The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (11 page)

The next thing to happen was that the post arrived and was brought to me. Amongst it was a large envelope with the Southampton postmark. ‘Aha!’ I exclaimed to myself. ‘This will be in reply to my request for someone to call on Miss Alice Stephens. It seems they discovered too much for a telegraphed reply.’ I tore it open eagerly.

The report of Inspector Reuben Hughes

I have now called, as per your request, on Miss Alice Stephens at her home in Southampton. She expressed great alarm on learning that her great-niece, Jane Canning, was missing, together with her young child. She declared she had neither seen nor heard from Mrs Canning. Miss Stephens struck me as an upright, religious lady of strong principles. She is the sort who would tell the truth, however painful. I fancy we can therefore believe her when she says she has no knowledge of Mrs Canning’s whereabouts.

I also inquired about the husband, Hubert Canning, and whether she had heard from him. To date, she has not. This struck me as odd. I asked about the circumstances leading to the marriage. Miss Stephens told me that Jane Stephens (as she was before her marriage) met Hubert Canning in Southampton. He was there on a matter of business, visiting a wine shipper. During this visit, he mentioned to the wine shipper that he (Canning) would like to find himself a wife. The wine shipper, by the name of Graham, told his wife. Mrs Graham was acquainted with Miss Stephens, and Jane, through their common attendance at St Michael’s church. The older ladies were engaged in charitable work and sat on several committees. Miss Stephens is in her late seventies and had begun to worry what would become of Jane, should she herself become infirm or pass away. A dinner party was arranged at the Grahams’ house, attended by the Stephens ladies. Jane found favour with Mr Canning. Mr Canning found favour with Miss Alice. It was true that he was somewhat older than would have been ideal, but he was comfortably situated and her niece would have a large house and servants.

It is not clear whether Mr Canning found equal favour with Miss Jane. But the great aunt told her she could not hope for a better offer. I gather that Miss Jane had no money of her own and depended absolutely on her elderly relative for a roof over her head and all necessities. Miss Alice indicated to me that her resources were not limitless and she admitted that it would be a great help to her personally to have ‘Jane off my hands’. I quote her words, although, after she had spoken them, she coloured and hastened to assure me that having Jane with her had always been a pleasure. Miss Alice then became anxious and asked me whether Mr Canning had misrepresented his financial situation to her. I replied that, as far as I knew, he had not. Miss Alice expressed astonishment that Jane should have left such a comfortable home and taken the little girl with her.

It is my private impression that Miss Alice Stephens revealed a trace of guilt when expressing her dismay. She had, after all, urged the match on the young woman. Miss Stephens is not, I believe, a woman generally given to Doubt. But I may have left her with a trace of it in her mind. She will contact me at once if she receives any kind of news, or if Canning contacts her. I will, however, call on her again if I do not hear from her. This is in case Canning gets in touch with her and dissuades her from contacting the police.

Inspector Ben Ross

I now understood the background to the Cannings’ marriage. Lizzie had been right in her interpretation of the reasons for the match. Jane had not been in a position to refuse Hubert Canning when he came a-courting.

My colleague, Inspector Hughes, had done an excellent job and I was much obliged to him. He must have visited Miss Stephens as soon as my message arrived and he had been at pains to elicit as much background information as he could. Hughes thought it odd that Canning had not contacted Miss Stephens to find out if she had heard from Jane. I had met Canning and, to me, it was consistent with his desire to keep the scandal from becoming known. If he’d told Miss Stephens, she might well have told her friends, the Grahams, since it was at their suggestion, and in their home, that Canning had met his future wife. Graham was a wine shipper and would have mentioned it to others in that line of business. Soon everyone would know – everyone in Canning’s limited world, that is. Canning would be very displeased to find the news had reached Southampton. Good, let him sweat.

Now all I could do was wait. I took the letter to Superintendent Dunn who read it through and snorted.

‘Keep an eye on that fellow, Canning,’ he said. ‘I’m still not sure he’s not done away with them both.’

‘She and the child were alive when they left the house,’ I pointed out. ‘The housekeeper and nurserymaid are witnesses. I saw mother and child – at least the child’s foot and heard her whimper – two evenings later beneath the arches.’

‘But no one has seen them since!’ snapped Dunn. ‘If you found her beneath the arches, so might he have done. You told him where to look.’

It seemed I could do nothing right.

A little later that morning, Morris arrived back from his visit to Somerset House.

‘Got it, sir!’ he exclaimed, waving a piece of paper in the air.

