The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne (20 page)

“Of course.”

“And something to read? A newspaper or maybe a book?”

“Yes, if that’s what you want.”

“What about Trench?”

“I’m convinced he is on your side. He’s an honest man, but, if we are to save you, we need you to help us.”

For the space of three breaths, Warner said nothing. He was deciding on his next role. He was choosing which part to play. “Write this down.” He shook the last of Mr Trench’s cigarettes from its packet and lit it, smoked half of it in one breath, blew the sweet smoke out again through his nostrils, and then he said: “My name is Charles S. Walker. I was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, on April 24th, 1871. I left New York on Saturday, August l0th, on S.S.
Rochambeau
of the French line and landed at Le Havre, France, on Monday, August 19th.”

UPSTAIRS IN THE office of Mr Procurator Fiscal Mackintosh the pile of typed pages lay on the desk, leaking disappointment into the polished mahogany.

“And this is exactly the statement he made, Trench?”

“Exactly, sir. I noted it, read it back to him, he corrected me and made changes where I had gone wrong in my notes, and it was signed and witnessed. It’s all in order.”

“And the map of Antwerp?”

“He drew it all out there and then, sir, apparently from his own recollection.”

Mr Mackintosh prodded the papers around on the desk with the end of his pencil, as if he feared contamination. “Well, it proves nothing. He could have learned it all from a Baedeker’s Guide. It doesn’t mean he was ever in Antwerp and it certainly doesn’t prove when he was there. That’s the crucial thing.”

“Well, at least we got him to admit to being forty-one, but even that is horse feathers,” said Mr Sempill. “It’s all horse feathers. It’s balderdash from beginning to end. Nobody could possibly produce this stuff from memory – dates, times, names, places, it’s incredible, literally incredible. It is beyond being believed.”

“I must admit,” said the Fiscal, “if somebody asked me to give an account of my movements from last week it would tax the memory, but this stuff,” he picked up the bundled of papers from off his desk and let it drop again, “this stuff goes back months.”

“It is quite obviously a fabrication,” said Mr Sempill. “He has invented this grand tour of Europe to account for his movements and convince us that he could not have been in Broughty Ferry at the crucial period. That’s the only possible explanation.”

“He’s a liar, sir,” Trench said.

“My sentiments exactly.”

“No, I mean he is a professional liar, sir. Lying is how he makes his living. For all we know that’s how he has made his living for years, and the thing about lying is you have to keep your story straight. Maybe this astonishing feat of memory is merely a professional accomplishment.”

“Or nothing more than a worthless fairy tale!”

Mr Mackintosh said: “There’s a simple way to find out.”

“You can’t be serious. You can’t possibly intend to take this seriously.”

“And if I don’t, what then? You may be assured, Chief Constable, that Blackadder will take it very seriously. I am the investigating authority in this affair. I direct the investigation, and if I chose to ignore a matter of this weight, he would not. My position is utterly untenable with this hanging over us. However, I agree with you: it is an obvious lie. Warner, or Warne or Ware or Walker or whatever his right name may be, is clearly lying, and when we expose him in those lies it will only serve to tie the noose all the tighter round his neck. This statement is quite clearly designed to put off the evil day of retribution, but it has only served to make it more certain and swift. Trench,” the Fiscal turned his gaze across the desk, “wire to London, tell them you want to speak to the officers involved in this statement. Examine them carefully. Impress upon them the nature of your errand. Make no error. And you, Mr Sempill, find the quickest way to Antwerp.”

“Antwerp? But I have no French.”

“Do not distress yourself, Sempill, they probably speak very little French either. Antwerp is a Dutch town.”

Mr Sempill gaped like a landed fish.

“Be calm, Sempill, be calm. Think of your standing. Scotland Yard keeps a man in Rotterdam. Go through the channels. Make arrangements. He will be your guide and assistant.”

