The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne (16 page)

THEY ALL MET in the hotel dining room at 7.30, as arranged, and Mr Sempill, cheeks bright from the razor, whiskers combed silky, advised them to: “Help yourselves from the sideboard. Please eat all you like. We have a busy day ahead.”

They sat down together over bacon and eggs as the Chief Constable explained the business of the day. “In a short while we will proceed to the railway station, where we will meet Mr Clarence Wray and Miss Minnie Gibbons. They knew the deceased Miss Milne during her stays in London and they may have seen the man. This will be their opportunity to view the suspect face to face.

“Please don’t think me rude, but I will be in the company of Mr Wray and Miss Gibbons in a separate carriage during our journey to Tonbridge. It is most important that you are kept apart and not given any opportunity to influence one another in your testimony.”

Mr Trench poured out a cup of strong tea as disapprovingly as it is possible to pour any cup of tea. “I’d be happy to ride with them,” he said.

“There’s no need.”

And except for when Maggie Campbell said: “I don’t think I like coffee,” and the McIntosh sisters said: “Neither do I,” they finished their breakfasts in silence.

Even for Jessie McIntosh, who was used to the noise of the mill, their first sight of London in daylight came as a shock. So many people, such a crush of traffic, the cabs, the omnibuses, the people jammed on the underground trains and pushed along through a hole under the ground, the pavements crowded like a net of herring, the smoke, the stink, the clamour, the madness of it all.

Jessie and Ina linked in together for fear of becoming separated again, and Maggie Campbell, now the firmest of friends, took Jessie’s free arm, but they had to progress along crabwise for fear of blocking the pavement.

“Oh, but what if we are parted?” said Ina. “What if we got lost? How would I ever find my way back to the Ferry from here? I’d be left to starve amongst strangers.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Mr Trench, which was easy enough for him to say, pushing along the street as broad as a door and head and shoulders above the rest of them. “We will not be separated. I will not permit it, but, if we should be, you need only walk up to any policeman and announce yourself as Miss Ina McIntosh of Broughty Ferry, on official police business, and he will be compelled to see you safely on your way.” They all laughed at that and the girls were comforted.

Before long they were in the very shadow of St Pancras station, with all its towers and battlements, vaster than any castle, clocked and towered like the Houses of Parliament, swirling with the smoke of engines and echoing with their furious breathing.

“We must wait here at the barrier,” said Mr Sempill, handing out their tickets, “until the London witnesses join us.” But they soon came. There was a certain awkwardness with the introductions. Nothing anybody could put their finger on. Mr Wood the gardener and Mr Don the bin man would never have noticed, but Maggie Campbell spent all her days among the better sort of folk and watched them being polite to each other, so she spotted it. There was contempt when Mr Sempill introduced: “Mr Clarence Wray,” contempt for a man who would write a woman bad poetry – and do it on lilac paper – and a difficult, chilly embarrassment for “Miss Minnie Gibbons”, the receptionist at the Bonnington who had bested him. She had a wonderful amount of hair piled under a daring hat and a tiny waist and a coat with a green velvet trim. Maggie wondered if, one day, she might not like to be a receptionist at a fancy London hotel too.

“Trench, be so good as to accompany the Broughty Ferry witnesses.”

“Sir.”

“I will travel with Miss Gibbons and Mr Wray. For the reasons I have described.”

There was no discussion. They simply went through the barriers, each of them showing their ticket to the inspector on the gate, and then there was the rattling journey to Kent with Mr Trench wondering every minute if Mr Sempill had a photograph of Warner with him, if it might not have been easily slipped into the pocket of his jacket, if it might not easily be slipped out again and displayed, if the two witnesses now kept secure and separate in another carriage might not be shown that picture and asked, merely for interest, for the sake of conversation, if they recognised that man and then, just as easily, if that picture might not be put away.

Mr Trench retreated into the corner of the railway carriage, tipped his hat down over his broad face and pretended to sleep for the rest of the way. But it was a lie.

At Maidstone there was more herding and nursemaiding as the party was gathered and collected into three cabs and driven off to the prison. “Here’s fun,” said Don the bin man. “A three days’ holiday they promised me and we’re to pass it in the jail. I’ve been on better Sunday School picnics.” He gave a belch. “Always take a kipper for breakfast if ye can. Ye’ll enjoy it all the day.”

Miss Gibbons was a little uneasy and she sat with her head tilted and her hat shading her face. “What if someone were to see us and form the unfortunate impression that we are visiting persons of our acquaintance? I have a professional reputation to consider – not to mention the reputation of the Bonnington.”

“Do not distress yourself,” said Mr Sempill. “We are expected and the gates will be opened for us. You can get down away from prying eyes.”

