The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (21 page)

The last words were spoken so simply and yet they said it all. I saw Lizzie look at me.

‘We began to meet,’ Amelia was saying, ‘whenever and wherever we could. He wished us to become engaged. I suggested he speak to Uncle Isaiah. He said he would do so willingly, but there was a problem. He had lost most of his money in some misfortune.’

Again Lizzie glanced at me but Amelia did not seem to notice. Yes, I thought, a misfortune on the run of play in some card game, or a horse that straggled in last of the field! But Lamont had had time to inquire about Isaiah Sheldon. He’d discovered he was wealthy and this young woman, gazing at him so adoringly, was Sheldon’s only living relative. He had found every gambler’s dream: an heiress, or one who soon would be rich. Wasn’t Isaiah Sheldon an old man?

‘By now,’ Amelia was explaining, ‘I was within weeks of my twenty-first birthday and would not need my uncle’s permission to marry. But without his financial help, it would be impossible. I decided to ask him to help us, Charles and me. After all, my uncle had helped so many other people. Why not us?

‘I remember our conversation very well. I sat here, where I sit now, and he sat over there facing me. That was his accustomed chair by the hearth, with his back to the door to avoid draughts. His great concern was his health. He was always fancying himself ailing and Dr Croft would be sent for. After – after my uncle died, I had both the chairs burned and bought these you see now. I explained that Charles and I wanted to be married. He asked me why Charles had not come himself to ask for my hand. I told him of Charles’s misfortune in losing most of his money. I stressed it was a temporary setback and he would recover. I asked Uncle Isaiah to make a financial settlement on me the day I turned twenty-one. It was so near.

‘He chuckled. I can see and hear him now!’ Her voice grew vehement. ‘He laughed at me! He said, “What’s this, m’dear? You want me to give you a dowry so that you can marry that rascal?” I protested that Charles was no rascal. “You are too young and inexperienced in the world to know your own mind,” my uncle said. “Especially in so serious a matter. You hardly know the fellow. It will do you no harm to wait. If he truly cares for you, he will understand that, and he will wait.”

‘I could not hide my dismay. I begged him. I said I asked for only enough to enable us to set up a modest home together. My uncle asked, “Why do you want another home? You have a very comfortable home here with me. Come, come, in a month or two you will have lost interest in this fellow, Lamont. You are not in love, my poor child. You have a girlish infatuation for a dandy with a glib tongue. You are a sensible child at heart and in time you will see him for what he is. Or you will have met someone else and fallen for a new beau. Let’s have no more talk of your leaving Fox House and no more talk of money! After all, my dear, I am an old man and frail. One day soon you will inherit all I have. Perhaps then, if you are still set on marrying Lamont, you will do so.”

‘I had to tell Charles that I would inherit it all, but before that day, I would be given nothing. Charles assured me he would wait for me to be free and independent. In fairness, he said, perhaps my uncle wasn’t being so unreasonable. He was over eighty. “I don’t wish your uncle dead,” he said, “but it will not be long before you are mistress of your own future.”’

Amelia uttered an exclamation of annoyance. ‘Charles didn’t know Uncle Isaiah! He continually talked of being a frail old man, but he was as fit as a fiddle.’ She pointed at the oil portrait I’d noticed on my first visit. ‘That is my uncle, hale and hearty when younger. He was still the same at eighty, other than for his white hairs and a stiffness in the hip, believe me. Yet my uncle himself frequently declared he was at death’s door. Dr Croft was always coming to the house. He tried telling my uncle that a little less wine and fewer roast dinners, a little more exercise, would cure all his aches and pains, his heartburn, sleeplessness . . . all the “symptoms”, as my uncle was pleased to term them.’

She fell silent.

‘You became afraid,’ I said, ‘that Charles Lamont would not wait for you if Mr Sheldon showed no sign of dying. There were other pretty girls, some with independent fortune, and he was a handsome fellow.’