And so there was another difficult train journey to London, in the morning this time, without either the excuse of sleep or the cloak of darkness to hide their ill-tempered silences, with Mr Trench sitting in one corner of the carriage, Mr Sempill as far away as possible on the other side, hiding himself in wreaths of pipe smoke. They stopped for refreshments at York and Mr Trench wondered if he might not somehow contrive to be left behind on the platform or find himself in the wrong carriage. He would willingly have abandoned his suitcase, but he feared to be parted from his treasured umbrella and even the long hours of sullen, bitter silence were preferable to that, so he did his duty, mounted the train again and buried his nose in a file of typed notes.

Although the carriage had filled up at York and there was no room to spread his arms, Mr Sempill did the same, the plain cardboard folder placed on a briefcase across his knees like a desk, each sheet of paper taken out individually, one at a time and read as guardedly as if there were a French novel hidden inside, lest any of the other passengers in the crowded carriage might catch a glimpse of his official police business. Still, despite the show of secrecy, Mr Sempill found himself unable to control the occasional, involuntary outburst: “Incredible!” or “Ridiculous!” or “The scoundrel!” Mr Sempill was secretly delighted when his exclamations drew the attention of his fellow passengers. He feigned not to notice, waiting until they had looked back to their newspapers before he looked up to enjoy the expressions on their faces, holding back, holding back until a moment of calm before releasing his next “Poppycock” in a fusillade of disgust. Trench saw it all. He felt the seat hard on his aching back as he wiped the steam off the window with a gloved fist and looked in the other direction.

At Peterborough the carriage emptied again for a moment and Mr Sempill folded the last of his papers away. He glanced briefly across at Trench and then up into the luggage rack. “What do you intend to do about this?” he said.

“Sir?”

“About the story. These improbable claims.”

“No more than my duty, sir.”

“What do you mean by that remark? Are you suggesting that I don’t know mine?”

“When have I ever said any such thing? You asked me what I intend to do. I’m a detective: I will detect, sir. That’s all. We are police officers. We investigate. We investigate the evidence. The evidence doesn’t play favourites. It will tell us what it tells us. It will tell us, in a few short days, whether we have got our man.”

“You still think I want an innocent man to hang.”

Trench leaned forward in his seat, suddenly huge and bull-shouldered. “I’ll tell you what I don’t think,” he said. “I don’t think you will lie about what you find. I don’t think you will go there and distort the evidence. As much as you want Warner – or whatever his name is – to pay for this crime, if you see with your own eyes that he is telling the truth, I do not believe you would lie about that. If you come back from Antwerp and tell me to my face that what’s in these files is all lies, then I will shake your hand and drag him to the gallows myself.”

The door of the railway carriage opened again and a man came in with two little boys. Trench and Sempill had nothing more to say to one another until they reached King’s Cross and there was that awkward moment of parting again, the gathering of their cases, opening the door, standing aside for the father and his boys, finding themselves together on the platform.

At the ticket barrier, Mr Sempill said: “Well, I go this way. Heading for the boat train.”

“Yes. I’m the other way for town.”

There was another difficult pause until Mr Sempill put down his case, pulled off his glove and held out his hand. “Well, good luck, Trench.”

“And to you, sir.” They shook hands, briefly, and went their separate ways.

MR TRENCH NEVER ceased to be amazed by the kindness of policemen. They are rough men, not gentlemen in any sense, and they work in a rough trade with other rough men. They are never welcome visitors. They only ever come in moments of disaster. People want to hurt them and they hurt people and yet, time after time, they do something strange and soft and kind, even if it’s only a cup of tea for some poor tart down on her luck.

There were two of those men waiting for him when he pushed his way down a lane almost under the shadow of Tower Bridge and into the Anchor Tap. Mr Trench had rarely been to London and, certainly, never into the Anchor Tap, but the elderly barman nodded to him as soon as he opened the door and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards a distant back room. Why should he have done that? Why should he have noticed Mr Trench coming into his shop? Why did their eyes meet? Why did Mr Trench notice his gesture? Training, that’s why. Habit. A long lifetime of watching and looking and seeing and noticing. That and the strange Masonic brotherhood of policing. They meet on the level and they part on the square and they recognise one another by their bearing whether they walk into a bar or work behind it or stand beside it. That was how Mr Trench recognised the two men waiting together, each standing with an elbow on the bar of the back room of the Anchor, each nursing a jug of ale, each waiting to give all possible assistance to Detective Lieutenant John Trench because their inspector told them to.

