The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (20 page)

Ben paused. ‘I did question that when Mills told his tale. Why, I asked, was there a fire on a day there had been a summer storm, suggesting sultry weather? But I think I had the answer from Dr Croft. Isaiah Sheldon worried about his health. The day had been warm leading up to the storm, but once it broke and when it had passed, the temperature would drop. Sheldon feared the sudden change might be injurious to his well-being.’

‘Mr Sheldon may have been a charitable and generous man,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘but he must have been rather difficult to live with, always worried about imaginary ailments.’

‘Croft said he suspected, when he was called to attend that day, that Sheldon had worried himself to death. But otherwise Croft did not suspect foul play.’

‘He wasn’t looking for foul play,’ I said.

‘No . . . no, you are right, Lizzie, we see what we look for.’ Ben thumped his fist on the chair arm. ‘What did I see, Lizzie?’

‘You were telling me,’ I reminded him. ‘You got as far as the hearth. There had been a fire on the day Sheldon died, but not when you were there.’

‘No, the weather is too mild at the moment and the Lamonts don’t fear chills as old Isaiah did! There was a coal scuttle nearby, well full and ready for when it turns colder of an evening. It was good sitting-room coal,’ Ben added with a wry smile. ‘Not cheap poor-quality stuff. I know about coal! Once a miner, always a miner, Lizzie. I took a good look at that coal scuttle.’ He leaned back. ‘Mills’s first thought, when he saw a young woman enter the room, was that she’d come to make up the fire. But then he saw she was a young lady, not a housemaid.’

A tingle ran up my spine. ‘Oh, Ben . . .’ I whispered.

The same notion had struck him. He sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘But as we now know, there
was
a housemaid working in that place, someone whose job it would have been to make up the parlour fire.’

‘Rachel Sawyer,’ I gasped. ‘Ben, surely it was Rachel Sawyer! Listen, Johnson, the butler, closed the door behind you when he went to summon his employers because he did not want you to overhear anything they said to him, or he to them. But if Amelia had
not
closed the door behind her when she came in . . .’

‘She didn’t!’ Ben jumped up from his chair and began to turn up and down our small parlour in agitation. ‘Mills told me so. He said, when the young lady left, after committing a terrible murder, she closed the door behind her . . . 
the door she had left open on entering.
She left the corpse alone before the fire.’ Ben clapped his hands. ‘Rachel Sawyer was on her way to the parlour with a scuttle of coal. Through the open door she saw Amelia smother the old gentleman. That is what
must
have happened. Rachel could have raised the alarm, told the world what she’d seen! But she didn’t—’

‘Because,’ I interrupted, ‘she knew she could blackmail Amelia, now a wealthy heiress, for the rest of her life. That is why Amelia made her housekeeper. That is the reason for the peculiarly close relationship between those two women. Rachel Sawyer held Amelia Lamont in the palm of her hand.’

Ben stopped and frowned. ‘But did Charles Lamont know about this?’

‘Perhaps not at the beginning,’ I said. ‘But later Amelia must have confessed it to him, surely? Lamont didn’t like Rachel. Left to himself, he would have dismissed her. Something prevented him from doing so.’

‘His wife depended on Rachel, he told me that,’ Ben said.

‘It’s not enough. There had to be more, Ben. At some point Lamont learned that Rachel Sawyer knew what Amelia had done.’

‘But they both put up with the situation, intolerable as it must have been, for so many years,’ Ben mused. ‘Then, something changed, a new element . . .’

My heart sank. ‘Oh, Ben,’ I said, ‘I do believe it must be because I went asking questions about Isaiah at St Mary’s and quizzed the parish clerk. I was so interested in the headstone when we finally found it – and Amelia Lamont found me studying it. Did my actions that day lead to the murder of Rachel Sawyer? She was a blackmailer, we now think, and surely an unpleasant person, but to think I set in train . . .’

Ben came quickly to me, stooped and grasped my hands. ‘No, Lizzie, you are not responsible for Rachel’s death. It may have puzzled Amelia to know you had been asking about her uncle. And, yes, she has a guilty conscience – supposing her to have any human feelings at all! But you were just a woman who was curious. You had no official standing. I think it was my visit to Dr Croft that changed everything. I was a police officer asking about the death certificate and that was serious!’

