar about him, a sleepy look about the eyes, and she wondered if she had once seen him dressed very differently. ‘This man,’ she said, ‘may have disguised himself to commit the crime. He might have had whiskers which he shaved off and longer hair, and did not wear spectacles. Is the artist still here?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Then give me a piece of clean paper and a pencil and I will see what I can do.’ She saw him hesitate. ‘I promise you I will not draw on what your artist has done.’

Sharrock looked doubtful, but after a search through the mound on his desk found what was wanted and pushed them across to her. He watched, puzzled, as Frances tore little strips of paper and used the pencil to colour them. It was hardly the right shade for hair as it was a bluish-purple, but it did well enough. She then rolled the strips like pieces of quill-work, and laid them on top of the larger portrait to resemble a moustache and side whiskers. After a moment’s thought she added another piece for a beard. It was the flash of purple at the throat that decided her. ‘I know who this is!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is Guy Berenger, the man who managed the gallery.’

Sharrock leaped out of his chair as if shot by a catapult, then leaned across the paper and stared at it intently. ‘Well done, Miss Doughty,’ he said excitedly. ‘I see it now!’

‘Has he been questioned?’ asked Frances.

‘He was not at his lodgings when we went to see him, and I suspect will not be there again. Clearly we must redouble our efforts to find him.’

‘That does explain how he was able to obtain papers from Mr Keane’s solicitor,’ said Frances. ‘Mr Keane had an office at the back of the gallery. He was careless with his documents and Mr Berenger was in a good position to take what he needed.’

‘But the motive?’ Sharrock suddenly slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Why yes, of course! It must have been Berenger who did the forgeries for Keane! It was Berenger who was Meadows all along, and under our very noses! He must have been afraid that Keane would peach on him in return for a reduction in sentence.’

‘And he was much cleverer than he pretended to be,’ said Frances. ‘I suspect that the failed artist with a taste for alcoholic beverages was just as false a personage as the sober clerk.’ A new thought struck her, about the real identity of Guy Berenger, but she did not voice it. She had no proof, and Sharrock would only dismiss it as one of her wild fancies.

‘Well, I won’t trouble you any longer, Miss Doughty,’ said Sharrock, bustling, ‘we have to do our best to find Mr Berenger, or whatever name he is using now.’

She rose to leave. ‘Inspector, I must ask you one more thing. Will you be interviewing Mrs Keane again? In view of recent events she now has no reason to protect her husband or her father. I am hoping that she will admit at the very least that she made an error in her evidence at the inquest on Mr Garton. My father’s memory is tarnished by this whole affair and I would have it bright again.’

‘Ah,’ said Sharrock. He paused, awkwardly, and drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I am sorry, Miss Doughty, but I think it will not be possible to interview Mrs Keane for some very considerable time, and perhaps never.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Frances, seeing yet another hope being dashed to pieces.

Sharrock pulled a fat and battered watch from his pocket and studied it briefly. ‘You’ll have the news soon enough. Mrs Keane caused a great commotion when she was told of the death of her husband, and said a great many things which were found to be very shocking. A servant was involved, I believe, and I will say no more. Dr Collin took the view that the lady’s mind had quite broken down and I believe that even as we speak she is being removed to some establishment which will provide her with the safe and secure place that she now requires.’

Frances uttered a small groan of despair. ‘How then will I clear my father’s name?’

He gazed at her, and even in his coarse face there was a faint tinge of sympathy. ‘Well, I must get on to Mr Berenger’s trail. Perhaps he will have something to say.’

Frances walked home, her eyes misting over with misery, but her mind would not let the matter alone, and at last she had a new idea. There was, she thought, just one more person to whom she might appeal for help.

As soon as she was able, she sent Tom with a note to Dr Collin, and, as a result, was granted an interview with him later that day. When Dr Collin showed her into his surgery it was with an expression of frank curiosity. ‘I assume from your note that this is not a professional consultation,’ he said.

‘That is correct,’ said Frances, ‘and you must believe me I would not have spoken to you on this subject at all had it not been of the very greatest importance.’

He raised his eyebrows and sat back in his leather chair but said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

‘I understand that you are Mrs Keane’s doctor,’ Frances began.

‘I am,’ he said cautiously, ‘but of course you must realise that I can say nothing at all to you about her medical condition.’

‘It was on another matter that I wished to speak,’ Frances assured him. ‘I appreciate that it may be some time before the lady can be questioned, but I hoped that you could tell me if she has said anything to you on the subject of her evidence at the coroner’s court.’

‘She has not,’ said Collin, ‘and I wouldn’t consider it a suitable subject for her to be troubled with.’

‘And neither would I expect you to,’ said Frances, quickly, ‘but if she should volunteer anything…’

‘Even if she did,’ said Collin, ‘I am not sure that anything she said would be much attended to.’

Frances saw that it was time to be frank. ‘I called upon her before Mr Keane’s death. She freely admitted to me that her testimony was untrue and that she had never even entered our shop. But I cannot find it in my heart to blame the lady; I think she was forced to do it by her husband.’