‘Oh, it was worse than that,’ Amelia said quietly. ‘One evening, a few weeks after our conversation, Uncle Isaiah and I sat at yet another game of bezique. Without warning, he said, “I have been investigating the background of that rogue Lamont. He is a gambler, up to his eyes in debt, a wastrel. You will never marry him on my money! It is my duty to do all I can to prevent you throwing yourself away on him. The scales would soon fall from your eyes if you did marry him. Well, I’ll put a stop to it, not only now, but after my death. I intend to order my lawyers to draw up a new will. I shall leave you a respectable sum in trust. I would not leave you to starve, but you will have to live modestly. The bulk of my money will go to the many excellent charities I have supported in the past. Tell Lamont this. That is my decision. I will not change it. It is for your own good, my dear, and one day you will thank me for it.”’

The next words were clearly the most difficult for Amelia Lamont to speak so far. ‘I was afraid of losing Charles,’ she said very quietly. ‘I knew that without Uncle Isaiah’s wealth we could never be married. He was not able to visit his lawyer about the will the following day because there was such a thunderstorm. Before it broke, the air had been heavy. I had had a headache all day and felt wretched in every way. Uncle Isaiah, needless to say, did nothing but complain. His joints ached. He had difficulty in drawing breath. He thought perhaps he should send for Dr Croft again. He insisted that the fire be lit in here while the storm still raged because, he said, now that it had rained, it would turn chill very quickly and a sudden change of temperature was well known to be injurious to anyone in such delicate health as himself. I came into this room and saw my uncle asleep. The next day the weather would be cooler. Nothing would prevent a visit to the lawyer. I had to act.’

‘You took up a cushion and you placed it over your uncle’s face,’ I said. ‘You smothered him.’

She gazed at me with such hopelessness. ‘So Rachel did speak to you, after all. We were so afraid that she would when we heard that inquiries were being made about my uncle’s death. After all this time! Charles feared that Rachel might seek to save herself by telling everything. I told him I did not think she would. She had too much to lose. But Charles had never liked or trusted Rachel.’

‘No, Mrs Lamont, Rachel Sawyer did not speak. There was another witness.’

‘No, no!’ she retorted with sudden energy. ‘That is impossible!’

‘A gentleman who had been paying a visit in Putney that day was riding back into London. He was caught in the storm and tried to find shelter here. He could make no one hear at the door, so came to that window, over there.’ I pointed. ‘Through it he saw what you did.’

‘But – but nothing was said at the time! This gentleman you speak of, why did he keep silent?’

‘He had his own reason for being discreet about his visit to Putney. But he felt he could not go to his grave without speaking – and recently he gave a full account.’

She fell back in her chair. ‘I thought only Rachel had seen. She was on her way here with the coal scuttle, as you guessed. I had omitted to close the door and she saw everything. She said I had nothing to fear from her. She wanted only a better life. She was capable, had run her parents’ lodging house, had some education, knew about dealing with tradespeople. She was not content to remain a maidservant. If I would give her the position of housekeeper . . .’ Amelia made a gesture of resignation. ‘I agreed. It was like Faust’s pact with the devil. We could never be free of her. She would come and sit with me like a companion. She would accompany me when I went out on minor errands. It all served to remind me that I could never be without her. Charles hated her from the first and would have sent her packing, so I had to tell him why she must stay, what I’d done. We have lived with this for the past sixteen years. I swear to you I did not know Charles meant to kill her. But to be free of her at last . . .’

‘I must ask you to come back with me to London, Mrs Lamont,’ I said.

‘Yes, of course. Only let me tell them to bring my hat and shawl.’ She stood up.

‘My wife will assist you,’ I said politely.

Lizzie, slightly surprised, got quickly to her feet.

But Mrs Lamont waved to her to be seated again. ‘It is a matter of moments.’ She walked out of the room with a steady step. I heard her call out for Johnson.

‘Go, anyway!’ I urged Lizzie.

Lizzie followed her out and a few minutes later Mrs Lamont returned, with Lizzie, dressed in her outdoor clothing.

‘Then let us be off, Inspector Ross,’ she said briskly.

Her manner was now composed and in complete contrast to what it had been throughout our visit, but I could only feel very uneasy. In those very few moments before Lizzie had joined her in the hall, what had happened?