Ben released my hands and stood up. ‘Yet I asked Croft not to tell the Lamonts of my visit and he gave me to understand he would not. I was sure he would not. After all, it would spread the rumour that he might have mistaken the cause of death. But they must still have learned of it.’

‘We shall find out tomorrow, Ben,’ I said, doing my best to sound confident.

Chapter Sixteen

Inspector Ben Ross

I HAD arranged with Slater the previous evening that he should return to my house early in the morning to take us to Putney.

Bessie watched us roll away with downcast face. She would dearly have loved to be of our party, but accepted that was impossible.

‘Mrs Lamont will recognise me I am sure,’ Lizzie warned, as we rattled along.

‘So she will, but it may even help us. She will know that we were on to her even before Miss Sawyer died. She will be further disconcerted and any story she has prepared might no longer serve her purpose.’

‘I’m still afraid that Rachel Sawyer died because I went to Putney.’ Lizzie turned her head to look out of the window. We were not far from the bridge. ‘What if that turns out to be true?’

‘Don’t worry about it. Your presence in that churchyard alone did not set events on their course. That started long ago, when Rachel Sawyer and Amelia Lamont struck an unholy bargain. It could only end badly. Sooner or later there would have come a moment when the strain of that strange relationship became intolerable. The Lamonts and Miss Sawyer would have quarrelled and parted. It might not have come to murder because, after all, sixteen years had gone by. Rachel, as a dismissed housekeeper with a grudge, probably wouldn’t have been believed if she’d chosen to speak of Isaiah’s death. Nor would she have been able to explain why she had not spoken earlier. That it did come to murder, as I said last night I am sure it was because of my visit to Dr Croft. So if anyone is responsible, it is I. I’d still dearly love to know how the Lamonts learned of it! I can’t believe the doctor told them.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t,’ Lizzie pointed out.

‘Perhaps. At any rate, Miss Sawyer did not die because Mrs Lamont found you prowling round the burial ground.’

I hoped Lizzie believed me, but she did not look convinced. The fact was that, for all my reassuring words to her, there was a nugget of truth in what she had said. I also carried a degree of guilt for the death of Rachel Sawyer. Even more, I felt responsible for my wife’s unease. I should not have left it to Lizzie to verify the details of Mills’s story. It had been a police matter from the start. If anyone had gone to Putney and looked around that churchyard, then I should have done it. I don’t say I would have had nearly the success she had had. I might have found nothing. Even that elderly parish clerk might not have been so willing to give directions to the grave of Isaiah Sheldon to a sturdy fellow like me – with an air of being there on business. A respectable lady, with a maid in tow, had appealed to his gallantry.

So Lizzie had the satisfaction of knowing she had carried out an excellent piece of detection on her visit to Putney. But now she had to live with the results of it: and there was no satisfaction to be had in that. A police officer knows one cannot sweep away the results of a serious crime as tidily as a maidservant sweeps a carpet free of the spent tea leaves she has scattered down to pick up the dust. The worst result of official interference is when an innocent is harmed. Rachel Sawyer had not been an innocent victim. She had set the seeds of her own destruction. I hoped that Lizzie would remember that. But, in the end, even I could say that Rachel Sawyer had died because I had passed on a tale told me by a man on his way to execution. It had salved Mills’s conscience to tell it; but left with a troubled heart the person dearest to me.

It would seem we – or at least the police – were expected, for the door of Fox House flew open as we approached it and the butler all but dragged us inside. He had looked puzzled at the first glimpse of Lizzie, but still slammed the door to shut out the world and anyone passing who might observe us.

‘Madam is in the drawing room,’ he said before I spoke. ‘This way.’

So Amelia Lamont was expecting me. Had her husband somehow managed to get a message to her?

We stepped into the front parlour – dignified by Johnson with the title ‘drawing room’ despite its small dimensions – and heard the door click behind us.

Mrs Lamont stood before the hearth with her back to us, staring down into the unlit hearth.

‘Good morning, Inspector Ross,’ she said, still without turning.

‘Good morning, ma’am. I have brought my wife with me. I hope you do not object to her presence?’

Amelia turned and saw Lizzie and looked astonished. ‘But I know you!’ she exclaimed.