“Bill Amer?” he asked.

The man held out his hand. “And I don’t have to ask who you are. The famous John Trench. Say ‘Howdyadoo’, Charlie Clark.”

They shook hands as the barman arrived carrying three more jugs and put them down on the bar. “Well done, Tom,” said Bill. “Mr Trench is paying.”

Tom waited while Trench fished in his pocket for a coin, took it, counted it in the palm of his hand and left, saying nothing.

“Good luck to you boys,” said Mr Trench, picking up one of the tankards, and he gulped down a mouthful with a satisfied gasp. “First of the day,” he said.

“And it won’t be your last,” said Bill, “not if the ratepayers are picking up the bill.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Consider yourselves guests of Broughty Ferry Burgh Council – but you have to sing for your supper.” He took a picture out of his pocket. “I’m inquiring after this bloke and, according to his statement, he claims to know you. Charles Stanley Walker, which he says is his proper name, also trading as Tommy Walker, or C. J. Ware, sometimes Warner or Warne or A. Hart. Might be a salesman in the drapery line, but he evidently passed himself off as of numerous professions, such as company promoter, for one.”

Bill looked at the picture. He flipped it round and showed it to Charlie Clark.

Mr Trench said: “It would have been about three months ago. End of August.”

“That would be exactly right.” Bill Amer took out his notebook and began to flick through the pages. “Me and Charlie-Boy here did him a favour – remember, Charlie-Boy?”

Charlie-Boy grinned into his pint and nodded.

“Here you go,” said Bill, “August 28. He got himself nicked down in Soho, at the Falcon in Wardour Street. Drunk as a lord and pissed as a fart, trying to get served, spent the night in Vine Street cells, went in front of Bow Street magistrates the following day.”

“And why does any of that concern you and Charlie?”

“Well, here’s the story.”

“Here’s the story,” said Charlie, who preferred not to talk too much if it meant breaking off from his beer.

“We found him sitting outside the court waiting for the cart to jail. Oh, great was the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.”

“So he had a hard-luck story?”

“Did he ever have a hard-luck story,” said Bill.

“Did he ever,” said Charlie.

Bill took another sup, and when it was down he said: “He told us his name was,” he looked in his notebook, “Charles Stanley Walker.”

“Seems to be his real name,” said Mr Trench.

“Aged forty-one.”

“Well, we won’t quibble about that.”

“Said he was a Canadian. Said he’d been on a spree and he ended up with a ten-bob fine.”

“Ten-bob fine,” Charlie echoed.

“With the alternative of seven days indoors.”

“Seven days indoors,” Charlie said.

“Now then, Charlie. Now then. One singer, one song.”

“On you go, mate.” Charlie went back to his beer.

“Well, the prisoner was in a very distressed state, as he had no money to pay his fine, and he begged us to see him right in his hour of trouble with the result that Charlie-Boy—”

“Yours truly.”

“—went down to No. 30 Waterloo Road to acquaint the landlord of the prisoner’s position, when he ascertained that the prisoner was not known at that address.”

Mr Trench banged a shilling on the edge of the bar and ordered three more pints. “So that was the end of it? You let him go hang?”

“Well, maybe we’re just too soft but, no, we didn’t. He swore blind he would pay us back if we could just keep him out of clink, so between us we scraped up his ten bob.”

“That was rash.”

“Anything to help out a Brother in distress. But he weren’t going nowhere. We walked him down the Waterloo Road, arm in arm like long-lost pals, and he took us to No. 20 – not 30 after all. So we went inside—”

“Inside,” Charlie said.