Chapter Seventeen

IT TOOK some time to return to London and for Amelia Lamont to be taken in charge. I had then to go to Scotland Yard and inform Superintendent Dunn of everything that had happened that morning. Only then could I once more address the matter of Charles Lamont.

He had spent the previous night in the cells at Marylebone Magistrates Court, where he would have had some noisy, drunken and insalubrious company. He had appeared before the bench that morning and been remanded in custody. I had hoped that he had had time to reflect on his situation and I might find him less arrogant. I did not expect to find him cooperative, that would be too much, but at least facing up to reality. Unluckily, I was not his first visitor.

‘His lawyer’s here, sir,’ said the officer at the desk. ‘He came about an hour ago.’

‘How the devil did he get here so quickly?’ I muttered.

‘Can’t tell you that, Mr Ross. But he was very insistent. I had to let him talk to the prisoner immediately.’

As he ceased speaking, a door behind us opened. I turned to see a tall, thin and distinguished-looking gentleman in black enter. His stately demeanour and air of authority indicated the higher ranks of either the Church or the Law. The absence of a clerical collar – and the leather satchel of papers he carried under his arm – suggested the Law. He treated me to careful study before asking, ‘You are perhaps Inspector Ross, the arresting officer?’

‘I am, sir.’ I could not help but feel, as I answered, that I stood on the witness stand and this gentleman was about to dissect my every word.

‘My name is Pelham and I shall be representing Mr Lamont’s interests, should the matter come to trial.’ He paused. ‘I understand you have also arrested Mrs Lamont, is that correct?’

‘We have, sir.’

‘Then I shall be representing her also.’

‘You may be confident that the serious nature of the charges will ensure that both Lamonts stand trial, Mr Pelham,’ I told him. ‘May I ask how it comes about that you have been called in by your clients so quickly?’

‘Certainly, Mr Ross. Mrs Lamont had been expecting you to call on her at home this morning. Her butler had been instructed, ahead of your arrival, that should you take
her
into custody, he was to contact me at once with the news. She learned from you, during your visit, that Mr Lamont was already in police hands. Therefore she amended her instructions to the butler accordingly, to include both her husband and herself. Johnson, the butler, came to find me the moment you had left the house with Mrs Lamont, to tell me both Lamonts were in police custody; and my services were needed urgently.’

So that was why she had been so composed on leaving the house with me that morning! She had already put in place a contingency plan. She needed only a moment alone with Johnson to confirm his instructions; and tell him that Charles Lamont, too, would need legal representation. She had obtained that precious moment by leaving the parlour promptly before I could ask Lizzie to go with her. Lizzie had arrived in the hallway seconds too late. The ever-loyal Johnson had obeyed to the letter. Amelia Lamont was a clever woman.

‘Then I assume you will now be going to speak with your other client?’ I asked.

He permitted himself a dry smile. ‘Indeed I shall, Inspector Ross. No doubt we will meet again soon. Good day to you.’

Lamont was seated at the rough deal table in the centre of the small cell. He had not shaved that morning, but still managed to look the dandy, for all his rumpled coat.

‘Pelham says you have arrested my wife!’ he accused me, as soon as I appeared and before I could speak.

‘We have,’ I said.

‘More fool you,’ was his reply. ‘She is quite innocent of any wrongdoing. You have been over-zealous, Inspector Ross, not to say extremely rash.’

‘Indeed?’ I took the seat opposite him on the second chair that must have been brought in for the use of the lawyer. I put my hand in my pocket and took out the cufflink concealed in my fist, then put it on the table and withdrew my hand.

Lamont looked down at the trinket. ‘That little thing,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You believe that to be mine?’

‘It bears your initials and is stamped eighteen carat gold with the initials of the maker. It should not be difficult to find the goldsmith. He will remember making – or engraving – an individual object like this and for whom he carried out the work. It will be in his records. The link was found close to where Rachel Sawyer died.’

‘Do you say?’ He still wore that bemused expression. But his mind was working fast. His next words showed he had decided to abandon any pretence the cufflink was not his. ‘I wondered what had become of it. I can’t imagine how it got to where you say it was discovered. Who found it?’

‘A scavenger on the mud,’ I told him.