‘We met very briefly in the graveyard, by your late uncle’s headstone,’ Lizzie said.

Mrs Lamont appeared nonplussed at this new development. Then she decided to leave further inquiry about that for the moment and indicated one of the chairs by the hearth. ‘Please sit down, Mrs Ross.’

Lizzie sat down and Mrs Lamont, after she had gestured vaguely around the room to indicate I might pick any of the other chairs, took the armchair facing Lizzie. I brought over a chair standing by the window and so we formed a tidy little conversation piece.

Amelia Lamont looked wretched. Her complexion was blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed. Before I could speak, she said simply, ‘He has left me.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.

With the fingers of her right hand she began to turn the wedding band on her left third finger. ‘I shall not see him again,’ she added in the same dead tone.

I felt Lizzie glance at me. ‘Well, Mrs Lamont,’ I said. ‘You should not be too sure of that – although if you see him, it will not be in circumstances you would wish. It will be in the dock.’

Amelia looked up at me in surprise. Then fear flickered in her eyes as she realised what I meant.

‘We have him in custody,’ I added, to underline the point.

She gave a long, low sigh. ‘How?’

‘He was arrested at Southampton, near the ferry station, when trying to leave the country.’

‘Then it is all over and there is nothing left,’ she said.

‘Why did he flee?’ I asked.

She looked at me in surprise. ‘Why, because he believed you knew what he had done, and why he felt he must do it. When he met you on the bridge he believed you were hinting you had found some evidence. Later we learned you had returned after leaving the house on that last visit here. You sneaked back and spoke to Harriet in secret. You asked about the morning routine; whether Harriet had taken the hot water into Charles’s bedroom and seen him, on the morning Rachel died. She told you she had only left it outside the door. You asked because you believed he’d slipped out of the house and followed Rachel. Had Harriet seen him, that would have given Charles what you call an alibi, do you not? But she had not.’

‘Harriet confessed that to you that I’d returned to talk to her, did she? I am surprised,’ I admitted.

‘She was too long about the errand she was on. When she returned to the kitchen, Cook scolded her and then she confessed you had delayed her, asking her questions. Cook called Johnson and told him . . . and Johnson saw that it was his duty to tell Charles, when he returned home. But Charles had already met you on the bridge and was sure you had found the cufflink, after your cryptic references.’ She heaved another sigh. ‘Charles wished to take all the blame on himself and protect me. That is why he fled.’

‘Did you plan together to murder Rachel Sawyer?’

Sudden animation flooded her face. ‘No! I swear I did not know what Charles intended to do! When you came to tell us Rachel’s body had been found, it was as if the ground collapsed under my feet and I plunged down into some gulf. Nothing could have been more horrible. I guessed at once that Charles was responsible and it was more than I could bear. I didn’t grieve for Rachel; I grieved for
us
, for Charles and for myself, because I knew that – that the police would not rest until they had Charles in chains. If he had told me beforehand, I would have begged him not to attempt anything so reckless. But Charles was always a gambler.’ Her voice faded on the last words.

She rallied at once however, leaning forward to ask urgently, ‘Why did you come asking questions of Dr Croft? Showing him my uncle’s death certificate? Asking about that awful day? Why did
you
, Mrs Ross – ’ she turned to Lizzie – ‘why did you ask the parish clerk about my uncle and to be shown his grave? The clerk said you told him you inquired on behalf of a gentleman who could not come himself. Was it on behalf of the police? Did your husband send you?’

‘No,’ Lizzie said, ‘it was my own idea.’

‘But why?’ Amelia almost shouted in bewilderment.

I feared she was becoming hysterical and it was time for me to take charge of this interview. ‘Did Dr Croft tell you I had called on him?’

‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘He said nothing to us, which made it all the more suspicious. It was that half-witted maidservant of his. She was so alarmed by the arrival of a Scotland Yard inspector at the door, she went round every house in the neighbourhood, telling all the other servants. Eventually, the gossip reached our kitchen and Johnson, who told us. What made you seek out that certificate? Why did you ask so many questions? And there was another man, too, making inquiries. Johnson learned of it. He was a rough-looking fellow who appeared in the taproom of one of the alehouses and was very interested to hear about Fox House in the old days. Did you send him?’