“—and he went in his bag and he came out with – you’ll never guess, Mr Trench.”

“Oh, I think I can.”

“Never in a month of Sundays.”

“Was it a Colt revolver?” said Mr Trench.

Bill nearly choked on his pint. “Damn me, how did you know that?”

“Because it’s exactly what he told me in his statement. Exactly. And you took it to a gunsmith and he sold the revolver and he paid you back the money you lent him.”

“No. 5 Waterloo Road,” said Bill.

“Twenty-five shillings,” said Charlie.

“So, he paid you back and had money left over. Anything else?”

“A rail ticket. Bet you never knew that. The return half of a ticket to Southampton.”

But Trench knew that too. It was all there, everything, every dot and comma in Warner’s statement.

I left my luggage - two bags - in the left-luggage office in Cannon Street railway station, and after being a few hours in London I left London for Liverpool.

I slept in Liverpool on Thursday and Friday, the 22nd and 23rd August, in a Temperance Hotel near North Western station. Next day, Saturday 24th, I returned to London and went to No. 20 or 30 Waterloo Bridge Road. I remained there till the following Friday morning, 29th August (I remained there till morning of 30th August, 1912). I then went to the American Express, where I had been having my cheques cashed, and purchased a 1st class ticket for Southampton. I did not have much money, and went to Southampton so that I could write to my brother in Detroit, Mr E. R. Walker, of Craig, Wright and Walker, 629-631 Majestic Building, Detroit, Michigan. I took a cheap lodge, 4/6 a week, at No. 2 Fitzhugh Street, Southampton West. I immediately communicated with my brother by mail and he cabled funds to the American Express, No. 25 Oxford Street, Southampton. I only received about £10.

It was as if Warner or Walker – or whatever his name was – had decided at last that nothing could save him except the truth, but even then he could hardly bring himself to break the habit of a lifetime and stop his lies for even a single day. Standing on the steps of the gallows he still insisted that he was no more than forty-one years of age and he was lying about his reasons for travelling to Southampton. “I went to Southampton so that I could write to my brother in Detroit.” Rubbish. An obvious and transparent lie when there was pen and paper in every house in the country, a post office in every village and a pillar box on every street corner. And why go to Southampton to pick up money from the American Express when there was a branch in London? And why buy a first-class ticket if he was as hard up as he said? More front? More keeping up appearances? Or was it because a man with a first-class ticket was more likely to be trusted with a loan if he suddenly found himself strapped for cash?

And why was Warner’s statement wrong – just a little bit wrong? Why did he get his London address wrong? He could remember everything, names and dates and places, but the statement was a little bit wrong. Why? Was that a mistake? Was Warner gilding the lily? Was he trying to make things a little bit less than perfect and a little bit more believable?

I found it impossible to secure a passage, as all reservations were booked up till the 18th of September. The American Express at Southampton can verify this. I did not have sufficient funds to sail by the
Olympic
on 18th September, so concluded to go to Liverpool to see if I could secure a cheap passage. I left Southampton on the 12th September for Liverpool. I slept the night of the 12th and 13th September at a small Temperance Hotel near the Station. I then secured a lodge in Seacombe with Mrs Graham, No. 10 Riversdale Road, Seacombe. I remained there six days, till the following Thursday morning. I had found out it was impossible to secure a cheap passage. I had been told by seamen that there were lots of cattle-ships leaving Antwerp, Belgium, for Montreal, and easy to secure a passage. I determined to go there before my funds became exhausted. On 19th September (Thursday) I went to Cook’s Ticket Agency, in Liverpool and purchased a second-class rail and boat to Antwerp. I think it was exactly 30 shillings. I left the Central Midland Railway Station at 2-30 on Thursday, 19th September, and arrived in Antwerp on Friday, 20th September.

