The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (17 page)

‘At different times? Do Mr and Mrs Lamont not share a bedroom?’

‘No, sir. They have rooms next to one another.’

‘And when you take up the water, do you carry it into the room – as you did for Miss Sawyer?’

‘I take the jug into Mrs Lamont’s room, sir. Mr Lamont’s room I don’t go into. I leave the water on the little stand outside in the corridor. Then I knock on the door and call out to him that it’s there.’

‘And does he answer?’

‘No,’ said Harriet simply. ‘He knows it will be there. He don’t bother answering.’

‘Thank you, Harriet, here . . .’ I pressed a florin into her hand.

‘Blimey, sir,’ she said. ‘Thank you!’

‘No need to mention our conversation to Mr Johnson or any other member of the staff, Harriet.’

‘My lips is sealed!’ declared Harriet with gusto.

Chapter Thirteen

BY THE time I returned to Wandsworth the excellent Constable Beck had rounded up the three boys. He lined them up in front of me. They were clearly brothers, by name Albert, Edward and Arthur Smith. The Smith family might survive by scavenging and petty crime, but they were clearly patriotic and royalist to the core. I wondered if her gracious Majesty would appreciate the Smiths naming their offspring after her husband and sons.

Despite the fine names, all three urchins were of scrawny, unwashed and ragged appearance. Otherwise they were as alike as peas in a pod, differing only in height. The tallest brother Albert’s clothes were obviously handed down, patched and well worn to begin with. Edward probably inherited the cast-offs of his elder sibling and gave them another good wear. By the time the sorry garments reached the smallest, the unfortunate Arthur, they were almost in shreds. None of them wore shoes. They all had pinched faces with pointed chins, large grey eyes and straggling hair that might have been fair, if it had been cleaner, but appeared now a dirty brown.

Albert Smith, at ten years old and so by virtue of size and seniority the appointed leader of the little gang, spoke up first.

‘We ain’t dun nuffin’,’ he said. His brothers nodded agreement.

‘I’m very pleased to hear it,’ I told them. ‘I wanted to see you all because I need to talk to you about the morning you found the body.’

‘We found ’er. We never took nuffin’ off ’er!’

The earliest lesson they had probably learned at their mother’s knee, or by their father’s belt, was not to talk to the police. To get them relaxed and chatty wouldn’t be easy, as Inspector Morgan had already found out.

‘Did you have breakfast this morning?’ I asked.

Albert had not expected this question and hesitated. ‘Yus!’ he said at last. His brothers glanced at him in clear, if unspoken, disagreement.

‘But it is past midday, so you must be hungry again now,’ I suggested.

‘We might be,’ said Albert cautiously, after sizing me up. He recognised a deal in the making.

‘We’ll go out and I’ll buy hot meat pies,’ I said. ‘I passed a stand selling them just down the road on my way here.’

‘Cor . . .’ breathed Arthur, the youngest at six years of age, staring at me in awe.

‘One each!’ stipulated Albert. I suspected Albert had the makings of a businessman and would soon branch out from salvaging odd items from the mud.

I led my little troop of ragamuffins out of the station, under the bemused eye of Sergeant Hepple, and down to the hot-pieman’s pitch. I ordered four pies. They smelled appetising and I didn’t see why I should have to sit hungry and watch the Smiths eat. I was not in uniform, after all. A uniformed officer is not allowed to eat on duty.

‘None of them wiv the burned crust!’ Albert ordered the pieman.

We took our pies, burning our hands, to the nearest scrap of patchy grass and sat down beneath a tree. I didn’t suppose Dunn would have approved my sitting with three urchins and mopping gravy from my chin. I told myself that, in this district, no passer-by would know me and report my undignified behaviour.

For a few minutes there was silence while we ate. When the last scrap had been disposed of, and the three Smiths heaved sighs of satisfaction, the mood had changed. Albert recognised the food had to be paid for. In man-to-man tones, he announced, ‘I shall ’ave to consult wiv me bruvvers.’

‘I’ll just take a turn round and come back in five minutes,’ I told them.

I left them crouched in a huddle and strolled round the tiny patch of green, keeping an eye on them. They wouldn’t run away. Beck had found them twice already and would find them again. Nor would they wish to do anything to incriminate them or bring the police to the family home.

When I returned, the huddle broke up and Albert declared, ‘We’ll tell you about finding the body.’

I nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on.’

‘We’d been looking in the mud since the tide went out. We was working our way along, see, starting under the bridge, because folk lean on the parapet chatting and not looking what they’re doing, and they drop stuff off it. But there wasn’t much. So we moved on to the bank above the bridge. That’s not where she was lying dead.’ He paused to make sure I understood.