She seemed reassured. The cabs halted in line. There was the sound of voices, locks turning, great bolts moving, hinges groaning. The cabs rumbled over the cobbles and the gates shut again with an echo.

The Chief Constable gallantly offered his hand to guide Miss Gibbons down, and she took it, but with no indication that she had forgotten or forgiven the incident with the bell.

When they were all gathered together again and the tired grey cab horses stood, gently jingling their harnesses, each with one hoof raised and rested on its tip, as tired horses will, Mr Sempill addressed them all as a company. “I’m sure none of you has ever been inside a prison before and I can imagine you may find it a distressing experience. Prisons are not intended to be welcoming places. They are designed to be somewhat overwhelming and intimidating and, as you know, this place is home to some unpleasant people. Please do not distress yourselves. You are perfectly safe. No harm can possibly come to you.

“While we are here, your safety and the conduct of the identification is not my responsibility. It is the responsibility of this gentleman,” he indicated the prison governor, “Mr Hill, who is Chief Warder of this establishment. I will now hand you over to him.”

Mr Hill said: “Good morning,” with a slight bow and selected a large key from an iron ring he was carrying. “If you ladies and gentlemen will be pleased to follow me.”

He led the way inside the building to a small room packed with chairs and tables. At one side there was a counter and beyond that a kitchen hard at work. There was a long row of windows along the far wall, but, like all the windows in that place, although they let in light, they were too high to look from. “The officers’ mess room,” Mr Hill explained. “In a moment, you will be asked to go into the yard outside, one at a time. I will accompany you. There you will find ten men. I would ask you to look at all of them, each in turn, and decide if there is any one of them you recognise. Miss none of them out. You may take as long as you wish. You may go up and down the line as often as you wish. There will be officers in the yard to guarantee your safety and one of them will be standing by the door on the other side of the yard. I would ask you to leave by that door. If you recognise a man, you may indicate that by placing a hand on his shoulder, but it is not necessary to do so. The officer standing by the door will record your answer, whether you recognise a man or not, and you may simply tell him where in the line the man you recognise is standing. Is that clear?”

They all nodded and mumbled.

“Then we’ll begin. If you would all please line up against this wall, then there will be no possibility of accidentally looking into the yard while someone else is making their choice. In that way there can be no suggestion of signalling between you or anything of that kind. If we might do this alphabetically? Miss Campbell?” Maggie raised her hand. “Thank you. If you would please stand here. Mr Don?”

While the governor got on with arranging the witnesses into a queue, Mr Sempill spoke up. He said: “I would like to add a few words, if I may. I would urge you not to think of the photograph you have seen. Put all thoughts of the photograph you saw earlier out of your heads completely. Do not give it another thought. Forget about it completely.”

Mr Trench ground the tip of his umbrella into the floor and twisted it furiously.

“Is that perfectly clear?” said Mr Sempill. “You have come all this way to look for the man you saw previously in the flesh and not, by any means, the man you saw in the photograph.” He nodded to Mr Hill, who opened the door into the yard and beckoned Maggie Campbell forward. When she passed through, he went with her and closed the door again.

The others were left alone, with nothing to look at but each other. The clock on the wall ticked. Miss Gibbons sensed that a hair had come loose and deftly tucked it back into place with gloved fingers.

Mr Trench stood imagining Maggie Campbell walking across the prison yard, counting her steps, slowing down a little fearfully as she reached the first man in the line, standing in front of him, looking up at him, taking a step backwards to ease the crick in her neck. Mr Trench imagined her searching the man’s face, carefully doing her duty. He let the clock tick five times and then, in his mind’s eye, Maggie moved on. A step to the side. Another count of five. She moved again. Ten men, five seconds each, a little time to walk out into the yard, a little time to walk out the other side. A minute and a half should be plenty of time. Mr Hill the governor must be returning for the next witness now.

Three minutes passed.

The Chief Constable said: “This is taking a Hell of a time.”

“I imagine,” said Mr Trench, “the time passes even slower if you’re standing on a trapdoor.”

SITTING IN FRONT of the fire in the hotel parlour, a third of the way through another large brandy, Mr Trench read from the typed sheet of paper which Mr Sempill handed him. The prison governor, Mr Hill, prepared his report dutifully and carefully. He recorded that Wood, Don and the McIntosh sisters “identified Warner without any hesitation, although I made the men take off their coats and so on, but Miss Campbell was doubtful. She said no at first, but afterwards said she was not sure. Miss Minnie Gibbons and Clarence Wray were more certain in their opinion. They both agreed they had never seen Warner before.”

“I suppose I need not ask your opinion,” said Mr Sempill.

“I think you already know my opinion.” He was glad they had the room to themselves.

“In my view it is misguided.”