Dr Collin looked sympathetic, but shook his head. ‘Believe me, Miss Doughty, I can do no more than listen to what she says. I can hardly induce a lady who is very unwell into making an admission that she gave false testimony.’

‘I have no desire for her to be punished,’ said Frances. ‘I would be quite content if she was simply to admit to someone other than myself that she made an innocent mistake. It would mean so very much to me,’ she pleaded. ‘Just a mistake that is all; nothing that she can be blamed for. Anyone may make a mistake; you yourself did so at my father’s inquest.’

‘I
did
?’ said Collin sitting up straight in astonishment.

‘Indeed you did, which shows how easily and blamelessly it may be done.’

‘I am not aware of any error in my testimony,’ said Collin a little stiffly. ‘Perhaps you could enlighten me.’

‘You said that my father suffered from both headaches and toothaches,’ explained Frances. ‘He certainly did have headaches, but toothaches, never.’

‘I was quite sure that he did,’ said Collin, mystified.

‘He never complained of them to me,’ said Frances firmly, ‘and I think it is safe to say that if he did not complain of them, then he did not have them.’ She rose. ‘Please think of what I have said. One word from Mrs Keane, one expression of regret for the slightest of errors, and my father’s reputation would be restored.’

She took her leave, observing a touch of strain in Dr Collin’s noted affability of nature.

On the following morning, Frances’ mind was occupied in the necessary task of composing a letter to Mrs Cranby. How guilty she felt at raising that lady’s hopes that an answer might be found to the mystery of the death of Mr Wright, and how impossible it now seemed that she would ever find it. She could do no more than assure the Cranbys that the man who was probably responsible for the death of Wright had gone to find his punishment in some place beyond human retribution. Before she could find time to put pen to paper, however, a letter was delivered to her. It was from Clara Simmons, Alice Cranby’s sister, who had once been a maid at Tollington House and was now married to a carman in Bethnal Green.

    Dear Miss Doughty

    Alice has written to me all about your visit, and how you are looking to find who killed Mr Wright. I have often thought about this as he was a very fine gentleman, and I was very sad when he was murdered. On Saturday morning I will be taking the children to the Museum in Cambridge Road, and if it would be convenient we might meet there, and I will tell you what I remember of Mr Wright, and hope that it will help you. We may meet by the fountain at 10 a.m.

    Clara Simmons

Frances read the letter and sighed. Only a few days ago the words would have filled her with great excitement at the prospect of uncovering new clues, but now, how useless it all seemed. Nevertheless, she thought it only polite to go. The cost of the omnibus would only, after all, bring her a shilling or so nearer to ruin. She wrote back to Clara agreeing to meet her as requested.

Frances had never visited the museum at Bethnal Green, but had heard people say it was a very fine thing, and provided a wholesome diversion and salutary education for persons of all walks of life. There were maps of London on her father’s bookshelves which told her where it was located, and pamphlets from the omnibus companies which she studied so as to find her way.

On Saturday morning, Frances took the yellow omnibus as far as Cheapside and was then able to hail the chocolate brown which would go to Bethnal Green Road. It was not a part of London she knew, except that it had had at one time a reputation for unhealthy dwellings and criminal activities of every kind, and for all she knew, still did. She comforted herself with the thought that any robber who took her bag would be ill-rewarded for his trouble.

The omnibus kept to the larger public thoroughfares, and, by doing so, Frances suspected that she was being protected from the sight and smells of the dirt and misery in which she knew some persons passed their lives. Whatever circumstances she might be reduced to, she thought, she knew that such abject distress would never be hers. She would be dependent upon her uncle, but at least her home would be warm and clean and she would not go without food. Alighting on the corner of Cambridge Road, she found a not unpleasant commercial street, thronged with people who, while far from the most elegant of persons, had some pretensions to being well-dressed. It was in many ways reminiscent of Westbourne Grove, though not, of course, of the same class. There were drapers, milliners, bakers, coopers, tin plate shops, booksellers, and even to her amazement a dairy, where the owner thought nothing of keeping his cows in what should have been his front parlour, and offering to draw off a pint of milk into the customers’ own jug as if he was a tapster drawing beer.

In a few minutes she found herself outside the museum, a handsome building of warm red brick, with decorative murals representing the worlds of art, science and agriculture, suggestive of the educational nature of its contents. Outside was the largest fountain Frances had ever seen. Some thirty feet in height and still larger across, it was faced with ornamental pottery tiles and topped with a statue of St George slaying a dragon. Frances thought it utterly splendid. There were crowds of people of every rank of society all wanting to be admitted to the museum, but a young woman was standing waiting by the fountain, with two neatly dressed children of about seven and eight years of age. She looked similar enough to Alice Cranby to be her sister, but as Frances approached she saw with some concern how thin the children were, and the fragile, troubled look of their mother, and a fading yellow bruise on her cheek.