‘I follow you,’ I told him. ‘Go on.’

‘There wasn’t a lot there, either,’ continued Albert disconsolately. ‘Nuffin’ worth anythin’ much. People don’t drop stuff off the boats like they did. Used to be, when a few of them excursion steamers had been up and down, afterwards you’d find all sorts on the mud when the water level dropped. Anyway, by that time the river was rising fast. So we thought we would just look under the bridge one more time, then take a look along the stretch below the bridge. Not that you find so much there. Where the river runs through the middle of London, that’s where you find the good stuff. But the city gangs have got the rights to it and it’s no use us turning up. The local boys would chase us off. We have to take what pickings we can find down here.’

‘So you moved to the bank below Putney Bridge,’ I encouraged him, as he seemed inclined to expand on his grievances, as all traders do, complaining about rivals, poor turnover, the general situation in the country being against the honest businessman and so forth.

‘There she was,’ said Albert simply. ‘Teddy saw her first, didn’t you, Teddy?’

Edward, aged eight and the middle brother, responded to this version of his name with a vigorous nod.

‘Flat as a pancake, she was,’ he informed me. ‘Lyin’ on ’er back and staring up at the sky.’

‘How did you think she got there? I mean, what was your first impression?’

They looked vague. ‘Fell off a boat?’ suggested Teddy.

‘Might’ve chucked herself off the bridge,’ observed Albert. ‘Or that’s what we thought, first off. Then we got a bit nearer and saw her clothes was dry. I said to my bruvvers, “She’s not been in the water.”’

‘And I said,’ Teddy chipped in, “Well, she’s goin’ to be in the water soon, because the river will cover ’er up!”’

‘So I left me bruvvers there, and ran off to tell someone,’ Albert continued. ‘I found the old feller from the church and I told him. I don’t mean the vicar.’

‘You mean the parish clerk,’ I said.

‘Right. He come down to look at ’er and I thought he was going to faint away. He turned a funny colour. We said, “Look, the water’s rising and she’s going to be under.”’

‘So he told us,’ Teddy took up the tale again, ‘to wait there and guard the body. That’s what he said, “Guard the body, boys, and you shall have a shilling each.” We thought that was pretty good, seeing as we’d found so little that day.’

From the corner of my eye I saw the smallest brother, Arthur, shift awkwardly.

‘The parish clerk . . .’ said Albert, rolling out the title with due solemnity, ‘come back wiv the magistrate! That give us a nasty turn. I wouldn’t ’ave gone and got him if I’d known he’d do that.’

‘You all know the magistrate, then?’ I asked.

Glumly, they nodded.

‘Old Harrington, it was. He said there was nothing for it but to move the poor unfortunate, although strickly speakin’, the body ought to be left until the police come. But the river wouldn’t allow that. So, there being not enough time to fetch a constable, they shouted out to some geezer walking on the bank. He come across to help them move ’er. The ole clerk give us a shilling each, like he promised, and told us to clear off. So we did.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That was a very fair account.’ They looked relieved. ‘As far as it went,’ I added. They stopped looking relieved and became apprehensive.

‘You know what evidence is?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ they muttered together.

‘You know what a serious matter murder is?’

They nodded furiously.

‘That poor woman had been murdered.’

‘We heard that,’ said Albert, ‘but we didn’t know it then, did we?’

‘No!’ Teddy and Arthur supported him.

‘Of course, you didn’t know it then. But you know it now. That makes a difference. It means that anything you may have found on the mud near the body, for example, would be important evidence. If such a thing was to turn up later anywhere – let’s say, if anyone tried to sell it – the police would get to know about it. That could mean very serious trouble.’

‘We wouldn’t rob a body!’ Albert scowled at me.

‘She’d haunt us,’ whispered Teddy hoarsely.

They might not rob a dead body now, but give them a few years and I fancied they would no longer fear ghosts and be made of sterner stuff.

Aloud, I said, ‘I am not suggesting that you did. I only ask you if you are quite sure you didn’t perhaps chance to see something worth picking up. Perhaps you didn’t see it at once, or even until after the clerk, the magistrate and the third man had carried the dead woman away. In that case, I would understand that you didn’t hand it over to one of those gentlemen. But it would need to be handed over now to me. So, let me ask you again. Did you find and pick up, or even see and not pick up, anything at all? Think carefully.’

There was a pause and then Albert and Teddy turned their heads in unison and looked at Arthur, who stared back defiantly.