So here it was, the death certificate of Isaiah Matthew Sheldon, retired coffee importer. He had died at his home, Fox House, at the age of eighty-three. Cause of death was given as cardiac failure and certified by W. Croft MB. The death had been reported to the registrar by – at this point I could not prevent myself uttering an exclamation of surprise.

‘Charles Lamont!’ I cried. ‘So he was already acquainted with the family!’

‘Hanging around the young lady,’ said Morris in dire tones. ‘Scented a fortune when the old fellow died.’

‘Yes, I wonder what Mr Sheldon’s opinion of Lamont was? He had been many years in business and he probably – as you suggest, Morris – recognised a fortune hunter. So I fancy we’re safe in assuming that Mr Sheldon was an obstacle to his niece’s marriage.’

Morris felt he should remind me. ‘It wasn’t Lamont that was seen pressing a cushion down on the old man’s face. It was the young lady.’

‘Men and women have done all manner of strange things for love, Morris.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ said Morris disapprovingly.

I returned to the cause of death and the doctor’s name attached to it. ‘Dr Croft was called and gives the cause of death as cardiac failure. He does not appear to have had any suspicions.’

‘The old gentleman was eighty-three, Mr Ross.’

‘I wonder,’ I mused, ‘if Dr Croft is still alive and to be found.’

‘I took the liberty,’ said Morris, ‘of calling by a library and consulting the medical registers. Dr Croft was still living in Putney and practising medicine in eighteen sixty-four. Later than that, I can’t find him. He may have died, sir, or retired.’

People sometimes make the mistake of underestimating Morris. He is a shrewd officer and utterly reliable. What’s more, he is capable of acting on his own initiative, an invaluable trait.

‘If we are in luck, then he has only retired. He may still be at the same address where he resided only four years ago.’ I contemplated the death certificate again. ‘I must try and speak with this medical gentleman.’

‘Doctors don’t like talking about their patients,’ Morris reminded me.

‘This patient died sixteen years ago. Besides, I am a police officer.’

‘Mr Dunn might not go for it, sir.’

‘I don’t like it, Ross,’ said Dunn, confirming the sergeant’s forecast. ‘Even if this medical man is still alive and you can find him, he apparently had no doubts at the time about the cause of death and was happy to have his name on this certificate. He won’t like having you arrive on his doorstep to suggest he was mistaken. At any rate, he will want to know the reason for your interest in something that happened sixteen years ago – and has not occasioned any comment since then until now.’

Dunn stopped to draw breath and peer at me with a gimlet eye.

‘I will be very tactful, sir,’ I assured him.

‘You will have to show the diplomacy of an ambassador and enjoy a fair measure of good luck. He will be entitled to throw you out, police officer or not. What are you going to say when he asks the reason for your investigation?’

‘I shall say –’ I searched my brains – ‘I shall say that a rumour has been reported to us and we are anxious to settle the matter quickly and close the file.’

There was a silence. ‘You have got your teeth into this, Ross, haven’t you?’ said Dunn. ‘You have considered, I suppose, the possibility that Croft will report your visit to Mr and Mrs Lamont?’

‘I shall ask him to keep the matter private, sir. Besides, he won’t want to start a rumour of his own that he might have made a mistake on a death certificate.’

When Dunn still looked unhappy, I added, ‘I will go this evening, sir, in my own time.’

Dunn sighed. ‘This matter has already been discussed at the highest level, Ross, and a decision taken then that there was no case to investigate.’

‘That was when we had nothing but the unsubstantiated word of Mills. Now we know that the place and date of the death tally, and the description of Fox House and its location are also just as Mills told it; and that the deceased was an elderly man. Everything we’ve learned has confirmed Mills’s tale.’ I hesitated. ‘From Lizzie’s visit, and what she and the cabman learned, there was some gossip at the time about Miss Sheldon, as she was, and Mr Lamont – how soon she married . . . and that he was considered locally to be a fortune hunter.’

‘I cannot give you the authority,’ said Dunn suddenly. ‘I must take it further up. I will consult the assistant commissioner and his decision, Ross, will be final! Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, with sinking heart.

I returned to my office and told Morris that his efforts that morning had probably been in vain. But here I was unexpectedly proved wrong. Dunn appeared an hour later in my office, a place he rarely set foot in.

‘Ah, Ross,’ he said. He looked somewhat confused, and even redder in complexion than normal.

‘Yes, sir? Have you spoken to the assistant commissioner, sir?’