The gunsmith at No. 5 Waterloo Road kept perfect records. He had everything written down in his ledgers, signed and dated. A Colt revolver, serial number 59830, purchased for twenty-five shillings from a Canadian, Charles Walker of 20 Waterloo Road on August 29. It was still in the shop and, yes, that was his picture. It all hung together. Arrested drunk on August 28, a night in the cells, sentenced on August 29, borrowed his fine from two kind policemen, sold his revolver to repay them.

None of that proved his innocence of course, but it wasn’t Warner’s job to prove himself innocent, it was up to Mr Procurator Fiscal Mackintosh to prove him guilty, and every time that Warner or Walker or Ware told the truth about something, the stronger his alibi got.

Standing on the pavement outside the door of 20 Waterloo Road, Mr Trench saw the thick layer of sooty street dust gathered in the corners of the window frames, the strand of fern thrusting from the wall where the cracked gutter pipe dripped rainwater kisses and soaked the bricks behind, the broken paint peeling from the door frame, and the only thing drowning out the noise of the cabs and the dray wagons and the omnibuses rolling towards the Waterloo Bridge was the screaming of the children behind the door.

Mr Trench knocked.

The screaming continued.

Mr Trench knocked again and he heard the sound of movement inside, a thumping about, a heavy tread and the sound of a child’s screaming growing closer, the lock turning, a bolt shot, the door opening. There was a young woman standing there, half her hair unpinned, sleeves rolled up, red-armed, red-faced. There was a basket of washing on her hip and a child in her arm, chewing at a strand of loose hair, another peeking from behind her skirts and a long line of shirts hanging from a rope strung along the ceiling.

“No veganzee,” she said and she went to close the door again, but Mr Trench put his hand against it and said: “A moment, please.”

He showed her his warrant card: “Police,” and he watched the colour drain away from her face. “Don’t be frightened. You’re not in trouble. Nobody has died. I only want to ask a few questions.” Mr Trench was used to being an unwelcome visitor, but this girl was not afraid of him because she had done anything wrong. She was afraid because she had fled to London from someplace where it was always wise to be afraid of the police.

The traffic went rumbling past. He had almost to shout to make himself heard. “May I come inside?”

She hesitated, fearfully.

“You are allowed to say ‘No.’ ” Without taking his weight off the door, Mr Trench reached awkwardly into an inside pocket with his left hand and brought out the photograph. “I only want to ask you about this man.”

The woman’s eyes flamed. “Comm in plizz,” she said.

Mr Trench walked into the lobby, pushing wet laundry out of the way with the handle of his umbrella as he went.

“In kitchen plizz.”

There was more washing in the way, but Mr Trench found his way to the kitchen table and opened his notebook. The woman poured some very black tea from a huge pot stewing on the stove and handed it to him. “Plizz,” she said again.

Mr Trench put the cup down on the table and held out his two hands to her. The woman was still burdened with a child on her hip. Mr Trench nodded at the baby. “Let me. I’ll take him.”

She hesitated for a moment and then, in a moment of relief, she handed the child over and sank into the chair at the head of the table.

He smiled at her. She smiled back.

“Now then,” he said. “Looking at the directory, I think I’m right in saying you are Mrs Florence Ohlendorf.”

She nodded.

He laid the picture on the table. “And you know this man?”

“I know him, yes.”

“He stayed here.”

She nodded again.

“Can you say when?”

“I do not keep record of boarders. But I well remember about the end of August I had this man in my house.”

“For how long?”

“A week. Nearly.”

“Could it have been the 24th to the 29th?”

She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “Maybe. They come. They give money. They go.”

“Was he an Englishman?”

“No. Not English man. He was,” she searched for the word, “Canada man.”

The baby was gnawing on the handle of Mr Trench’s umbrella. “Can you remember anything about him?”

“I believe his name is Walker. He was addicted to drink. I must take all sorts in my house. When he is here about a week, he goes out for a night. When he returns about noon, he says he is charged with being drunk. He into his bedroom goes, and almost at once he again leaves and goes to the guns shop opposite. After this he stays about one night only more in my house then he says he is off. And then, about six weeks ago . . .”