‘Ah, yes, I have seen those young ragamuffins at their work. Such a boy’s account is open to question. He might have come by it elsewhere and in compromising circumstances. He would be hopeful of some reward if he told the police he found it at the scene of an investigation.’ He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘So, you see, I do not need to deny I lost the link. It was some time ago and I was very put out. I hunted for it everywhere. I still have its partner, of course, so it was in my mind to ask for a replacement to be made. I didn’t get round to it. I have no idea how the lost one found its way into the pocket of a young ruffian. He, naturally, will claim to have found it.’

I returned the cufflink to my pocket.

He watched me as I did, then said, ‘It does not mean I killed the woman. Why should I?’

‘She was a blackmailer. She had witnessed a crime committed by the lady who would become your wife. That crime was murder and it enabled Amelia Sheldon to inherit everything from her uncle, Isaiah Sheldon, and to marry you. You had no money. I suspect you have always been short of money. You are known to be a gambler. Again, it is not difficult to learn what kind of reputation as a gambler you have.’

‘You have a fertile imagination, Inspector Ross. My wife’s uncle died sixteen years ago. The doctor at the time, Dr Croft, was well acquainted with the late Mr Sheldon and had no qualms about signing the death certificate.’

‘Rachel Sawyer was a witness to your wife’s actions,’ I said. ‘Only a housemaid at the time, she obliged your wife to make her the housekeeper and, in short, look after her for the rest of her life.’

‘So, you deduce, I suddenly decided to kill the woman
now
? You suggest I allowed my wife to be blackmailed for so long and did nothing about it before?’ Lamont gave a scornful snort.

‘There had been a recent development for which you were unprepared. You and your wife had discovered that – after so many years – questions were being asked about Mr Sheldon’s death. Soon the only remaining servant from Isaiah Sheldon’s household might well be interviewed, too. You did not trust Rachel Sawyer. Under police questioning she might confess. You panicked, I think.’

‘You still cannot charge my wife with the death of her uncle,’ Lamont said very patiently as if I were a slow pupil. ‘There is no witness who can come forward and testify to that. However Rachel Sawyer died, why and at whose hand, does not change that. She cannot testify now to anything.’

‘There was another witness,’ I said.

That shook him. The confident, almost casual, manner dropped from him for a moment.

‘Who?’ he asked sharply.

‘There was a gentleman returning from Putney to London at the time. While attempting to seek shelter from the storm at Fox House, he witnessed what happened through the parlour window.’

Lamont had recovered his composure. ‘Then the gentleman in question should have raised the alarm at the time – if he did see what you claim.’

‘He had his reasons for not doing so. But he has made a statement about it now.’

‘It will not stand up under questioning.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who is he?’

This was not something I was willing to divulge at the moment. But Mr Pelham would find out soon enough, examining the evidence against his client. My heart sank. Lamont was right to be so confident. Rachel could not be questioned and neither could Mills. Pelham would realise at once that Mills’s statement to me, made in such desperate circumstances, could easily have doubt cast on it by an able barrister.

But one thing Lamont could not deny.

‘You panicked again,’ I said, ‘after I met you on Putney Bridge and you realised I had the cufflink. It was made worse when you found out I had been talking to Harriet, the kitchenmaid. I was concentrating on you – and you fled. In so doing, you demonstrated your guilt. Perhaps you hoped that by your flight you would distract our attention from your wife.’

Lamont held up his hand as if to silence me. I waited. ‘That is something I must know, Ross,’ he said. ‘How the devil did you come to be waiting for me at Southampton? No one knew I planned to take that ferry. I did not know it myself until the previous night. My wife could not have told you. I had not confided in her.’

‘Sometimes Fate favours Justice,’ I told him. ‘I was in Southampton on an entirely different matter – a police matter, but nothing to do with the murder. I chanced to see you, bag in hand, making for the Victoria Pier and the ferry.’

‘Did you, indeed?’ he murmured. ‘Well, a coincidence is not evidence. It is not a crime to leave the country. I had not been charged with anything at the time, or even brought in for questioning. You had called to see us with news of an employee’s death and asked me to identify the body. I had done so. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of my usefulness to you and I was free to do as I wished.’ He shrugged. ‘If you mean to tell me that my poor wife labours under the delusion I killed Sawyer, then let me tell you that she is mistaken.’