‘I have. He was good enough to listen but showed little sign of any real interest in what I had to tell him. Until, that is, I chanced to mention the name of Charles Lamont. The assistant commissioner has come across Mr Lamont, it seems. Mr Lamont is a gambling man. The assistant commissioner, I should stress, is not! However, not long ago he attended a private party at a gentleman’s residence in the country. There among other guests he met Charles Lamont. We know it is the same man because Lamont mentioned that he was originally from Guernsey. Late in the evening, after dinner, the tables were set out for cards. The assistant commissioner did not play. But he did observe play and was startled at the amounts of money being wagered, won and lost. Mr Lamont, apparently, lost heavily, having played, in the assistant commissioner’s opinion, recklessly. Lamont was also rather drunk and reacted initially to his considerable losses with anger. He declared the cards had run against him all evening, but that he would “make it up next time”. In view of this, the assistant commissioner has, you might say, developed a personal interest in the matter. He declared to me that he would not want a fellow like Lamont in his family. He agrees that you should seek out the doctor. But you are to say as little as possible and make your visit brief.’

I told Morris this, hardly able to disguise my elation. Even Morris displayed moderate enthusiasm. I next sought out Biddle and asked him if he would be so good, on his way home, as to call by my house and tell my wife I would be late and not home in time for supper. Biddle replied that he would be delighted to oblige. Thus we all ended the working day on a note of optimism.

Chapter Eight

WHEN I had finished my day at the Yard, I hired a fly to take me out to Putney. I trusted that, as my visit was now official, I might be able to reclaim the cost as expenses. Accordingly I made good time and arrived before the house given as the doctor’s address in the 1864 medical register. It was still light, a windless, mellow September evening. The house was a square, redbrick building standing on a large plot of ground. I thought it had probably been built at the beginning of the century.

I asked my driver to wait and set off to knock at the door. It was opened by a neatly dressed maidservant with the look of a country girl about her. She appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen, and had a suggestion of a squint. On my inquiring whether Dr Croft still lived there, she replied at once:

‘The master don’t see patients no more. He’s given up all the doctoring.’

At least that meant he still lived there. ‘I don’t want to see him about my health. It’s another matter.’

The maid looked doubtful. ‘Who shall I say wants him?’

‘Inspector Ross from Scotland Yard.’ I handed her my card.

She peered at it in some dismay. ‘We didn’t send for no policeman.’

I was beginning to wonder if the doctor had engaged this maid as an act of charity.

‘I know you didn’t. I’d like to see your master, if you’d be so good to take in my card? Please tell him, I will not disturb him for long.’

The maid retrieved a small silver tray from a side table, placed my card carefully in the centre of it, and bore it away, leaving me on the doorstep and the door wide open. She was gone for almost ten minutes. Eventually she reappeared to announce: ‘The master will see you in the garden. He always goes out into the garden after dinner. You can come through or go round the side, as you wish.’

‘I will go round the side,’ I said. ‘I just go straight down the garden, do I?’

‘I’ll show you,’ the maid offered in a burst of efficiency.

I followed her round the outside of the house and we set off down a narrow garden path until we reached a small forest of rose bushes. Above the scent of roses, I smelled tobacco.

My guide pointed to a curl of smoke rising into the air. ‘That’s him,’ she said cheerfully. She then abandoned me and set off rapidly back to the house.

I made my way round the bushes and came upon an elderly man sitting on a wooden bench, peacefully smoking his after-dinner pipe.

‘Dr Croft?’ I asked, hat in hand.

He rose to greet me. This revealed him to be tall, lean in build and sinewy. He had a fine head of silver-grey hair and wore a shabby velvet jacket that had a look of an old friend.

‘To give me that title would be a courtesy. I am but a bachelor of medicine and I no longer practise. Please join me . . .’ He gestured at the place alongside him on the bench.

I sat down and observed, ‘You have a fine garden here, sir.’

‘Yes, yes, the roses have done very well this year. Last year they were plagued with greenfly. Soapy water is the best remedy for that, you know.’ He had retaken the place beside me.

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes. Now, this year, we had a great many ladybirds and that’s an insect that devours greenfly. So we had far less trouble. Nature’s balance, eh?’ Seamlessly, he went on, ‘Did you have any difficulty with Mary?’

‘The maid?’ I guessed. ‘She appeared a little alarmed to learn I was a police officer.’

‘She’s very good girl, excellent worker, utterly reliable, but not very bright. I attended her birth. It was difficult. I fancy the infant was starved of sufficient oxygen.’

Mary had, then, been engaged by the doctor as an act of charity, or because he felt some responsibility for her slow wits.