‘You still got it?’ asked Albert.

‘Yus!’ said Arthur sullenly.

‘Then hand it over.’ Albert held out his hand.

‘I found it and it’s mine!’ argued Arthur with spirit.

‘Oy! Just do like I say, right? Hand it over or I’ll screw yer head off!’

I had a feeling this threat had been issued many times before because Arthur did not look particularly scared by it. But it marked the end of his resistance. He foraged in his ragged garments and produced some small object that he passed to his eldest brother.

Albert held out his hand, palm open and flat. On it nestled a small, yellow object.

‘We reckon it’s gold,’ he said. ‘We was going to sell it. But what wiv all the fuss and rozzers all over the place, we didn’t.’

I took the object. It was a cufflink. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think you are right and it is gold.’

‘It wasn’t near the body.’ Albert was anxious I should mark this important point. ‘It was right over by the bank.’

‘Between the body and the bank? Or further along?’

‘Between the body and the bank. There was like a long scrape in the mud. It was lying in the middle of that.’

He dropped it! I thought in exultation. The murderer dragged the body across the mud and in so doing the cufflink was torn from his shirt, but he didn’t notice it. He will have noticed the loss soon and be worried he lost it at the scene. But he’ll be hoping the water covered it before it was found.

I turned the little object so that the sunlight caught the flat surface of the lozenge that made up one half of the linked pair. It was engraved. I peered more closely and saw that it was a monogram. I distinguished two letters entwined as an L and a C. Or better, a C and L. I would like to view it through a magnifying glass to make sure, but I did not think I was wrong. Now, why was I not surprised? I peered again at the reverse of the monogrammed side. There were marks, the stamps of an assay office and what were probably the initials of the jeweller, so tiny I would really need a magnifying glass. But they would give us the year the links were made and, if we traced the jeweller, he might be able to tell us for whom.

‘How about a reward, then?’ asked Albert, ever the entrepreneur.

I let them go, after telling them they would be required to return later to Wandsworth station and make statements. These would be written down and they would have to make a mark in place of a signature. Albert told me loftily that he could write his name, thank you very much! His brothers, he admitted, couldn’t.

‘Little blighters,’ said Inspector Morgan when I returned to give him the news.

‘Don’t be too hard on them,’ I begged. ‘They seldom find anything of such value and they have handed it over.’

Morgan snorted. ‘If they had told either of their parents of their find, we should not have it now!’

‘I think,’ I told him, ‘that they’ve learned early that if they find anything of real value, they keep it to themselves. If not, any money it’s sold for will be spent at the nearest public house.’

I set off back to Scotland Yard on foot. I knew Dunn would not sign off too many rides in a hackney cab. It was lucky I did, because as I stepped on to the bridge I saw coming towards me a familiar form. Charles Lamont was returning from whatever business had taken him into central London.

He was very dapper, as he’d been on the previous occasion we’d met. He swung his walking cane and strode out briskly. He was not wearing the country suit he’d worn the previous time we’d met. He was city-dressed, in a black frock coat and tall silk hat. But the luxuriant moustache made him instantly recognisable.

He had also recognised me and did not look pleased. We met in the middle of the bridge.

‘Well, Ross?’ he began. ‘I take it you have spoken to my wife and satisfied yourself that there is no way she can help you. I trust you will not bother her again.’

‘Yes, I’ve spoken to Mrs Lamont. She was very composed both when I arrived and when I left. She has explained to me how she came to keep on Rachel Sawyer after dismissing all the other members of her late uncle’s household.’

Lamont looked discontented. ‘I cannot see how it is of any interest to you to know why my wife kept Rachel Sawyer in the house. She did so, and that’s enough, surely?’

‘We police officers like to cross the “t’s” and dot the “i’s”,’ I told him pleasantly.

That gained me another scowl. ‘I cannot see why, but I suppose you know your business.’

‘I hope so, sir.’

Lamont took his time to study me. The wind blew quite strongly down the length of the Thames and across the bridge. I hoped he wouldn’t lose his top hat. My own round bowler hat was wedged firmly over my head. I realised I must look the complete officer of the law in comparison with this dandy.

‘I do not want my wife troubled unnecessarily over this,’ he said suddenly. ‘No doubt you cast about for inspiration, but you won’t find it in our parlour. I told you, my wife was fond of Sawyer. I found little to recommend the woman, other than a competence for household accounts. But Amelia – Mrs Lamont – was accustomed to have her nearby. This has been a matter of great sadness to her, Ross, and I hope you are keeping this in mind.’