“Really? We know a man was trying to ingratiate himself with Jean Milne when she last stayed at the Bonnington Hotel. A young man with a moustache. Clarence Wray and Miss Gibbons saw the man several times – many times – in relaxed conditions, in good light, over a period of days. It would suit Wray very well to name Warner as the guilty man, if only because it would get you off his neck, and yet they both say quite the opposite. They recognised nobody in the identity parade. Warner is not the man they knew from the hotel.”

“The others were perfectly clear.”

“Nonsense. Maggie Campbell is anything but clear. It’s in the report. She first said no and then changed her mind to maybe. A fleeting glimpse of a man is not evidence. What’s the evidence? A man seen under a lamp post for a moment by two frightened lassies? A man seen under a lamp post in the early morning? A rough old pedlar who passes the time of day with a man who was running for a tramcar? A man seen on a tramcar?

“Sempill, do you not see everything that was ordinary yesterday becomes extraordinary tomorrow if, in the interval, some crime has been discovered? Somebody sees a man under a lamp post and it means nothing. In the normal course of things they would have forgotten about it entirely the day after tomorrow. But then they hear that a neighbour has been murdered. Imagination runs riot and the man that ‘wee Jeanie saw’ or ‘our Jimmy spoke about’ at once becomes the evil-doer. If a man’s actions are themselves suspicious, if he’s hanging about on a certain street at a certain time or looking at a certain building and then that building is burgled, then identification is immensely valuable. It is prized. That’s why it is provided.

“Take any dozen individuals, men, women, any age, any character, any station in life, it doesn’t matter, and have somebody walk past them unannounced, as slowly as you like. Have them write down what they saw – believe me, I’ve tried. You can’t get one out of the twelve to give you anything like a description. Most of them are well wide of the mark and some are just ludicrous. Time and again I’ve seen it, time and again, a stream of conflicting, contradictory, nonsensical drivel. ‘How was he dressed?’ I’d say. ‘Oh, a light suit and a dark cap. Or maybe the cap was not so dark. I’m not sure. But he was definitely wearing light-coloured trousers.’

“Then the neighbour breaks in and says the suit was brown, but by the time I’ve finished with her the suit’s black and he’s wearing a felt hat.

“They are ready to swear a man’s life away. You’ll have a man murdered if you can just get enough good-natured fools to name him. But it won’t wash, Sempill. It won’t wash. Didn’t you say it yourself before we left Broughty Ferry? If I can rubbish their testimony, how much more easily would an able advocate do it in court? There is nothing – nothing, I tell you – linking Warner to Miss Milne.”

Mr Sempill was growing increasingly short. “What are you backtracking for, Trench? You yourself told me that Miss Milne was murdered by a maniac or a foreigner.”

“I didn’t say it was this foreigner. There are many foreigners – millions of foreigners. The Tsar of all the Russias is a foreigner; the German Kaiser is foreigner. The great bulk of the world is made up of foreigners and half of them are living right now in London.”

“Wood. There’s Wood. Wood is unimpeachable. Absolutely beyond reproach. He unhesitatingly identified Warner and he was the man who opened the door to him. It was Wood who let the killer in.”

Mr Trench was astonished. “Are you now reduced to Wood alone? How long does it take to open a door? How long to walk across the hall of Elmgrove? Seconds. Seconds, Sempill, mere seconds.”

“It’s good enough for me.”

“Oh I know that. I understand that very well. You have fixed on Warner and no power on earth will be enough to make you change your mind.”

“Go carefully, Lieutenant Trench. Go very carefully.”

Mr Trench drained his brandy glass. “Didn’t you tell me that we are on the same side, Chief Constable? I’m trying to help you. I understand the demands that are being made of you, truly I do. The same demands have been made of me, believe me. A dreadful crime has been committed and people are demanding action, they want answers, somebody must be made to pay. But what’s the point in making the wrong man pay? You’ll end up with two victims, Sempill, one with her head bashed in on the floor of Elmgrove and one dangling from a rope with a broken neck. Stop now, man. Stop before this goes any further. I’m begging you.”

“You are making yourself ridiculous, Trench. I know my duty and I do not need you to remind me of it.”

“Do you not see your soul is in danger?”

“My soul? My soul? This is the brandy talking, Trench.”

“I think I need a little more.” Mr Trench had nothing left to say and no more brandy left to drink. He sank back into his chair as he had on the train to Maidstone, almost cowered in it, as if to hide himself in it, with his two broad hands over his face.

“No more, man. Stop. Get a grip of yourself and go to your bed. Tomorrow I expect you to make application to the Procurator Fiscal at Dundee and obtain a warrant for the arrest of a Charles Warner, currently a prisoner of His Majesty at Maidstone. Get it done, Trench, and we’ll say no more about it. We’ll go on as before and no more said. I bid you goodnight.”

Mr Trench waited until he heard the electric whirr of the lift motors taking the Chief up to his room and then he rang for another drink.