‘What can I do for you, Inspector Ross? I am sure you have more purpose to your visit than to discuss my roses.’

The doctor’s tone was comfortable, but there was a touch of steel behind it. I had thought carefully how to begin this conversation; but I had now a shrewd suspicion that I might not be the one in charge of it.

‘Well, sir, it is a somewhat delicate matter. It concerns a former patient of yours who died some sixteen years ago, a Mr Isaiah Sheldon, of Fox House.’

‘Sixteen years ago, eh?’ said Croft, puffing at his pipe and watching the smoke rise into the air.

‘You do recall Mr Sheldon, sir?’

‘Indeed, I do. I am surprised you have come all the way out here to ask about him now.’ He took the pipe from his mouth and studied it. ‘A doctor is, you know, somewhat loath to discuss a patient with anyone who is not a family member. There is a duty of confidentiality, rather like that of a priest or a lawyer. Even, I might venture to suggest, like an inspector of Scotland Yard?’

‘That would depend, sir, whether it proves relevant to inquiries. What I want to ask you about is, in any case, a matter of public record. It concerns the death certificate.’

Croft turned his head to look at me and I was startled by the sharp gleam of his dark eyes beneath the bushy silver brows. ‘Bit late to ask about that, isn’t it?’

‘We have received a report – I would say it is no more than rumour – suggesting we might look into the death of Mr Sheldon. We are aware he passed away sixteen years ago. We are busy people at the Yard and anxious to settle the matter and close the file as soon as possible. That is why I have taken the liberty of coming out here to Putney and troubling you. I apologise.’

Croft waved his pipe back and forth to dismiss my apology as unnecessary. ‘Refresh my memory,’ he said. ‘What did it state on the death certificate?’

‘I have it here, sir.’ I took the copy Morris had obtained that morning and handed it to Croft.

He read it carefully and handed it back. ‘Yes, cardiac failure, quite so. He was of an advanced age, you know. Although,’ Croft permitted himself a smile, ‘as one grows older, one is less inclined to admit any age is advanced. I am seventy-nine myself.’

‘You surprise me, Dr Croft. You appear in excellent health.’

‘Oh yes, I am. Well, given the usual aches and pains.’

‘Do you recall if you had any doubt about the cause of death in the case of Mr Sheldon?’

Croft took his time before replying. ‘I was confident in the reason I gave on the certificate there.’

I began to suspect that Croft would not volunteer information but he would answer questions. If I could find a way into the conversation, he would speak fairly freely. While I sat silent trying to see how I might do this and give a lead, without overplaying my hand, Croft decided to help me out.

‘Tell me, Inspector Ross, are you by any chance acquainted with the comedy by the French writer, Molière, usually translated into English as
The Imaginary
Invalid
?’

‘I have not studied French, alas, Doctor. My wife may know it. She learned French as a girl. She had a French governess for a short time.’

The Imaginary Invalid
? Suddenly I thought I saw his reason for asking. ‘Mr Sheldon was such a person? A hypochondriac?’

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But, just as with the character in the French play, he was very concerned with his health. I was required to call on him regularly. On one occasion he might fancy his pulse faint, on another his heartbeat irregular. He was plagued with headaches. His joints ached. His appetite had failed. His digestion was at fault. He either could not sleep or slept too much. He felt weak, lacked any energy. All of these things he was pleased to describe as his symptoms. It did no good to point out his advanced age; and such inconveniences come with that, as I mentioned to you just now in my own regard. Or that he took little or no regular exercise, hardly left his house, and ate unsuitably rich food. He would insist I prescribe some medication. Rhubarb pills or bismuth usually did the trick.’

‘Were you surprised when you learned he had died? Had you attended him that day?’

‘Not on that day. I had attended him a few days earlier. He had complained of shortness of breath. I suggested a light diet in order that he might lose a little weight, and a reduction in his consumption of wine and spirits. Although, to be fair, I would not have described him as severely overweight. I lectured him on general fitness and suggested a gentle walk each morning might help him regain some general measure of well-being. He was quite horrified at the idea. I listened to his heartbeat. It was not the heart of a man of twenty, admittedly, but I did not detect any severe irregularity. I cannot remember what I prescribed. It would have been some harmless panacea.’

I indicated the death certificate. ‘But you confidently gave cardiac failure as cause of his death.’

‘Eventually, Inspector, it is the case with all of us that our hearts stop beating and we die. Of course, the causes of our hearts doing that vary tremendously. When I thought through all the things he’d complained to me of, I decided that his heart must have been failing and this had led to his death – that and his age. I could also have said that he worried himself to death! But that would not be medically acceptable.’