‘The charge does not depend on what your wife says!’ I snapped.

Lamont leaned towards me and smiled. ‘Come now, Ross, you are an officer of some experience. If you wish to claim I killed Sawyer, you must ascribe to me a motive.’

‘But I have already spoken of your motive,’ I reminded him, ‘your wife’s crime, witnessed by Rachel Sawyer. You both believed the circumstances of his death were to be reinvestigated. It threw the pair of you into a considerable confusion. Would Miss Sawyer remain steadfast or would she also panic and admit what she’d seen, all those years ago? You had to make sure of her and there was only one way, in your view, to do that.’

‘Ah!’ Lamont leaned towards me and jabbed a finger at me triumphantly. ‘But that is only
your theory
, Inspector Ross. How do you propose to show that Sawyer saw anything at all at the time you say she did? You cannot. The wretched woman is dead. In the absence of this eyewitness you say saw a crime happen, you cannot charge, let alone convict, my poor wife.

‘But neither can you charge
me
, because my motive – as you believe it – does not exist unless my wife is first convicted of the murder of her uncle.’ The smile with which he accompanied this statement was almost beatific.

Now he even chuckled. ‘You are an experienced officer and you mean to tell me you would place such a case before a British jury? Sixteen years after the alleged event and with the doctor still alive who signed off the death certificate? Surely Croft cannot now change his mind about something that raised no doubts in him at the time. Sawyer, the witness on whom you would rely, cannot speak. Oh, yes, you say there is another witness, but you are curiously silent about him. I suspect that is because you do not think his testimony will impress a jury. No, no, Ross. You have built a house of cards and a British jury will bring it tumbling down. A court will never convict my wife. Therefore, you will have no case against me.’

I had underestimated my opponent. The wretch was almost laughing aloud at me now.

‘Mrs Lamont has confessed!’ I managed to say through gritted teeth.

‘Has she, indeed? Let us consider the wild statements you say my unfortunate Amelia was unwise enough to make. My departure was decided upon at the last minute. My intention was to go to Guernsey and look into the matter of some family property on the island. I was tired of having the police around the place and the whole of Putney gossiping about my affairs, so decided on impulse to go. I did not tell my wife before leaving because she would have begged me not to. She was nervous of being alone in the house, but for the servants, after Sawyer’s sordid death. I intended to send her a telegraph message when I reached Guernsey.

‘Amelia was naturally thrown into complete disarray when you brought the news that I was under arrest. She did not know what she was saying when you interviewed her. She was in a state of shock. When she is calmer, she will retract the whole thing.’

He paused and added, ‘Oh, I understand your own wife was present when Amelia made this alleged confession. A jury might find that extremely convenient for you and place little weight on your wife’s corroboration. I think you will never see
my
wife convicted, Inspector Ross! Nor should she be, of course,’ he added, a little too quickly. ‘She did not kill her uncle. I did not kill Sawyer.’

He leaned back, pursed his mouth beneath that luxuriant moustache, and added, ‘I did not like having Sawyer around. She was over-familiar in manner; and almost offensively plain. But she was an excellent housekeeper.’

‘I have a feeling that both Lamonts will walk free,’ I told Lizzie that evening. ‘Dashed if they don’t!’ I had been plunged in deepest gloom since my encounter with Lamont that day.

‘Surely,’ Lizzie argued, ‘Lamont won’t be able to explain away his attempt to leave the country by some taradiddle about a property in Guernsey? I was present, remember, when you told Amelia Lamont that you had him in a cell. That was bad news enough. But even before you told her of his arrest, when she turned round and saw us both standing there in her parlour, her first words were, “He has left me.” Her anguish was genuine, I would swear to it, and it was not due to his leaving against her wishes, as he would now have you believe. It was because he’d slipped out of the house and away for ever leaving her to face the police alone. She was destroyed by his desertion. Even the sight of me with you was of little interest to her, because the man for the love of whom she’d committed such a dreadful crime all those years ago had abandoned her. “Charles has gone and there is nothing left!” Don’t you remember?’