Mary, Croft’s maid, must have lingered to eavesdrop. But it was for me to ask the questions. I pointed now at the cold hearth. ‘There is no fire lit there today. But on the day your uncle, Isaiah Sheldon, died, the fire was lit, was it not? Even though the day had been very warm for June and there had even been a thunderstorm?’

Amelia was looking at me as if Old Nick had popped up from the Underworld to sit in her front parlour. ‘How can you know that?’ she whispered.

‘I do know it. How? That can come later. The task of keeping the fire in good order was given to a maid at the time, Rachel Sawyer. That is why she came to the open door, and that is why she saw what happened here that day. Is that not so?’

Mrs Lamont’s face had drained of all colour and I really feared she was going to faint away again.

Lizzie had noticed her distress. She left her seat, pulled a stool into a position beside Amelia’s chair, sat down on it and then reached out and took Amelia’s hand. I thought the woman might pull her hand away. But instead I saw how her fingers tightened on Lizzie’s.

She turned to look at Lizzie and asked, ‘Tell me, Mrs Ross, have you ever had the sad experience of being young and alone in the world, without parents or fortune?’

‘Indeed, I have had such an experience,’ Lizzie told her.

‘Then you will understand my situation when I was a very young girl.’

It seemed as if Amelia Lamont might continue to talk only to Lizzie in a private tête-à-tête. I cleared my throat loudly to remind her that I was there in an official capacity and anything she said would be taken as a statement to the police.

She turned back to me, casting me a glance that showed no interest at all in my presence or in what I might learn. ‘It is all over now,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter
now
. Charles has gone. Without Charles I have nothing.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘In my case, both of my parents died within forty-eight hours of one another. There was an outbreak of cholera. It took people so quickly and it left me an orphan at thirteen. My father had not been the success in his business attempts that Uncle Isaiah had been. He had left considerable debts. The house and all the furniture was sold off, my mother’s small amount of jewellery, the dishes we ate off, the clothes hanging in the closets. I was left with what I stood up in. Thirteen years old!’

‘My father was a doctor,’ Lizzie told her sympathetically. ‘He saw the cholera.’

‘Uncle Isaiah stepped in,’ Amelia continued. ‘Although he and my father had not been close because there was such a great difference in age between them. My grandfather had been twice married. My uncle was the son of his first wife and my father born to the second marriage made much later. Uncle Isaiah also considered my father improvident, foolish in his investments and heedless of advice my uncle had given him. However, he brought me here to Fox House to live with him.’

‘He was a kindly man,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes, Inspector Ross, indeed he was! As I grew up here I saw how his kindness stretched far beyond Fox House and me.’ A dry smile briefly touched her lips but did not reach her eyes. She released her grip on Lizzie, held up her left hand and began to number off the fingers with the index finger of her right.

‘Orphanages. Gospel missions in far-flung places. Lying-in hospitals for poor women. Public libraries for mill towns in the North. You cannot imagine the number and variety of good causes that came here, begging bowl in hand. All received something.’

‘Not only a kind but a good man.’

‘So I believed for several years while I was growing up here. But then I began to see it differently. I realised, by the time I was nineteen, that I had become indispensable to his comfort. What Rachel later became for me, so I was then for him. I ran his household, young as I was. I dealt with problems among the servants; decided on the menus, saw that the grocery bill was promptly paid. I was also his companion. I played cards with him after dinner every night of the week except on Sundays. He was particularly fond of bezique. Sometimes, especially on rainy days, I would sit and read aloud to him until my voice almost gave out. Always such dry stuff, the newspapers, in particular the business news and anything to do with the coffee trade. Or it might be from a book of sermons by some long-dead parson . . . or from the translated essays of Montaigne. He did not care for fiction, and thought it light-minded.’

She paused. ‘When I was twenty I met Charles Lamont. It was at a garden party in midsummer. All around me was colour, chatter, laughter and life – so different from here at Fox House, always so dark, so lacking in any humour or anything resembling trivial chat.’ She fell silent again for a moment, remembering those long, dull days. ‘I was speaking of the garden party. In the middle of all that gaiety was a newcomer to the neighbourhood, the most handsome man I’d ever seen. He had noticed me and asked someone to introduce us. That was Charles Lamont. I fell in love.’