‘Do you recall the day he died? I realise I am asking you to think back sixteen years.’

Croft’s pipe had gone out. He tapped the bowl against the wooden arm of the seat to dislodge the remains of the tobacco. ‘I remember it very well, as it happens. It was in June, but it had been a very warm month, and on that day we were treated to a sudden thunderstorm and downpour.’

It was all I could do not to cry out aloud in triumph. Everything we learned supported Mills’s tale. This went far beyond coincidence. Surely the assistant commissioner could not object to further investigation now? ‘Yes, sir?’ I prompted.

‘The storm had barely passed and the rain ceased – I recall how the water dripped from the trees – when a servant arrived from Fox House, asking that I come at once.’

‘A woman or a man?’ I asked quickly.

Croft glanced at me with raised eyebrows. ‘A man, I fancy it was the gardener. He was in a state of alarm and requested I come as fast as I could. Mr Sheldon had collapsed. I hurried to the house where I found the entire household in a state of panic.’

‘Where was Mr Sheldon?’

‘Upstairs in his bedroom.’

‘You are sure of that?’ I asked in surprise. This was not what I’d expected. It did not tally with Mills’s tale of Sheldon having died in the parlour. From elation I was plunged into uncertainty.

‘Oh, yes, quite sure. I was conducted up there to see him.’ Croft puffed at his pipe.

‘It was not possible he had died elsewhere in the house?’ I held my breath.

Croft eyed me. ‘I suspect you have more information than you are willing to divulge, Inspector. I don’t know whence you have it. But you are right. I was given to understand he had been found unconscious downstairs, before the parlour fire.’

Again I had to suppress an urge to exclaim,
yes!

‘It had at first been assumed he was sleeping,’ Croft continued. ‘But a maid had brought in some tea at the time he was accustomed to drink a dish, and been unable to rouse him. The gardener and stableman had been summoned to carry him upstairs. They had laid him on his bed. They had partially undressed him.’

Croft paused. ‘Sheldon had continued to dress in the fashion of his youth. In fact, he bore a remarkable resemblance to His late Majesty King William the Fourth and I suspected it was his small vanity to play to it. He always wore a collar with high points and a silk stock, with a brocade waistcoat. All this had been removed and his shirt unbuttoned. I saw at once that he was dead. Grotesquely, they were attempting to revive the corpse with application of a mustard plaster to his chest. I made the usual checks for signs of life, of course. But clearly he’d been dead for over an hour or more. He was already cool, despite the hot plaster. I detected the onset of rigor in the extremities.’

‘Were you surprised that they had carried a dead man upstairs?’

‘People do not always behave logically, Ross. You must have had some experience of that in your work. When a death occurs unexpectedly, as in this case, it is not unusual to find the household in considerable confusion, and a reluctance to face the fact that the worst has happened. They did not wish to accept that he was dead, hence the mustard plaster. Let me add that I have more than once in my long career been called to view a dead body, only to have the corpse sit up and demand to know what I was doing there! So errors of judgement around death are not uncommon. They were clinging to hope – in vain.’

‘You checked for the vital signs, Doctor, but you did not examine the body closely for anything else?’ I asked.

‘What else?’ asked Croft, his sharp gaze resting on me again. ‘Are you suggesting I missed something, Inspector?’

‘I suggest nothing, sir. I merely ask for my own satisfaction.’

‘There was no necessity for closer examination. I’d examined him some three or four days earlier. He was eighty-three, had complained for some time of advancing weakness and general indisposition. His style of living was self-indulgent. His heart had given out. I was quite satisfied that was the immediate cause of his death. I was pleased that his end had been so peaceful, sleeping before his own hearth, because he was a fine old gentleman, known for his charitable ways. His idiosyncrasy, if you wish, was his obsession with his health.’

‘Thank you, Dr Croft, I’ll trouble you no more,’ I said, returning the death certificate to my pocket. ‘I would only ask for your discretion in the matter of my visit. I would not wish the family to be troubled.’

Those sharp dark eyes beneath the bushy brows rested on me for a last time. ‘I see no reason why I should trouble the family,’ he said.

I left him to his pipe and his roses. The evening had drawn in while we’d spoken. The sky was flushed a dusky crimson. The roses seemed to me to glow in this light like large jewels. (I was growing poetic!) Their scent was enhanced. I envied Croft his retirement and hoped that when his time came – not for a long time yet, of course – that he passed away sitting peacefully in his garden, enjoying his pipe.